Maverick Economist Reuven Brenner Joins MetaMarkets Think Tank

Business Wire, Feb 7, 2000

Business Editors/Internet Writers

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2000

Online Investment Community MetaMarkets.com Offers Investment Forums

with New Economy Luminaries

Brenner, Bushnell, Negroponte, Isenberg, and Sprague

MetaMarkets.com(TM), the Web site that launched OpenFund(TM), the world's first &uot;interactive mutual fundSM,&uot; announced that the Canadian economist Reuven Brenner has joined the MetaMarkets(TM) Think Tank.

Brenner is known as an original thinker in economics. He is the author of numerous books and treatises on topics such as why societies prosper or fail, rivalry in business, speculation, and the link between invention, inflation and war. Brenner will participate in online discussion boards with site visitors, OpenFund's managers and other members of the MetaMarkets Think Tank. He joins MetaMarkets Think Tank members Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, &uot;father of the video game industry&uot; Nolan Bushnell, telecom consultant David Isenberg of isen.com, and Peter Sprague of Wave Systems Corporation.

MetaMarkets.com features OpenFund, a no-load mutual fund managed live in real time on the Web. OpenFund shareholders and other site visitors can observe and discuss the fund's investment and trading operations in real time. OpenFund focuses on companies that define the New Economy: the way information is used, products are sold, and innovation is fostered. MetaMarkets Investments LLC is the investment adviser of OpenFund.

&uot;We live in a world where the old models of economics and business are less and less relevant,&uot; says Brenner. &uot;It's exciting to be part of an online community of smart people from academia to Wall Street to Main Street who are working out the new models. Finding solutions for retaining and attracting critical masses of talent is the name of the game.&uot;

MetaMarkets.com created its Think Tank to offer site visitors and OpenFund shareholders a valuable new perspective on investing in the New Economy. &uot;Reuven is the Think Tank's first card-carrying economist, but we won't hold that against him,&uot; said Donald L. Luskin, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-founder of MetaMarkets.com. &uot;. After all, he does not view himself as an &uot;economist.&uot; His analyses are anything but traditional: they offer solutions to financial, managerial and strategic problems, which he then puts in a broad perspective.&uot;

&uot;Discussing the evolving trends in the New Economy -- from Internet taxation to biometrics to Fed policy -- with these thought leaders in the MetaMarkets Think Tank contributes to the strategic investment process of OpenFund,&uot; says H. Davis Nadig, Executive Vice President and Co-founder of MetaMarkets.com. &uot;These discussions also make our community an exciting and thought-provoking place to visit.&uot;

The MetaMarkets Think Tank

Reuven Brenner

Reuven Brenner is often called an iconoclastic economist and a maverick because of his preference for what he calls &uot;topics far bigger than those with which most economists are comfortable.&uot; He is the author of many influential publications, including Labyrinths of Prosperity, Gambling and Speculation, and Rivalry: in Business, Sciences, among Nations. Reuven is Partner at Secor, a Montreal-based consulting firm, holds the Repap Chair at McGill's School of Management, and is Associate of the DUXX Graduate School of Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico.

Reuven is the recipient of the Killam Award, given every year to 15 Canadians in the arts and sciences, is Associated Fellow of the Cato Institute, and Fellow of the Royal Society. Reuven grew up in Rumania and Israel, and holds degrees in Mathematics and Economics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte is co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, where he is also the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. A graduate of MIT, Professor Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966. He is author of the 1995 best-seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages.

Professor Negroponte serves on the board of directors of Motorola, Inc., and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment. Most recently, Professor Negroponte helped to establish, and serves as chairman of, the 2B1 Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a world community focused on building an imaginative, global network of all the world's children.

Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bushnell, the CEO and founder of uWink.com, Inc. is best known for bringing &uot;PONG,&uot; Atari Corporation, and Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater to the world, and is recognized as the &uot;Father of the Video Game Industry.&uot;

Over the past 20 years, Bushnell has founded over 20 companies, and has provided consulting services to corporations such as Commodore International, IBM, Cisco Systems, and US Digital Communications. He sits on the Board of Directors of several leading companies, including Wave Systems.