Point B

Point B-best workplaces millennials 2019

Employees say: 
“Managerial structure is very flat. All employee-owners regardless of title are in the loop and have input when it comes to business results and strategy. Employee-owners are treated like adults, with self-directed schedules and time off.”

100 Best Small and Medium Workplaces for Millennials

The companies on this year's list make a conscious effort to be supportive, inclusive workplaces.

Point B-Best Small Medium Workplaces for Women 2019

A mid-level manager says: 
 
“Everyone is treated fairly here. It's a welcoming, caring place that seems to truly care about you as a person.” 
 
Read the Great Place to Work review .

Best Small and Medium Workplaces for Women

These are the best workplaces in the U.S. that employ between 100 and 999 people.

Point B-Best Medium Workplaces 2019

Employees say: 
“The employees share the ‘ownership’ mentality of the company and are emboldened to pursue things confidently knowing they have the support of the rest of the company behind them.”

100 Best Medium Workplaces

Point B Inc.

Employees say: 
 
&nbsp; 
 
"We have an ownership mentality where we are all supported and encouraged to do what is right for our clients, our people, and our firm." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
"Starting day one, associates are respected as contributors, expected to lead, and driven to deliver the best possible outcome for the client. Associates are also given and expected to make decisions or contributions to the firm, our clients, and ourselves. The result is a balance … a balance between life and work, best outcomes and the client, the firm and fun." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
Read the Great Place to work review .

Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Workplaces for Women highlights companies with generous benefits, flexible schedules, and an emphasis on balancing work and life. 

best workplaces for millennials 2016- Point B Inc.

Employees say: "This company creates a great work-life balance for professional women in their mid-career. It provides flexibility in working hours and entrusts consultants to work directly with the client for adaptable schedules, encouraging employees to go above and beyond on quality of the client work." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
"On one occasion, I showed up to a extracurricular activity without my spouse (+1s were invited), and my colleagues were genuinely sad not to hang out with him. Every large work event truly feels like a family reunion." Read the .

100 Best Large Workplaces for Women

We surveyed tens of thousands of young employees to create this list of millennials’ favorite workplaces.

best workplaces for millennials 2017 Point B

Employees say: 
 
&nbsp; 
 
"Point B truly exists for the benefit of its people. It’s progressive in its thinking about benefits and work-life balance. Also, the company allows for a great deal of autonomy and creative flexibility. The hiring practices are extraordinarily effective at finding candidates who fit the culture. Also, the fact that Point B is employee-owned creates a foundation of trust and personal accountability among everyone who works at the firm. Our management has done an incredible job of curating a unique culture and driving incredible business results while genuinely benefiting the employees. Our management team is the most thoughtful and engaged team I've ever worked with. This really makes Point B's employees feel well connected and that we are in good hands." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
"I'm part of a new position created at Point B that is specifically geared towards those with two to four years of consulting or industry experience. Point B realizes the importance of bringing younger talent into the firm to be the future leaders of the company. Point B leadership is open, transparent, and willing to help wherever possible. The challenges and development opportunities available to younger career individuals is unlike any other firm. Point B will instantly recognize and reward those who knock their work out of the park. I genuinely believe that Point B will be the last employer I will ever work for." 
 
&nbsp;

100 Best Large Workplaces for Millennials

The second annual ranking of the best employers for workers 35 and under.

"People are generally super friendly, genuine, and helpful to each other," says an employee at this management consultant. "Within hours of starting on my first day, I met high-level executives who went out of their way to introduce themselves to me and make themselves available for any questions I had." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
Adds another millennial: "The culture of our company is truly unique. Our people look out for each other and put effort into relationships beyond work. To say we have a work-life balance is an understatement. We know how to get work done but also self-govern and respect our time in our personal lives. That comes with compassion and understanding from other Point B'ers which makes our place feel like home, not a place we go for our job." 
 
&nbsp; 
 
Read the .

Announcing this year's list of the best small business employers from Great Place to Work.

BSMC_2015_point-b.JPG

Point B is a 100% employee-owned management consulting and venture investment company, resulting in an office where everyone has a stake in the game. Point B goes above and beyond to take care of its workers, offering 100% company-paid health coverage and the flexibility to work from whatever city in which an employee lives. Each employee also owns their own schedule based on his or her client needs. 

The inaugural list of the 100 Best Workplaces for Women from our partners at Great Place to Work includes the wealth management firm TrueWealth at No.1, hospital system Texas Health Resources (No. 3), and Build-A-Bear Workshop (No. 10). Rankings were determined by employee surveys and the representation of women within the organizations.

BEST COMPANIES 2015  Point B

Point B is a 100% employee-owned management consulting and venture investment company, resulting in an office where everyone has a stake in the game. Point B goes above and beyond to take care of its workers, offering 100% company-paid health coverage and the flexibility to work from whatever city in which an employee lives. Each employee also owns their own schedule based on his or her client needs. .

Company Info

Industry

Founded

City

Sites

Revenue ($)

Web Address

Millennials In The Organization

# of millennial employees

Millennials as % of total workforce

Women In The Organization

% of Women in Management (non-Executive)

% of Women in Executive/Manager Positions

Point B Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

point b

Point B Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

In this episode, Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston joins Leadership Next to share how he's reimagining work in the age of AI. He traces Dropbox’s evolution—from solving file-syncing in the early cloud era to launching Dropbox Dash, a new AI-powered search and knowledge-management tool. Houston reflects on the hard lessons from failed ventures into email and photo apps, the pressures of self-disruption, and what it takes to stay relevant in a crowded productivity space. He also opens up about distributed work, leadership growth, and the books and mentors that have shaped his journey toward becoming a “bionic CEO.” 

Hacking the CEO Job: Drew Houston on Reinvention and Leadership

Leadership

Leading Through Strategic Inflection Points and Rebuilding Dropbox in the Age of AI

In this exclusive interview with Fortune, Nike's newly appointed CEO Elliott Hill shares his vision for the iconic sportswear brand's future. From intern to chief executive, Hill's 30+ year journey at Nike has given him unique insights into the company's DNA. He discusses his plans to refocus on Nike's core strengths, emphasizing sports and athlete partnerships while addressing recent challenges in sales and market positioning. Hill outlines strategies to balance direct-to-consumer sales with wholesale partnerships, reduce promotional pricing, and drive innovation in key categories like running and basketball. With a commitment to authenticity and a deep understanding of Nike's heritage, Hill aims to lead the company back to its roots while pushing forward into a new era of growth and innovation.

‘Nike’s Back’: How Its New CEO Plans to Reassert the Brand’s Dominance

Features

In this exclusive interview with Fortune, Nike's newly appointed CEO Elliott Hill shares his vision for the iconic sportswear brand's future.

Is this a return to Nike's roots? No question. I think every company has a core of what makes them great, and I think sport is the core of what we are, we are about. We're about human potential and performance. Nike's back. Since started as an turn in apparel sales in 1988, Elliot Hill has spent his entire career climbing Nike's ranks. He has spearheaded some of the company's biggest sportswear launches and led headline grabbing marketing campaigns. So don't ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they're crazy enough. Now more than 30 years later, all eyes are on him as he steps into the company's most prominent job, CEO. It almost feels surreal like, hey, did this just happen? But Hill has taken the reins at a time when Nike is grappling with declining sales and a fall in stock price. How do you think you're performing at this point? I think we can be better. As Hill kicked off his 33rd year at Nike and 3rd month as CEO, he recounted his journey to the corner office and what's next for the sports retail giant. Nike's sprawling facilities in Beaverton, Oregon didn't exist when Hill first started as an intern. We very much wanted it to feel like a campus, and we moved here in 1990. The buildings that you can see across the way in Brown were the first buildings. At the start of 1988, the company was worth just over $700 million. Three decades later, it's valued at more than $100 billion. You are Nike's newly minted CEO. How did you get here? I took a sports marketing class and I wrote a paper around this company called Nike. I fell in love with the company and I said, you know, that's the type of company I want to work for. I can combine sport with business. And I was fortunate. There was a guy named Tim Joyce who came to speak at our university and after he finished speaking, I went up to him and said, I want to work for Nike and I bothered him for about 6 months and he finally hired me and I started at Nike June 1 of '88 as as an intern. That internship was a springboard to a lifetime career at Nike. In his early years, Hill held various sales roles selling shoes to mom and pop retailers and driving around in an old minivan. I was driving around in a used Dodge minivan, that's for sure. I drove 60,000 miles a year and I was started out in sales. I worked my way up through the sales organization, different experiences. Hill steadily moved up the ladder, never staying in the same role for more than 4 years. In 2018, he was promoted to president of Consumer and Marketplace, a role he held until 2020 when he. Hired, but his exit didn't last long. Four years later, Nike's former CEO John Donahoe was out. Nike's CEO John Donahoe is going to be leaving the company. During the pandemic. Donahoe's aggressive e-commerce and direct to consumer business approach helped drive Nike's share price to a historic high in November 2021. But as the pandemic wound down, market conditions. Changed and the strategy started to backfire. The company lost market share and strained its relationships with retail partners, all while losing sales and street cred. The board needed a replacement. Walk me through how this came to fruition, your return to Nike. I, I had stayed in touch with people at Nike at all levels of the organization. It was a series of phone calls and I, you know what, I, it was a pretty quick decision for me. Nike's share price jumped by more than 6% just a day after it announced Hill would assume the top job. Is there a part of you that felt you had something to prove? Had a great Second chapter, if you will, business career. I was doing a number of investments and projects that inspired me, motivated, kept me busy, but I have to admit there were those moments when I would walk away from a board meeting as an example where your responsibility is to steer, guide, suggest. You know, provide thoughts, perspectives, and then you leave and you don't have the responsibility for continuing the execution. There was a moment when I started to think to myself, is this really what the rest of my life's going to be like? And then I get the phone call. And so and then here we are and my whole world turns upside down and uh and uh and it's just been a crazy 75 days. What's one of mind for you? The next 30 days, the next year, the next 5 years, well, the 1st 60 days were a sprint. I'll tell you that. What I wanted to do first and foremost was to re-engage with the team. So I spent the 1st 60 days and my first day in the office. I did an all employee meeting, brought everybody together, had a fireside chat so they could get to know me. We get to work in schools. We do. That we do, that we do. What are they telling you? What are you hearing? Where we're headed, which is around celebrating the passion and emotions sport that excites them that that gets them motivated. That's what we have to do more of. That's when we're at our finest is when we put athletes at the center of everything we do. We take the insights from those athletes. That's what drives our product innovation pipeline. That's what drives those emotional and inspiring stories that we tell. Those athletes' stories have become synonymous with Nike's brand. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot. And missed. From Michael Jordan and LeBron James to Serena Williams. And Ronaldo Nazario. This is the Ronaldo pitch as we call it the Ronaldo Field, and so to, to celebrate him and all that he means to Nike, we, we dedicated the the pitch and his name and then of course we have the the statue here and. And we've been fortunate to continue our relationship with him even beyond his playing days. Hill sees those athlete partnerships as a crucial element of Nike's past and future success. As Nike's vice president of North America, Hill forged a strong partnership with Michael Jordan and was instrumental in encouraging the basketball legend to expand his brand globally. The strategy has paid off with sales growing to over $7 billion annually in 2024. Now Nike is looking ahead. We had Caitlyn Clark here I saw that she was in yesterday on her signature shoe that we launch and we're working on her logo and design of her logo. She signed an 8 year $28 million endorsement deal with Nike in April of. Last year, making it the largest sponsorship contract for a women's basketball player, what was the motivation behind that and and what impact do you think it will have on, on women's sports certainly on the WNBA? When we were running just basketball, we never got to the women's opportunity, but by having this small team. That's focused on women's basketball. It unlocked, we believe, opportunities for the game of basketball, but also in product. It becomes an opportunity to grow the overall marketplace by inviting more and more girls into the world of sport. It is in an area that we'll continue to invest in, and we see tremendous tremendous momentum right now. Hill's new role comes at a critical time for Nike. Sales dropped in the last three quarters of 2024, and shares have slumped to more than 43% since 2023. In an effort to clear out inventory, the company began offering massive discounts throughout the year, slashing prices by as much as 30%. Hill says that approach has hurt the brand. You said in the December earnings call, uh, your first as Nike CEO that Nike has become too promotional offering too many discounts. I'm certainly not complaining, but what what's your vision for how Nike should approach pricing and discounts and still uphold its brand value and market position? There are moments in the traditional retail cycle where it makes sense to be promotional Black Friday, Cyber Monday. But we had become too promotional in between those moments we were even leveraging promotions to drive revenue, and frankly that's not great for margin. It's not great for the brand. It's not great for our wholesale partners because they end up competing against us and profitability matters for them. And so starting this spring we're moving to a position where Nike Direct both digital. Physical is going to actually lead the marketplace and be less not only less promotional but elevate the experience that the consumer has with our brand. Nike also faced backlash over its direct to consumer sales strategy. Before the pandemic, it started to pull back from large wholesalers like Foot Locker and Dick Sporting Goods to focus on its own brick and mortar stores and e-commerce. Now that strategy is changing. Pre-pandemic, Nike severed ties with retailers wanted to focus more on direct to consumer. What are your plans to evolve to rebuild, you know, your partnership with wholesale retailers like Foot Locker and so on? I think it all starts with the consumer. There are consumers that want to shop choice wholesale, either digital or physical, and the good news is the space that I spent a big part of my career. I have great relationships with our retailers, made it. Very, very clear to our team first and foremost that we were going to run a balanced. Marketplace and I've had countless numbers of phone calls and meetings already with them making certain that they understand the importance uh that they play to our brand and the development of our brand that's been a great reception by the way, from our retailers are saying OK. Nike's back. Gone are the days of going wide. Hill wants to go deep, and he says Nike will be zeroed in on 5 main categories moving forward running, basketball, training, football, and sportswear. I live in Manhattan. I run in Central Park. I see a lot of people wearing Nike. And but I also see on run. I see hook, right? A lot of these brands that I've eaten into Nike's market share. So what are your thoughts on how you go back to reestablishing yourself as the premium athletic brand and what do you see as the number one driver for growth for Nike as we move forward? It does always come back to have new, different innovative coveted beautiful product. The lineup that we have in running. Uh, is the strongest lineup that I've seen since I've been here top to bottom across the board, and we have to have those retail partners to help us take shelf space, open to buy and market share from our competitors because frankly that's we left it open ultimately. We have to earn our way back onto the shelves. It's that simple. You've repeatedly made this reference where you say we're going back to sports. Sport is at the heart of our brand. When I think of Nike, I think sports apparel. So what do you mean by that? We were running at what we call the gender offense, so men's, women's, and kids, we lost the sharpness around sport. And so we're reorienting the organization to focus sport first, so think running, think basketball, think football or soccer. And then gender second by lining up by gender, it also helps us find opportunities specifically for that gender, whether it's color and material that's different for a man versus a woman. Another big focus for Hill is product innovation. This is the LeBron James Center, and it's all about advanced R&D and innovation, and it's without question we believe one of the foremost centers of innovation of athletic and human performance. Hill still recalls the 1988 unveiling of Nike's now famous Just Do It campaign. I'm thinking of being a lawyer. He also led launches of footwear for elite athletes, but in recent years, critics, including investors, say Nike has fallen behind in the innovation race. What does product innovation look like for Nike as you move forward? We have a team of people that are already working on product in 28, 29. What's that look like? So long term, very futuristic innovation. The best innovation does come from an athlete, how to make you run faster, jump higher. Uh be safer, move quicker. For Nike, many of those insights came from athlete partnerships. Nike's at its best when we have an athlete, and we have a great relationship with that athlete, and we're able to partner with that athlete to take insights from their game and This case obviously basketball and to build the product around that individual's game in this case it happens to be LeBron James. He's very involved in the footwear that he wears and how it looks, how it fits, how it performs. He's just a representation of some of the. The great executions that we've done with him. Few are as familiar as Hill with the history, people, and inner workings of Nike. Despite three decades of experience and a clear enthusiasm for the CEO role, he has his work cut out for him. In your 60 days as a CEO, what have you learned about yourself? What have you learned about leadership? I have to be who I was always. I have to remain authentic. Just because I have a title and a new responsibility, it can't change how I show up because I think if I do, people will see it, smell it, sniff it, and I've done some just real tactical things to try to do that. I it sounds so simple, but I go get my own coffee in the morning and I go get my own coffee in the afternoon. I work out in our gyms here every morning and I move around the gyms and the coffee places so that I can interact with more and more of our teammates. You can't let a A title or new responsibility to change who you are to your core, you have to show up as authentic authentically yourself as you possibly can.

Andrew Shapiro, Managing Director, PJT Partners, Tripp Shriner, Managing Partner, Point72 Private Investments Moderator: Diane Brady, FORTUNE

Future of Finance 2024: The Allure of Alternative Investments

Conferences

The allure of alternative investments. I feel like I should say Van Gogh up, down, let's do I want to start with a lightning round first? Nice to see you, Andy Tripp. I feel like this is such a vast space. Let's start with, you know, what do you think is over hyped? You know, where is the dumb money going? I'm just going to start with you. Kick us off, right. Very provocative sneakers. I'm not a fan of any of the D to C so direct to consumer retail alternatives. So that's sneakers, art royalties, collectibles, even real estate that it's just rife with fraud and it makes me nervous. Ok. So that's the dumb category. How about for you? Trip? I mean, I have a slightly different view that a lot of these things are sort of point time as to whether or not they're overvalued or undervalued. But I think the challenging thing about alt is they're not liquid. And so I think for a lot of people out there, you need to be very aware of where you are in the cycle and when you're entering because unlike a stock or a bond that trades down, you can't get out once you're in, at least for not, not for the foreseeable future. So you're recusing yourself from making a direct answer that one. So that's, that's fair. I think that's very fair. So let's talk the other under appreciate maybe rising on your radar. How about that instead? Um So, so I think your, your question implies like rising is a good thing. I see like rising is a bad thing. Um So I'm gonna answer it that way. Um I get nervous. There's a lot of money right now flowing into private credit and that's these are kind of asset managers that are taking the place of, of banks, right? We talked about that this morning, actually huge category. And so I'm worried about all the assets flowing into that market and kind of a lot of money chasing maybe less and less quality, right? And loosening of of credit terms that maybe a bank wouldn't do. And then if I wanna drill down into that specific asset class, there's an emerging asset class out there that called NAV lending or net asset value lending. And that's effectively a loan that institutional investors make to other private equity firms on top of their portfolio. So basically the portfolio of several investments takes out a loan on top of it. So you're basically putting leverage on top of a portfolio of levered companies and so you're double leverage. Is it the leverage that makes you nervous or is it the fact that it's kind of an unregulated space relative to the formal system? It's both but it's really a, it's a, it's a coy way to put more leverage into a system and really a product that feeds off of leverage. And so, you know, it just takes one bad asset or one kind of bankruptcy and it could have a real kind of domino effect. Ok, because I met before, I love the way you're answering each question and that's, that's rising on the radar, but not a good thing. How about, is there anything rising on the radar that you like or don't like? Well, and keep in mind, I'm primarily a technology engineer. And so that's the lens through which I view uh view ALTs. And one of the things that I think is, is interesting, albeit in the early stages is whether you wanna call it tokenization um or securitization, just the fractionalization of ALTs. I mean, it's always been an area that as I alluded to earlier has been relatively a liquid. It's also been one that's hard to access for a lot of people. And so I think if you can take an office building and offer fractional uh opportunities around that or, or private equity fund or private credit, although you, you may think that's not a good idea at this point. Um I think that could really open up the space and, and democratize it to a certain degree, I think right now, we're kind of in the pilot phase of that. But to, to your question, I think that's an area that I'm particularly interested in, in tracking. And, and really one of the reasons we're having this conversation is that we're in this pilot phase, we're talking about the democratization, basically opening up this asset class to retail investors. Let me go back to you a second. You don't like this phenomena. Is it that, is it an education problem or is it a consequence problem regulation? What is it that I don't like some of the fluffy stuff I'd say, I agree with trip that the democratization of alternatives for retail investors is a very exciting uh place to be. And if you think about the typical financial advisor pushing the 6040 portfolio, 60% equity, 40% fixed income. And now a a piece of that pie is gonna be taken up by alternatives. If you wanna look at the data, the average retail investor has between kind of five and 8% of their portfolio. And alternative, the average institutional investor is closer to 20%. And so if you just do the back of the envelope math getting from that 5 to 7-Up to 20 is trillions of dollars of assets that could go into alternatives. And should it be 20? I mean, again, it depends. But if we're talking to retail investors, should our portfolio be about 20% in alternatives. Iiiii, I think it should, I think it, it provides an uncorrelated, um, market exposure and, you know, despite the kind of low interest rate environment we're not in anymore, it still provides a lot of yield. And so as the nation ages and you have baby boomers retiring and transferring assets, the assets that you do hold on to you, you could argue should be more of an alternative, uh, form factor. Yeah. Well, I think there's, there's a difference between what should be done and what's what's practical right now. I mean, the fact of the matter is it's still relatively hard to access alt for a lot of the alternatives platforms. They view the R A Ria channels as sort of the next level of growth right now. Um But there, there's a lot of work to be done there. Uh First and foremost, and you alluded to this earlier is, is education not only for the end customer, but for the advisers, a lot of them have never been familiar with this space. So that's hurdle one to overcome and then hurdle two. again, I go back to sort of technology and, and infrastructure um being involved with A T whether it's doing due diligence, subscribing, managing your portfolio. Those are really challenging things and, and by and large, we don't have a lot of that infrastructure built up right now. And so while I agree with Andy, um that the ideal state is for there to be more exposure for individuals. Um I just think it's going to take a little bit of time for us to get there. What would you prioritize for us to get where we need to go? Um The, the technology piece first, I mean, that really is, is the the friction here in terms of accessibility. And then I think once you have that and people understand how you can do it, it then goes to education and being informed of why you should be doing it. I mean, remember this is an ethics class that was designed for institutional investors. So when we talk about the state of New York, that's used to putting $100 million in a Blackstone fund. Now you're talking about an individual that wants to put 10,000 in all the infrastructure needs to be designed around that investor, being able to, you know, access their portfolio, monitor it, um have redemptions, capital calls and none of the infrastructure is designed for checks that size. Let me ask about how is the geopolitical landscape or even the macroeconomic landscape? How do you think that is um influencing this category? You're nodding. I'm gonna go to you first. Yeah. Well, Andy, you mentioned it earlier but um interest rates is, is the obvious one. I I agree with Andy that all provide a lot of benefits in the way of diversification and lower volatility. But the fact of the matter is, you can't ignore interest rates right now. If, if I'm looking at treasuries that trade at 5% it's great that I'm getting those additional benefits. But at a certain point, they need to make the returns for me to say, ok, the opportunity cost of me being in treasuries is offset by being an al, you know, and we haven't talked about gold, of course, but that's uh maybe that's such a big category. We don't even need to go there. But let's talk about some of the other. I mean, I want to ask you, we, we've talked a little bit about private credit. Um There is infrastructure, there are, you know, real estate, for example, can you look at some of the categories? What are you seeing out there in the landscape? I'm going to go to you, Andy because I know again your technology. Um So in real estate specifically, um a lot of the assets are flowing towards the distressed and opportunistic investors, um managers right now and these are the managers that are kind of experts at cleaning up, you know, buildings where they have to hand over the keys, right? And there's a ton of capital flowing into that right now. Um where it's distressed are these kind of plain vanilla real estate investors that just own office buildings that are have, you know, tenants that are fleeing, that's not a very popular asset class right now. Um I'd say infrastructure is also very uh exciting. I mean, again, like any kind of institutional manager, a lot of the flows are going to like a very a small handful of really mega managers. Um But again, there's a ton of money to be made and a ton of assets flowing towards what I generally call the energy transition trade. So that's basically uh you know, adding solar panels, things like that, the grid enhancements around the country, a ton of capital going there and a ton of institutional capital wanted to be put to work there. I want to step back a second more to the 30,000 ft level, which is you mentioned, this was these, these were, you know, asset class is designed primarily for institutional investors or accredited investors, which implies that you need a certain level of sophistication to invest in these products as we democratize, you know, obviously people talk about protections, they talk about education. How do you, is it antiquated to still think about this need for a certain level of wealth, a certain level of sophistication to get into these asset classes because they are basically becoming accessible to retail investors, you know, much more quickly than that. I'm gonna go to you first, you you're flicking back and forth. Um But what do we need to do? I think the other thing you, you you didn't mention is uh the time horizon, right? So, so typically one of the main barriers too is and why financial advisor also didn't like pitching to you. They don't wanna tie up their client's assets for 7 to 10 years. Right. They're not like a pension fund and so up to 100 why not? Exactly. But as the technology improves like the, the, the companies, the trip monitors and the form factors change and we have things like interval funds or, or tokenization, then it becomes more like a stock, right? And then it becomes a lot more liquid and then it becomes a lot more, you know, investable and understandable by the mainstream investor. But, but it's still perceived as risky assets, right? And is that fair, is that fair to say? Do you think that's a fair? Um I, I think, I think it can be, I think that comes down to a certain degree uh uh to curation and what type of vaults you're exposing people to, I mean, even within a given alternative asset class, there's a very big difference between the best manager and, and the worst manager. I think actually going back to what Andy was saying earlier, a lot of the early access for retail investors to this space um was more at the the lower end of that spectrum. And so in that case, I think there was an issue with and sophistication, but I think if you can curate the right way and bring the right type of assets to bear, you know, as an advisor, I believe you would be as comfortable as you would. Anything else? One of the benefits of sitting on stage, you know, with, with other people not here put on a regulator hat, if you are a regulator um in, in this sector, what do you, what are some of the steps that you think need to be taken? Um You mentioned developing infrastructure. Any advice you would have? Yeah, I'm gonna take my technology hammer again and apply it to this question which is um you need to make sure that people have robust infrastructure around everything from data collection to reporting to valuations. Those are things that depending upon the asset class are various degrees of maturity. If I I were looking at that, I'd say what, what is the infrastructure there? How close does this feel to other asset classes in terms of the quality of reporting and of information that I'm getting around these? Does it feel to you? Well, we're seeing a lot of companies now emerging that are going directly after those specific types of pain points, in particular, the data side, which I think is sort of underlying a lot of the other potential issues that you could have. And so if you look at a lot of the larger alternative managers, they're working with early stage start ups to address this problem. And a number of those are both gaining traction in the market. But as importantly starting to solve some of those issues. I um I get nervous about the self kind of policing aspect of the industry. And specifically, you know, if you're a, if you're a portfolio manager at a publicly like a public mutual fund, you know, at the end of the day, what the price of your portfolio is and it gets reported out in the NAV and it's, it's not disputed. The problem I have with a lot of alternative assets are the managers are the ones determining the price every quarter and reporting it to their LP S. And there's a robust layer of kind of checks and balances that they will tell you they use to ensure that they're not trying to game the system, but it's, it, it, it can be gained and um I won't mention names but there's definitely managers that have been in the news recently. Yeah, exactly. Um that, that, you know, don't understand why an entire asset class can be down but their fund is up because you know, their own mark, say that no, no, no, our assets are better. And so that needs to be, there needs to be uh a development of the technology there in terms of helping retail investors better understanding a little more transparency into how that is is doing his own thing, her own thing. Potentially, I want to give each of you a chance to give some final thoughts. What do you want the takeaway to be? I'll start with you I mean, from my perspective, it's despite the fact that this is a NASA class in the trillions of dollars, when you think about both the expansion of sub sectors within the space, as well as the sort of results of the capital flowing in and the need for technology. We're still in the relatively early innings, I would say, yeah, I completely agree. Early innings. I think there's a huge opportunity for retail investors to access this market. And as they access this market, the technology around the form factors of how they get into the market, how they get out of the market, the different types of asset classes are all going to evolve and it's going to be really exciting. Excellent. Please join me in. Thanking Andy and trip more to come on this space. Thank you.

Niccolo de Masi, chairman of the Futurum Group, compares AI to the advent of Excel and ATMs. He also points out that trucking, once feared to go extinct due to AI, is now thriving.

Former tech CEO believes AI will bring more jobs to the finance department— and to business as a whole

Former tech CEO believes AI will bring more jobs to the finance department

For starters. Can you just please tell us a little about yourself and your uh relation with this topic? Because you've been on it for a long time. Yeah. Uh So let's see, I'm a physicist originally. Um my claims to fame that are relevant to this esteemed CFO group are uh I run two public companies before I was 30 years old. I've helped run 12 public companies. I've probably signed, oh, definitely a triple digit number of quarterly accounts as probably many of you have and evolving r landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. Um But I've, but I've played a, a pioneering role in uh industries as diverse as quantum computing, uh satellite data, consumer, internet gaming, et cetera. And, and every one of these has of course, been plugging away at what we used to call machine learning. But in the last 18 months, we realized there's a lot of enterprise value uh sizzle anyway to come from relabeling that, you know, A I, right. Um And so I, you know, I think it's safe to say that, you know, throughout the evening I look forward to meeting more of you. I, I'm of the sort of brass tack school of, you know, how, how can we actually take advantage of these things for people who actually run businesses in diverse sectors? Um, and, you know, let's talk about specific examples as opposed to, you know, my, the firm that I chair uh in Osti Fusion Group does all the market studies and I can give you big numbers about various fields. But I always find when you're running a company that that's sort of important but not as important as what I'm gonna actually do, you know, this year to beat my plan. OK. So what's the status of the tech right now? It's advancing incredibly fast? Um How can CFO S who may not have a background in technology? Understand, make it, let's say, render an opinion on whether a particular use of gen A I is gonna be good or not. Yeah. And I would broaden that question to be, you know, machine learning techniques generally, right? Like gen A I is, is a great, you know, thing to play around with, but not everything will not be solved through a, through a chat bot that occasionally, you know, hallucinates, right? Um You know, your, your, your job, look, the CFO role has had a, you know, a relentless march and increase in power, responsibility influence, you know, general importance for the last few decades. And I actually think that you've watched moments like, uh you know, Excel being rolled out and ATM S happening, you know, impact bits of the of the finance function for decades. And so, you know the predictions I will, I will give this room are it's going to be a net job creator for this function. It's going to increase the power of this function. It's going to increase the importance and the criticality of, of everyone who's in the in the profession being kind of the systems integrator of all things, data, the supply chain to of course compliance, right? Uh And I think that, you know, one of the, one of the questions and challenges that we all have to navigate is, you know, how do you find trusted people to work to each one of these things? And how do you integrate these things because you will be the Fulcrum if you're not already of galloping opportunities. Um But, you know, wisdom and judgment, I think will rule the day. And I also think uh this is near, near to my heart from, from companies, I've, I've helped run uh avoiding, you know, the traps, pitfalls, own goals. And frankly, you know, succumbing to the, the threats that everyone who runs a firm of size uh or senators these days encounters is kind of first and foremost, right? Like first don't go backwards uh and take the Hippocratic Oath about, you know, making sure that we do no harm. Uh Did I understand you properly to say that you think generative A I will increase employment in the finance function. Yeah, I think it will, I think it will increase employment in general, by the way. I mean, and, and I've been on the, I think, correct side of history in this one for the last decade. Um, II, I can remember sitting at Stanford last decade, uh, with a bunch of professors really demoralized about, uh, how a million truckers would be out of work, you know, within two or three years, 2015 or something. And I said, like, look, I doubt it. And here's why, right? Like one, you know, 10,000 years of recorded history. Ok. So we've been pretty good as a species at removing things and supplanting them with 10 times more of something that's more interesting for the people working inside to do two people forget that, you know, a I will grow the economy, which means you'll have more consumers and more services. And by the way, truckers, you know, paid more better benefits than ever today, it's a scarce, you know, Amazon, like scarce, you know, supply of labor, right? So, yeah, so, so I, I do think that you guys, you know, CFO S at the center of, you know, data, information, integrity and everything from how we hire to who we hire to, how we think about asset lifetime supply chains. Of course, you know, Starbucks and of course, you know, forecasting all of this will be, is being touched by machine learning A I, etcetera. But your, your roles will, you know, will be about how you integrate harvest and ensure integrity of the system. Because people's reliance on this will only increase. And at the end of the day, you know, the integrity of what you construct and what you insource and outsource will be kind of the mark I think of, you know, the best CFO S and the even better CFO S. Uh yeah, the integrity part is crucial as, you know, as everyone here knows, especially in the finance function along with uh reliability, uh obviously, security accuracy and so forth. And then you read the story about the unnamed multinational corporation where a guy in the finance function is invited to a Zoom call and is told by the CFO to deposit $25 million in five accounts that he'd never heard of before. And of course, he was the only real human. The guy was, uh on the, everybody else was a deep fake. Um, and he said afterward after it became clear what really happened, he said, well, I was kind of suspicious but all the guys on the call looked and sounded exactly like the guys. I know. So I did it. I, is this a potential threat to CFO H hun 100% structure of companies? Right. And for look, II, I, I'm, I'm on a four or five public boards and I've been on 12 in, in my life. And I think I've been on a lot of audit committees. At least half of them are more. Um, you know, how, how many of you, your firm have, you know, has significant fishing issues, have had data taken hostage. I've had both, you know, eight years ago, my firm was running Blue Mobile. I think, you know, we've, we've had data hostage, we've paid ransom, you know, with, with the, uh, with the higher integrity cyber criminals that release the data after you pay them. And you can, you can, you can, and you can figure out some of the higher integrity criminal organizations at time if you work with the FBI. Um, but we had a, we had a terrible, I had a terrible fishing uh disaster in the era. You remember when Seagate's CFO resigned over sort of the, the wire to Belize or whatever it was and there was a raft of these email threads going, starting with sort of the VP of finance, you know, to the SVP, to the treasurer, to the CFO and like some or rather back down, I guess. And someone sent the wire, you know, I woke up, uh, in May 2016, my wife's birthday. That's why I remember this in, in, in, in Napa, California and I have this email from the head of payroll, right? And he goes, you know, and there was a thread and he goes like Nicola, you sent this to me, right? And I read and I look down, you know, seven o'clock in the morning on Saturday and I go, oh God, like this is going to be such a bad weekend, week, month quarter. But you know what happened was uh someone sent, you know, bad actors sent emails into my organization and the head of payroll got one that said from me. Um uh I'm just doing some research for the com committee. Please. Uh upload uh all of the W twos for our US employees to this dropbox folder. So, I mean, what happened obviously was, you know, we had 1000 people on Lifelock for, you know, the next whatever it is 567 years, I think I've just gotten off of it and you're doing those special tax returns where you have the code to prove that it's actually you and, you know, and of course you have all of the board and, you know, and people get fired over this and, you know, all that stuff. Um But, you know, I, I actually think one of the lessons I can contribute to this room as pertains to A I is, you know, the tight interlinking with cyber security phishing and this function, right? This function tends to control, you know, people who are in charge of not just wires but also information, right? And what I remember, you know, being so frustrated by, with my own company and companies in general are, you know, usually we bring in all cyber secure, like bring in the consultants. We're gonna, we're gonna do fishing training for the whole organization. And you get this report, how many, you get the report? Like five people opened the thing this morning. Everyone, like the percentage is down. We're at 4.8 we're making progress and what everyone forgets and I will sort of start and finish. Maybe my comments on, you know, the importance. You see if a judgment and, and, and power is, it doesn't matter if the Q A department, right, get fishing training or not. There's nothing they can do in my episode of Glu Mobile. What amazed me about what happened was Niccolo couldn't have done this, Niccolo himself as the chairman CEO, I wouldn't know where in God's name to go to find thousands of W twos to upload. Even if I wanted, I'd be like, you know, I'd be scrambling to ask five of the people to do. And so, you know, dawned on me that the one of the grand errors in everything from A I to cybersecurity to most companies governance and, and the way that we train people is we just peanut butter, right? We, we sort of go like, oh, we've trained 10,000 people. The phishing report opening email thing is lower. That doesn't matter what matters is the 5 to 10 people in your function having 100 to 1000 times more training than everybody else. One because they can actually upload the W twos or send the wire and, and two. I hate, I hate to break it to all of us, like in a world where that time it was zoom. We're going back to the Cold War with the two guys with the punch cards that have to stick them in at the same time and can't do it themselves. Like that's, that's where this is going pretty quickly. To be honest. Uh We only have time for one more before we sit down and involve everyone in the uh discussion. But um this uh I mean, generative A I is advancing so fast. People are going to wonder, should I just jump into it now? So we get some uh experience or should we try to wait until it's a little better than it is now and we can do more with it? Well, look, it's, it's commoditizing, right? And I, I made this prediction, you know, a year and a half ago and I was like, look, there's three or four companies that can afford incredible investments. It's also getting cheaper to train your own LLM I mean, exponentially cheaper, right? So you're gonna have the choice this decade on, do I wanna work with this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy who I'm gonna, is gonna charge me a cent to query or whatever or do I wanna train my own for the amount of money that some of your firms, most of your firms can probably afford. Um, I, I actually think, and, you know, either heard it here first and we'll see if it's genius or insanity, as they say, based on the outcome of results, I think this will be integrated the same way that, you know, Excel has been in, in this function, a vast productivity improver but not a panacea. And my prediction, you know, is that by the end of this year, people will, you know, you, you'll just be including this in part of your sort of vending conversations in a lot of ways. Um And we'll turn and we'll turn attention back to what optimization problems can we actually solve? What can we do with this data that we couldn't before? Right. Uh We gotta stop, right. So we're gonna sit down and then we'll keep talking, but this is a lot of real world information that's been very helpful. Nicolo. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thanks. Thanks to our host.

Point B

Videos