Disqus - Latest Comments for hdemott

Re: What is Alaska Airlines Elite Status Worth in 2017?

Harry DeMott — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 23:40:11 -0000

I will very likely make MVP Gold 75K this year solely on miles - once a month from JFK-LAX nets you about 60K miles - a few more trips thrown in and I will actually fly over 75K miles this year.

I've been 75K all year - as my status from Virgin carried over to Alaska

A few comments:

1. I miss the ability to upgrade on cross country flights for $240 24 hours in advance. I used this a lot for years - and got to the front of the plane more often as not this way. Definitely not the case with Alaska
2. Alaska has a first class upgrade fare - but it is rarely available on the Virgin equipment - which is a pain.
3. While I tend to end up at the top of many upgrade lists - these do not clear until very close to flight time - so you never quite know - and its not clear whether the computer is going to upgrade you or not.
4. The virgin planes are simply better than the Alaska planes. more comfortable. The Alaska 737's are simply older and in need of a refurbishment relative to the Airbus fleet Alaska inherited. That said - supposedly all o these planes (particularly the transcontinental ones) are getting a makeover for 2019 - can't wait as I will continue to have status through the end of 19
5. Seriously - why get rid of the old Virgin preflight video - one of the best things in the sky?
6. JFK Terminal 7 has been under construction all year - and no TSA pre? Come on!

I'm seriously hoping that they start rolling out the newly refurbished planes easy in 2019 (or late 2018).

Re: Diversification (aka How To Survive A Crash)

Harry DeMott — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:16:26 -0000

And here I thought I was the only Harry you knew.

Re: Private: Reckoning in Retail

Harry DeMott — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 17:11:27 -0000

Scott: If you get any bites let me know. Very invoved in the cannabis world with great partners in branding/distribution/manufacturing etc... And totally agree with you. Our mutual friend Todd Benson sent me this article - very much enjoyed it

Re: Why Pandora’s $2bn music biz payout leaves a lot to be desired

Harry DeMott — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 13:16:26 -0000

This article is definitively nuts.

$2B from Pandora is exactly $2B more than the terrestrial radio business pays for the same content under similar rules.

That is who Pandora is really competing with.

And it is $2B more than the music industry would have seen under any circumstance.

Artists boo hoo over how they are being ripped off, but without distribution systems to surface their music, does anybody hear it? does anybody care? If an artist plays in an empty forest, who get's paid?

It would be great if artists were able to get distribution direct from digital platforms and get paid directly by those platforms based on how many people listened, and how much the platform was able to monetize - but as long as artists wholesale their music to labels, who wholesale it to distributors these issues will always be conflated.

Re: Review: JetBlue Mint — New York (JFK) to San Francisco

Harry DeMott — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 17:39:42 -0000

With Virgin being sold to Alaska - I've been thinking more and more about the Jet Blue Mint service. One of the great things about Elevate has been the ability to buy a coach ticket and upgrade 24 hours in advance (I'm the highest Elevate level). Luckily, I've ended up in first most of the time just paying for the upgrade ($240 each way across the country). How does the Mosaic program compare from an upgrade standpoint?

Re: How One Direction’s ticket sales dwarfed their recorded music income in 2015

Harry DeMott — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:50:54 -0000

Your last sentence hits the nail on the head.

Problem is - when people look at the music business they think in terms of records sold - which is exactly how record labels look at it. But artists need to look at records sold, and streams in terms of promotional benefit, and live touring being the key generator of income.

And then look at all the other people in the eco system

Ticketmaster cares about number of tickets sold - given their revenue streams - but not necessarily the price of tickets (although as promoters through Live Nation they certainly care about grosses)

Artists seem to care a lot about making sure "fans" can get in or get tickets and so price their tickets too low - creating the secondary market.

Let's face it, if One Direction priced properly, 20% would never end up in the hands of touts for the simple reason that touts are not in the business of taking inventory risk without a return. So sure, if I can buy tickets in the on-sale at $87 and sell them for $217 that's a pretty good arbitrage. Even better - if I can come in with a bag of cash and hand it to the manager of the band and he hands be tickets from the artists allocation - even better (although you are likely to pay more than $87 - after all the artist and manager need a little taste here no?)

The future looks like this: One Direction announces they are going out on tour. Armed with partnerships with Pandora and Spotify, as well as a historical database of everyone who bought tickets to their last 5 world tours, they hit the road - selling tickets directly to fans in highly stratified pricing tiers that allow them to maximize gross revenue. Ticketmaster becomes a ticket printer again - and Live Nation is disintermediated or loses money providing guarantees that they can not recoup. There is no artists allocation - because artists sell all the allocation.

and the secondary market? it still exists of course. However, now when fans go to sell tickets, they pay a piece of the sale price back to the band - who is sharing in the secondary revenue stream - just like pro sports teams do today - and all the data is captured for future use.

Re: Messengers, Movies & Music

Harry DeMott — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 15:30:50 -0000

I think people tune into Pandora to listen to music - whereas I think more and more people link off to Spotify when someone send them a link - listen to the song then go. Being your own DJ is a hard proposition.

discovery is a problem for Spotify

The numbers for Netflix stump me - as there is nothing on there to watch in 11 minutes - lots of false starts. Vevo would be an interesting number to see - I suspect it is like Spotify.

Re: Twitter Moments

Harry DeMott — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 11:43:13 -0000

Meh

Right now I'm looking at moments and I see one about the Astros beating the Yankees. Now I don't really care about baseball, but I think this could be interesting if it were opening night of the NY Rangers series (tonight in Chicago)

In other words, if I could curate my own moments based on my own interests 9or have the system auto curate based on the things I am interested in) then that would be a hell of a service.

But having editors at Twitter curate what they think should be interesting to me - not so much. I already get that from the NY Times, The wall Street Journal, the NY POst and the FInancial Times every day - not to mention blogs, magazines etc....

Re: Trickle Up Economics

Harry DeMott — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 11:45:31 -0000

Dude, just sopped by to check out the conversation, and this has turned into an apocalyptic wasteland today. Feel like I'm watching the Maze Runner: Scorched Earth - either that or a split screen with Fox News on one side and CNBC on the other - Cormac McCarthy's The Road on the iPad in the lap.

I think you hit it right Fred: opportunity is all about having the educational background to take advantage of those opportunities that come your way - or those opportunities that you make. But people also have to have the attitudinal background to seek out or see those opportunities for what they are.

the funny thing about the political and tax aspects of the conversation below are that both sides are essentially right. We do have income inequality and it is getting worse courtesy of technology and the law of large numbers - and it is equally true that those in the 1% (or even in the 0.1%) are paying a far higher % of taxes than ever

Everyone seems to agree that we should invest in education for the next generation - however, what has not been discussed here is just how that education is going to be delivered. Taxation and arguments thereon are essentially arguments on what services a government should provide the people it serves - so if we all agree that education is one of those services that should be provided - then we should make damn sure that the education provided prepares kids for the world we live in today.

And that's fundamentally the problem. The education system is not geared in the least to the skills necessary for modern life - so those "haves" or "1%" end up in private schools and go on to found Facebook and make billions. And good for them for doing so - and damn the system that doesn't provide the same opportunity for our tax dollars.

Why should we have to have "Girls who code"? As a father of two daughters in and around high school, I would be appalled if my daughters DIDN'T emerge from high school knowing the basics of coding - and yet most people will not learn these rudiments - and thus be ill prepared for adult life.

Moving from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy to a knowledge based economy is a huge shift - prizing intellectual capital over physical capital. Education has not changed nearly enough to keep up with Moore's law and the changes it has wrought.

So for sure - let's invest in the education of the next generation - but like any good stewards of capital - let's make sure that we get a return on our investment - and hold those in charge accountable for the results we see.

Re: CircleUp Rights+

Harry DeMott — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:00:29 -0000

Absent the company getting involved with 3rd party transfers (and applause to Circle Up for getting involved) i always thought the best mechanism for accomplishing these transfers are total return swaps. Typically used in other portions of finance - there's no reason why I couldn't pay Fred and his partners some $ for the total return represented by a certain number of shares of their Series A preferred in Circle Up. Include in the contract parallel investor rights - and voila - you have liquidity with similar rights - and the company has nothing whatsoever to do with the transaction.

Re: Giving Thanks

Harry DeMott — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 11:07:48 -0000

Certainly the most American of Holidays!

3 Football games

Mass quantities of food

All to power up for the biggest shopping day of the year!

It's a capitalist holiday - all about MORE!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Re: Getting An Outside Lead – The Myth Of Third Party Validation

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 14:54:03 -0000

Best post in a long time in my opinion.

Of course, I'm living with both sides of this coin everyday: madly in love with companies and concepts, and at the same time thinking about how to allocate scarce investment capital.

It's all a game of poker - you want to get all of your chips into the center of the table when you have absolute conviction of a win, all the while knowing that you have a finite stack - so you better be right when you push in.

Interestingly when you lead inside rounds - or continue to invest pro-rata or even sub pro-rata, there comes a time when you own so much of the company that you are in essence diluting yourself, and then it really becomes not about % ownership, but gross dollar return relative to capital invested - which is a subtlety lost on many.

In any investment portfolio (VC or otherwise) you only get so many high conviction ideas - key is to recognize them when they come along, have the courage of your convictions, and step up.

Re: Beats - content is king? — Benedict Evans

Harry DeMott — Thu, 29 May 2014 08:50:28 -0000

I seriously doubt Apple spent $3B on a headphone company - they are more than capable of designing and distributing higher end headphones (although given the success of Beats one wonders why Apple continued to mass produce lousy earbuds).

The key is in the content deals that Beats struck for its streaming service.

I can see a time with perhaps iPhone 6 where this is the default music service - and like Sirius XM there is some free trial period on it that starts to lock in users.

I can also see Apple using their relationships to develop the service that I believe is most wanted, an excellent radio service, with some limited all you can eat plan attached - say the offspring of Pandora and Spotify.

Apple had to have felt that Iovine was the key to getting this done - otherwise, why not buy Rdio (a much better service in my opinion) or even Spotify (many more users - much more global)?

Re: Consider The Alternatives

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 15:10:00 -0000

I think in Manhattan, which has the greatest demand, the number is low as most people rent or live in co-op apartments. The number that live in condo units or single family homes is, and I'm guessing here under 25%.

In other boroughs of NYC the number would be higher as Queens Brooklyn and the Bronx have a higher % of free standing housing. With Staten Island the highest % of all! but probably the least desire ability from an AirBnB standpoint due to transportation issues ( although the ferry is a gorgeous ride)

Re: Consider The Alternatives

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 10:56:08 -0000

This reminds me of the prostitution argument or the legalization of marijuana argument: hey its going on as it is, its going to keep going on, and since we have such great technology, we might as well regulate it properly so that all participants are better off than they otherwise would be with the extant system.

The real question is as JLM puts it below - individual versus collective property rights. I would argue that renters in NYC, and co-op owners in NYC generally do not have the right to sublet on a short term basis for profit as per their leases (whether a rental lease or a proprietary lease). So which technology makes their illegal activities better is somewhat irrelevant.

Buildings need to come to a collective judgement on how they want to govern themselves - apply these rules - and then the collective property rights will assert themselves.

My guess is that those buildings who are AirBnB friendly will hold higher value for certain kinds of owners (those who travel a ton, or who work part time in NYC, etc...) where as those who are more strict on the sharing economy will appeal to people who live in the apartment full time and travel little. My guess is that upper east side co-op buildings will never allow AirBnB in their homes.

This is a very interesting and personal subject for me from a philosophical standpoint, as I am completely in favor of technology and free markets, and very much against large government and an over reach of rules -however, I am very much for personal responsibility and believe that my individual freedoms come at the cost of not infringing upon other freedoms.

NYC is a very unique market in this regard - and just as Uber (which I love) is far less useful to me in NYC than almost anywhere else (thank you NYC subways and plenty of yellow cabs), I think that AirBnB is another one of those services that is probably phenomenal almost anywhere but NYC - because of those collective rights that need to be negotiated.

Re: Consider The Alternatives

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 10:44:49 -0000

Right now we don't see much activity on Craigslist - at least for the buildings we are involved with. The beauty of AirBnB is that they are well organized, well funded, and have taken a lot of the friction out of the system - as Fred mentioned with background checks etc... So liquidity is going to flow where friction is minimal - it is like that in any marketplace. Interestingly, you see a ton of rental ads on Craigslist for regular way rentals (i.e. 1-2 year leases in NYC) and that is where all the liquidity has gone in that market (relative to 20 years ago when you waited with baited breath for an early copy of the Sunday NY Times real estate section to try and get a jump on new inventory)

Re: Consider The Alternatives

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 08:52:43 -0000

It is very much about expectations. When you check into a hotel, you expect that neither you nor the front desk will know too much about your neighbor, and that if that neighbor becomes problematic - you will have recourse by calling the 24 hour manager on premise. the hotel expects that guests will not damage rooms or hallways - and takes credit cards on site to insure against this. AirBnB needs to solve for these sort of expectational issues to work in the already highly shared living economy which is NYC.

Re: Consider The Alternatives

Harry DeMott — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 08:29:08 -0000

As someone who is ostensibly in the real estate business in NYC (my family is - therefore I am), we have done our best to limit AirBnB in the walkup buildings we are involved with in Chelsea.

It's not that I am opposed to the service on principle, but it is just too hard to monitor the comings and goings of very short term renters in buildings whose security consists of a 2 door buzzer system. No doorman. No security cameras - etc... a typical NYC shared brownstone experience.

Living in NYC is tough enough as it is - but if you are to have the "quiet enjoyment" of your apartment as a long term tenant, then it is hard to be subjected to a revolving door of tourists or short term travelers next door - above you or below you.

It creates more wear and tear on the hallways (cases bumping into painted walls), on carpets, and on the building in general.

All in all a tough situation.

The service is great - and there is no reason I can think of for people not to be able to rent out their own homes - but in NYC the idea of your own home is somewhat nebulous. Renters don't own their homes, and almost all standard NYC rental contracts have a so-sublet clause in them.

Likewise, co-op shareholders do not "own" their own homes. They own shares in a co-op corporation and enter into proprietary leases with the corporation for the use of their apartment.

Even condo owners, who do have title to their units, enter into agreements with the neighbors to set rules for how the building will run.

I agree that much has been made of the hotel industry and its desire not to have competition - and the attendant loss of tax revenue by the city - but I think the real question is one of property usage - who has what rights - and how far do they extend.

Re: My Nightmare

Harry DeMott — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:14:24 -0000

Not just this year - all years I think.

Re: My Nightmare

Harry DeMott — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:02:54 -0000

Went to MSG and did the Frenchie at the Sausage Boss. You think your living a nightmare there check out these stats: been to 18 home Rangers games this year - my record is 6-12. The Rangers home record is 18-7 so I have seen 2/3 of the losses and only 1/3 of the wins. The Blueshirts have the number one road record in hockey - my road game was a 9-2 drubbing by the Sharks - so 6-13 on the year. Now that's a nightmare!

Re: My Nightmare

Harry DeMott — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 10:41:12 -0000

No spoilers please - season 5 half way through!

Re: My Nightmare

Harry DeMott — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 10:39:51 -0000

Too much fermented grape juice with a high clearing price the night before

Re: Fun Friday: The Missing Plane

Harry DeMott — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:25:53 -0000

Just seems like someone got control of the plane - turned off the transponders and made a left hand turn back west. The question is where - and why? If they knew enough to turn off the transponders manually, then you have to believe that they were capable of flying the plane - that said, if they didn't know enough about the 777 design to understand the hourly positioning pings, and enough to know about the Rolls Royce engine pings then you can also assume some form of rudimentary knowledge but not necessarily deep knowledge of the systems. If that's the case - then what you really worry about, and fear is exactly what that plane will be used for in the future. So I'm going with hijack - landing on some remote strip and converting the plane into some sort of weapon - with the crew and passengers all disposed of to cover the perpetrators tracks. Scary things is, if I am right, then these same skyjackers will have access to the news - and internet - and will find and turn off all of the other electronics now being mentioned.

Re: The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Harry DeMott — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:05:51 -0000

You may have seen Ben in action, but have ou seen him breaking it down with Nas at the A Grade party at SXSW. Classic stuff.

Re: Feature Friday: Recognizing Wine Labels

Harry DeMott — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 11:41:39 -0000

Check out Drync. Another app out of Boston. Really good guy running the place. Does a great job with label recognition. Same sort of business model - tries to get you to buy wine, with the dream of getting a ton of data on everyone.

My favorite of all time was Tasting Room - run by a good friend Tim Bucher. Great consumer proposition I thought - trying all sorts of small tastes of wine - essentially bringing the tasting room to you. But it was a very hard marketing problem. They got absorbed into Lot 18.