With best wishes for an enjoyable festive season – whatever your investment religion.
Hark! The VC angels sing
Hark! The VC angels sing
AI is the Next Big Thing.
Forget FAANGS, divest PE
Come behold ChatGPT!
Optimal next word prediction:
Search results with perfect diction!
Upscale now your LLMs
Emergent intelligence!
Hark! The VC angels sing
AI is the Next Big Thing.
Word soon spread, and within weeks
100 million users were refining their techniques
Econs spoke of vast potential
Others of risk made existential.
No more office drudgery
Enhanced productivity
Fire those workers! Set them free
Lump of labour theory is a fallacy
Hark! The VC angels sing
AI is the Next Big Thing.
Thus did Wall Street pile in billions
Mesmerized by AI’s brilliance
Claude at Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind
An OS upgrade for mankind.
Man become Divine Creator
Today’s GPT, tomorrow Terminator
Safety fears blithely dismissed
By the techno-optimists.
Hark! The VC angels sing
AI is the Next Big Thing.
But then came a twist surreal
Born of the Valley’s high ideals.
Conscious of potential for calamity
OpenAI’s charter serves humanity.
Rifts opened up within their Board
Sam Altman was cast out! Only to be restored.
The moral? He who was Friday’s pariah
May by Sunday return as messiah.
Hark! The VC angels sing
AI is the Next Big Thing.
God rest ye, merry crypto bros
God rest ye, merry crypto bros
With fortunes on the chain
Whenever bitcoin makes new lows
It rebounds back again
Intrinsically constrained supply
Impossible returns maintain:
O HODL! Believe the crypto hype
Crypto hype
O HODL! Embrace the crypto life.
Just why should governments have sole right
To create currency?
Exploding debt will undermine
Their frail authority.
A system more decentralized
Would protect you and me.
O HODL! Believe the crypto hype
Crypto hype
O HODL! Embrace the crypto life.
Embrace the ledger, buy the chain
The future is DeFi
Just try to find a stablecoin
On which you can rely
They say that Tether’s fully backed
With what, they just imply.
O HODL! Believe the crypto hype
Crypto hype
O HODL! Embrace the crypto life.
So what to make of FTX
And of Sam Bankman-Fried?
A billionaire at 28
Based on unbridled greed?
Or can effective altruism
Absolve the odd misdeed?
O HODL! Believe the crypto hype
Crypto hype
O HODL! Embrace the crypto life.
While PMs watched tech stocks take flight
While PMs watched tech stocks take flight
With Value left behind
Chair Powell from the Fed appeared
And sought to soothe their mind.
“Fear not!” said he, for outflows loomed
As Vanguard grew still more
“Now that we’ve finished hiking rates
Cash funds should lose their lure.
“We do confess we’re not quite sure
How much r-star has risen
Despite much fancy modelling
Our inputs lack precision.”
But then stood up a young PM
And boldly turned on Jay:
“It’s not that rates are killing us
It’s the balance sheet that weighs.”
Jay gave a start. “You mean QT?
I do admit once more
We don’t know quite where reserves bite
But we’re sure above that floor.”
The PM said, “You’ve missed the point
You say you’re doing QT
When a trillion bucks leaves RRP
It becomes just like QE.”
She carried on, in tones most vexed:
“Have you seen the FCI?
It quite negates your stance on rates
And leaves Value out to dry.”
“Ah,” said Jay, “Those FCIs
Indeed sit awkwardly
Inside the Fed we ignore all charts
That conflict with theory.”
I’m dreaming of a tight market
I’m dreaming of a tight market
Bid-offer like we used to know
Hedge funds basis trading
Single-name market-making
Not just a one-way ETF flow.
I’m dreaming of hard copy research
Warm printouts like we used to know
Pages laced with highlights
Readers finding insights
Not today’s numbing online flow.
I’m dreaming of reduced compliance
Procedures like we used to know
Principles respected
Users not subjected
To pointless box-ticking for show.
I’m dreaming of the old grad programme
Training that set you up for life:
New York bond math lessons,
Firm-paid social sessions,
And, in my case, my wife.
I’m dreaming of a world less fractured
The rise in conflict’s hard to bear
Citizens unite!
This ailing planet’s plight
Depends on families everywhere.
For maximum enlightenment, please share.
