Transparency
The Occupy Wall Street movement is so anarchic as to be impossible to name one “mentor” or group behind it – although that’s not stopping some people from claiming influence over it. Ultimately, in investments or revolutions, it’s all about the key people – it’s vital to understand their real motivations, aspirations, personalities and incentive/moral systems. Not what they say it is, what it really is. And that’s why it’s so hard to define “OWS”. We highlight three articles about it that may shed some light in a few spots.
We’ve posted last Friday about the very interesting InfoTrends conference, roughly about the state of Brazilian social media. We continue the topic today with notes from Day One, more specifically the videoconference talk by Wikileaks’ Julian Assange (Part 1 is just for his talk). While his speeches are usually quite radical, so is the notion that transparency can change the world’s governance systems for the best – and Wikileaks (along with its offspring organizations) is the most interesting experiment in this realm.
The April 2011 issue of the New Yorker brings the tale of RosPil, a new Wikileaks-like site in Russia, and that of the site’s founder. Let’s read it while we can… We’ve been arguing that transparency and crowdsourcing can be a powerful source of changes in the governance systems still around that don’t make too much sense. It’s just that sometimes the wind can turn and temporarily slow what seems like inevitable outcomes.
In our Q2 2010 report, we said that there was growing evidence that “the governance structure in which we live is defective.” After a description of what was wrong, we said: “There is a clue, a glimpse of something that may bring changes in this scenario when one studies initiatives such as WikiLeaks and Propublica, which are very specific examples of how technology can and will enable change by introducing transparency.” We wonder how long before such initiatives find a vehicle in Brazil…
Long interview with two of IP’s partners, Cristiano Fonseca Filho and Fred Trigueiro. Quite informal, the interview goes through IP’s pioneering history in the Brazilian capital market and shows how we apply some of the most important aspects of our culture in the day to day: Ethics, Discipline and Patience, Independence… We’ve obtained permission from Exame to translate and publish the interview and here it is.
A long interview with two IP partners (in Portuguese – we’re having it translated and will post it here), Cristiano Fonseca Filho and Fred Trigueiro. The talk was very informal and spanned IP’s pioneering story in the Brazilian financial market. It gives insight into how we apply some of the most important aspects of our [...]
As we blog and try to become more transparent for investors, potential investors and even invested companies, we’re aware of the dangers of over-exposure and “posing”, as these two NY Times pieces highlight. We feel we’re safe because 1) Transparency has always been our culture: we pioneered fund reports in Brazil, then annual investor meetings, and now this blog – and more to come; 2) We’re aware of the risks and have built our processes and incentive systems accordingly; and 3) We tend to assume we’re wrong – meaning we’re conservative. Since we recognize we’re learning as much as everybody else is, we will prefer to err on the side of omission.
We’ve recently had the opportunity to do research on Buffett’s letters to shareholders beginning in 1959 (when Buffett managed Partnerships and Berkshire Hathaway was not even in his sights). His consistency and transparency are always impressive – especially in times like these and since we’re talking about more than 50 years of Buffett clearly practicing what he preaches.
