Startup One Stop

As the year draws to a close, always good to look back and see where one is, and what one can do differently, and we recently came across an article that led us to believe that it may be time to disrupt the pitch deck. This is an industry that’s all about disruption, after all, and who better to give a lesson in that sort of disruption than Elon Musk?   You know the basic drill, although the order may vary:

• Problem
• Momentum, Traction, Expertise: Your key numbers
• Market Opportunity: Define market size & your customer base
• Current Solutions: What need do you fill? Other solutions
• Product or Service: Your solution
• Business Model: Key Revenue Streams
• Market Approach & Strategy: How you grow your business
• Team & Key Stakeholders (Investors, Advisors)
• Financials
• Competition

We were gutted by the news from Paris on Friday evening, when over a hundred people were slaughtered, and hundreds injured, including a hundred critically wounded, in a coordinated terrorist attack. All, in the shadows of a suicide bomber in Beirut who killed 43 and the explosion of a Russian commercial airline that killed 224 people.

While the world stopped to react – to mourn, sympathize, reflect, and express its outrage and heartbreak over the attacks, the world did not stop. People tweeted their condolences. French flags appeared across Facebook profiles – again - in sympathy and solidarity. And tech and other news was reported, even as the social media pipelines exploded.

Bill Gates decided that representative democracy is a problem – in the name of climate change - and announced his plan to spend $2 billion of his own wealth on green energy, calling on fellow billionaires to help make the US fossil-free by 2050 with similar philanthropy,   According to Gates, “the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to produce effective energy alternatives to fossil fuels…If you’re not bringing math skills to the problem,” he said with a sort of amused asperity, “then representative democracy is a problem.”’

We take no sides in the climate debate, but since Gates brought it up, let’s do the math. Bill Gates is a Harvard dropout and one of the world’s most successful - and wealthiest businessmen, and he may be right that capitalism cannot save us from climate change - certainly not with people like Bill Gates calling the shots. Here's a look at the Gates Foundation's record: Report: Gates Foundation Causing Harm with the Same Money It Uses to Do Good. “the Gates Foundation’s humanitarian concerns are not reflected in how it invests its money. In the Niger Delta, where the foundation funds programs to fight polio and measles, the foundation has also invested more than $400 million in companies like Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron… which have been responsible for much of the pollution many blame for respiratory problems and other afflictions among the local population.