Civoren, Built for American Democracy

By Evan Draga and Shawn Boehmer

Last year, two Cornell seniors started Civoren, a startup that aims to democratize U.S. elections. The founders, Adam Rose and Sam Alston, recently left their jobs in finance to pursue the vision full-time. In an interview with Shawn Boehmer of The Harvard Crimson, Adam described a vision that goes far beyond campaign websites or easier election browsing. He wants to build the central platform for American elections: the place voters go to understand who is running and engage with campaigns, and the place candidates go to be discovered, define themselves, and run their campaigns.

Beyond the Stage: How Blank Hospitality’s Founders are Infusing Events & Marketing with Data-Driven Strategy

By Aaron D. Friedman and Adam G. Rose

Backstage at Manhattan’s Marquee venue, Michael Natenzon, Damian Cacciato, and Michael Goldman finalize their set minutes before Blank Hospitality’s debut performance. This moment was once a distant vision for Natenzon, Cacciato, and Goldman, founders of a hospitality firm that has since expanded from the stages of New York to an international platform, hosting, organizing, and performing at events in Miami, Canada, Israel, Portugal, and the French Alps.

Global M&A Activity Reached a Record $1.3 Trillion in Quarter 1 as Dealmakers Adjust to a Post-Covid World

By Natalie Hughes

It’s without doubt that the global economy continues to reel from the effects of stay-at-home and pandemic restrictions around the world. In the U.S. alone, countless retail giants have been forced into bankruptcy, commercial real estate has been permanently impaired, and the Federal Funds Rate has plummeted. Unfortunately, those misfortunates are transpiring on an international scope as well. However, recent reports of budding Merger & Acquisition activity demonstrate some promise for potential revitalization. While certain sectors and fiscal statistics like the ones mentioned may take more time to recuperate, there remains hope for global M&A. Activity hit a record $1.3 trillion this past quarter and has shown the strongest start to the year in three decades. Not only is this figure the largest of any Q1 ever, but it’s also the second-largest of any quarter in world history. Additionally, the value of impending and completed deals jumped 93% from Q1 of 2020 while the total number of deals increased 9%.

Loyalty Programs are Assets, not Gimmicks

By Alexandre Taylor

On the surface, modern loyalty programs, which are now ubiquitous in consumer markets, have changed little since their appearance in American cereal boxes a century ago. Initial loyalty programs sought to retain customers by offering incentives, whether financial or physical, alongside a purchase. This spending-fueled strategy for customer loyalty management continued well into the 2000s. But firms were approaching a roadblock, one which they may have been ignoring for a long time. Customer loyalty programs weren’t all that profitable. The reason was obvious – everyone was doing it.

What changing consumer behaviors tell us about the future of fashion

by Emily Xiao

You’ve witnessed it firsthand--COVID-19, quarantine boredom, and mass digitization. Over the past year, people have stayed home with little to do, and companies have rapidly adapted their sales strategies in response. This means, of course, an increase in online shopping, much to the detriment of brick and mortar retail. And what’s more is that tech-savvy young consumers seem to dictate emerging shopping trends. Gen Z and millennials’ current fixation? Sustainability.

How the Covid-19 Pandemic and the IPO Boom Have Impacted Young Analysts

By Strauss Cooperstein

Employment opportunities at investment banks remain highly sought-after. But do six-figure salaries make the progressive wear on young analysts’ minds and bodies worth it? Several recent outcomes as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and skyrocketing markets suggest they are not. Conversations regarding mental health in the workplace became increasingly contentious when a slide deck from 13 anonymous first-year Goldman Sachs employees circulated, each describing how 100-hour weeks had the ability to put them “in a really dark place” or feel “like a disposable-number cruncher” and a “punching bag.”

Deliveroo’s U.K. IPO to Benefit CEO, Top Shareholders

By Natalie Hughes

With the abundance of home lockdowns and quarantines throughout the past year, revenues of at-home delivery services have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. This information bodes very well for companies like Deliveroo, a U.K.-based, Amazon-backed food delivery service. As a result of the firm’s recent success, the Deliveroo executive team has made the decision to go public in hopes of raising capital and expanding its business. The company is projected to raise a whopping £1 billion (the equivalent of $1.38 billion) in said Initial Public Offering next month when it begins to trade on the London Stock Market. However, as vaccines continue to roll out and more citizens begin to brave outdoor and indoor dining experiences, it’s unclear how sustainable the growth of delivery services will be.

The Tesla Enigma: To Short or Not to Short

By Raghav Madhukar

Elon Musk recently made headlines for surpassing Bill Gates’ net worth, securing the Tesla CEO’s spot as the second wealthiest person in the world. The latter’s fortune (currently valued at a whopping $ 128 Bn) rose in response to Tesla’s unwavering stock rally, which is set to finish the calendar year on a high.

Salesforce’s Slack Acquisition Positions the Firm as a Competitor to Big Tech

By Natalie Hughes

If you’ve been involved in an organization, whether in an academic, professional, or social setting, then you’re probably familiar with business communication platforms. Salesforce and Slack are two industry giants whose software is installed within the networks of organizations across the United States. Salesforce, an American cloud-based software company, provides customer relationship management services. Slack, another business communication program that has altered the way businesses operate internally, is primarily a channel-based messaging platform. As COVID-19 continues to alter the way workplaces are functioning, demand for tools which enable remote work has risen greatly. Needless to say, systems like Slack and Salesforce have evolved into corporate necessities and are shaping the state of business in the United States.

A Massive Asia-Pacific Trade Deal Cements China’s Soft Power in the Region

By Strauss Cooperstein

In order to pull the “economic center of gravity back towards Asia” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most powerful free trade agreements in Asia Pacific history was drafted on November 15th at a virtual summit in Vietnam. Led by China, South Korea, and Japan, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) joins together Australia, New Zealand, and the 10 original members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The RCEP calls for the abolishment of tariffs on imports between signatories, less red-tape, and establishes rules for e-commerce, trade, and intellectual property.

General Motors Aims to Release Competitive Car Insurance Priced on the Basis of Drivers’ Personal Data

By Natalie Hughes

Purchasing a new vehicle is an extremely exciting milestone, but if you’ve ever done so, you know it comes with a cost. Car insurance is a messy topic and the biannual or yearly payments that go along with it are no better than a thorn in the side. Perhaps this widely shared inconvenience is why General Motors has decided to begin selling car insurance for its drivers at a very competitive cost. In fact, the automaker will be unveiling its new insurance division under the existing On-Star connectivity brand in such a unique way that it may alter the industry altogether. The business will be launched based on the idea that its vehicles can track drivers’ behavioral data and set insurance rates accordingly. It is without doubt that customers will be paying a premium to reap the benefits of individualized and effortless car insurance rates, giving GM a competitive advantage like no other.

Reevaluating the “Perfect Fit” in the Corporate World

By Ash Arumugam

Cornell University fosters an environment that is characterized by coffee chats, interview preparation, and professional services and activities. Universities across the country breed students that study business, accounting, economics, and mathematics with the eventual goal of being able to accept full-time offers to prestigious consulting firms, banks, and law firms. Beyond just excelling in academics, these motivated young adults have to perfect the art of interviewing. Recruits must successfully “wow” interviewers through multiple rounds in order to have a chance of making six-figure salaries at the age of 23. Not only do these interviews have behavioral and technical questions, but firms look for someone who is able to “mesh” with the culture of the firm. This process of cultural matching between recruits, employers and companies is meant to pair with the existing social nature of the company and the people who work there but instead works to exacerbate the gatekeeping of prestigious occupations to only a certain demographic of people.

New Spotify Service to Boost Popularity of Songs

By Derek Kartalian

This past week, Spotify announced the introduction of a new tool for artists to promote their music. This new feature utilizes the very system that has made Spotify the premier music streaming service: its proprietary recommendation algorithm. Spotify claims that its algorithm— that suggests new music selections based on the user’s listening patterns—creates 16 billion new artist discoveries each month. A staggering amount of music is discovered and listened to as a result of Spotify’s complex algorithm that accounts for thousands of factors when picking music for you. This new unnamed feature works by giving artists the option to boost their song’s priority in the recommendation algorithm with the intention of reaching a larger audience. However, since the Spotify algorithm is quite adaptable, Spotify claims that it will only continue to recommend the song to people if they think people would actually like to listen - it will not be forced upon anyone like when Apple forcefully downloaded the new U2 album in everyone’s Apple Music library in 2014.

The Folly of Parsimony

By Nick Weising

The U.S. budget deficit eclipsed $3.1 trillion last fiscal year. For the first time since WWII, debt is set to exceed gross domestic product (GDP). Almost all of the recent debt incurred is being utilized as COVID-19 relief, appropriated during the spring and summer of 2020. Deficit hawks within the Republican Senate stalled negotiations regarding more aid for fear of running up the national debt; concerns that appear misguided. Objectively, there is no ‘magic number’ to denote the maximum amount of debt the United States may take on. Rather, a more reliable metric is debt relative to the size of the economy, or debt as percent of GDP. Historically, low interest rates ensure that the federal government pays low interest relative to GDP and also indicate that growing debt does not negatively impact the economy.

Pandemic "Profiteers": The Ultra-Rich Get Richer

By Rhea Bhammer

The aphorism, ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,’ has never rung truer than in the times of the coronavirus pandemic. While close to 40 million Americans filed for unemployment, the collective wealth of America’s 600-plus billionaire club surpassed a whopping $700 billion during the crisis, according to the Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies. Amid the global pandemic, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, saw his fortune grow by an estimated $48 billion between March to June 2020. As of August, Bezos officially became the first person in the world worth over $200 billion. The question remains, with the stock market plummeting by 37% in March, how did America’s 1% continue getting richer? The answer to this lies in the parallel between the 2007-2008 stock market crash and the economic disorder in the first few months of 2020. While most Americans experienced severe financial losses, a significant proportion of billionaires saw their fortunes flourish. Following the housing market collapse, the median income of the bottom 99% increased by only 0.4%, while the income of America’s top 1% increased astronomically by 31.4%.

Why Patagonia Sells: New Directions for Outdoor Apparel

By Anya Gert

According to NPD, Patagonia currently holds the number one spot in the $12 billion outdoor apparel industry, followed closely by the North Face. With each company holding less than 10% of the fragmented market, the two brands compete for the top spot, catering to the same consumer base, selling the same types of products.

Mall Owners File for Bankruptcy after Months of Defaulted Rent Payments

By Natalie Hughes

After months of suffering brick and mortar sales, retailers have taken a massive blow in terms of revenue despite the growing popularity of online shopping. Just like apartment dwellers and their landlords in New York City during this trying time, when retailers begin to suffer, so do the owners of their store spaces. As of this past weekend, two owners of a combined 130 malls and 87 million square feet of real estate across the United States have followed their tenants into financial distress, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust and CBL & Associates Properties Inc. are now seeking protection from creditors as a result of pandemic induced pressure on their tenants, and in turn, on themselves. However, the real estate giants will continue to operate as they maneuver the process of restructuring.

California’s Prop 22 Victory Demonstrates the Impact of Technology on Political Agendas

By Strauss Cooperstein

California’s ballot measure that secures gig workers’ status as independent contractors swiftly passed on Wednesday due to a massive “Yes on 22” campaign backed by tech platforms. California Proposition 22 (Prop 22) passed with approximately 58% of voters supporting an adoption of labor and wage policies specific to app-based rideshare and delivery companies. Compared to the $20 million investment in labor group funding for the "No" campaign, the "Yes" platform received over $200 million primarily from Uber, DoorDash, Lyft, and Instacart, used to create billboards, prints, radio ads, and even fund academic research. In the past, companies have spent comparable amounts to influence ballot fights to little avail. This time, Prop 22’s victory could be attributed to the sophisticated nature of engaging consumers through digital advertising and app notifications.

Should China Be Considered a Geopolitical Competitor or Enemy – The Coming US Election Will Decide

By Strauss Cooperstein

There is no question that China’s one-party state has tightened its control in parallel to its emerging economic and technological strength. The West allowed Xi Jinping to advance a strong nationalist campaign of “internet sovereignty” and information control across a number of areas, including the coronavirus and human rights. Additionally, the psychological and cultural pressure of the Chinese government is especially impactful on foreign companies based in China or domestic firms whose mandated technological innovation may lead to unethical data management practices. As America decides on our next president, we need to consider how each candidate will deal with increasingly sour US-China geopolitical relations that have created challenging conditions for collaboration in tech, trade, and media.

Bed Bath & Beyond Develops Strategy to Win Back Customers and Increase Working Capital

By Natalie Hughes

Like many other retailers today, Bed Bath and Beyond is initiating crucial changes to the company’s supply chain and operations in hopes of jumpstarting revenues after months of losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the demand for plush bedding and fine cookware will likely never fall, many of the company’s sales have historically taken place within the walls of stores. The retailer has been struggling with decreasing sales in years past, so when the pandemic hit time ahead was not looking optimistic. In March, the corporation decided to temporarily close 90% of its stores. Although most of which have been reopened and digital sales have increased by 89%, revenue has still fallen drastically. Bed Bath & Beyond reported second quarter earnings of $2.69 billion compared to $2.72 billion this time last year. In an attempt to win back its once loyal customers and regenerate the industry influence it held, Bed Bath & Beyond has developed a set of key strategies that should improve its supply chain and promotional activities.