David Walsh, Bronxville

David Walsh of Bronxville NY photo of rhino Great networks don’t simply connect people and things. They organize them and orchestrate them. Airbnb plans to go public this year; valued between $53 and $65 billion near the end of last year by Morningstar, it hasn’t been in any hurry to list shares, given that their “network effect” business model is quite lean because unlike some of their competitors, they don’t need to own or operate physical properties. In fact, at $47 billion, their market cap would be larger than Marriott (around $43 billion), Hilton (around $27 billion) and International Hotels Group (around $12 billion). Online travel agency Expedia’s market cap is around $19 billion and TripAdvisor’s is around $8 billion, while Booking.com comes in at a cool $100 billion; like Airbnb, these companies don’t own properties, cars, airplanes or other assets; they simply do a good job matching the assets out there already with buyers. Uber was one of the hottest IPOs last year, having ...

  David Walsh, Broxville NY Those of us who have been developing ultra-secure, real time Extranets recognize the value of what the current “lingua franca” is now calling “Network Slicing.” During the last decade, one of the companies I had the honor to lead (Ribbon Communications) mastered the art of virtualizing session border control, which has been broadly embraced by telecommunications service providers given their move to software defined networking which makes it possible for them to offer services to multiple clients, including large enterprises, over a shared physical network infrastructure. Rather than having to go to the expense and trouble of setting up individual physical networks, with purpose-built hardware and complex global systems made up of a lot of “moving parts” (and potential points of failure), those Tier One and other service providers are now rolling end-to-end virtual networks which connect people, places and things, systems and applications, supporting dat...

  David Walsh, Bronxville NY With the explosion of data, the growth of cloud-based platforms, the rise of automated systems, more stringent regulations, new digital currencies, and the continued globalization of exchanges and alternative trading domains, change is the only constant when it comes to supporting professional traders. Ultimately, identifying and demonstrating best execution  w ill continue to be one of if not the most important competitive advantages for the rapidly evolving trading ecosystem, and the support of algorithmic platforms and services will require more speed and security than we’ve witnessed up to this moment — this New Year 2020 and the arrival of the third decade of the 21 stCentury. Technological advancements over the last twenty years have generally made markets more efficient, more accessible and more transparent. While we’ve experienced significant periods of volatility, particularly in 2008 when the global markets nearly collapsed, computer syst...

  David Walsh, Bronxville native at the NASDAQ How Will Direct Listings Impact the IPO Market in This New Decade? Taking companies public on traditional exchanges has never been easy, has always been risky, and can lead to “unintended consequences” for entrepreneurs, their teams, and their original, current, and future investors. I’ve taken business public, have run public companies, and have built, bought, consolidated and sold businesses, most often in private transactions and have generated $3.75 billion of cumulative gain for investors and management teams, and have learned a lot in the process about the unique nature of every transaction. Regardless of how these activities have been funded, and how returns have been generated, one thing I can say with certainty is that there is no replacement for the combination of a clear vision for the opportunity to disrupt industries (solving really big problems) and a hard-working, talented team who understand how to plan and execute cons...