News About Our Portfolio Companies
· Littlstar: The Dunkirk VR experience
· Magiccube’s CTO and Founder, Nancy Zayed, featured on Huffington Post
· Vango’s helpful insights into the online art market
· Greenhouse named to top 100 hottest cloud companies in 2017
· Astronomer raises $3.5M
· Stratifyd raises $5.9M including participation from Social Starts
· Grovo on microlearning
Industry Trends
· US Venture investment ticks up in Q2 2017
· Can the tech giants be stopped? + Google paying academics to speak favorably on their behalf
· World GDP over the last two millenia
· Another security breach (Verizon)
· Can venture be saved?
· The great startup stagnation
· New stealth IPO rules take effect
· What 671M push notifications say about how people spend their day
Artificial Intelligence
· Toyota AI Ventures
· Microsoft creates new AI lab to compete with Google’s DeepMind
· Google on humanizing AI
· A talking camera for the blind, by Microsoft
· Google launches Gradient Ventures
· IBM revamps computer unit network around Watson AI
Commerce
· How Reebok used influencer reviews to break into the competitive running industry
· How fashion brands are cashing in on southern charm + Amazon is cornering fashion brands into wholesale
· Amazon’s new Echo will be more like Apple’s Homepod + Bezos’ sprawling empire
Work Platforms
· Workplace collaboration startup VC money hits the brakes in Q2
· Flash organization software and on-demand orgs; almost all jobs created since 2005 are temporary
Experiences
· Facebook’s Oculus cuts its price again
· Snap’s lead underwriter admits they were wrong
· The ad industry feels like Silicon Valley is killing creativity; 6 second attention spans
Blockchain
· Risks facing VCs planning to invest in cryptocurrencies
· Japan has eliminated tax on bitcoin
· South Korea to legalize bitcoin and Ethereum soon
· Ranking the top 20 cryptocurrencies over time
· Tezos raises $232M
Health
· VR can conquer real pain
· Digital health startups draw record investments in H1 2017
Business and Personal Strategy
· Valedictorians rarely become rich; the average millionaire had a 2.9 college GPA
· Just the perception of implicit bias takes a toll on companies
· Why good people leave large tech companies
· Marc Andreesen answers questions from Stripe Atlas founders
· Why moving a team to Brazil was positive
· A counterintuitive system for startup compensation
· Is chat at work killing productivity?
· Why SAFE notes are not safe for an entrepreneur