I’ve never completely understood the world of stock markets and investment banks. Sure, I get the (very) basic ideas and concepts of how it works, but my reaction is always the same… “Are you serious?”. I’m amazed it works at all.
This “intrigue”, coupled with a few years working in the Federal Reserve, leaves me standing in awe of the events that have transpired this year. When Bear Stearns collapsed and the Fed stepped in to save it, I couldn’t believe I was living in such interesting times. To think that the Fed would step in and save a private institution, an investment bank (outside it’s regulatory supervision) was really surprising. And then they took over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which didn’t have quite the shock factor at first, but becomes more interesting considering recent events… which of course are the fall of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch.
I’m not going to comment or analyze it all, I’m neither qualified nor really interested in trying to figure it out. I think it’s clear though that the financial world is undergoing drastic change.
And as a result the world of startups and technology and the web will undergo drastic changes too (well, maybe not as drastic as the financial world). This article really covers it well and was the inspiration for this post. Basically, we’re going to see more of a movement towards apps and services that provide real, tangible value (like saving people money or providing value in their real, non-online life). This is really exciting to me.
I am very much in interested in building products and services that are customer oriented and that solve real problems. I’m working on a small app that I hope does this for it’s intended audience. I won’t go into details here, but it’s really got me thinking more about creating things that help people in real ways.
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