Analysts estimate that Markel will report an earnings per share (EPS) of $19.61. Markel bulls will hope to hear the company announce they've not only beaten that estimate, but also to provide positive guidance, or forecasted growth, for the next quarter.

Markel's Earnings Outlook

Markel has expanded its Australian leadership team with the appointments of Ahmed Farag as head of casualty and Kym Beazleigh as head of professional and financial risk and head of Syndey.

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Markel, the insurance operation within Markel Group Inc., has expanded its leadership team in Australia with the appointments of Ahmed Farag as Head of

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For a while, revenue growth at all costs was a popular approach, and investors fell for it. That fad has faded so it's time for a fresh look at rapid revenue growth—with some safeguards.

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The insurance arm of U.S.-based Markel Group has expanded its leadership team in Australia, as the company looks to secure a

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Markel, the insurance operations within Markel Group Inc, has announced that Bryan Sanders, president of its Markel Specialty division, plans to retire by December 31, 2024. Effective December 1,

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Markel announces leadership appointments as high-profile exit looms

Markel unveils leadership appointments as high-profile exit looms

AM Best has affirmed the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) of "bbb+" (Good) and the Long-Term Issue Credit Ratings (Long-Term IRs) of Markel Group Inc. (Markel) (Glen Allen, VA). AM Best also has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICRs of "a+" (Excellent) of all the members of the Markel North America Insurance Group (Markel NA).

AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of Markel Group Inc. and Its Subsidiaries

The leadership teams of these businesses operate with a high degree of independence, while at the same time living the values that we call the Markel Style. Our specialty insurance business sits at the core of our company. Through decades of sound ...

Markel Group Inc. announces conference call date and time

Markel

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Authors:
(1) Michael Sorochan Armstrong, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada;
(2) Jose Carlos P´erez-Gir´on, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada;
(3) Jos´e Camacho, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada;
(4) Regino Zamora, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Optimization of the Optical Interpolation Materials and Methods Results and Discussion Conclusion Appendix A: Proof of Hermitian Self-Adjoint product identity for Equidistant Time-Domain Measurements Appendix B: AAH ̸= MIN I in the Non-Equidistant Case Acknowledgments & References ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The proof for the equidistant case was adapted from a proof by David J. Fleet and Allan D. Jepson from the University of Toronto [18]. REFERENCES [1] C. Haley, “Missing-data nonparametric coherency estimation,” IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol. 28, pp. 1704–1708, 2021. [2] S. Dilmaghani, I. C. Henry, P. Soonthornnonda, E. R. Christensen, and R. C. Henry, “Harmonic analysis of environmental time series with missing data or irregular sample spacing,” Environmental science & technology, vol. 41, no. 20, pp. 7030–7038, 2007. [3] J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, “An algorithm for the machine calculation of complex fourier series,” Mathematics of computation, vol. 19, no. 90, pp. 297–301, 1965. [4] F. Rasheed, P. Peng, R. Alhajj, and J. Rokne, “Fourier transform based spatial outlier mining,” in Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning-IDEAL 2009: 10th International Conference, Burgos, Spain, September 23-26, 2009. Proceedings 10. Springer, 2009, pp. 317–324. [5] C. Van Loan, Computational frameworks for the fast Fourier transform. SIAM, 1992. [6] H. Carslaw, “A historical note on gibbs’ phenomenon in fourier’s series and integrals,” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1925. [7] J. Markel, “Fft pruning,” IEEE transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 305–311, 1971. [8] J. C. Bowman and Z. Ghoggali, “The partial fast fourier transform,” Journal of Scientific Computing, vol. 76, pp. 1578–1593, 2018. [9] M. Kircheis and D. Potts, “Direct inversion of the nonequispaced fast fourier transform,” Linear Algebra and its Applications, vol. 575, pp. 106–140, 2019. [10] S. Kunis and D. Potts, “Stability results for scattered data interpolation by trigonometric polynomials,” SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 1403–1419, 2007. [11] K. B. Petersen, M. S. Pedersen et al., “The matrix cookbook,” Technical University of Denmark, vol. 7, no. 15, p. 510, 2008. [12] C. M. Bishop, Neural networks for pattern recognition. Oxford university press, 1995. [13] H. Wickham, M. Averick, J. Bryan, W. Chang, L. D. McGowan, R. Franc¸ois, G. Grolemund, A. Hayes, L. Henry, J. Hester, M. Kuhn, T. L. Pedersen, E. Miller, S. M. Bache, K. Muller, J. Ooms, D. Robin- ¨ son, D. P. Seidel, V. Spinu, K. Takahashi, D. Vaughan, C. Wilke, K. Woo, and H. Yutani, “Welcome to the tidyverse,” Journal of Open Source Software, vol. 4, no. 43, p. 1686, 2019. [14] R Core Team, R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.R-project.org/ [15] C. R. Harris, K. J. Millman, S. J. van der Walt, R. Gommers, P. Virtanen, D. Cournapeau, E. Wieser, J. Taylor, S. Berg, N. J. Smith, R. Kern, M. Picus, S. Hoyer, M. H. van Kerkwijk, M. Brett, A. Haldane, J. F. del R´ıo, M. Wiebe, P. Peterson, P. Gerard-Marchant, K. Sheppard, T. Reddy, W. Weckesser, ´ H. Abbasi, C. Gohlke, and T. E. Oliphant, “Array programming with NumPy,” Nature, vol. 585, no. 7825, pp. 357–362, Sep. 2020. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2 [16] P. Virtanen, R. Gommers, T. E. Oliphant, M. Haberland, T. Reddy, D. Cournapeau, E. Burovski, P. Peterson, W. Weckesser, J. Bright, S. J. van der Walt, M. Brett, J. Wilson, K. J. Millman, N. Mayorov, A. R. J. Nelson, E. Jones, R. Kern, E. Larson, C. J. Carey, ˙I. Polat, Y. Feng, E. W. Moore, J. VanderPlas, D. Laxalde, J. Perktold, R. Cimrman, I. Henriksen, E. A. Quintero, C. R. Harris, A. M. Archibald, A. H. Ribeiro, F. Pedregosa, P. van Mulbregt, and SciPy 1.0 Contributors, “SciPy 1.0: Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python,” Nature Methods, vol. 17, pp. 261– 272, 2020. [17] J. D. Hunter, “Matplotlib: A 2d graphics environment,” Computing in Science & Engineering, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 90–95, 2007. [18] “Notes on fourier analysis,” http://www.cs.toronto.edu/ ∼jepson/csc320/notes/fourier.pdf, accessed: 2023-09-01. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Michael Sorochan Armstrong, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada; (2) Jose Carlos P´erez-Gir´on, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada; (3) Jos´e Camacho, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada; (4) Regino Zamora, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada. Authors: Authors: (1) Michael Sorochan Armstrong, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada; (2) Jose Carlos P´erez-Gir´on, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada; (3) Jos´e Camacho, Computational Data Science (CoDaS) Lab in the Department of Signal Theory, Telematics, and Communications at the University of Granada; (4) Regino Zamora, part of the Interuniversity Institute for Research on the Earth System in Andalucia through the University of Granada. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Optimization of the Optical Interpolation Optimization of the Optical Interpolation Materials and Methods Materials and Methods Results and Discussion Results and Discussion Conclusion Conclusion Appendix A: Proof of Hermitian Self-Adjoint product identity for Equidistant Time-Domain Measurements Appendix A: Proof of Hermitian Self-Adjoint product identity for Equidistant Time-Domain Measurements Appendix B: AAH ̸= MIN I in the Non-Equidistant Case Appendix B: AAH ̸= MIN I in the Non-Equidistant Case Acknowledgments & References Acknowledgments & References ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The proof for the equidistant case was adapted from a proof by David J. Fleet and Allan D. Jepson from the University of Toronto [18]. REFERENCES [1] C. Haley, “Missing-data nonparametric coherency estimation,” IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol. 28, pp. 1704–1708, 2021. [2] S. Dilmaghani, I. C. Henry, P. Soonthornnonda, E. R. Christensen, and R. C. Henry, “Harmonic analysis of environmental time series with missing data or irregular sample spacing,” Environmental science & technology, vol. 41, no. 20, pp. 7030–7038, 2007. [3] J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, “An algorithm for the machine calculation of complex fourier series,” Mathematics of computation, vol. 19, no. 90, pp. 297–301, 1965. [4] F. Rasheed, P. Peng, R. Alhajj, and J. Rokne, “Fourier transform based spatial outlier mining,” in Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning-IDEAL 2009: 10th International Conference, Burgos, Spain, September 23-26, 2009. Proceedings 10. Springer, 2009, pp. 317–324. [5] C. Van Loan, Computational frameworks for the fast Fourier transform. SIAM, 1992. [6] H. Carslaw, “A historical note on gibbs’ phenomenon in fourier’s series and integrals,” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1925. [7] J. Markel, “Fft pruning,” IEEE transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 305–311, 1971. [8] J. C. Bowman and Z. Ghoggali, “The partial fast fourier transform,” Journal of Scientific Computing, vol. 76, pp. 1578–1593, 2018. [9] M. Kircheis and D. Potts, “Direct inversion of the nonequispaced fast fourier transform,” Linear Algebra and its Applications, vol. 575, pp. 106–140, 2019. [10] S. Kunis and D. Potts, “Stability results for scattered data interpolation by trigonometric polynomials,” SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 1403–1419, 2007. [11] K. B. Petersen, M. S. Pedersen et al., “The matrix cookbook,” Technical University of Denmark, vol. 7, no. 15, p. 510, 2008. [12] C. M. Bishop, Neural networks for pattern recognition. Oxford university press, 1995. [13] H. Wickham, M. Averick, J. Bryan, W. Chang, L. D. McGowan, R. Franc¸ois, G. Grolemund, A. Hayes, L. Henry, J. Hester, M. Kuhn, T. L. Pedersen, E. Miller, S. M. Bache, K. Muller, J. Ooms, D. Robin- ¨ son, D. P. Seidel, V. Spinu, K. Takahashi, D. Vaughan, C. Wilke, K. Woo, and H. Yutani, “Welcome to the tidyverse,” Journal of Open Source Software, vol. 4, no. 43, p. 1686, 2019. [14] R Core Team, R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.R-project.org/ [15] C. R. Harris, K. J. Millman, S. J. van der Walt, R. Gommers, P. Virtanen, D. Cournapeau, E. Wieser, J. Taylor, S. Berg, N. J. Smith, R. Kern, M. Picus, S. Hoyer, M. H. van Kerkwijk, M. Brett, A. Haldane, J. F. del R´ıo, M. Wiebe, P. Peterson, P. Gerard-Marchant, K. Sheppard, T. Reddy, W. Weckesser, ´ H. Abbasi, C. Gohlke, and T. E. Oliphant, “Array programming with NumPy,” Nature, vol. 585, no. 7825, pp. 357–362, Sep. 2020. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2 [16] P. Virtanen, R. Gommers, T. E. Oliphant, M. Haberland, T. Reddy, D. Cournapeau, E. Burovski, P. Peterson, W. Weckesser, J. Bright, S. J. van der Walt, M. Brett, J. Wilson, K. J. Millman, N. Mayorov, A. R. J. Nelson, E. Jones, R. Kern, E. Larson, C. J. Carey, ˙I. Polat, Y. Feng, E. W. Moore, J. VanderPlas, D. Laxalde, J. Perktold, R. Cimrman, I. Henriksen, E. A. Quintero, C. R. Harris, A. M. Archibald, A. H. Ribeiro, F. Pedregosa, P. van Mulbregt, and SciPy 1.0 Contributors, “SciPy 1.0: Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python,” Nature Methods, vol. 17, pp. 261– 272, 2020. [17] J. D. Hunter, “Matplotlib: A 2d graphics environment,” Computing in Science & Engineering, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 90–95, 2007. [18] “Notes on fourier analysis,” http://www.cs.toronto.edu/ ∼jepson/csc320/notes/fourier.pdf, accessed: 2023-09-01. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

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President Putin sees his country’s control of the internet as an important step for Russia’s technological autonomy away from his rivals the United States and China. For scores of protestors, however, this is a step too far. New Law For many, especially in the West, it comes as no surprise: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s autocratic leader, seems to be taking his rule, and policies, into an even greater authoritarian direction than in previous years, with his lawmakers trying to put through a new bill which, if successfully implemented, will reduce internet freedom within the country. In retaliation to this, activists have begun a number of demonstrations against the new legislation. They see it as their government’s attempt to curb open criticism of the regime and to gain a stronger hold on online censorship issues. Demonstrations against the proposed changes to the law, termed the ‘ ’, have sprung up from eastern Siberia to the capital, all in an attempt to stop the law being passed in the State Duma, which requires three rounds of voting (one has already passed). If these are successful, it will then go to the upper house for ratification. sovereign internet bill More protests are scheduled to take place in other cities across the country. Responsible for these is the Roskomsvoboda movement, short for Russian Freedom Committee, which gets its inspiration from Roskomnadzor, a government agency that oversees the country’s internet, communications and media activities. Nikolai Lyaskin, a top aide to Putin’s arch enemy, , leader of the progressive Russia of the Future Party, is reported to have said the bill is another effort by the authorities to crush any forms of freedom on the internet. He has also appealed to Russians to unite against it. Lyaskin, no stranger to the brutalities of the state, was attacked on the street two years ago with a metal pipe in what Navalny and other pro-democracy leaders believed was a state-sanctioned attack on him. Alexander Navalny The Internet Iron Curtain With tensions rising between Russia and the West in regard to the recent accusations of cyber attacks, western observers have commented the bill would create a firewall, dubbed the ‘internet iron curtain’ in Russia, similar to the one already found in China, creating a situation where virtual private networks (VPNs) become ineffectual. The bill would also mean all traffic on the internet would be served through Russian-based servers. For free speech and the nascent democratic movement in Russia, and especially for the likes of Navalny — whose party uses the internet and social media, above all on YouTube, to disseminate his democratic message — this could be devastating. Released from prison late last year, after spending more than fifty days behind bars for organising anti-Kremlin protests, it is surely a worrying time for Russians who support the 42-year-old Navalny, seen as a leading democratic light to those in Washington and London. Those close to President Putin, however, support the bill, believing it is the type of legislation which can help the country strike out against any future cyber attacks. The financial costs, as well as the reality of its implementation, is an ongoing debate, but in today’s threatening landscape of hacking and the weaknesses in cybersecurity, it is no surprise the Kremlin is taking such a stance. Although nonviolent so far, one journalist working for the Agence France-Presse had reported seeing a man More unpleasant things, unfortunately, will only become more common if protests escalate. ‘being dragged away from the rally…’ This is not the first time in recent years where censorship, and the repression of protestors by the state that follows it, have become an issue in Russia. Since Putin has stabilized his vertical hierarchy of power, and decreed more laws to strengthen that power, the restrictions and red-penciling of free speech in the country — not seen since the darkest days of Stalin and Brezhnev — have come to the fore once more. The FSB, the euphemistic acronym of what used to be the KGB, has been given carte blanche to use repression to exercise its power freely. The name may have changed but the methods stay the same. Anti-Russian propaganda, particular by the minority groups in the country, has been crushed by either closing down newspapers or media outlets sympathetic to their causes or, in extreme cases, the personal intimidation of guilty persons by Kremlin-hired thugs. Murders The politician , in one of the most high-profile cases, was shot dead in 2015 for his opposition to Putin. In 2006, journalist and activist was murdered in broad daylight. Nobody has ever been brought to justice for the crimes, but fingers, particularly by the western media outlets, have always pointed the guilt at the Kremlin. Boris Nemtsov Anna Politkovskaya In 2009, civil rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, along with journalist Anastasiya Baburova, was murdered, again in Moscow. . These are not isolated incidents. There have been countless others over the years Grave of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, source: Wiki Commons Journalists, more so than most other professions within the country, are finding it more difficult to do their job — if doing it properly means writing about the truth. In today’s Russia, that can get you killed, as Politovskaya’s demise has shown. Fifth Column Threat Over the nearly two decades of Putin’s control of Russia, there has been law after law decreed targeting not only the insidious threat of extremist terrorist organizations, but also those that have earmarked more innocuous areas of society, like press publications, activist groups and the gay rights movement. Many experts believe if the law is passed by the Upper house, the government will have a hard time controlling any subversive content anyway. The vast amount of material on the internet, and the sheer number of people the state will need to monitor it, is beyond the scope and resources of Roskomnadzor, the government agency in question. Source: — Own work Creative Commons Welleman With Putin and his cronies ever paranoid about a ‘fifth column’ of political activists and unrest over his policies, such a law — if passed, may go some way in him taking back control, though with reports of his popularity rating in the country from a recent VTsIOM poll, as of January 2019 at — a record low for the president — his actions, in retrospect, don’t seem surprising. 33.4% For Russian nationalists, and especially for those hardened patriots belonging to the ruling United Russia party, Rodina and et al, the idea of a sovereign Russian internet, away from the claws of American and Chinese tech dominance, could be an enticing prospect. It could mean sovereignty of the internet would enable the country’s networks to still operate if foreign countries cut off their servers to them. Many, however, see Putin’s clamour for the bill as a pipe dream. An Expensive Ambition Karen Kazaryan, the general director of the Internet Research Institute, has said: “But in the end, it won’t work. Russia is not China. It’s very complex and expensive to build a system like this and we simply don’t have the engineers to realize this project.” Kazaryan’s prognosis, accurate or not, is just one opinion of a multitude. Whether Putin can muster the manpower to go ahead with his intentions or not is another matter. What worries some experts within the country, is the fact that if their leader is successful at implementing the ‘internet iron curtain’, it will cut Russia off from developing in technology and know-how, which on a global scale is impressive, as the country has a highly developed IT industry. This decision could see all that go into decline. It is reported that at the beginning of March there were well over 10,000 on the streets protesting about Putin’s plans for online censorship. Most of those in the crowd were the young and educated — it is clear to see that the youth, Russia’s thinkers, engineers and designers in the years ahead, have very different ideas in regard to this from their leader. On 15th March 1783, General George Washington wrote in a letter to the officers of the Continental Army: “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” This, totally American in sentiment, wouldn’t have gone down well with the leader of the Russian empire at the time, Catherine the Great. And today, with all the soapbox screamings by Trump on freedom of speech sniggered at by his opposite number in the Kremlin, I can see no other course Putin can take. To tighten his grip on power, the new Tsar of Russia will go to any lengths to achieve it. And the online iron curtain is just the first of many.

Russia’s Internet Crackdown

By . James Alctucher Originally published on JamesAltucher.com If you Google “entrepreneur” you get a lot of mindless cliches like “Think Big!” For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next “Facebook”. Or even starting any business at all. It means finding the challenges you have in your life, and determining creative ways to overcome those challenges… I believe that creating multiple income streams is important for everyone. However, in this post I focus mostly on the issues that come up when you first start an actual company. These rules also apply if you are taking an entrepreneurial stance within a much larger company (which all employees should do). Just as good to be an “entreployee” as an “entrepreneur”. Either one will help you survive this world of increased economic uncertainty. For me, I’ve started several businesses. Maybe 17 have failed out of 20. I fail quickly. I fail frequently. Entrepreneurship is a sentence of failures punctuated by brief success. I’m invested in about 28 private companies. I’ve advised probably another 50 private companies. I’m on the board of several private companies and one public company. The companies ranging from $0 in revenues to a billion in revenues. Along the way I’ve compiled a list of rules that have helped me deal with every aspect of being an entrepreneur in business and some in life. Here’s the real rules: A) I’m not going to explain why it’s not fun. These are rules. Not theories. I don’t need to prove them. It’s not fun. But there’s a strong chance you can hate yourself throughout the process of being an entrepreneur. Keep sharp objects and pills away during your worst moments. And you will have them. If you are an entrepreneur and agree with me, please note this in the comments below. B) You’ll have to hire people to expand your business. But it’s a good discipline to really question if you need each and every hire. Try not to hire people. C) . This seems obvious. But it’s not. Get a customer before you start your business, if you can. Get a customer So many people say to me, “I have an idea. Can you introduce me to VCs?” There is a HUGE gap between “idea” and “professional venture capital”. In the middle of that gap is “customer”. D) If you are offering a service, call it a product. Oracle did it. They claimed they had a database. But if you “bought” their database they would send in a team of consultants to help you “install” the database to fit your needs. In other words, for the first several years of their existence, they claimed to have a product but they really were a consulting company. Don’t forget this story. Products are valued higher than services. And almost EVERY major software product company was a service company in the beginning. Don’t forget that. E) Start over. Hopefully before you run out of money. Hopefully before you take in investor money. Or, don’t worry about it. Come up with new ideas. Start over. It’s OK to fail . F) . Try to be profitable immediately. This seems obvious but it isn’t. Try not to raise money. That money is expensive. Be profitable G) : if it’s not easy then your idea is probably incapable of raising money. If its easy, then take as much as possible. If its TOO easy, then sell your company (unless you are Twitter, etc). When raising money (if its too easy, sell your company) H) . If it’s not easy, then you need to build more. Then sell. To sell your company, start getting in front of your acquirers a year in advance. describing your progress. Then, when they need a company like yours, your company is the first one that comes to mind. The same goes for selling your company Send them monthly updates Don’t be like that guy in the TV show “Silicon Valley”. If someone offers you ten million for a company that has no revenues, then sell it. Not everything is going to be a Facebook. And even the Google guys tried to sell their company for ONE MILLION DOLLARS to Yahoo before they were revenue positive. SELL THE COMPANY. I) . It turns you into a killer. It helps you judge progress. It shows that other people value the space you are in. Your competitors are also your potential acquirors. Competition is good J) Except maybe as a secretary. You are the PR for your company. You are your company’s brand. You personally. Don’t use a PR firm. I’ve never had a good PR company. I’ve had good PR secretaries. But they are cheaper. One time I hired a PR company and they accidentally sent me the contract for Terry Bradshaw. He was paying $10,000 a month. How did they do for him? K) with everyone. Employees. Customers. Investors. All the time. Every day. Communicate Employees want to know what to do. And they want to know you are thinking of their overall career. Customers want to know how to keep their bosses calm. Investors want to be your friend and want to know they can count on you when time’s are tough. L) for your customers. This is very important. Do everything Get them girlfriends or boyfriends. Speak at their charities. Visit their parents for Thanksgiving. Help them find other firms to meet their needs. Even introduce them to your competitors if you think a competitor can help them or if you think you are about to be fired. Always think first, “What’s going to make my customer happy?” Note: EVEN if that means introduce them to a competitor. If you are the SOURCE, then everybody comes back to the source. M) . There’s a human there. What will make my human customer happy? Make him laugh. You want your customer to be happy. Your customer is not a company N) . Go to breakfast/lunch/dinner with customers. Treat. Show up O) . Know the history of your customers in every way. Company history, personal history, marketing history, investing history, etc. History P) e software development. Nobody knows your product better than you do. If you aren’t a technical person, learn how to be very specific in your product specification so that your programmers can’t say: “well you didn’t say that!” Micro-manag Q) . You need to be able to see and talk to your programmers. Don’t outsource to India. . But I won’t hire programmers from there while I’m living in the US. Hire local I love India R) . Don’t buy into the 20 hours a day entrepreneur myth. You need to sleep 8 hours a day to have a focused mind. Sleep If you are working 20 hours a day, then that means you have flaws in how you are managing your time. You can argue about this but it’s true. S) . Same as above. If you are unhealthy, your product will be unhealthy. Exercise T) Fit. DON’T have dating problems and software development problems at the same time. VCs will smell this all over you. Emotionally U) . You need to. Be grateful where you are. And pray for success. You deserve it. Pray for the success of your customers. Heck, pray for the success of your competitors. The better they do, it means the market is getting bigger. And if one of them breaks out, they can buy you. Pray V) Massages. Tickets. Whatever. I always imagined that at the end of each day my young, lesbian employees (for some reason, most employees at my first company were lesbian) would be calling their parents and their mom and dad would ask them: “Hi honey! How was your day today?” And I wanted them to be able to say: “It was the best!” Invite customers to masseuse day. Buy your employees gifts. W) They need boundaries. They need to be told “no!” sometimes. And sometimes you need to hit them in the face (ha ha, just kidding). But within boundaries, let them play. Treat your employees like they are your children. X) pricing your product. If your product is good and you price it cheap, people will buy. Then you can price upgrades, future products, and future services more expensive. Which goes along with the next rule. Don’t be greedy Y) is everything. Branding is everything. Get your name out there, whatever it takes. The best distribution is of course word of mouth, which is why your initial pricing doesn’t matter. Distribution Write a blog about your industry and be very honest about all the flaws (even your own) that is currently in your industry. Authenticity is the best branding. Z) It’s not worth it. Your employees need you. Don’t kill yourself. Your children or future children need you. It seems odd to include this in a post about entrepreneurship but we’re also taking about keeping it real. Most books or “rules” for entrepreneurs talk about things like “think big”, “go after your dreams”. But often dreams turn into nightmares. I’ll repeat it again. Don’t kill yourself. Call me if things get too stressful. Or more importantly, make sure you take proper medication AA) Let each employee know how his or her path to success can be achieved. All of them will either leave you or replace you eventually. That’s OK. Give them the guidelines how that might happen. Tell them how they can get rich by working for you. Give employees structure. BB) . If an employee gets “the disease” he needs to be fired. If they ask for more money all the time. If they bad mouth you to other employees. If you even think they are talking behind your back, fire them. Fire employees immediately The disease has no cure. And it’s very contagious. Show no mercy. Show the employee the door. There are no second chances because the disease is incurable. I don’t say this because I want anyone to be hurt. But if you’ve followed the rules above then you are treating employees well already. NOBODY should spread the disease and badmouth you or your customers. CC) . If you ever have to sell your company, believe it or not, you are going to need his signature (because there’s going to be a new lease owner) Make friends with your landlord DD) if you are so packed in that employees are sharing desks and there’s no room for people to walk. Only move offices EE) . But use your personal money. Not company money. Invite employees, customers, and investors. It’s not the worst thing in the world to also invite off duty prostitutes or models. Have killer parties I don’t say this in a sexist way. It’s just the reality of what happens with every company in the world. FF) g, close the door or take him or her out of the building. Sit with him until it stops. Listen to what he has to say. If someone is crying then there’s been a major communication breakdown somewhere in the company. Listen to what it is and fix it. Don’t get angry at the culprit’s. Just fix the problem. If an employee comes to you cryin (you don’t want your employees to be sad.) GG) , donate money to every customer’s favorite charity. But not for investors or employees. At Christmas HH) with your competitors. Listen and try not to talk. One competitor (Bill Markel from Interactive 8) once told me a story about how the CEO of Toys R Us returned his call. He was telling me this because I never returned Bill’s calls. Ok, Bill, lesson noted. Have lunch II) Ask your customers advice on how you can be introduced into other parts of their company. Then they will help you. Because of the next rule… Ask advice a lot. JJ) Or not. But always leave open the possibility. Let it always dangle in the air between you and them. They can get rich with you. Maybe. Possibly. If they play along. So play. Hire your customers. KK) y, do one extra surprise thing that was not expected. Always add bells and whistles that the customer didn’t pay for. On any demo or deliver This is such an easy way to over deliver I’m surprised people don’t do it 100% of the time. They do it maybe 1% of the time. So this is an easy way to compete and surprise and delight. LL) changes that are changing the world. Where are marketing dollars flowing and can you be in the middle. What services do aging baby boomers need? Is the world running out of clean water? Are newspapers going to survive? Etc. Etc. Read every day to understand what is going on. Understand the demographic LLa) or “meetups” with other entrepreneurs. Work instead while they are partying. Don’t go to a lot of parties MM) , going along with the above rule, don’t listen to the doom and gloomers that are hogging the TV screen trying to tell you the world is over. They just want you to be scared so they can scoop up all the money. But NN) In your free time you are thinking of new ideas for customers, new ideas for services to offer, new products. You have no more free time. OO) 2. In your free time, think of ideas for potential customers. Then send them emails: “I have 10 ideas for you. Would really like to show them to you. I think you will be blown away. Here’s five of them right now.” You have no more free time, part OOa) , recessions, don’t matter. There’s $15 trillion in the economy. You’re allowed a piece of it: Depressions FedEx, Microsoft, HewlettPackard, and many huge companies were started in recessions or depressions. Leave economics to the academics while they leave good business to you. PP) . Tell everyone you ever knew what your company does. Your friends will help you find clients. Talk QQ) . You’re bad at following up. Because you have no free time. So, if you have another employee. Let them follow up. Plus, they will like to spend time with the boss. You’re going to be a mentor. Always take someone with you to a meeting RR) : your advertisers are your customers. But always be thinking of new services for your consumers. Each new service has to make their life better. People’s lives are better if: they become healthier, richer, or have more sex. “Health” can be broadly defined. If you are consumer focused SS) find sponsorship opportunities for them that drive customers straight into their arms. These are the most lucrative ad deals (see rule above). Ad inventory is a horrible business model. Sponsorships are better. Then you are talking to your customer. If your customers are advertisers: TT) . The harder it is for a consumer to sign up, the less consumers you will have. No confirmation emails, sign up forms, etc. The easier the better. No friction TTA) . If you are making a website, have as much content as you can on the front page. You don’t want people to have to click to a second or third page if you can avoid it. Stuff that first page with content. You aren’t Google. No fiction, part 2 (And, 10 Unusual Things You Didn’t Know About Google) UU) . Say “yes” to any opportunity that gets you in a room with a big decision maker. Doesn’t matter if it costs you money. No friction, part 3 VV) two years before you sell it. Get in the offices of the potential buyers of your company and start updating them on your progress every month. Ask their advice on a regular basis in the guise of just an “industry catch-up” Sell your company WW) for stock, sell the stock as soon as you can. If you are selling your company for stock it means: If you sell your company a. The market is such that lots of companies are being sold for stock. b. AND, companies are using stock to buy other companies because they value their stock less than they value cash. c. WHICH MEANS, that when everyone’s lockup period ends, EVERYONE will be selling stock across the country. So sell yours first. XX) If you have an idea worth pursuing, then just make it. You can build any website for cheap. Hire a programmer and make a demo. Get at least one person to sign up and use your service. If you want to make Facebook pages for plumbers, find one plumber who will give you $10 to make his Facebook page. Just do it. Execution is a dime a dozen. Fail quickly. Good ideas are HARD. It’s execution that is a dime a dozen. YY) part II. Set up a blog. Tell your personal stories (see ). Let the customer know you are human, approachable, and have a real vision as to why they need to use you. Become the voice for your industry, the advocate for your products. If you make skin care products, tell your customers every day how they can be even more beautiful than they currently are and have more sex than they are currently getting. Blog your way to PR success. Be honest and bloody. Don’t use a PR firm, “33 tips to being a better writer” ZZ) If your product sounds too good to be true, then you are a liar. Don’t save the world. ZZa) Your company is always for sale. AAA) the first check. I’m staring at mine right now. Frame BBB) . Pick a random customer. Find five ideas for them that have nothing to do with your business. Call them and say, “I’ve been thinking about you. Have you tried this?” No free time, part 3 CCC) . Nobody cares about reselling your service. Those are always bad deals. No resale deals DDD) or accountant is not going to introduce you to any of their other clients. Those meetings are always a waste of time. Your lawyer EEE) every success. Your employees need it. They need a massage also. Get a professional masseuse in every Friday afternoon. Nobody leaves a job where there is a masseuse. Celebrate FFF) your first company. I have to repeat this. Don’t take any chances. You don’t need to be Mark Zuckerberg. Sell your first company as quick as you can. You now have money in the bank and a notch on your belt. Make a billion on your next company. Sell Note ’s story. Before he started Broadcast.com and rode it to a few billion, he sold his first software company for ten million. Mark Cuban GGG) your employees before you pay yourself. Pay HHH) to get the first customer. If you have no product yet and no money, then give equity to a good partner in exchange for them being a paying customer. Note: don’t blindly give equity. If you develop a product that someone asked for, don’t give them equity. Sell it to them. But if you want to get a big distribution partner whose funds can keep you going forever, then give equity to nail the deal. Give equity III) about anyone stealing your ideas. Ideas are worthless anyway. It’s OK to steal something that’s worthless. Don’t worry IIIA) on twitter. Follow me ➤ for my newsletter. You’ll get a daily email of my latest content! Sign up ➤ Or visit my to read my FREE blog content website ➤ Do you have a question? Ask me on …I answer questions daily! Quora James Altucher is the author of the bestselling book Choose Yourself, editor at The Altucher Report and host of the popular podcast, The James Altucher Show , which takes you beyond business and entrepreneurship by exploring what it means to be human and achieve well-being in a world that is increasingly complicated.

Entrepreneurship’s 100 Rules

Image Credit: CryptoNinjas ( ) cryptoninjas.net Disclaimer: The following analysis is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. You should contact an attorney for advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Use of and access to this post does not create any attorney-client relationship between the author and the user or reader. The past two months have possibly seen more action in the legal space than the previous two years combined. Since December, , Coinbase released , and the . These actions are some of the first major foundational contributions to blockchain’s regulatory framework that will shape the industry and transactions for years or decades to come. blockchain Overstock raised $10.9M via blockchain stock issuance their proposed securities framework for blockchain tokens SEC denied the Winklevoss Twins’ Bitcoin ETF Keeping with its commitment as a leader of business-related law, the State of Delaware has joined this recent stream of blockchain-related legal innovation by announcing proposed amendments to its Delaware General Corporate Law (the “DGCL”) . If passed by the Delaware’s General Assembly, corporations in the famously business-friendly state can look forward to legally issuing shares via distributed ledgers as of August 1st, 2017. that would recognize “Distributed Ledger Shares” as a legitimate method to track and account for corporate stock Such changes would allow for corporations to utilize blockchain to severely reduce or eliminate the time and monetary costs with . Expensive middlemen who traditionally facilitate asset transactions and records — such as central securities depositories, auditors, exchanges, or transfer agents — can be rendered obsolete by distributed ledgers capable of performing the same services for a fraction of the price (or even for free). Further, shares that are native to blockchain’s cryptographic tracking systems can potentially be incorporated into , allowing for automated asset management and transfers with less dependence on escrow services, brokers and lawyers. With these changes recommended by the , Delaware will once again demonstrate why it is known as the “most innovation-friendly state,” taking a key regulatory step towards manifesting Harvard Business Review’s prediction that “ .” stock transactions and management Smart Contracts Delaware Blockchain Initiative blockchain will have the same effect on the financial industry that the internet had to media The mostly focuses on record-keeping and issuance of shares. The proposed changes to §§151(f), 202(a), 219(a), 224 and 232 modify DGCL’s language to better reflect the evolution from hardcopy to electronic record-keeping and notice-issuance, paving the way for blockchain to perform such processes. The proposed changes to §§219(c) and 224 specifically re-define the term “stock ledger” to include those administered via electronic networks such as blockchain. Moreover, corporations will no longer need to personally maintain these records, and can now legally rely on “distributed electronic networks and databases” to do so instead. Any distributed ledger can be used for these functions so long as it complies with §224 by performing three functions: facilitate corporations’ easy preparation of a current list of stockholders; meet the record-keeping requirements of other sections of DGCL (specifically §§156, 159, 217(a), and 218); and record blockchain-enabled stock-transfers in accordance with other DGCL mandates (such as §159). The net result of these changes is that Delaware corporations can rely on blockchain systems can act as digital “trust entities” for stock management, transfers and tracking, thereby optimizing efficiency, minimizing transaction costs, and boosting stockholder value. proposal itself While these changes focus on record-keeping, one area that remains to be seen is if and how the state will modify its laws to authorize shareholder voting and participation via blockchain or . As we have seen through methods and , blockchain enables new organizational voting schemes never thought possible through legacy technologies. Examples of Delaware law that still need to address these potentials include how portions of DGCL §§112 and 113 do not clearly allow for proxy materials and voting via distributed ledgers. Further, those sections could also be modified to include express authorization for private-key signatures to operate in lieu of written signatures on such materials. And (perhaps most importantly) the DGCL is silent to nontraditional corporate structures like those of DAOs, where the legacy concept of distinct classes of human shareholders, boards of directors, and officers is modified by smart contracts capable of making decisions autonomously or through a direct vote of shareholders. The law hasn’t had a chance to consider the possibility of a hard-coded DAO smart contract operating in direct conflict with the wishes of shareholders or a board of directors, especially when a plain-language Certificate of Incorporation is silent or even contradictory on the issue. We probably won’t see legal frameworks reflecting these possibilities until more maturity is demonstrated by blockchain governance technologies, but blockchain developers, entrepreneurs and regulators must keep an eye towards these legal issues as they innovate new corporate functionalities via distributed ledgers. app-tokens Proof of Work consensus DAO-enabled shareholder decision-making All in all, the proposed rule changes are an excellent first step for regulatory oversight that many in the blockchain ecosystem argue is drastically needed. Special recognition goes to Director Andrea Tinianow, Governor Jack Markell, Cooley LLP Partner Marco Santori, and the rest of the Delaware Blockchain Initiative for their excellent work on this proposal. Let’s hope the Delaware General Assembly passes these amendments so we can move one step closer to building the corporate landscape of the future. About the Author: Jason Civalleri is a law student and MBA-graduate passionate for blockchain and distributed ledger innovation. His first exposure to blockchain was his investment in Bitcoin in 2011, the proceeds from which he used to finance his first year of law school. He built his first “miner” for the Ethereum network in January, 2016, and has since guided start-ups, medium-sized companies, and Fortune 500 firms on how to better understand decentralized systems when contemplating process optimization and surviving disruption. In his free-time, Jason enjoys brewing beer, sailing, and playing with his dog, “Cairo.” Email: jcivalle@lawnet.uci.eduTwitter: @jasonthehealerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncivalleri/

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