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For others reading here and in case curious, the hedge fund I was working at wasn't interested in paying for access to tracking of activist short campaign data for the short trade ideas themselves. There is little interest in copying or jumping onto another's trade like that. The real interest the hedge fund wants to get alerts and track these campaigns was to keep an eye on what other hedge funds are doing - it was more about competitor and industry colleague research than securities research.
I wanted to share something tangential that has worked for me as I also speak to students regularly and get the exact same question every time. My response includes the standard "Is there a problem you are passionate about?". But I've also observed how many students don't see problems as "problems" when asked to brainstorm about it and many would-be entrepreneurs end up left out of the process and discussion. I'm not sure all the reasons why but maybe a pain point isn't significant enough for them to label it a "problem" in their head when asked ("oh that's just an inconvenience not a real problem"). Or maybe their personality leans toward accepting status quo without realizing it can be changed and they can be the ones to change it. Or maybe they are too shy or introverted at first to describe and complain of a problem out loud.
So I've modified my response to students a bit to include: I have seen startup ideas come from 1. An idea for a solution to a problem and 2. An idea for something "that would be awesome" if someone created it but no one has yet or at least not done a good job of it. Here's what I mean by "that would be awesome" ideas, to take the example of Justin.tv, it leads to the same startup being created but 2 different types of entrepreneurs might get there by thinking:
1. What's a problem you experience and want to solve: "TV used to be entertaining but TV shows now feel stale, boring and with writing that feels so formulaic."
2. What is something "that would be awesome" if someone created it: "I love TV and movies, The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies, it would be awesome if someone made a TV show for based on following someone's life similar to The Truman Show but for real and with real people not actors".
Same startup. Two ways to get there. Hopefully this all makes sense. I've had good results engaging with students by adding the "that would be awesome if that existed" to the ways to think of startup ideas. This especially true with students who are shy or less likely to complain about problems out loud for some reason as well as for students who know how lucky they are to be at a fancy university in a first world country and they feel guilty describing anything as a problem worth solving if it isn't on the level of world hunger or similar (in which case I encourage those students to go solve world hunger if that's what they want to do).
Also one more thing. In my opinion the real major problem for aspiring entrepreneurs, bigger than coming up with a problem to solve, is how to brainstorm!
Most people assume brainstorming is just "sit and think". And it can be that and some people are very good at that (and other people aren't good at sit and think brainstorming at all but they just get lucky and a good idea pops in their head one day). But there's a lot of literature out there with research on effective brainstorming as well as tips and tricks to get one's brain into a better brainstorm mode (hint there's a reason why so many people say their best ideas come while showering or jogging). I am outside the valley so your mileage may vary over there but I see guided brainstorming sessions work much better than the usual casual 'shoot the shit type brainstorming' for the majority of people as brainstorming doesn't come naturally to them. Hence everyone has 99 problems and no good ideas.
The most popular thing I do when talking to students is a class discussion to come up with a problem and get the entire group of students brainstorming and iterating solution ideas together, with the goal being "find the first 5 feasible but bad solutions" (Asking them to come up with a "good solution" is too much pressure and then no one wants to raise their hand to say an idea others in the group might think is bad, so it helps to make clear it's OK we don't need good ideas at this point). Another thing that helps is I hand out index cards to start things and get students to anonymously write down one "problem to solve" idea or one "That Would Be Awesome" idea. I collect the cards and pick the idea that best facilitates brainstorming and discussion to start things off and then do guided brainstorming together. Most students have never been part of a real brainstorming session beyond some brainstorming how to do a group school assignment that gets an A and isn't too much work for everyone and that really they don't care about. Real brainstorming is hard and they have never done it for real in a group setting.
Sorry for the long comment. Just wanted to share something that has worked for me getting more students more involved in entrepreneurship, especially for the types of students who currently are under-represented among the population of founders these days for whatever reasons. Yes. Also shout out to my fellow shy introvert founders and anyone who doesn't walk around all day thinking about problems or like complaining about them. It's OK to start a company with the goal to make something awesome a reality, everyone has 99 problems and zero good ideas, try thinking up something awesome instead.
Here is the wikipedia on RSI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_strength_index
Some variations of RSI factor in volatility which this guy's Bitcoin version appears to do.
Worth saying here, there is no empirical evidence for indexes indicators like these or the million other versions of it to have any basis in reality for predicting price movement reliably. Pretty obvious Bitcoin markets in 2011 were nothing like Bitcoin markets in 2017. Said another way "Sometimes I trade bitcoin but I only buy on Tuesdays, my best friend only buys bitcoins on Thursdays, and my performance trading Bitcoin is better than my friend's. So Tuesdays are the best time to buy Bitcoin, see previous sentence for evidence why". Also this article from investopedia appears to be another sponsored marketing content not a journalism article.
Our first feature story is an article and podcast interview about the Christmas tree store popup business.
We are working on several feature stories about "summer businesses" that people like school teachers start and run during summer holiday months before going back to their "real" job in September.
The burned traders phenomenon could become a problem for the bitcoin community though few will talk about it. As even if the price recovers after a drop the people who thought they could trade it and lost money when they sold during a short term drop often leave the market and don't return. The same phenomenon happens in the stock market, and stock trading is a ginormous industry compared to bitcoin...amateur traders lose money trading stocks, they leave the market and never return. It's a problem..cue up the next E-Trade baby commercial ASAP! [1]
The Bitcoin big money now knows they need to control the volatility and spend hard and fast on marketing their trading platforms to new people constantly. And that's exactly what these guys behind the scenes appear to be trying to do. Hence we end up with articles like this one: Bloomberg writing about "Bitcoin Traders Claim..." that's basically one interview (at a coffee shop) with one random dude in his early 20s who trades bitcoin in his spare time. Who is the target audience for this 5th grade book report journalism? The churn will be huge.
The most likely explanation is the majority of bloomberg reports know almost nothing about finance or math. Unfortunately and sadly it's still some of the best finance journalism available as there's little competition.
Yes gamblers or speculators or whatever they may be called could go to casinos in person. Or gamble via online poker. Or go bet on a horse race. Or on sports via a bookie. Or trade bitcoins from their phone. Just different games for different tastes and currently legal.
Plus we are talking about Bitcoin! so none of this is relevant. The old option theory bullshit has even less rigor beyond fun mental exercise. I still think it's interesting and gota start somewhere, and we'll see how things develop in this market. I did try to qualify in my comment writing something how calculation not really applicable to Bitcoin and doesn't even work on equities properly. But again you're right and I should have worded my comment differently, probably a bad lazy old habit to even use weird finance terms on non-finance forum like HackNews, so maybe could have said something like 'wow interesting to see someone paid 20% of the current price for an option with a strike that has bitcoin gaining +200% in the next 12 months'?
I would guess this is some sort of covered call as you suggest. It's only 275 bitcoins and a 20% premium on the spot price seems like a decent yield for so far out the money. I'm not a bitcoin trader but it's my understanding from what I've read there was no short side price discovery until very recently when derivatives started trading so volatility has no historical nor frame of reference. Bitcoin options could be super inexpensive deal right now or way overpriced there's no basis to say either way but there does seem to be enough inefficiency across various markets for arbitrage if someone wants to make the effort.
Can I ask who books writing a large trade like this? Basically are you making this market and $1 million dollar trade like this would need to contact you guys to write it OTC? Or is the crypto options market supply that big and liquid already that a buyer can just come along and buy $1 million worth of Dec 18 Bitcoin call options that will clear?
Also there's a back of the envelope implied volatility for Bitcoin here: on a $3k call option premium 12 months out (so breakeven on this "bet" is actually $53,000) Bitcoin implied volatility of around 120%? Not that equity option pricing model theories apply to Bitcoin, or even work as expected on equities for that matter, but it's interesting to see an implied volatility number regardless. Looks like Delta less than 10. With Futures already 3 months out at $17,000 it would seem like whoever sold this call option for $1 million could hedge (not perfectly hedge) the trade for less than $1 million. Oddly enough, both the buyer and the seller could end up profiting on this option trade.
I agree this article is very bad, it feels like a paid PR article advertising for the trading company not actual news.
My background is in banking, here is some additional info on the F1 key thing in case anyone is interested in this random odd topic:
The article is not exactly wrong but it's misleading (more on that later). Yes the F1 key opens the Excel Help Window. Removing the F1 key is NOT a common practice among bankers.
The origin, or one of the origins, of removing the F1 key as seen in this article, comes from how banks used to train their new interns and first year employees to use Excel. The first few weeks on the job at a Wall St bank were spent in a little training course and the training course was allowed to have a bit more "fun" than the real more professional side of the job soon to come for these rookies.
It was important to teach new banking analysts to be very efficient in Excel, this meant requiring them to memorize how to use the features of Excel without needing to look it up in the Help Menu AND training them to use keyboard shortcuts not the mouse, as keyboard shortcuts are faster. What this led to was some Wall St banks in their training class would have a little fun in training and tell new analysts/students to unplug the mouse from the computer (so you have to learn the keyboard shortcuts) and tell them to remove the F1 key (so they can't just look up how to do something that they should have memorized).
Of course, these training aid tactics of silliness were only relevant for the first few weeks on the job. As new analysts would very soon start learning all about macros and VBA in the second half of the training course. The F1 key can easily and quickly be disabled in a number of ways in the VBA editor of Excel [1] and the idea that a bunch of bankers are removing the F1 key from the keyboard so they don't accidentally press it while reaching for F2 as this article describes is frankly ridiculous. Everyone uses macros and if F1 is disabled it is coded not physically removed, more than likely the help menu has been remapped to a multi-key shortcut just in case.
To those comments who say this is banking and the computers are locked down to the point you cannot install other software or make changes to current software, this is partly true but this does not extend to blocking employees from macros and VBA in Excel. Using and writing Excel macros is crucial to the job and it is expected to be utilized. I have never seen a bank where access to macros and VBA is blocked.
Now, it is possible to go to a bank and see someone has removed their F1 key from their keyboard. But it is not a common practice. IF you do see an F1 key removed it usually is because either: (1) the person removed the F1 key during training and then lost it or just never replaced it. (2) They are a brand new employee still in training (though less likely because training has changed in recent years and fun is not allowed anymore). (3) They were told incorrectly by a frat buddy or other "wall street bro" that removing the F1 is cool and sign of being an Excel ninja wizard. Reason 3 is sadly the most likely reason and if you read the article you will see they only spoke to and interviewed banking analysts, i.e. brand new rookie employees, not real investment bankers who have been on the job more than a few months and are out of the analyst phase.
If I saw an F1 key removed at a bank keyboard I would judge that person a little as it would not reflect very well on an experienced banking employee - unless that person was on one of the tech teams in which case they can do what they want and many have their own keyboards (which are loud guys) and I wouldn't question their computer knowledge skills. The main reason not to permanently remove the F1 key after training is because other important finance software (like Bloomberg) needs the F1 key for other functions (in fact the bloomberg terminal official keyboard moved the help key to its own different button and its on a different row from the F1-F12 keys).
Also, having worked at Microsoft very briefly I think I can say Microsoft is aware of the issue of the F1 key Help Menu bothering some users where it is located and how slow the Help Menu can be. Back in 90s they used to talk to their customers and power users all the time and it's likely they still do today, in addition the telemetry they snatch from everyone these days. They know, they aren't changing it.
Lastly, while this was a mild case of an outdated and misleading article with a clickbait headline, business insider is usually much worse and I would just like to recommend that business insider be considered a fake news site and spam and blocked from Hacker News. Just a suggestion. Thank you.
I must say after reading through to the full proposal, I was a little disappointed it doesn't include much that stood out as different or "disruptive" or "new" as I would have hoped given that it has grown out of YC. YCR has definitely done some cool things and is moving very quickly and again congrats on the successes so far.
Maybe other things are going on behind the scenes that were not included in the proposal and are not on the website? I couldn't help but get the impression while reading the proposal that this sounds like a proposal that any ol' well-funded private foundation could have come up with, and unfortunately I fear the study will run into the same problems those other private foundation type studies run into while in progress and once completed. What a waste and shame if that happens.
I fully understand there are limitations to these studies, and rules to play by, and there are many working components as these studies grow bigger in scale and touch more people and must interact more with the government and press then research teams kind of need to become more risk averse and CYA a lot more. But couldn't there be a secondary smaller research studies going that actually try new and interesting UBI research and try to answer some of the harder questions UBI faces as well as look harder at some of the multi-sigma rare events (pros and cons) of UBI that could happen.
Also I want to commend YCR for what looks to be a legit "people first" research approach. I wish more policy type researchers follow your lead and think about how people might be affected or not affected as a result of policy instead of just making assumptions based on big macro numbers changing and then trying to change those numbers.
Again no offense, but this study feels like similar studies: Get some smart brand name Phd's, spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time to get data needed to calculate some "results" numbers to support a policy idea or two. Great, these "results" will end up in some random think tank type policy articles and papers that government representatives have thrown their way every day by various lobbying and advocacy groups. These results will probably make a few good buzzworthy headlines on various news and "pseudo" news sites from NYtimes down to buzzfeed. Great.
Headline: "A new large UBI study just showed xyz positives happen under UBI but there's a couple exceptions...".
This is a lot of money and time to run a study you know no matter how successful it is what UBI naysayers will still have tons of ammunition to complain why policy shouldn't be changed yet or at least not dramatically. What then? Another 5 year study?
Cool story bro. Good studies that lead to good policies do 2 things: 1. They show evidence of doing the good thing they are suppose to do. 2. They shutdown most or all of the things the other side is using to prevent the policy from passing. This study is not doing enough of either, especially #2.
Are you guys studying things like: The psychology of people once UBI is more common and less stigmatized not just the psychology of getting unconditional money? How to pay for it? Seriously here. What will the uptake rate be? Will the first years pull down tax payers into UBI before re-adjusting and they return to work. What are you really shooting for here? 20% 33% 50% feeding back into the payer loop? What tactics might groups or business use to reverse or combat the psychology on UBI, what will be used to take advantage of people who suddenly have money and no restrictions on it? Hello more MLM schemes? Look at Norway news this week and their SWF, don't make that mistake.
I realize you have aggregation problems and methodological individualism stuff and what not. But start a moonshots division in YCR please. Good luck.
People seem to get caught up on the word "value" and then rush to defend Bitcoin's use cases and unique technology as making it valuable. I don't think it's a diss when people say Bitcoin has no fundamental value. A thing having use cases or unique properties is not what "value" means in an exchange market sense. "Fundamental value" is also known as "intrinsic value" and is based on the BUILT IN return potential of an asset. So stocks and bonds have an intrinsic value because they generate a return, based on dividends or interests rates they pay.
A thing is only worth what someone will give you for it. So EVERY value needs to be in terms of something else.
An ounce of Gold, 1 bitcoin, 1 US dollar, have NO intrinsic value because you can hold them forever and they will never pay you a dividend or make a coupon payment on their own. Gold has a few practical uses in jewelry and industry but that's not why it's important. Bitcoin and the dollar have ZERO "value" beyond being a place to store something else's value. Well back in the day a dollar in the bank might earn you a small interest rate but hello 21st century. Bitcoin doesn't even offer an interest rate. Gold is not a good long term investment. But Gold is good to have in case of emergency. I imagine bitcoin will be similar. Bitcoin and gold COST you money to own them. The people who make money off gold are the miners and then forever after the banks and security companies who store physical gold for you at great expense. Bitcoin should be similar in this sense as Bitcoin can create a spread income over the energy costs and the transaction fees it generates every 10 minutes.
My guess is since 90% of the bitcoins that will ever be mined will be mined within the next 2-3 years. And there will be lost coins. So maybe 15 million coins will be around long term and that number will slowly shrink. The fees will start to be more important.
I don't think Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. Bitcoin has a ton of great uses and tech features. And most importantly it has signaling properties. While Bitcoin is unlikely to be the main digital currency people on a daily basis as the 1 MB limit does appear to cause issues. It would be very bad for all digital currencies if bitcoin went away.
I do think the world of Wall St. and Washington would make a crazy interesting movie. Maybe the "evil" funds buy stakes in various companies then lobby greedy politicians to make new laws aimed at giving advantages and profits to only those specific companies. At the same time these Dr. Evil types employ a revolving door strategy where they send trusted fund employees to work in government and they hire retiring politicians for huge salaries to make up the years they were underpaid "doing public service". Just an idea.
Some websites I use to check facts and numbers:
https://www.census.gov/en.html
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtm...
If my local bookstore needed sponsorship to stay open I would be first in line to donate. With that said, something feels off-putting when I read these stories of requests for sponsors and donors to failing businesses. Seems increasingly common story too. I understand there's multiple sides to this debate, and what the trend may or may not lead to. I have no idea. Maybe it is market efficiency or maybe it's serious market failure. I see comments on both those sides. Either way I don't think relying on sponsors and donors for failing businesses is a good or long term way for an economic system and market to function. Two more examples of this trend toward needing donations to band-aid the bullshit we created:
Noah Smith's recent tweet: "I swear to God, the sight of people with deadly diseases crowdfunding their health care is the most dystopian thing about America right now" [1]
Walmart asking for donations of food for its own employees who do not earn enough in wages to support themselves: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/11/is_walma...
Speaking of, an increase in the minimum wage was blamed by Borderlands and others for having to close down and/or ask for donations. (Side note, I was surprised to read of these book store employees they have who "cheerfully" worked for minimum wage. in San Francisco. for a ten-plus years! Amazing! but whatever). Wages are not the full story here...The cost of rent for good retail locations in these cities (SF, LA, NYC, etc.) is a major major issue. Nuts. I'm not suggesting we federalize major cities' downtown storefront real estate spaces. I think if someone bought or inherited real estate in a great city location and makes a fortune then congrats to them, smart move, happy for them.
But fundamentally it is economics 202 that a local B&M business model and employee wages will never keep up with the monopoly that is big city real estate and their pricing power to rent seek. The numbers don't work long term. Period. A regular business can't beat a monopoly like real estate but it's especially difficult when there are flocks of new, overconfident fools for tenants waiting in the wings with a shark-tank-quality-biz idea and fresh capital they got from who knows and they are ready to sign a lease they can't afford. Look at NYC restaurant spaces, why do they cycle so often and so quickly? Or come visit Los Angeles (I'll buy you a beer) and then go to Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills. Rent is so expensive on Rodeo now (+$1000 psf I think these days) that landlords know their tenants are running at a loss and they still raise rents on them every year (or sooner)...Half the shops on Rodeo Dr. are major luxury brands renting at loss but there for marketing purposes, the other half of shops belong to these weird little overconfident new luxury brands no one has ever heard of but think they will hyper grow and cover Rodeo rent. They never do. These little American dream, Italian leather type stores last maybe 6 months before closing and the next overconfident fool with a pink faux emu skin handbag is ready to roll the dice and pay an even higher rent
P.S. If your city or town still has a real bookstore, when was the last time you went in there and asked the staff for a book recommendation and then gave a new paper book chance? Good date idea too. Just good all around. Roll dice.
[1] https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/844393961678655488?lan...
What are you talking about?
> Higher taxes prevent business owners from hiring more people and from being able to offer decent wage growth.
No. I'm not in favor of high taxes but this statement is not supported at a theory level nor empirically. For one thing, employees and wages are pre-tax. Basically this type of labor economics stuff really should focus on the "elephant in the office": either an employee creates more profit than they cost or they do not. Tax levels make minimal difference here, if at all, even worse is tax topics get easily politicized, used to manipulate and distract from the real labor issues worth studying and discussing.
Also, the small business statistics you mention are misleading. I'm sure it was not on purpose but to be clear: That is 80% of ALL businesses are nonemployer (not 80% of small businesses). Does that feel right? 80% of businesses are one person businesses? Feels high, no? What percentage of people living around you are in this group?
The figure is misleading because the "23 million small businesses" counted to get 80% are not all real businesses, relatively few are. 23 million is based on the number of business tax returns filed not the number of proper going concern business businesses. There is a difference. Millions of those 23M business tax returns do not represent a "business" in the sense of an entity that would or could support hiring of an employee - it's not that type of business nor trying to be. There are various reasons for a business tax return to be filed by someone or group, including the obvious tax benefits offered right now today for small businesses. "Home office" deduction anyone? I think a business that generates somewhere around $1000 must file taxes for it but a "business" that earns nothing might also still file and be counted...
But I do agree with you 100% how small businesses are crucial to this country and they need support, legal and economic support, and they need to be able to hire new people and offer apprenticeships and compete locally and globally. Unfortunately the trend is going against this.
Also here is a pew link with related info from a different angle: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/10/22/three-in-ten-u-s-j...
If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusing or overwhelming or boring, some students find a "peel back" approach to learning songwriting easier to grasp at first. A peel back approach just involves finding a song then teaching by stripping away each layer: start with stripping away vocals, then learn melodies, then chords, then finally learn about the drum beat underneath it all. A benefit of the peel back approach to learning is melodies and vocals are the memorable parts of a song and easiest to pick out when listening to the radio so a student can learn using songs they know and like. Either way, songwriting is hard and fun. Best of luck.
P.S. I think Ableton makes good software and I use it along with FL and Logic. They did a solid job with these intro lessons. But worth mentioning, there is free software out there (this includes Apple's Garageband) that offers key features a beginner just learning songwriting can practice on and mess around on before purchasing a more powerful DAW software like Ableton.
i.e. When a business encounters a major problem like this, fix the problem ASAP but also use these opportunities to try to add new profits (another example of how this works: when Uber faced criticism about driver background checks they used the negative publicity to add a $1.50 "safe ride fee" to every ride)
Q: Could enough YT stars with 7 and 8 figure subscriber counts band together and move to a different platform or get staked by a well-funded new startup to create a YT competitor site?...In theory sure anyone can try to compete with a google product...but how realistic is this here? And if it's not realistic then YT can cut the % it has been paying content creators and get away with it.
I have no clue if ad revenue $ will return to previous levels for YT content creators. I hope so. But I wouldn't be surprised if YT used this opportunity to change how it has been doing things and grab a bigger piece of the ad money profit pie at stake. Either way this is a fascinating story: on one hand YT has almost a monopoly when it comes to this kind of monetized online video content. On the other hand, YT is dependent on a pyramid of quite powerful content creators to maintain the very monopoly they are subject to.
1. "Boring Company" is such a great, funny and fitting name for a tunneling startup. FYI there are people who get so excited about a name they think is just perfect (or title for book or name for a yacht...) that they pursue creating it even though they aren't seriously into the idea. See: the better the name of the yacht, the less the owner uses it...
2. Agree with other comments the video verges on embarrassing. I don't think it helps Musk's cause much...Unless: (A) he subscribes to "there's no such thing as bad publicity" and/or (B) Musk in fact wants other entrepreneurs to see his crazy ideas as a catalyst to start their own copy-cat companies working on the same issue usually with their twist. He has made public comments (especially around the time when he open-sourced his patents) that support both (A) and (B) being true. See: all the new space, solar and hyperloop like companies that started in Musk's wake.
3. I don't think we should blindly give big-thinking entrepreneurs the benefit of the doubt. That has gone very poorly recently and historically. But I think we/the public/government regulators can support innovation and keep an eye on big-thinking well-funded entrepreneurs so they don't do something f'ing stupid full of negative externalities and tragedies of commons and tyrannies of small decisions etc...
4. This particular form of new tunneling as seen in the video might not happen. I hope it doesn't as there are serious engineering and public safety issues. But Musk has a point about needing to dig! AND Musk thinks very long term (the guy is working on going to Mars). Earth only has so much land, as human population increases, especially around cities, we can only build up or down. Both should probably be tried. I remember when Jeff Bezos said Amazon wants to try to deliver your packages by drones, and that Amazon also is out destroy the American economy. Ok he didn't say the second thing. But as for drones, people went nuts on both sides he said that but it's going forward. What if Musk's tunnels started off smaller, focused on delivering packages into and across cities, so not huge tunnels for people but more like conveyor belts for deliveries? There is a need for that or there will be soon. Would that be more palpable and would there be less averse reaction?
Have a good, relaxing weekend to all!
To see why this matters imagine: Are we looking for 70% out of 5 questions? or 70% of 10 questions we have? If you think you only need to answer 5 questions before making a decision and answer 4. That's 80% and you would go...But if there are 10 questions to ideally check off before deciding and you only answer 4, that's way too low and dangerous. This is dangerous in the military and in startup land. Knowing the full list of questions to ask is more important than knowing the answers.
Lastly, both Amazon and the military have huge structures, plans and support teams in place to encourage 70% as an OK threshold. Imagine if you have air support you can call in the marines should things go wrong, or you have your parents couch to crash on if your startup fails, those things would help a person be comfortable going on only 70% of the information.
That's not exactly what he is saying nor what he means. Both are risky assets. A 100% owned business you deeply understand is still a very risky asset. On its own. I agree with aeden's comment that diversification is one of the main reasons to sell.
The other good reason to sell...you get cash! Sure some of the cash will "probably" go to a diversified stock portfolio but some of it will be spent on cool stuff. You can't use stocks to buy your dream vacation home or donate money to charity for it to be spent on medical research. Cash is also the reason to sell.
Lastly, people die. A business founder must sell the business or give it to someone else at some point in one way or another or it will be done for him or her.