Social Starts Buzz Room: June 27, 2017

A compendium of what our partners read each week, highlighting macro industry trends, our investment focus areas, and general personal and business strategies.

News About Our Portfolio Companies

·         Shots Studio featured on ABC Nightline

·         Cassia Network expands Bluetooth IoT ecosystem with GE partnership      

·         Stratifyd listed as top 10 startup in Charlotte

·         YouEarnedIt launches “People” to improve real-time work connections

·         Affinio’s analysis of Airbnb’s audience

·         Magic Cube on why traditional e-security won’t be effective for mobile ATMs

·         Newswhip’s top media influencers on Instagram

·         Apptopia hires chief data officer amid explosive product growth

·         Rheo wants to curate video based on your mood

Industry Trends

·         Why Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods matters for Startup land + Amazon’s new customer + drone tower patent

·         NASA finds evidence of 10 new Earth-sized planets in the corner of our galaxy + the 20 most populous cities in the world by 2100

·         Advertising giants leave little room for adtech startups and VCs are noticing

·         Jeff Bezos’ empire chart

·         NEA makes history with 3.3B fund

·         Meet the 2017 unicorn class (24)

·         The most important invention from every state

·         Growth is getting harder + end of a cycle?

·         Tech giants earned more than 1M per US worker in 2016

·         Stock pick is dying because there are no more stocks to pick

Artificial Intelligences

·         Bringing AI to the enterprise

·         A discussion about AIs conflicts and challenges

·         Elon Musk’s Neuralink

·         Google launches its AI-powered jobs search engine

·         What the online advertising world can teach us about the evolution of machine learning in SaaS

Commerce

·         Amazon leads in apparel e-commerce sales among millennials

·         Amazon Prime wardrobe

·         Walmart to vendors: get off AWS

·         What works in e-commerce

IoT

·         Why voice tech is about to see some major love

·         What Apples Homepod is up against

Content and Experiences

·         Varjo

·         Time Warner signs $100M deal with Snap for shows and ads

·         Snapchat acquires Zenly + launches Snap map

·         Instagram hits 250 DAU and adds video replays

Blockchain

·         Getting past the dominance of the nation state

·         Fragmented Conensus

·         Ether and Bitcoin

·         Triple entry accounting

·         Ethereum flash crash

·         Blockchain could help musicians make money again

Health

·         Data blocking vs. blockchains in health + Google DeepMind’s project

·         Seeking to thrive in a wellness world

·         Telehealth investments skyrocketing

·         Oscar expanding

·         Health Insurance and Redistribution

·         The pharmacy of the future

Business and Personal Strategy

·         Five signs it is time to add bizops

·         Should startups care about profitability?

·         Tim Kendall; Pinterest’s money man

·         What is the right burn rate for your startup?

·         The job of a CFO at a scaling company

·         The 10 commandments of startup success

·         Has passive investing generated a bubble?

·         Don’t get seduced by GMV

·         The Kelly Criterion

·         Teespring’s valuation goes to 11M from 650M in recap

·         Entrepreneurship facts