A bull in a dark jacket and cashmere scarf. Every dip is a buying opportunity. Sometimes he is right, sometimes wrong, but he always believes tomorrow will be better.
Company life
Bull, Bear & Bee.
The Virtual Beehive saga as a comic: five extraordinary years in the markets, seen from behind the scenes of the firm.
Bull predicts the rise.
Bear predicts the fall.
Bee supports. Always.
The characters
From 2020 to 2024, five extraordinary years in the markets told by three characters. Bull predicts the rise, Bear predicts the fall. Bee supports: whatever the market does, she helps her clients’ teams keep their processes, projects and deadlines on track.
A bear in dark glasses, knotted scarf and a strong espresso. He sees bubbles everywhere and reminds anyone who will listen that trees don’t grow to the sky.
The Virtual Beehive bee. She predicts nothing: she prepares. With her swarm of Worker Bees (Data, Quant, Compliance, Tech, ESG), she delivers in rising and falling markets alike.
Offbeat ideas, unlikely diagrams on the whiteboard, and often the right intuition at the wrong time… which ends up being the right one.
Empathetic and formidably precise. She turns wild ideas into action plans, and crises into task lists.
The sketchbook
Character studies and first illustrations. Click to enlarge.
Six volumes, five years of crises.
Each volume tells one year of markets through the firm’s behind-the-scenes life. Illustrated pages will be published here as they are completed.
Volume 1 · 2020
The year everything stopped
From Black Monday to the world after
- Prologue: January 2020
- The storm rises
- In the eye of the storm
- Epilogue: the impossible year
Volume 2 · 2021
The year of the memes
From GameStop to crypto mania
- Prologue: the unthinkable
- Diamond hands
- To the moon
- Epilogue 2021
Volume 3 · 2022
The year of the war
From Ukraine to the crypto winter
- Prologue: 5 a.m.
- Sanctions and survival
- Crypto winter
- FTX, the final fall
Volume 4 · 2023
The year of AI
From generative AI to bank failures
- Prologue: the silent revolution
- Bank run 2.0
- Epilogue 2023
Volume 5 · 2024
The year of choices
Elections, bitcoin ETFs and new balances
- Prologue: the world votes
- November 2024
- Epilogue: six years
Volume 6 · 2020-2024
The complete edition
The making-of and the lessons
- The Bull, Bear & Bee philosophy
- The ten lessons
- Final epilogue
Ten lessons from five years of chaos
- 01Nobody predicts the markets. Nobody.
- 02Processes survive crises; predictions don’t.
- 03Support beats isolated expertise.
- 04Being there at the right time is worth more than anything.
- 05Consistency is a superpower.
- 06Teams make the difference, not individual genius.
- 07Listen before advising.
- 08Train before implementing.
- 09Adapt, always adapt.
- 10Empathy and intelligence are inseparable.
Highlights
2026
New identity: the bee and the signature “The union of excellence”. Reorganisation into three business units and launch of VB Labs.
2023
Partner of AM Tech Day 2023, a day of discussion on asset management operations, data and technology.
2022
Partner of the first AM Tech Day.
2016
David Laup and Marie Laup found Virtual Beehive in Paris.