Fantasy Merger League: 2018 Edition
SMITH BRAIN TRUST — When influential analyst and Loup Venture co-founder Gene Munster made predictions for 2018, there was one that really had people chatting. It was a prediction that online retail juggernaut Amazon.com might cut a deal to buy the struggling Target. It was a mergers-and-acquisition idea that seemed to align with some of the things that Amazon.com has been doing – establishing a brick-and-mortar presence and competing head-to-head with Walmart.
Everybody knows Uber and Airbnb. The two startups are so big that their names have become not just noun, but verb. The riding-hailing service and the house-sharing service are two of today's best-known unicorn companies, privately held tech startups valued at more than $1 billion. There was a time when the notion of a $1 billion tech startup seemed like a far-fetched, mythical creation. Today, though, there are loads of these companies out there. We asked experts around the Smith School to tell us about some of the ones they like best. 
The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach provided a suitable venue for the National Parking Association’s most recent convention for at least two reasons. Besides the luxury accommodations, the buzzing nightlife at the hotel creates one of the hardest valet parking jobs in the country. “You need 45 runners on a midnight shift,” says former University of Maryland football player Sam Medile, an angel investor and serial entrepreneur who made his mark in the parking industry. Medile draws upon ideas from the convention and his own observations in episode two of Bootstrapped, a Dingman Center podcast. 
Venture capitalists are stars in Silicon Valley, picking and choosing among potential tech giants and riding startups to riches (if they're lucky). But venture capital isn't for every startup, and the pursuit of VC can be a trap, points out Elana Fine, executive director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. 