Culture

Market actors

Unsurprisingly, the activities of the firm were driven towards the monetisation of weather data. The firm was largely orientated towards the needs of their clients. Many of these clients were using data products supplied by the firm to engage in the weather risk markets. The high-speed of financial transactions within these markets impacted significantly upon workflow within the firm:

“The reason we have to do it daily is if a client’s got weather risk on it they need that updated now. They need to know how it’s going, how much they’re going to be losing.”

The need for high quality, reliable data within the weather risk markets drove the firm’s quality control efforts:

“They [end users] have an insistence on data that’s come from secure sites, you know, third parties that haven’t got a vested interest, and that sort of thing. So the provenance is important.”

Members of the firm were keen to stress that they perceived themselves to be neutral and objective, and therefore an authoritative actor that could contribute to the development of trust between economic agents within the weather risk market:

“The only way to actually sort out your dataset is to have somebody, you know an independent body like [company name] to clean that data, to understand it and come up with good plausible estimated in filled data.”

“We’re vested with a fair amount of authority to be the referee, and you know, we explain, but we don’t negotiate because we’re neutral and that’s why you’ve paid us.”

Acquisition

A lot of value was placed on acquisition and growth within the firm:

“So we acquired [the data side of a failed public sector business venture] out of administration. With that we acquired some core datasets and one key person who’s now head of our forecasting data. And really our growth has been driven by developing that organically, and bringing in more people, building systems.”

This spirit of acquisition was also strong in relation to the firm’s relationship with weather data. A strong emphasis was placed on acquiring as much data as possible, prior to sifting and processing:

“So essentially, you know, we make it our business to collect data wherever we can, wherever we’re permitted.”

“Anything and everything... you still want more and more and more [data].”

“They’re all of interest.”

Frustration

The firm was engaged in an ongoing struggle to acquire more weather data. This activity often resulted in frustration for some individuals within the firm who perceived that they were being denied what they believed they should be entitled to:

“So the data is there very often, but not available.”

“When we first got involved in this market we would go to conferences and there would always be the moan about lack of data availability and how data should be open. You don’t hear that anymore but that doesn’t mean that they’re sated.”

“Not everyone has the same open data policy that varies a lot, there’s a lot of politics [that] goes on in it.”

Barriers to the firm’s acquisition of data included restrictions on the commercial re-use of data:

“‘No, our data’s not for commercial purposes.’ An absolutely infuriating response, but one we get used to.”

Corrupt practices within some countries also restricted acquisition:

“Kenya is the same, huge network, but completely corrupt. So when we go to buy weather data we sometimes get the response from these guys, yeah that’s fine, you know, I need $2,000 in my personal bank account and you can have everything, and we have to say no, obviously.”

Where data were available from organisations, it often came at a cost to the firm, and they were keen to lower that cost as much as possible:

“So the more data that is open the more value we add, therefore the happier we are, and the happier our customers are because they get more data cheaper, and everyone wins.”

Pride

The CEO of the weather data supply firm was proud of his involvement in the weather risk industry:

“We were there right from the start.”

Making a contribution towards market innovations seemed to be at the root of this individual’s pride in his work:

“The availability of weather data is an important driver in the switch from indemnity to parametric. And we believe that that’s, you know, that’s quite a nice thing to be involved in.”

The CEO was also proud that his role enabled him to “help the guys“:

“[We] produced some software that helped the guys taking that risk, insurance companies, understand how to price it. So in the vast majority of cases it’s the big guys for whom it works.”

Status

Whilst individuals located in other nodes experienced a similar sense of making a contribution to the scientific community and society in general, the activities of this firm are geared towards helping “the big guys” – powerful market actors within the global economy. This reference to “the guys” is also representative of the construction of masculinity observed within this space – traditional, self-assured, domineering and at times condescending:

“There are some parts of the world, Africa, which are very difficult. And it’s not always because the data isn’t being observed, it’s because they don’t realise they need to give it away. And this is to their extreme detriment.”

Whilst the general office environment was relatively underwhelming, we observed that there was effort being made to introduce ‘hip’ consumer goods into the environment, perhaps in an effort to bolster perceived status and develop an aspirational culture:

“Very ordinary red brick office. The offices inside are also very ordinary and bland. The office has little in the way of design.

“There are signs at attempts at quirkiness/hipness, eg the boardroom table is a converted snooker table, antique clock in the boardroom, a table football machine in one of the meeting rooms, leather sofas, and in the kitchen they have a bread maker (and today’s loaf), a delivery box of healthy snacks, fruit basket, and fresh coffee.”

Market values

Whilst the firm positioned itself as neutral in relation to the provision of quality weather data, the CEO of the firm expressed strong neoliberal beliefs which drove the firm’s mission to support and expand the development of weather risk markets.

“We were talking about the importance of weather data in creating perfect markets.”

“How can there ever be any detriment to a contract freely entered into by informed economic counter parties. It’s only when there is compulsion attached to something that you get economic detriment.”

The work of the firm was perceived to be making a significant contribution to the development of efficient – even “perfect” – markets:

“So clearly weather is one of the most important, probably the most important element in understanding crop yields. So if the community of speculators has complete information about weather they can anticipate what’s going to happen. They can therefore freely deploy capital, and therefore the provision of weather data has an important, but not necessarily terribly obvious role in making markets efficient.”

Whilst there was a demonstrated desire for acquisition and private profit, risk was perceived to be something that needed to be moved as far away from investing individuals as possible:

“That same principle, of institutionalising risk, moving it as far from the individual as possible to the collective.”

For the CEO of the firm the market was perceived solely as a solution to significant societal issues related to weather risk. For example, when we asked if there might be any negative social consequences resulting from trading in weather risk – the CEO did not believe there were any:

“No, I mean so long as it’s done between consenting adults who understand the benefits and the risks, no.”

Yet, as we argue in the Financial markets station significant social risks are present in these markets that should be investigated further.