PicoBlog

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. Today’s episode features the architects behind one of the industry’s faster growing wealth management platforms, NewEdge. We welcome NewEdge CEO, Managing Partner, and Co-Founder Rob Sechan and NewEdge CIO Cameron Dawson. Both Rob and Cameron have a wealth of experience in both wealth management and private markets. Rob has over two decades of experience in financial services, beginning his career as a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley, before running a family office business as a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers.

Cigarette advertising holds an especially terrible place in the history of advertising that can conveniently be summed up with the fact that the Marlboro Man is an icon who died of lung cancer. As someone who works in advertising, I have to say that this category is awful. So with all that said, one of my favorite ad campaigns of all time is Newport’s Alive With Pleasure! print campaign. Every ad is roughly the same.

Laurie Powsner had recently left her full time gig as a social worker, so this year she and her husband got their insurance coverage on the individual market.  The health benefits came with a hefty deductible. That led to sticker shock after she got an echocardiogram at a hospital near her home in Princeton, New Jersey.  Her portion of the bill came to $1,650. Laurie, 60, has been reading my Allen Health Academy newsletter, so she called the hospital to challenge the bill.

Today we’re very excited to announce the release of our new product SYNAPSS, the next-gen web3 job marketplace with highly trustworthy resume. Try SYNAPSS SYNAPSS is a global job platform service focused on talent in the Web3 space, including blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, BCG, and GameFi. Companies looking to hire can search for Web3 talent based on reliable digital resumes called "VESS Resumes," which utilize decentralized identity (DID/VC) technology. Additionally, employers can easily issue verifiable credentials for their newly hired talents' work experience.

What is, arguably, the most on-brand NFL week of the season is here: 32 teams, 16 games, four days of football, all while we gorge on food and spend too much money on holiday shopping. U-S-A, baby! Although that might sound like I’m being a little sardonic, I don’t mean it that way. Yes, this time of year can be stressful, overwhelming, and cynically commercialized, but I honestly love it despite how jam-packed our schedules become.

If last year was the “Andy Reid coaching tree playoffs,” then this year’s postseason belongs to the Shanahans. This season, five coaches who led their team into the playoffs have worked under Mike and/or Kyle Shanahan: Matt LaFleur, Mike McDaniel, Sean McVay, DeMeco Ryans, and, of course, Kyle Shanahan.  One of those men — Ryans, who is in his first season with the Texans — will be making his postseason head coaching debut.

Week 9 is off to a rousing start, and I’m not talking about the actual games. The NFL had an eventful trade deadline on Tuesday, but the biggest news of the night came late, when Raiders owner Mark Davis decided to fire Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler.  McDaniels’ firing seemed inevitable as soon as the Raiders hired him a year and a half ago, and the on-field product did nothing but confirm those suspicions.

As a wandering Canadian for half my life now, I’ve been on a long, obligatory quest to work out the difference between being nice and being kind. I don’t want to lump all of my compatriots into one psychological category (and it wouldn’t be accurate to do so) but we Canadians sometimes we have a tendency to be a bit too nice. The thing with being surface-level “nice” is it’s not necessarily the key to, well, anything.

Less than two weeks ago, Craig Breslow began to reshape the Red Sox’s roster when he traded Alex Verdugo to the New York Yankees. The trade netted Boston three pitchers, including Nicholas Judice. The 22-year-old has yet to make his professional debut, but he has an exciting arsenal that drew Breslow’s interest. After four years at the University of Louisiana Monroe, Judice’s pro career began this past summer when the Yankees selected him in the eighth round of the 2023 MLB Draft.