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
· MagicCube’s CEO explains how connected cars can learn from Fintech + MagicCube and Yellowpepper’s partnership
· Affinio ranked as top 10 social analytics for enterprises
· Grovo raises 11.3M with Social Starts participating
· How Tok.tv is changing live soccer consumption
· YouEarnedIt’s CEO on how employee engagement can bridge the generational divide
· Mycroft on the future of productivity: AI and ML
· Social Flow on instream vs. outstream
· Rheo, surfacing videos based on your mood, featured in TechHive
Industry Trends
· What happens in an internet minute in 2017?
· Attention on digital monopolies
· Alphabet earnings breakdown + time to break up the tech giants? + treat tech giants as utilities
· Digital Decay
· Is China or the US the world’s economic superpower?
· Masayoshi Son’s strategy + Softbank’s Vision Fund investments
· Markets are strong but big startup M&A deals aren’t happening
· Labor arbitrage comes to Silicon Valley
· Roomba betting on smart home
· Trucks make up 4% of cars on highway but cause 20% of traffic
Artificial Intelligences
· “The only intelligent thing about Watson is its PR department”
· Bringing AI to Hololens
· Limitations with deep learning
· Advice for journalists writing about AIs
Commerce
· Online ad space is not healthy + Adtech is crumbling
· American online retailing is growing rapidly
· In the US, independent stores stage a comeback
Security
· More hackers needed?
· How a hacker could take down the power grid
· 1.8M shortage of cybersecurity professionals by 2022
Work Platforms
· Google launching 50M ‘future of work’ endeavor
· LinkedIn rolling out free service to pair users with mentors
· HR tech funding on the rise
Experiences
· Putting audiences at the heart of VR
· Self-driving people by Airbnb
· Why is ARKit better?
· Google is developing Snap discovery-like media content
· Facebook reportedly building smart speaker with touchscreen
· Amazon patents point to AR tech for home try-on
Blockchain
· Quantifying decentralization
· ICOs have raised 4x the $s VCs have invested in blockchain companies this year + traditional blockchain deals hit new low
· 10 things William Mougayar doesn’t like about ICOs
· Blockchain, banks, and the innovator’s dilemma
· Blockchain as a service by Microsoft
· The ICO handbook
· Cryptocurrency’s Netscape moment
· LedgerX and bitcoin options
· Why everyone missed the most mind-blowing feature of cryptocurrency
· Coinbase rejects bitcoin cash then reverses course
Health
· First human embryos edited in US
· Genomics funding on track for record year
· Amazon’s secret healthcare team
Business and Personal Strategy
· Why growing startups fail
· Q2 VC Cheat Sheet
· 94% of cold emails aren’t good
· Use cases before tech