The surveillance economy: an org chart with revenue figures.
What Data Brokers Actually Do
The collection, aggregation, and resale of personal data. Who the major players are — Acxiom, Experian, LiveRamp, Epsilon, and the long tail of B2B brokers most people have never heard of. What they charge per record, per segment, per audience build. What their margins look like once data is collected and the same record can be sold again, and again, and again.
The Adtech Stack
How real-time bidding works. What happens in the 120 milliseconds between a webpage starting to load and an ad appearing — the SSPs, the DSPs, the data management platforms, the bid streams, the cookie syncs. Where the money flows at each hop, and how Google and Meta have positioned themselves at the chokepoints.
Alternative Data & Hedge Funds
Location data, credit card transaction feeds, satellite imagery, app usage panels. How the surveillance economy quietly became a financial-data product. The funds buying it, the consultants packaging it, the brokers brokering it. The regulatory risk building against this corner of the industry — and why it's the most fragile leg of the stool.
Insurance & Behavioral Pricing
How data from apps, loyalty cards, fitness trackers, and connected vehicles feeds underwriting models. Which insurers are quietly buying what. What it means for premiums, deductibles, and who gets covered. The slow privatization of risk via data nobody knew was being sold.
The Regulatory Reckoning
FTC actions, state AG investigations, GDPR enforcement, the slow grind of proposed federal privacy legislation. Which companies have material legal exposure, which are insulated, and which have business models that simply do not survive a serious privacy regime. What a post-regulatory world looks like financially.
The Investment Angle
Which public companies are exposed, which are insulated, where regulatory pressure creates valuation risk that is not yet priced in. The financial read on privacy law, not the political one. Not investment advice — but the lens a serious investor would use if they took this seriously.