global commerce

The Houthis, a rebel group from Yemen, are seizing cargo ships in retaliation for the war in Gaza. Vox’s Joshua Keating explains how the pirates are expanding the Israel-Hamas war into the Red Sea — and your wallet. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:   We dive into the latest assault by Houthi rebels on a commercial ship in the Red Sea and break down how this could hit closer to home than you think. US intelligence sheds light on the dual-purpose use of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, confirming its role as a Hamas command center. We analyze the implications of BRICS expanding its influence by welcoming Iran and Saudi Arabia into its fold. In our Back of the Brief segment, we uncover the scandal shaking the nation's capital: a high-end sex ring that may have been a 'Honeypot' operation by foreign adversaries. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: PDB@TheFirstTV.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Ram Parameswaran, founder of Octahedron Capital. Ram started Octahedron this year after more than 5 years as a partner at Altimeter Capital where he made investments in Square, Bytedance, Pinduoduo, and Udaan. In our conversation we cover the potential for internet scale businesses, explore the common characteristics of these businesses, and then go through a rapid-fire round of the most important qualities for 8 business models. This conversation was a blast of energy and could have gone on for 2 more hours. I hope to have Ram on again and can't imagine what his conversations are like at the dinner table with his wife and former podcast guest, Anu Hariharan. Please enjoy this awesome conversation with Ram Parameswaran.     For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content check out https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/22392883/parameswaran-internet-scale-businesses   This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis.  If you’re a professional equity investor and haven’t talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/Patrick.     This episode is brought to you by the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCO). MITIMCO is always on the looking for promising investment managers with the potential to compound our capital for a decade or more. If you think your firm is too small, too young, or too non-institutional, you might just be exactly what we are looking for. Check us out at https://mitimco.org/partner/ or e-mail us at  partner@mitimco.org. Please also see our new page for emerging managers https://mitimco.org/emerging-managers/.    Invest like the Best is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best go to https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes.  Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week.  Sign up here - https://www.joincolossus.com/newsletter.   Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Follow Colossus on Twitter at @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:45] – [First question] – The opportunity of the commercial internet [00:11:18] – Identifying the companies that will take advantage of this shift to online commerce [00:18:30] – How businesses build scale, in particular internet vs non-internet businesses             [00:23:09] – How Amazon Wins: By Steamrolling Rivals and Partners [00:24:19] – The Carvana playbook [00:30:11] – Using frequency of use as a factor in valuing a business [00:33:55] – Evaluating ByteDance and what can others learn from them [00:40:52] – Finding success in an experiment [00:43:32] – How online commerce business will grow globally, with India in focus [00:55:28] – How they approach and evaluate online advertising businesses [00:54:50] – Evaluating direct content subscription online businesses [00:55:42] – Biggest challenges in building ecommerce online businesses [00:58:31] – The lens to evaluate online marketplace businesses [00:59:43] – What distinct things matter for on-demand online businesses [01:01:56] – The competition in the online payment space business [01:06:35] – Rake/Take rates outside of the US [01:08:25] – Things that matter for consumer software [01:10:25] – How that compares to enterprise software [01:11:44] – Evaluating developer companies             [01:11:51] – Jeff Lawson Podcast Episode [01:13:53] – Advice to help people be successful early in their investing career [01:17:22] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Peter is a geopolitical strategist who combines expertise in demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security to assess an uncertain future. Before founding his own strategy firm, Peter helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies.   I came across Peter via his books the Accidental Superpower and the Absent Superpower. We discuss America’s changing place in the world and four additional countries poised to do well in the future. Spoiler alert: he believes the U.S. is particularly well positioned.  While we don’t discuss equity markets per se, all of what we talk about will obviously impact companies across the world for the remainder of our careers. Please enjoy our conversation. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 1:32 - (First Question) – His model of the world 4:05 – What makes for a strategically advantaged country 5:35 – History of the Bretton Woods agreement and the order that it created 8:47 – The security apparatus that has made globalization of manufacturing possible 12:04 – The US’s pullback from being the naval police of global trade             12:08 – The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America 14:57 – How energy has played into America’s disinterest abroad 21:52 – Moving towards global disorder 24:55 – Characterizing factors that will impact countries in any collapse 27:38 – How this manifest in physical conflict 32:44 – How the new world order will end the ease of innovation we are accustomed to today 34:13 – What gets the US to reengage before this new world order 38:08 – Demographics that make a country prepared for this, Japan as an example 40:57 – A look at China 43:59 – What the story is about Argentina 45:52 – How North America fares based on their geography and relationships 49:50 – The trader wars that are currently ongoing 52:17 – US political system 56:15 – Most important policy issues moving forward 58:27 – His view on American infrastructure 1:00:33 – Technologies that interest him the most 1:02:55 – What he is watching most closely in his research, starting with media 1:05:59 – What are and should be the countries of the future 1:06:55 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Peter 1:07:32 – Favorite places he’s been   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag