Shalmanese

Unsurprisingly, that's not how that works, that's not how any of that works. If it was a public company, then a mere transfer of shares doesn't transfer over board seats. Board seats can only be altered during a board election at which the newly acquired shares can be used to elect your preferred candidate. If it was a private company, then board seats are governed by the bylaws laid out in the articles of incorporation and they could possibly be sold alongside a stake but most bylaws require board approval for any sale above a certain threshold. As to whether the board would have ever voted in favor, absolutely not.

You can't get a real time video feed of a probe orbiting Jupiter...

It was interesting because the theme for this episode seems to be fundamentally good ideas marred by the wrong entrepreneurs attacking the market. Guard Llama: The hard part of this is not the key fob, it's integrating with tons of patchwork legacy emergency responders around the country/globe. So you hit the emergency alert button and the Guard Llama HQ has your photo and real time location, how does the cop nearest to you sitting in a patrol car get access to it and use it in an actionable way? It's not rocket science but it's a long hard slog of integrating with a ton of different services to try and make this a seamless experience. Once you've done the work however, you have a defensive moat and are attractive as an acquisition target. Imagine Apple being able to announce that the new iPhone 9 now has a feature where when you call 911, optionally they'll be sent your photo, any pertinent health info, real time location and a bunch of other stats? That's a real improvement in public safety and a huge selling point. Flag: These guys didn't even talk about the huge differentiation factor in their business which is that photographs are a fantastic source for targeting data for advertising. The killer feature isn't the real estate per se, but the ability to become hyper targeted as you build up portfolios of info about your customer base. If your customers are taking photos of babies, you can start sending them offers for toddler clothing. If they're sending photos of the great outdoors, adventure equipment. Food, restaurant coupons etc. Validated: I actually thought this was a great idea but the criticism is right that their customer experience is way too convoluted. They should be straightforward offers of "buy at least X, get Y free". Like how Amazon's $35 free shipping limit often entices people to buy just a little more than they were planning to in order to get the offer, Validated should work with stores to craft offers that get people just over the line. Notice how basically every restaurant offer is about the price of 2 entrees plus about 20%? It's because it's a great way to get people in there and get them ordering drinks/desserts/other high margin goods and it works. Guardian Bikes: These guys suck at sales and are too concerned about short term cash flow. They failed at licensing, assumed it was because licensing wasn't lucrative enough and built their own bikes because the money looks better. Instead, they should have just gotten better at licensing.