Power is egregiously concentrated in the hands of a few, and that’s never going to change.

Time is favoring the wicked. It’s the way of the world.

It took years and years (we started here 10 years ago) for a reclusive corner of the academic world to come to the conclusion I came to 10 years ago: that accounting and earnings fraud is pervasive in America and goes, for the most part, undetected.

From NYT”

Dyck is a professor of finance at the University of Toronto, who just published a provocative new study on the pervasiveness of corporate fraud. The study has been passed around in the world of academia in recent weeks, and has become a fascination among general counsels, corporate leaders and investors.

It suggests that only about a third of frauds in public companies actually come to light, and that fraud is disturbingly common. Dyck and his co-authors estimate that about 40 percent of companies are committing accounting violations and that 10 percent are committing what is considered securities fraud, destroying 1.6 percent of equity value each year — about $830 billion in 2021.

“What people don’t get is how widespread the problem of corporate fraud is,” Dyck said about his study, which was published in the Review of Accounting Studies this month.

Dealbook, January 14th, 2023

A professor from the University of Ontario did this study this month…It’s not about Sam Bankman-Fried…It’s about the hundreds of them out there no-one knows about…

I will acknowledge, however, that the golden age of blogs and journals is behind us. That’s one of the reasons I incudes a video in most posts, whether directed related to the writing or not. Blogging is a losing business monetary wise, and those of us still writing are just happy to share our thoughts and discoveries with the world.

When you have some spare time, I invite you to listen to this talk

“If you are going to be an expert archer,

You must shoot before you think.

Otherwise I’ll be too late.”

Alan Watts

Meanwhile, in investment banking… Steve McLaughlin of Financial Technology Partners LP is “comfortably the highest paid investment banker in America [WSJ, Dec. 5th, 2021]

In this book you learn language patterns and covert hypnosis.

Quick rules for field operators

“Drive emotion using fear, regret, sex, fulfillment and social acceptance.”

Always mimic breathing speed first.

Accidental body contact causes immediate, short-lived insecurity in just about everyone.”

The Ellipsis Manual

Deprogram society’s thoughts

“There’s a part of everyone, I guess, that just knows how to let go and enjoy.”

the ellipsis manual

Environmental shifts

“Changing your tie in the bathroom. Correcting a person you’ve just met on your name. Shifting which hand you eat with midway though a meal…Changing types of pens or notebooks in a meeting.

the ellipsis manual

Join hundreds of military veteran entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are building the future at the Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context Ventures on Fri. Feb 4th, 2022  in San Francisco, CA 

The book is written with the operative and subject instructions and has rich scenarios with Ericksonian hypnosis flavors and not coincidentally, is the Number 1 bestseller book on Amazon in the Hypnotherapy category in 2021.

In returning to the post-pandemic work schedule it seems that most top white collar professionals, the main audience of this blog are set for the hybrid, at-the-office and out-of-the-home, work schedule model. Of course, dentists and doctors aren’t able to do that. (although telemedicine is growing). But lawyers and other service workers are digressing.

This weekend WSJ’ article “”Lawyers Want to Bill More of their Hours From the Sofa” (Te Ching Chen) tell how lawyers are looking to cut down their office work hours.

“Ms. Koopersmisth [chairperson of Akin, Gump Staruss Haeur & Feld LLP] Akin Gump doesn’t expect laweyrs to go back to a traditional five-day office workweek. Instead it is offering flexibility on work location, and is asking its lawyers to spend the majority of time in the office starting next fall.

“We learned efficiency” says David Boies, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexer LLP, whose firm plans to require lawyers put in time at the office, but won’t mandate specific attendance requirements. And our clients have too.”

Now a major partner at legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, Ms. Fivel is brokering signing bonuses of up to $100,000 for associates who have the leverage to demand further perks, including the ability to work from the beach or the backyard. “This is a different word.”

WSJ, Aug 6, 2021

It is not just tech firms who have embraced the remote work model, but the legal profession also. Remote work is here to stay.

Details (free link registration)

On Linkedin Jesse Hempel posted a list of 50 Best Startups to work for in 2020.

See you at the webinar !

Global Procurement and Sourcing Specialization through Coursera from Rutgers University, N.Y.

From the Curriculum: “Strategic Sourcing, then move on to the very important topic of Supplier Management. In Supplier Management, you will learn how to select and evaluate suppliers, implement appropriate contracts, and how to mitigate risks. In Supply Market Analysis, you will learn and understand various tools and techniques to evaluate supply markets. Lastly, the course will cover the very important topic of negotiation. Outside reading will be provided to reinforce your knowledge. In addition, case studies will be used to bring these learning to life, and assessment will be used to test your overall knowledge.”

Security in Google Cloud Platform Specialization from Google Cloud Training

“Launch your career in Cloud Security. This self-paced Specialization gives a broad study of security controls, best practices, and techniques on Google Cloud. Through recorded lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on labs, participants explore and deploy the components of a secure Google Cloud solution, including Cloud Identity, the GCP Resource Manager, Cloud IAM, Google Virtual Private Cloud firewalls, Google Cloud Load balancing, Cloud CDN, Cloud Storage access control technologies, Security Command Center, Stackdriver, Security Keys, Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys, the Google Data Loss Prevention API, and Cloud Armor. Participants learn mitigations for attacks at many points in a Google Cloud-based infrastructure, including Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks, phishing attacks, and threats involving content classification and use.”

Introduction to Cloud Computing offered by IBM

4 months to complete, 2 hours per week effort

Skills developed: Hybrid MulticludCloud NativeDevops, Iaas,PaaS, Saas Cloud Computing

Python for Everybody Specialization by University of Michigan

Aprox. 8 months to complete, 2 hrs./week

Course description: “This Specialization builds on the success of the Python for Everybody course and will introduce fundamental programming concepts including data structures, networked application program interfaces, and databases, using the Python programming language. In the Capstone Project, you’ll use the technologies learned throughout the Specialization to design and create your own applications for data retrieval, processing, and visualization.”

All this courses started May 31, 2020.

Good luck,

Max Cantor

So let’s get started the year:

Dark Matter of the Mind

with Daniel Everett, anthropologist, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University. Link here

From the description of this course:

• Why the ‘dark matter of the mind’ shapes our ideas and attitudes.
• How epigenetics undermines the idea of genetic determinism.
• The flaws in the thinking behind universal archetypes, language and myths.
• Why neural flexibility is the key for our species’ success.
• The evolutionary importance of our relationships with animals
• How language functions as a cultural tool.
• What it means to have a sense of self.
• How we should imagine the mind as part of the body…

Introduction to Big Data (from Microsoft)

Starts today ! January 9th, 2019 !

Instructor: Graeme Malcolm,Senior Content Developer, Microsoft Learning Experiences

Link

Introduction to Machine Learning

Started Jan. 6th, over 8 Million enrolled.

This course is offered by Stanford. Approx. 56 hours to complete.

From course description: you”ll learn Logistic Regression, Artificial Neural NetworkMachine Learning (ML) Algorithms, Machine Learning.

Link (it’s on Coursera)

Intro to Python: Fundamentals

Starts Jan. 9th. Link

What you’ll learn

• Python 3 fundamentals
• Strings and List manipulation
• Methods to Iterate through strings, lists and ranges
• Creating, reading and writing to files

Introduction to Python: Absolute Beginner

Started today, Jan 9th, also. Effort: same as previous course (3-4 hours weekly).

From the course description:

What you’ll learn: (from this course description)

• Using Python in Jupiter Notebooks
• Gathering input and manipulating input/output
• Building reusable Functions with parameters and return values
• Decisions and repetition using conditional statements and loops

We thank reader Conrad for these tips.

And a fun video from me:

Steve’s email appropriately says:

“Max has done more to opening my eyes than any of the crummy, big name operators. In the men’s Internet space, there is only one Max Cantor.”

Steve

Thank you, Steve. In a world full of crummy wannabes and Twitter jockey scum, I run this blog going on 7 years straight providing useful information to better the lives of thousands.

Yale University is offering a free course online — The Science of Well-Being — that teaches you “how to be happier”.

Hurry this course starts today, Oct. 9th and from what I can read 428 thousand people already have enrolled. Business Insider wrote a article on this course last Spring (Mara Leighton, April 4th, 2019). FYI, if you wondered what about Harvard…the world’s most elite institution, guess what: the most popular course in its history is also a course on happiness. It is called “Positive Psychology.” (this one it is not available online or for free to the public).

If you don’t know how to swim…or just need help with it, the Swimator Blog has the basics.

Tai Chi – it seems that Tai Chi is not just for old people, and it is an actual martial art (I had no idea that it was)

My note: Should I teach a course ? Should I do an online course, I was asked recently. My answer:, maybe. Don’t expect it to be free, however. And don’t expect it to be a course on happiness, either. When you’re competing at the level you and I are competing, this course is going to be something else. Something that has never been done.

Now let’s not leave Stanford Uni jealous on Yale for its mention.