Oxford Odyssey

Author: cowleycorporateclimbers

  • Debt – good or bad for a company?

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    Financial gurus will tell you to keep debt down. There are some quibbles over good and bad debt, where some will argue that you should take a mortgage because of the historical trend of appreciating property prices. Many would argue that taking a loan out to buy consumer items with little chance of price appreciation…

  • When Good Customer Service Becomes Complex – And Why AI Chatbots Can Be Frustrating

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    Contextual ServiceStarbucks is often cited as the epitome of a customer-focused business, inspired by Howard Schultz’s vision of fostering community around coffee. Sitting in Gail’s as I write this, I can’t help but reflect on how many of us equate good service with the cheery greetings and casual chats we share with baristas. However, good…

  • Climate Change – explained in economics

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    Tragedy of the commons If a business was pumping mercury into a river depended upon by a village, you would hear collective outrage. The affected village has a strong interest in stopping the pollution, and will beat on the war drums to spur the rest of us into action.  Carbon diffuses through Brownian motion, distributing…

  • Embracing uncertainty

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    One of the biggest realisations after leaving school is this: no one has all the answers. In school, the problems were often predefined, and the answers could be found in textbooks or from teachers. At work, it’s a completely different ballgame. Many challenges you face are original, uncharted, and require you to carve out a…

  • Crime in London

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    As an international student, I’ve come to cherish the relative safety of Oxford. Life here is calm, and being a student town is just peaceful. Even the clubs are friendly. The worst I’ve encountered was an older man hurling a racist slur at me—disheartening, but ultimately harmless in comparison to the more violent acts of…

  • Game Theory

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    Game theory is about anticipating the reactions of the other party and making your move based on that reaction, projecting it out into the future. However, it is often reduced to iconic examples like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a scenario so frequently cited that it risks trivialising the depth and breadth of this field. While the…

  • Mergers & Acquisitions : Why it hasn’t been great

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    I blame spring week and summer recruiting for the number of times I told an interviewer that M&A was my passion and intellectual calling. I had to read up on so many deals – looking at each bank’s transactions and picking one to express my amazement at the genius of such a deal. Now, I…

  • The value proposition of NFTs – Non-rivalry

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    Despite a staggering increase in interest and valuations of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), there is growing doubt about their value as the era of easy money ends and speculation is curbed. NFTs have often been lauded as a revolutionary way to create a new digital art market, with some NFTs achieving valuations comparable to iconic works…

  • The unfair demonisation of private equity

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    When a group of my friends were planning an Easter trip to the USA, I wanted to try out Red Lobster. I’m a huge sucker for buffets and the endless shrimp offering was something that I was eager to take on as a new dietary challenge. Funnily enough, this was also one of the reasons…

  • The college dilemma of Gen Z

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    Is a university degree still worth it? For many in Gen Z, the question feels more urgent than ever. Despite skyrocketing tuition fees and growing student debt, university enrolment continues to rise, with a seemingly zero price elasticity of demand. On the surface, this makes sense—higher education has traditionally been seen as the path to…