Will Cooper

Infra tech exec, investor, and advisor. Brooklyn and the world.

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@MyTechMusings @Delta @viasat But what was your Orb score?

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@larryvc In my experience, also the case for slower growing more mature businesses 😉

Without meaningful profitability, it doesn’t take much to throw a business out of balance.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

I’ve never been more thankful to be an iPhone user.

Due to the lack of cell service, EVERYONE in Asheville NC right now on iOS 18 has been able to get messages out and in with the Satellite messaging feature.

This is literally saving lives @Apple.

[Beyond Now @BeyondPlatforms]

We're excited to announce that Odido has selected us to lead its #BSS transformation & underpin its #B2B expansion strategy, facilitating the rapid onboarding of its 40 partners to seamlessly co-create and co-sell their solutions. https://t.co/uXCGqTrIfB

[@levelsio @levelsio]

🗽 It's exactly 400 years ago this month that New York City was founded:

As a Dutch person I have to insufferably keep reminding everyone that New York City used to be New Amsterdam

🇳🇱 It was discovered and founded by the Dutch in May of 1624, so about this time 400 years ago the Dutch ships sailed into its bay

🏢 The lower part of Manhattan in the Financial District is pretty much the entire original town of New Amsterdam and its kept the same street/block structure as 400 years ago. Even the names are roughly the same:

Brede weg (wide road) -> Broadway
Bouwerij (farm) -> Bowery
Waal straat -> Wall Street

All around New York there's lots more that's Dutch, like these districts:

Breukelen (a tiny village near Utrecht) -> Brooklyn
Haarlem (a suburb of Amsterdam) -> Harlem
Vlissingen (a sea town) -> Flushing
Konijnen eiland (rabbit island) -> Coney Island
Lange eiland -> Long Island
Peter Stuveysant (Dutch officer) -> Bedford-Stuyvesant (aka Bed-Stuy)

The Hudson river was named after Henry Hudson who was a Brit who worked for the Dutch, a bit ironic because later the Dutch lost it to the Brits in 1664 who renamed it to New York

The street pictured below is de Herengracht (gentlemen's canal) which later became Broad Street and was extended a bit as NYC added 2 blocks of land in the sea, I tried to put the images in roughly the same perspective

🇺🇸 American culture is strongly influenced by New York City culture: entrepreneurship, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, free trade and of course the banking and finance sector

🟧 And I would argue a lot of that in turn is influenced by the original New Amsterdam culture brought by the Dutch of 400 years ago who held the same values back then

All over Europe people would flock to the Netherlands to live in freedom of persecution

Why?

Because generally in the Netherlands, the only thing back then people cared about was making money from trade, so they couldn't care less how you looked, what God you prayed to, or what your opinions were, it was about money. Not always good either (see the horrors of slavery and colonization) but at least it was more free than the rest of Europe

That spirit is still alive: people all over the world flock to America for the same reasons nowadays, freedom of persecution, and freedom of enterprise. The freedom to build a business and get rewarded (and celebrated) for it! It's not perfect and has its problems but at least people from all over the world come there to build stuff without much interference

I'd argue that the original Dutch free spirit that may have laid the foundations for America's free spirit has sadly died centuries ago in the Netherlands

🇪🇺 The current Dutch (and European!) culture to me feels not risk seeking but risk averse, not fearless but fearful and not ambitious but complacent. Which from my other posts you know I criticize because I'd love to see it reverse!

Happy birthday New York (or as I prefer to call it New Amsterdam 😝) 🗽🇺🇸

[Beyond Now @BeyondPlatforms]

We're delighted to have been named as a Representative Vendor in @Gartner_inc’s latest Market Guide for #Marketplace Operation Applications. To learn more, visit: https://t.co/U9XeKl2cw3

#partnerecosystem #CSP #telco #technology #innovation #gartnermarketguide #Gartner

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@stephmui Examples?

[Angry Tom @AngryTomtweets]

ChatGPT was just the beginning.

It's only been 14 hours since OpenAI released their new product GPTs

And people are already generating insane results.

Here are 10 of my favorite examples...

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Thanks to the 600+ who attended Houlihan Lokey’s Global Technology conference in NY this week. We look forward to doing it all over again in London in March 2024!

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

One software product from every year since 1977, in chronological order.

1977: VisiCalc, the “killer app” for Apple II

1/46

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@patrick_oshag Menu, beans, barista know-how, music, and ambience (and not too many ppl).

Here’s a shot from Kalei Coffee in Beirut, which nailed all of those.

Background music was Teardrop by Omar Sosa.

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Fascinating piece on TIM’s sale of its main asset – the fixed network. As software increasingly controls networks, separations like these become easier and enable investors to pick the slice of the pie that fits their risk appetite.
https://t.co/O0lmc8iPxk

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Fascinating breakdown of telecom capex trends. Two takeaways: 1) IT and software spend as a share of total capex are growing and 2) AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon had the highest capex growth in 2022.

https://t.co/LO2wGmmxDM

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Software continues to help advance and automate connectivity. Arm yourself with insights on seven of the key trends that we see defining the year ahead with our second edition of Software for the Connected World. https://t.co/yvbKLBt9KU #software #5G #telecom

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Software continues to help advance and automate connectivity. Arm yourself with insights on seven of the key trends that we see defining the year ahead with our second edition of Software for the Connected World. https://t.co/hcqLQSGEbn

[Brett Adcock @adcock_brett]

If you want to be a great CEO, open this:

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@thespencerwalsh Incredible shot - looks like you nailed it but wanting to see the rest of the photo series! 😉

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

@ngirard Derivative due diligence

[Will Cooper @WCooper19]

Houlihan Lokey is proud to announce that it has agreed to acquire Oakley Advisory. This acquisition will expand our coverage of digital infrastructure, communications, and cloud in Europe and further strengthen our global Technology Group. Learn more here: https://t.co/GKCz3XHNLI