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John Neary

Founder at 3000Kings LLC

John Neary is a highly accomplished individual with a strong educational background and an impressive history in various organizations. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School, a BA in History and Economics from Yale University, and is an alumnus of Fordham Preparatory School. John has held advisory, board, and investor roles in multiple companies including Adaptive, Stealth Startup, Rezztek®, Scorched Ice, Brothers in Arms Press, Napier AI, and Trading.TV. His professional experience includes positions such as Markets Risk Advisor at Goldman Sachs, COO at Theorem LP, Senior Advisor at Central Bank of Ireland, Global Credit COO at Citadel, Managing Director at Barclays and Morgan Stanley, as well as various leadership roles at Goldman Sachs. He also served in Expert Services at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. John Neary's expertise spans across finance, risk management, operations, and strategic planning.

Highlights

Jun 19 · linkedin

Right Wing or Left Wing?

The political labels “Right Wing” and “Left Wing” took root within the walls of “Bourbon Palace”, pictured here from the south and from the north. Today, the “Palais Bourbon” (French name) is the equivalent of the U.S. Capitol, the home of the 575+ elected legislators of the French National Assembly (“Assemblee Nationale”).

The French National Assembly was formed over 235 years of trial and error going back to the 1789 French Revolution. This legislative body had many different structures and names during the Revolutionary period: Estates-General, National Constituent Assembly, Legislative Assembly, National Convention, Council of Five Hundred, and finally National Assembly.

As the “Estates-General,” this group met in 1789 ten miles southwest of here at Versailles, the royal residence of King Louis XVI. At Versailles, members of the future National Assembly self-organized according to their political beliefs.

Supporters of the King and his noble aristocracy sat on the right-hand side, to one looking out at those gathered. Supporters of liberal republican revolution sat on the left-hand side. Versailles 1789 is where the labels “Right Wing” and “Left Wing” were born. But it was in this building, Bourbon Palace, that these labels truly came of age.

However, as Dublin-born Edmund Burke predicted in his 1790 “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” French society post-1789 became increasingly chaotic. Right wing & left wing, as they came of age, constantly fractured. Political governance became less predictable. Just look at all the various iterations of what would become the National Assembly.

Continental European war began after the French Revolution, in 1792. Then King Louis XVI was convicted of treason and guillotined along with his wife, Marie Antoinette. The violent Reign of Terror followed in 1793-1794; 300K arrests, 25K executed or died in prison. Starting 1795, in response to this chaos, a new “Council of Five Hundred” legislature met here at Bourbon Palace. As at Versailles, looking out at the assembled legislators, royalists + monarchists sat on the right, revolutionaries on the left, centrist liberal republicans in the middle.

Then things ultimately fell apart. The center did not hold. Anarchy loosed; many years of vote manipulation, annulled election results and coup attempts. By November 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte took advantage of the chaos to seize power as dictator. He reinstated chattel slavery and extended the continental wars beyond Europe, killing 5MM (40MM today, population-adjusted). Napoleon ruled until meeting his Waterloo in 1815. He died six years after, under British house arrest in military exile.

Today, Emperor Napoleon I is currently entombed with full state honors in a national monument one mile south of the National Assembly at Bourbon Palace. Was he Right or Left Wing? Yes. Sure he was.

Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Dateline Paris 2024.

May 8 · linkedin

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Board Advisor at Adaptive!

John Neary
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New York, New York, United States