How Older Entrepreneurs Can Turn Age to Their Advantage

The youthful, vibrant faces of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are representative of widely known entrepreneurial icons. But few people would conjure the more etched faces of Sam Walton (who founded Walmart at age 44) or Charles Flint (who founded IBM at 61) when asked to name a successful entrepreneur. Why entrepreneurship is so often correlated with youth rather than corporate experience isn’t clear, particularly considering that age is becoming a huge contributing factor to entrepreneurial success.

Source: How Older Entrepreneurs Can Turn Age to Their Advantage

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A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

It’s happening in an increasingly frequent manner: “Jamie, explain this blockchain stuff to me. I’ve read a bunch of articles and I’m no wiser.” The problem with most blockchain explainers is that they provide more detail than what matters to most people, using language that is foreign to most people, which winds up leaving people more confused than when they started. Instead, without worrying about being a technically perfect description, here’s an explanation of blockchain your parents could understand…

Source: A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

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A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

It’s happening in an increasingly frequent manner: “Jamie, explain this blockchain stuff to me. I’ve read a bunch of articles and I’m no wiser.” The problem with most blockchain explainers is that they provide more detail than what matters to most people, using language that is foreign to most people, which winds up leaving people more confused than when they started. Instead, without worrying about being a technically perfect description, here’s an explanation of blockchain your parents could understand…

Source: A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

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Big law is having its Uber moment – Macleans.ca

AI-powered tools are potentially more accurate. Whether they realize it or not, even the sharpest lawyers inevitably bring their own biases to legal research. That, in turn, skews their ability to realistically gauge their chances before judges, who harbour their own preconceived notions of how law should be applied. Tax Foresight, by contrast, isn’t concerned with how a judge should rule, but rather what’s the most likely outcome based on past experience. It’s essentially Moneyball for tax lawyers.

Source: Big law is having its Uber moment – Macleans.ca

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Big law is having its Uber moment – Macleans.ca

AI-powered tools are potentially more accurate. Whether they realize it or not, even the sharpest lawyers inevitably bring their own biases to legal research. That, in turn, skews their ability to realistically gauge their chances before judges, who harbour their own preconceived notions of how law should be applied. Tax Foresight, by contrast, isn’t concerned with how a judge should rule, but rather what’s the most likely outcome based on past experience. It’s essentially Moneyball for tax lawyers.

Source: Big law is having its Uber moment – Macleans.ca

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Power renaissance: Desmarais empire cozies up to tech startup enemies |

Montreal’s billionaire Desmarais family has come up with a novel approach to fend off the technology startups that threaten its financial services empire: Bring the enemies in and invite them to attack.

That alone is no guarantee of a successful transformation, according to Robert Smythe, a Toronto-based analyst with tech research firm International Data Corp. Canada. The real challenge is to figure out how to use technologies like artificial intelligence and biometrics to seamlessly offer the services people expect from companies like Great-West and IGM. On that front, Power may not be ahead of other major financial institutions, he said.“While investing in fintech companies gives you some exposure to the fintech world and might be financially lucrative — if one of them hits a home run — it does not grow internal fintech expertise,” Smythe said in an email.

Source: Power renaissance: Desmarais empire cozies up to tech startup enemies |

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Power renaissance: Desmarais empire cozies up to tech startup enemies |

Montreal’s billionaire Desmarais family has come up with a novel approach to fend off the technology startups that threaten its financial services empire: Bring the enemies in and invite them to attack.

That alone is no guarantee of a successful transformation, according to Robert Smythe, a Toronto-based analyst with tech research firm International Data Corp. Canada. The real challenge is to figure out how to use technologies like artificial intelligence and biometrics to seamlessly offer the services people expect from companies like Great-West and IGM. On that front, Power may not be ahead of other major financial institutions, he said.“While investing in fintech companies gives you some exposure to the fintech world and might be financially lucrative — if one of them hits a home run — it does not grow internal fintech expertise,” Smythe said in an email.

Source: Power renaissance: Desmarais empire cozies up to tech startup enemies |

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What Are Smart Contracts? A Beginner’s Guide to Smart Contracts

Example: Suppose you rent an apartment from me. You can do this through the blockchain by paying in cryptocurrency. You get a receipt which is held in our virtual contract; I give you the digital entry key which comes to you by a specified date. If the key doesn’t come on time, the blockchain releases a refund. If I send the key before the rental date, the function holds it releasing both the fee and key to you and me respectively when the date arrives. The system works on the If-Then premise and is witness

Actually, when it comes to smart contracts, we’re stepping into a sci-fi screen. The IT resource center, Search Compliance suggests that smart contracts may impact changes in certain industries, such as law. In that case, lawyers will transfer from writing traditional contracts to producing standardized smart contract templates, similar to the standardized traditional contracts that you’ll find on LegalZoom. Other industries such as merchant acquirers, credit companies, and accountants may also employ smart contracts for tasks, such as real time auditing and risk assessments. Actually, the website Blockchain Technologies sees smart contracts merging into a hybrid of paper and digital content where contracts are verified via blockchain and substantiated by physical copy.

Source: What Are Smart Contracts? A Beginner’s Guide to Smart Contracts

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