There has to be a business of sitting in a Starbucks and being a corporate fink.
I was in the city of London and between meetings. Being me, I opened my Mac, but as it has been a long week, I was playing Freeciv rather than doing real work. It is amazing how disarming a Mac and a guy who is not in a suit playing Freeciv is. People are just bloody stupid in how they talk and talk as if no one else cares about what they are saying.
I know more about one group that is looking to let people go, and another group that is trying to figure out how to market to pension funds, and what the rate premium is for some really neat credit swaps.
You would think they thought that I was stupid.
I am not stupid enough to trade on the information, but there have to be people who sit in Starbucks pretending to be wall candy and sell the information they find. If it is not a business for the mob, nothing is. I mean they could even franchise the store. Heck, the chairs are cheap enough and have enough curves you could just plant a few bugs and run a computer program or 3 to find out interesting information.
A good guy with a good computer algorithm could run every conversation in a Starbucks every day in the city and find the conversations that have useful information. The thing then would be to filter the information and find customers, but considering that 100 basis points on $100-million deals are at stake, there has to be a way to find customers.
What I do find useful is watching the city people deal with each other over a cup of joe. You can tell who the real power people are and who are the laid back people who control stuff. You can see who is gripping the table, or holding a cell phone tight. You can also pick up the way that they talk to each other. I think the visual really helps add value to the business, and the combination would be dynamite. Just have some kid watch the room for the right people and take a few notes to go along with the data.
I am not saying that I am not also guilty of the same offense of having conversations in places that are not private, but I am at least somewhat discreet, I hope.
Bloody lot of fun.
