Tag Archive for: due diligence; databases; spokeo; background checks; asset searches; information management;
AI Is Our Tower of Babel
I often tell new clients: “Google yourself. Even if you are very famous (and most of my clients are not), how much of what you know about yourself will be on the web?
For most of us, the answer is, one or two percent of what we know of…
The Most Money I Ever Found in a Divorce Case? From Securities Filings
It’s not even a close call. Sometimes I can find hundreds of thousands of dollars in a company or two that may eventually lead to a better settlement, sometimes a vacation home that was being tucked away or grossly undervalued.
But for…
The Courage to Investigate and Leave AI Behind
There was a letter awhile back in Barron’s that said, “Lawyers look backward to precedent. Innovators assiduously look forward and avoid precedent. The two mindsets are antithetical.”
The letter was about why lawyers at the SEC can’t…
The Hallucinating AI Assistant
Would you want someone working for you who regularly hallucinates on the job? If I ran an ad agency, I might want such a person. Maybe he could dream up a series of ads in which a guy and an emu run around telling people about insurance.
But…
Putting Outrage Aside
There is no shortage of outrage in the world. I suspect it’s always been like this, but it was harder to share it with everyone else before most of us started making instant movies of our lives, to be distributed to millions for almost no…
AI and Google: Not so Different from an Investigative Perspective
Two of the best ways of explaining why a Google search is never enough in an investigation is to remind people that Google is not a neutral distributor of facts, and that it is a tool for thinkers, not a substitute for thinking. I’ve been…
The Perils of AI Investigation – Don’t Get Caught in a Doom Loop
A great piece by Ted Gioia https://lnkd.in/eQxZ5yJ7 about the dangers of looking backward only. This is what AI does, and if you're not careful, living only by algorithms can plunge you into a doom loop.
I've written consistently that generative…
Foreign Investors in the U.S.: If You Don’t Grasp Federalism, You Will Miss a Lot
People from outside the United States sometimes think they understand the country better than they do. That’s natural, because America’s entertainment industry blasts depictions of U.S. life out to just about every other country’s television,…
Due Diligence: Waiting One Week Could Save You Millions
Sometimes in business, there is a tendency to act now before an opportunity passes you by. Hire the candidate before they get away; commit $2 million to the syndicate by Friday or lose the deal.
What sometimes gets lost in the desperation…
Marketing Your Business: The Value Proposition and Why It Helps Investigators
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for marketing a business. If you have an unfamiliar product that requires a major amount of trust on the part of the first-time buyer, the approach should not be the same as persuading people to try a different…

