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
- Thinglink expands 360 photo editing to tablets with Teleport 360 editor
- Dopamine featured on 60 minutes (minute 6)
- Alphapoint wins 2017 sell-side technology award for best technology provider + partners with CME Group and Royal Mint for gold trading
- PopularPays, an influencer marketing platform, raises $3.1M Series A
- SamsungNext interviews Ben Doyle of EntryPoint
Industry Trends
- 6 trending topics from SXSW
- Liquidity is a hot topic + what LPs think of micro VCs + the new virtual accelerator
- Vertical SaaS companies receive 3x premium on valuation vs. horizontal SaaS
- Spotify considering a direct listing + Fred Wilson’s take
- Data stacks at Facebook, Uber, Pinterest, and Airbnb + 2017 big data landscape
- Seed investments slowed again in NYC in Q1 ‘17
- Startups turning to debt despite danger
- Trucking consolidation + why airline consolidation may be causing customer service issues
- Ride-sharing apps curbing drinking & driving + Uber forced to admit Google ahead on AV + Bill Gurley believes 25 years before self-driving cars emerge ubiquitously in US
- Hedge funds bracing for sell-off + US deals highly levered with 1/3 over 7x in Q1 2017 + inflation reaches Fed target for first time in 5 years
Artificial Intelligences
- Facebook AI chief says we are decades away from mimicking the human brain
- An introduction to clustering algorithms
- New York’s AI ecosystem + AI: why investors should care + singularity by 2047?
- Can AI help fake news?
- Drone registrations skyrocket to nearly 800K
- Chatbots’ year of growing pains
- Bayesian methods in AI; Gamalon’s approach
- Trends in AI, fintech, and other sectors + + the race for AI
- Robots could steal 40% of jobs by 2030 and only technology can save them + companies brace for decade of AI
Commerce
- How to beat Amazon + Amazon cash + 8 brands Amazon wants to build its fashion on + Bezos now 2nd richest in world
- How machine learning is impacting e-commerce
- Mobile wallets gaining traction at retail stores + Instagram killed the retail store but how e-commerce is making retail relevant again
- Makeup spend is increasing 2x as fast as clothing + the retail apocalypse is killing fashion
- Brands see the future of fashion in 3D garments + the 3D printing revolution
- E-commerce exits on steady decline but the latest are indie beauty brands + content’s turn to lead e-commerce innovation
- The rise of the subscription box economy + recommerce
- Google’s report on Generation Z – mobile first and what is cool
IoT Software Stack
- Building your own IoT device – what to know
- What is IoT? IoT spending soars
Work Platforms
- Facebook to offer free version of Slack-like product
- Don’t tar all gig economy companies with same brush, says gig employer
Content and Experiences
- AR already improving worker performance
- A more realistic augmented reality
- Amazon quietly launches social media influencer platform in beta
- Average smartphone user downloads 0-1 apps per month; 50% growth in digital media, 90% of which is mobile + fastest growing apps in America
- Twitter shareholders to vote on co-op owned by users
- Comcast planning rival to Netflix through NBC + English will soon no longer be the primary language on Netflix + Netflix mobile strategy working
- Google & Facebook struggling to make fake news disappear + investment in news integrity + did the like button ruin the internet?
Blockchain Beyond Currency
- 5 blockchain trends for 2017
- Bext 360 using robots and blockchain to create a record of where beans came from and who paid what for them
Health
- FDA approves 23andMe marketing for 10 disease reports
- The argument for price transparency
Business and Personal Strategy
- Think you think clearly? Think again
- 10 principles to growth + 5 more lessons from scaling Pinterest + asking VCs about risk
- Accelerating pace of innovation and what it means for startup founders + cognitive distortion of founders
- Embracing customer feedback
- No glory in overworking, just inevitable burnout + the cure for decision fatigue
- Relationships matter most in your career + millennial guide to personal development
- Not just politeness but also friendliness