Buzz Room
A compendium of what our partners are reading each week, highlighting macro industry trends, our investment focus areas, and general personal and business strategies.
News About Our Portfolio Companies
- Thinglink VR/360 and creating digital breakouts
- NewsWhip spotting recruitment trends before they happen
- Flexible work is the future of feminism with Werk
Industry Trends
- US consumer confidence highest since July 2001
- Uber’s PR woes quantified
- Bull market turns 8+ a new jobs program for Middle America + the next cycle of capitalism
- Facebook disputed news tag goes live + Oculus price reduced + understanding social platforms
- How 26 year olds are taking over the economy + millennials earn 20% less than boomers
- How Amazon revealed its power + Google quietly launches enterprise version of hangouts
- LP survey of the VC startup industry
- 4 myths of the connected car revolution
- Can Walmart beat Amazon? Testing tech for customers to skip lines
- 50 best startups that you may not have heard of
- Google growing market share and Apple losing it in the education space + Apple launching 3 Iphones in 2017
- Amazon and Pinterest to shake up search advertising + Pinterest’s chrome extension
- YouTube on pace to eclipse TV with video hours per day + from cord to stream + YouTube TV
- Microsoft invests in maps for drones/flying cars + 850 airports sign up for drone tracking
- Bill Gates on how the internet has damaged democracy
- Why was winter in VC so short+ one writer’s take on Silicon Valley
- Reddit being manipulated by big financial services companies
Artificial Intelligences
- Successfully generating jokes, a place in which computers can live up to humans?
- Machine learning for investing in consumer goods + AI, machine learning, and deep learning
- How AI is streamlining the onboarding process
- Why taxing robots isn’t a good idea
- Top 5 AI assistants you may not have heard of
Commerce
- Clorox CMO’s 5 building blocks to a better brand+ Adidas is gaining on Nike
- Increasing brick and mortar shopping but is Instagram shopping on the rise?
- Retailers losing money on e-commerce + number of distressed retailers reaching recession era levels
- Mobile ordering allows line cutting and it’s a problem + more discrimination in the future of shopping to come?
- How to fund a CPG startup
IoT Software Stack
- Pros and Cons of Medial IoT
- Pitchbook’s IoT breakdown
Content and Experiences
- Medium launches Snapchat stories, but for Medium + more on the Medium meltdown
- Facebook Messenger launches Snapchat stories clone + CNN launches dedicated VR team+Amazon Alexa and 1st amendment rights
- What it will take for AR to take over the world
- The virtual reality winter is the end
Blockchain Beyond Currency
- Capital One bringing blockchain to healthcare + 8 healthcare blockchain startups to know + EMR on the blockchain
- Why a blockchain EMR makes sense for patient centered approach
- IBM partners with FDA on blockchain + how blockchain can change healthcare + why tech is good in healthcare
- The blockchain will do to banks and law firms what the internet did to media
Health
- Rise of consumer health wearables + tracking depression on Apple watch + AI will save wearables
- Integrating digital health into an existing healthcare delivery system
- Forward, the future of doctor visits
Business and Personal Strategy
- a16z on common questions on fundraising + YC on dilution
- 2017 startup sales stack report+ Startup database
- Marketplaces, a human opportunity
- CoVenture annual newsletter+ Stanford Venture Seminar Notes
- Focus on people, not jobs, in building your team + tearing down internal walls + building product roadmaps
- A conversation with Brad Feld + don’t play hurt
- The case for a rankings HR system + hiring at startups
- Make these tough choices every day + 50 ways of happier, healthier, successful people + happier, healthier, successful in 60 days
- 4 things employees want that employers aren’t giving