User talk:Jimfbleak/ERA

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - Elky has no conflict of interest
Hi Jim,

Thank you for the patrolling work that you do, sir. It is critical to the integrity of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. I love and respect you guys. (-:

You (and Creffett at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Creffett) left messages on my talk page with many potential issues with the draft article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Entrepreneurs_Roundtable_Accelerators_(ERA). I write "potential" only because not every alleged defect might apply.

At approximately the same time, on 30 March you deleted the draft article. Full deletion makes it very hard for me to see, discuss, and improve the article. I hope I didn't just lose 12 hours of work. Ugh.

For clarity, I'll try to work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing the possible Conflict of Interest (COI).

I do not have any conflict of interest (COI) or potential COI with respect to the draft ERA article, neither in fact nor appearance. Although it would be easy for one to articulate the existence of a COI, it's much trickier for me to enumerate the nonexistence of a COI. Still, I think specificity will help you, so here are concrete examples:


 * I do not own or manage ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have.
 * I do not own or manage any ERA startups. I never have.
 * I do not work for ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have.
 * I do not consult for ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have.
 * I do not work for any of the ERA startup companies. I never have.
 * I do not consult for any of the ERA startup companies. I never have.
 * I am not a promoter (paid or unpaid) for ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have been.
 * I am not a promoter (paid or unpaid) for any ERA startup company. I never have been.
 * I am not invested in ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have been.
 * I am not a creditor to ERA, ERA affiliate, or ERA competitor. I never have been.
 * I am not invested in any ERA startup company. I never have been.
 * I am not a creditor to any ERA startup company. I never have been.
 * I do not have any relationship (personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial) with any people who work at, or mentor, or own, or manage, or help ERA, ERA affiliates, or ERA competitors. I never have had one.
 * I do not have any relationship (personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial) with any people who work at, or mentor, or own, or manage, or help ERA startup companies. I never have had one.
 * ERA, ERA affiliate, and ERA competitors are not clients of mine. They never have been.
 * ERA startup companies are not clients of mine. They never have been.
 * I am not a paid editor of Wikipedia. I never have been.
 * The above bullets are also true for my parents, my in-law parents, and my nuclear family. To the best of my knowledge, the above bullets also hold true for my aunts, my uncles, my nieces, and my nephews. I have no grandchildren.

ERA does not know I decided to write this article.

Regards, Elky Elky Hyrule (talk) 16:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Elky Hyrule, thanks for that clarification, for info Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  16:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Elky Hyrule, your article says what the company claims to do, but it appears to have no employees, verifiable income or profits. Your text was also promotional in tone, and the sources often didn't meet the criteria I described Jimfbleak - talk to me?  16:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - ERA has legal employees, and many more non-employee staff
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "[ERA] appears to have no employees .....".

I found non-ERA sources to evidence the existence of employees at ERA. Here are 6 examples:

1) Murat Aktihanoglu		Title: ERA Managing Director	Employer: ERA	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murat/	Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Aktihanoglu	.... That Wikipedia page reads "Employer: Managing Partner at Entrepreneur's Roundtable Accelerator"	

2) Jonathan Axelrod		Title: ERA Managing Director	Employer: ERA	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-axelrod-781454/	..... Note: LinkedIn does NOT support Elky's claim that Jonathan now works for ERA. Only shows his prior employment. 	Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jon-axelrod<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

3) Justin Smithline	<BLOCKQUOTE>	Title: ERA Operating Partner<BR>	Employer: ERA<BR>	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinsmithline/<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

4) Sharon Hsu:	<BLOCKQUOTE>	Title: ERA Program Associate<BR>	Employer: ERA<BR>	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonchsu/<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

5) Brian Hecht:	<BLOCKQUOTE>	Title: ERA Venture Partner<BR> 	Employer: ERA<BR>	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhecht/<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

6) Emily Bell:	<BLOCKQUOTE>	Title: ERA Operating Partner (3 years ago was only Program Manager)<BR>	Employer: ERA<BR>	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilybell87/<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

Different industries exhibit a different mix of capital assets, employees, contractors, principals, owners, and partners. The Seed Accelerator industry is staffed heavily with non-employee HR who provide services (venture capital funding, legal services such as IP protection, VC counsel, technology mentoring, business plan development, financial planning) in return for owning a share of the accelerator company (ERA) that invests in the startups they cultivate. Thus staffing levels are far higher than those workers who have a legal status of employee.

To illustrate, here is an example of an ERA partner who delivers (mentoring) services to ERA startups, but is legally employed by a different company (Knotel):

7) Allison Stoloff	<BLOCKQUOTE>	Title: Head of Global Marketing<BR>	Employer: Knotel<BR>	Role at ERA: Mentor<BR>	LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-stoloff-0608a265/<BR>	</BLOCKQUOTE>

Regards, Elky Elky Hyrule (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Elky Hyrule a handful of staff doesn't show notability, several hundred might. Also LinkedIn and Crunchbase can be self-edited and are not normally acceptable sources. What you appear to be saying is that we don't know how many people work directly or indirectly for the company, and we can't find any independent sources even for the management <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  06:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

<BR>

Hi Jim,

Please just call me Elky! I feel like I'm in trouble being addressed by my surname. (-:

In this reply, I am only addressing your statement that "[ERA] appears to have no employees .....".

Thus I am not addressing herein ERA's notability, which is a completely different issue, albeit a very important one. Thus I am not addressing herein the sizing of staffing to support ERA's business.

All the evidence suggests (but does not absolutely prove) that there are approximately 12 employees and over 500 non-employee workers for a total of over 512 human resources working for ERA. The evidence includes:
 * LinkedIn profiles maintained by workers (a subset of which I already found and provided to you)
 * Crunchbase statistics (a subset of which I already found and provided to you)
 * photograph's and profiles of 12 staff on an ERA-maintained website page (https://www.eranyc.com/team/)
 * count of 500+ networked mentors on an ERA-maintained website page (https://www.eranyc.com/why-era/)
 * Bloomberg profiles of business people (e.g., https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/20551768)
 * news articles (e.g., https://www.raisecg.com/the-pitch-factor/2019/5/29/justin-smithline-partner-era-never-bury-the-lede)
 * podcasts (e.g., https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-pitch-factor/justin-smithline-partner-era-dxmUolfFSLN/)
 * Business magazines (e.g., https://www.crainsnewyork.com/features/citys-tech-accelerators-are-turbo-charging-local-startups)
 * Angel Investor Listings (e.g., https://angel.co/company/entrepreneurs-roundtable-accelerator/people)
 * Presentations (e.g., https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/top-10-startup-mistakes-how-to-avoid-them-aws-startup-day-new-york-2018 by justin@eranyc.com Justin Smithline)
 * Books (https://www.amazon.com/Murat-Aktihanoglu/e/B005L9FGFO%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share)
 * etc

There is no evidence to support the original assertion that "[ERA] appears to have no employees".

I do not have to absolutely prove ERA has employees to dispense of an unsupported assertion to the contrary. That burden of proof is unreasonable, and cannot be met by any Wikipedian for any subject company.

It does not matter if LinkedIn or Crunchbase is an accepted source. Source acceptability is only a criteria for claims made in Wikipedia content - as it should be. I did not use LinkedIn or Crunchbase to support any claim in the draft ERA article (that you deleted). I am only citing LinkedIn and Crunchbase in this discussion between two reasonable Wikipedians. The use of LinkedIn or Crunchbase in a headcount discussion is excellent, sanctioned, and very productive.

Finally, because HR and PR systems are kept confidential, virtually all FTE (full time equivalent), worker, and employee counts are sourced from the employer's statement. Furthermore, those counts are not verifiable by the public (e.g., by Jim, Elky, Wales, or others). These two principles are true for all companies, not just for ERA. Here is a concrete example: Wikipedia and CNBC both state that Google has 114,096 employees as of Q3 2019 (see Infobox at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google). Per the graph legend at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/google-employee-growth-2001-through-2019.html, you can see that exact 114,096 number "is sourced from .... Google filings".

We should both now agree that ERA appears to have legal employees, plus many non-employee workers.

Regards, Elky <BR>Elky Hyrule (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2020 (UTC) <BR>

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - Seed accelerators do not publish financial results
Hi Jim,

Again, thank you for the patrolling work that you do. It is critical to the integrity of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. I love and respect you guys. (-:

For clarity, I'll try to work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "[ERA] appears to have no ... verifiable income or profits. .....".

I agree with your statement. The reason financial results are not disclosed is that U.S. seed accelerators are almost always organized as private Limited Liability Corporations (LLC). LLC owners are called "members". The LLC organization is a hybrid legal entity. To wit, LLCs shelters members from the liabilities of the entity (similar to US corporation or UK limited company), whilst allowing the members to choose to have the entity's income taxed at the member level (similar to partnership) similar to an "S corp" election. LLC typically do make that election.

It wasn't easy, but I found evidence that ERA is organized as an LLC organized under the State of Delaware, USA:<BR> https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/Ecorp/EntitySearch/NameSearch.aspx<BR> 4971557	ENTREPRENEURS ROUNDTABLE ACCELERATOR, LLC

Delaware companies such as ERA are subject to US laws. The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 ("1934 SEC Act") is a US federal law. The 1934 SEC Act allows a private company to not report financial results (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, changes in equity) to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and to the public, unless that private company exceeds 500 common shareholders and $10 million in assets.

Public reporting is very onerous, and undermines the advantages of forming an LLC. Therefore, seed accelerators always remain far below 500 member shareholders. Also, LLCs intentionally distribute earnings to members well before the LLC accumulates a USD $10 million asset.

Accordingly, it is virtually impossible for the public (Elky, Jim, others) to verify financial results of any seed accelerator, including:
 * Y Combinator .......... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
 * 500 Startups ........... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_Startups
 * Techstars ................ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techstars
 * ERA ........................ Draft Wikipedia article deleted

The draft ERA Wikipedia article makes no claims about revenue size, revenue growth, net income, or profitability. Thus financial results should not be germane to our analysis of the article.

Regards, Elky<BR> Elky Hyrule (talk) 00:33, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. A similarly-named "ERA Group, Inc." company is publicly traded on the NYSE New York Stock Exchange. You can see it at https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:ERA. However, ERA Group makes helicopters. It is unrelated to our ERA seed accelerator.
 * Elky Hyrule, I guessed that this would be a tax-haven company, and that it would be shrouded in secrecy, even the sum it claims to distribute is sourced to a company press release. It doesn't make it any easier for you, though. The actually company facts are hidden from us, and what you have told us in your draft is largely what the company is telling us instead of independent third party sources, so it's bound to be promotional, with words like "expert", "seasoned" and "well-known" sprinkled around. What we need is proper sources like the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, the BBC or similar reputable sources, not what is effectively the company telling us about itself with no way for us to check anything it claims <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  06:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - Wikipedia notability is not a function of company staffing headcount
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "... handful of staff doesn't show notability, several hundred might .....".

Staff is defined as "all the people employed by a particular organization".<BR> https://www.google.com/search?q=define+staff&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS718US718&oq=define+staff&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.2110j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I've never said ERA staffing levels support ERA's notability. I was simply addressing the topic you had raised with your assertion that "ERA appears to have no employees". That is the only reason I discussed ERA employee count.

Also, there was no claim made with respect to ERA employee count in the ERA article (that you deleted). Thus I do not have to determine nor prove the headcount. I have been searching, gathering, documenting, and delivering such data to you herein because I respect and value you. We are fellow Wikipedians.

Significance :<BR> The significance of a seed accelerator (and of many other organizations) is not a function of the organization's employee count. Here are two examples:
 * The public, crowd-sourced, web-accessible, hyperlinked encyclopedia Wikipedia is incredibly significant. However, Wikipedia's roughly 200 employees is only a tiny fraction of its support ecosystem, and thus its impact. For example, the 200-person staff only account for .0005% of registered users (200/38,660,598 = 0.00000517322). The 200-person staff represent only .1% of recent contributors (200/134,583 = 0.00148607179). Staffing is the wrong metric to gauge Wikipedia's significance.
 * WikiHow is a significant organization. It has a 2-digit employee count. Wikipedia quantifies the staffing level as "staff team consists of a small group of employees" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiHow). Forbes quantifies the staffing level at 25 employees (https://www.forbes.com/companies/wikihow/?list=best-small-companies#48966a744830).
 * other examples

Three key metrics for gauging the significance of a seed accelerator is the count of graduated alumni companies, the resultant private equity raised, and the market valuation of alumni companies. That is why the now-deleted ERA article read "ERA has launched 180 startups which have raised more than $300 million and have a collective market valuation of over $2 billion (as of June 2019)". (citing reference to published story by Verizon Media's TechCrunch unit).

Notability :<BR> The notability of an subject (e.g., a company) is set of criteria we Wikipedians apply to decide whether that subject warrants its own Wikipedia article. The lion's share of these criteria boil down to whether there has been significant, verifiable, 3rd party coverage in reliable, independent sources.

Staffing levels of a subject company are irrelevant to notability.

Regards, Elky <BR>Elky Hyrule (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2020 (UTC) <BR>

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - ERA is not a tax haven, nor a tax shelter
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing " .. a tax-haven company ... ".

A tax haven is a country or independent area where taxes are levied at a low rate.<BR> https://www.google.com/search?q=define+tax+haven&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS718US718&oq=define+tax+haven

ERA is not a tax haven.

Perhaps you meant a tax shelter. A tax shelter is an "arrangement made to avoid or minimize taxes". (It doesn't have to be a financial arrangement.)<BR> https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS718US718&sxsrf=ALeKk01Bhe-d03Lq9lukEUkJRHyXNdKoYA%3A1585690489524&ei=ebeDXpjZH-KlytMPoP6f0A4&q=define+tax+shelter&oq=define+tax+shelter

There are many legitimate, government-sanctioned, structured arrangements (legal, organizational, or financial) that by government design intentionally deliver a tax sheltering benefit to citizens. For example:
 * United States : 401(K), Roth 401(K), and IRA retirement accounts
 * United Kingdom : Individual Savings Accounts

The LLC organization is intentionally preserving partnership structure, while providing corporate liability protection. This is mirrored around the world with very similar entities. For example:
 * France : Société à responsabilité limitée (SARL)
 * Belgium : Besloten vennootschap (BV)
 * UK : British Limited Company

ERA is not a tax shelter. ERA's choice of LLC organizational structure does provide certain tax advantages (e.g., pass-through entity avoids the double taxation on corporate-level earnings and personal-level dividends), and does give rise to certain tax disadvantages (e.g., graduated US personal FIT rates are higher than 21% corporate, and state taxing jurisdictions such as New York levy an additional franchise tax / capital values / business privilege tax on LLCs). The principal driver for choosing an LLC over a partnership is to shield member's personal assets from LLC-level liabilities.

ERA is neither a tax haven, nor a tax shelter.

Regards, Elky <BR>Elky Hyrule (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2020 (UTC) <BR>

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - The required ERA facts are publicly available, not hidden in shroud of secrecy
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "... shrouded in secrecy ... company facts are hidden from us...".

Financial results :<BR> Financial results are defined as income statements items (revenue, expense, tax, discontinued operations, extraordinary items, changes in GAAP, fully-diluted EPS), balance sheet items (assets, liabilities, equity), cash flows (operating, capital investment, financing), statement of changes in equity, and related footnotes such as segment information and operating lease contractual obligations.

It is true that private companies (provided they remain under 500 owners, under $10 million), and thus seed accelerators, are not legally required to publish financial results in the US, and therefore almost never do. Other countries have very similar laws (e.g., European Directives for EU) and behaviours.

That is why private company financial data information is not included in any reporting (news, podcast, TV shows, YouTube videos) and in the private company's Wikipedia article. For example, the following four Wikipedia articles about seed accelerators do not include the accelerator's financial results:


 * Y Combinator .......... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
 * 500 Startups ........... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_Startups
 * Techstars ................ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techstars
 * ERA ........................ Draft Wikipedia article deleted

Wikipedia does not require the financial results of companies. The required ERA facts (all except optional financial results) are publicly available, and not hidden in shroud of secrecy. We should publish a seed accelerator article for ERA.

Regards, Elky <BR>Elky Hyrule (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2020 (UTC) <BR>

P.S. It is much harder for private companies to attract investors than public companies. Thus private companies (including seed accelerators) typically publicly announce when a 3rd party entity has agreed to invest in their company. Why? The private company wants outsiders (potential clients, vendors, business partners, other potential investors) to know that their private company is attractive, solvent, and well-funded for the long run. This financing activity is outside the strict definition of "financial results". Stil, you and I may find some of that for ERA.

More
Elky, however you define the status of Delaware, there is a reason, that so many US companies register there, even if it's just the lack of transparency. UK companies use the Channel Islands or Lichtenstein for the same reason as well as tax management.

I accept that numbers of staff doesn't have to be an indicator of notability, but it can be. If a company employs 10000 people, it's notable for that reason alone. Similarly, if it has a turnover of £10000000, that makes it notable. So what makes ERA notable?
 * Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA) receives over 2,000 web applications for each of its semiannual accelerator programs I don't know if there is a mistake in your link, but the Alleywatch ref is showing me just the article title with no content, so as it stands doesn't verify that claim. Even if the link verified the text, the Alleywatch content is likely to be based on an ERA press release
 * (ERA) alumni companies have received funding from dozens of well known investors, including also Alleywatch, so same problem
 * 180 startups which have raised more than $300 million and have a collective market valuation of over $2 billion (as of June 2019). Techcrunch typically just carries material derived from press releases, there is no indication that these figures derive from anywhere other than ERA itself

This company seems likely to be notable, but we need real facts and independent sources. Many hard facts are hidden, and the titbits we are thrown derive from company press releases rather than external sources. You really need respected sources such as those I mentioned above instead of the present sources where what should be important facts are only derived from the company. Do we know if reputable sources like the WSJ, FT or the financial regulators accept those figures? Most of the reasonably verifiable facts seem to apply to the alumni companies, which may verify their notability, but not ERA's

One purely technical point, the title should be just Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators with a link from the disambiguation page ERA for the acronym.

<b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  06:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi Jim, I apologize for my slow response. Yesterday was consumed by a family medical emergency, which unfortunately is not yet resolved. Let me try today. (-: Elky Elky Hyrule (talk) 15:04, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators" - US federal laws (not Delaware state law) grant privacy to private companies
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "... however you [Elky] define the status of Delaware,... there is a reason, that so many US companies register there, even if it's just the lack of transparency.,," in your "More" section.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators will be referred to herein as "ERA".

I (Elky) never defined the status of Delaware. I never attempted to define the status of Delaware.

I identified Delaware in the section titled "Seed accelerators do not publish financial results" for only two reasons:


 * After searching many US states, I finally found ERA's registration and thus LLC status in that state. Please see "4971557 ENTREPRENEURS ROUNDTABLE ACCELERATOR, LLC". This evidence is highly relevant because the ERA article does make a claim that the seed accelerator ERA is organized as an LLC. We should both be glad I found that filing, regardless of which US state I found it in.


 * Because Delaware is a state within the United States, ERA is subject to US federal laws. Please see "The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 ("1934 SEC Act") is a US federal law." Because ERA is organized in a US state (whether Delaware, Florida, California, Nebraska, Hawaii, South Dakota, Wyoming, etc), ERA is subject to the 1934 SEC Act. It is that 1934 SEC Act that allows private companies to not publish financial results.

US federal laws (including the 1934 SEC Act) intentionally grant certain privacies to private companies. Very similar to UK law and EU Directives.

Thus Delaware incorporation has no bearing on ERA not publishing financial results. Delaware is irrelevant to this fact.

Regards, Elky<BR> Elky Hyrule (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators" - Delaware offers mature corporate law environment, not supersecrecy of offshore investment havens such as Channel Islands
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "... UK companies use the Channel Islands or Lichtenstein for the same reason [opaqueness] ..." from your "More" section.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators will be referred to herein as "ERA".

<U>Offshore Investing offers and delivers supersecrecy</U>:<BR> "Offshore investing" jurisdictions (whether islands that are physically offshore such as Channel Islands and Bermuda and Cayman Islands, or landlocked within the European mainland such as Andorra, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein) typically offer strictly-enforced supersecrecy legislation. This ecosystem is so protective of privacy that it can also attract unscrupulous entities (money launderers, drug cartels, dictators) to organize themselves (shell company, bank account) there in order to evade taxes by hiding their income and assets.

<U>Delaware does not offer nor deliver supersecrecy</U>:<BR> Delaware does not provide this privacy feature. Delaware does not attempt to offer this privacy feature. Delaware is not considered analagous to, nor tantamount to, offshore investing. Delaware is not attractive for the opaqueness that offshore investments provide. Companies do not register in Delaware for the same reason they register in the Channel Islands and the Zurich-Zug-Lichtenstein triangle.

Thus the analogy is incorrect.

Why do so many companies (Apple, Coca-Cola, ERA, Google, Walmart) incorporate in Delaware? US corporate entities organize in the state of Delaware principally for 3 reasons:
 * Incorporating in Delaware is extremely fast and easy.
 * Delaware has the most highly-evolved, highly-developed, up-to-date corporate legal statutes, regulations, and other codes that exist anywhere in the United States. This leads to legal predictability, and predictability is attractive.
 * Delaware's legal court system is likewise the most highly-evolved, highly-developed, up-to-date corporate court system in the United States. For example, only Delaware has a dedicated "Court of Chancery" that specializes in corporate law, decides cases quickly, and does so without a jury. Predictability and speed is attractive.

What about Delaware's low corporate income tax rate? Multiple US states offer very low corporate earnings tax rates. For example, South Dakota and Wyoming do not impose either a corporate income or a gross receipts tax. But only Delaware delivers the advantages I outlined above.

Companies do not choose Delaware for the same reason as they choose offshore investing such as the Channel Islands or Lichtenstein.

Regards, Elky<BR> Elky Hyrule (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators" - Wikipedia notability is not a function of company turnover (aka revenue)
Hi Jim,

For clarity, I'll try work through each issue independently, rather than commingle.

In this reply, I am only addressing "... If a company employs 10000 people, it's notable for that reason alone. Similarly, if it has a turnover of £10000000, that makes it notable..." in your "More" section.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators will be referred to herein as "ERA".

That assertion is incorrect. It is predicated on wrongly conflating two independent concepts: significance vs. Wikipedia notability.

I have already resolved the employee example of this issue in the section called:<BR> Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators (ERA)" - Wikipedia notability is not a function of company staffing headcount".

Wikipedia notability is not a function of staffing levels. Staffing levels of a company are irrelevant to Wikipedia notability. Therefore:
 * a company can have 500,000 employees, and not be notable
 * a company can have 5 employees, and be notable

That same section already distinguished significance from Wikipedia notability.

That same section already explained the actual factors for assessing Wikipedia notability. That section read "The notability of an subject (e.g., a company) is set of criteria we Wikipedians apply to decide whether that subject warrants its own Wikipedia article. The lion's share of these criteria boil down to whether there has been significant, verifiable, 3rd party coverage in reliable, independent sources." Please see Wikipedia's criteria for notability, for example at Notability.

Likewise, notability is not a function of company significance metrics such as turnover (aka revenue), number of manufacturing plants, number of countries operates in, shareholder count, stock exchange listing, number of product lines, etc. Wikipedia notability is not a function of turnover amount. Turnover amount of a company is irrelevant to Wikipedia notability. Therefore:
 * a company can have £60,000,000,000 turnover, and not be notable
 * a company can have €60 turnover, and be notable

Regards, Elky<BR> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elky Hyrule (talk • contribs) 19:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft Wikipedia article "Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerators" - Please restore Elky's 1st draft to draft environment, so Elky can see, fix, and improve article
Hi Jim,

It is impossible for me to fix and improve the 1st draft of the ERA article. You deleted it four days ago on 30-Mar-2020.

So far, I've lost days researching for to prepare the 1st draft, 12 hours authoring work, and 4 days discussing its defects and alleged defects. We Wikipedians should plough our energies into improving the encyclopedia and attracting good new editors. Instead I'm dispirited.

Please restore this 1st draft ERA article to the draft area (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Entrepreneurs_Roundtable_Accelerators) so that I can see it, fix it, and improve it.

Of course, I welcome your helpful collaboration on the ERA article. And when I'm in London next, we should get a pint!

Thank you in advance, sir.

Regards, Elky<BR>
 * Elky sounds good. I made these changes, mainly MoS, over-linking and similar <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  05:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi Jim,Thank you, sir. I see the restored draft article. And your subsequent edits are excellent. - Elky Elky Hyrule (talk) 15:30, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, sir
Hi Jim,<BR> I just wanted to thank you again for all your work on Wikipedia. The encyclopedia is much better for it. And I haven't forgotten our planned pint. :-) <BR> Regards,<BR> Elky Elky Hyrule (talk) 12:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)