The Finance Side of "Small is the New Big"

Seth Godin's oft-linked to blog posting "Small is the New Big" has a corollary in the financial world. The locus of market moving power has migrated (or is migrating) from the center of Goldman Sach's trading floor to the small offices of private investing partnerships, hedge funds, that each employ a fraction of the bulge brackets' personnel but control increasing amount of capital. Similarly, small private equity funds (in terms of headcount, not leveragable cash) compete with giant corporations for acquisition opportunities across geographies and sectors. The foci of the investing world are no longer the skyscrapers of London and New York, but the small office parks in suburban Greenwich, Connecticut and the low-rise, well landscaped office complexes on Sand Hill Road.