If you eat out in New York City, the image above should evoke some sort of visceral reaction. In July of 2010, the NYC Department of Health began rating each of the  24,000 restaurants throughout the five boroughs of the city. Each restaurant is given a grade of "A", "B", or "C" based on violations ranging from improper food temperature to sewage problems to the presence of vermin. You can browse  the complete list here.

Fast forward 2 years, and the new system seems to be a win for consumers - Mayor Bloomberg credits the program to a 14% reduction in Salmonella, the lowest rate in 20 years. And according to this press release, NYC restaurant revenue is also up 9.3% since grading began. But still many restauranteurs disagree, expressing anger over these health inspections. Restaurants complain about the complexity in understanding the grading system, fighting with the city over infraction points, and spending additional money to maintain their facilities to meet the city's guidelines.

The Wall Street Journal recently had a piece on investing in the Facebook IPO. They admit, “most retail investors will be shut out of the offering and won't get the IPO price, meaning they likely will have to pay more in the days that follow if they want an early piece of the action”.

To see what’s going on here, let’s take a closer look at what happens on the day of the IPO. In pricing the IPO, there are two prices to consider: the offer price, and the open price. The offer price is set by the company and underwriters. This is the stock price that the company receives in its IPO sale. The open price is set by the publicly traded market on the day the company goes public.

The Lending Club is an online marketplace for loans. As a borrower, you can apply for a loan, and if accepted, your loan gets listed in the marketplace. As an investor, you can browse loans in the marketplace, and invest in individual loans at your discretion. This peer to peer model has many advantages over traditional banking counterparts, for example, lower overhead costs, lower cost of capital, etc.

But what excites me the most about peer to peer lending is the democratization of data. As an investor, you can see each and every rejected, completed, ongoing, and available loan. While loan data excludes personally identifiable information, it does include attributes like credit rating, location, college education level, lines of credit, and descriptions of why the applicant needs the loan.