Category: Tech news

 I’ve always wanted to make a lot of money, have people pay a lot of attention to me and do a lot of exciting things. I just never knew how. Many of my friends who are founders of their own companies tell me how they exhibited the entrepreneurial spirit as a kid — they sold candy out of their backpacks, had a landscaping business during the summer, etc. They created value and… Read More

 On Christmas day, the world was given a gift by Oculus, Samsung, UNINTERRUPTED, and LeBron James during the Warriors and Cavaliers game. The two companies who paired up for Samsung’s Gear VR, a hot ticket item this holiday season, launched a LeBron James experience in VR called “Striving for Greatness” with a fantastically iconic commercial. When the commercial came on,… Read More

 A Theranos testing center in Mesa, Arizona has informed me they are not allowed to use Theranos’ proprietary equipment to test for herpes simplex 1, the only test the FDA has so far given Theranos the green light to test on their own technology. I’m in Arizona visiting family over the holidays and since I’m in the only state currently running tests for… Read More

 Moore’s Law is bound to pop up any time you read an article about the future of technology. Moore’s Law is common knowledge in tech; it deals with the exponential growth of the number of transistors on a circuit and the speed that information is processed. I’d argue that there’s a new law that is just as important bubbling up to the forefront today: The Law of… Read More

 The beauty of the cloud is the promise of simplification and standardization — without regard to physical or geographic boundaries. It’s this “any time, any place, any device” flexibility that is driving rapid adoption. However, new government regulations on data sovereignty threaten to complicate the delivery model that has made cloud computing attractive, presenting… Read More

 In a world of statistics, here’s a number that stands out: 71. That’s how many times the word “innovation” was mentioned in a communiqué issued after the Chinese Communist Party’s recent plenary meeting, which focused on China’s next five-year plan. It’s clear why China is concentrating so many words — and so much energy and effort — on… Read More

 A review of the new Michael Lewis movie The Big Short describes a scene during the 2008 financial crisis in which renters were “kicked out of their homes because their landlord didn’t pay the mortgage, even though they were making their rent payments in full.” It serves as one of many examples of how our malfunctioning financial system produces fundamentally unfair outcomes. Read More

 Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting and transformative opportunities of our time. From my vantage point as a venture investor at Playfair Capital, where I focus on investing and building community around AI, I see this as a great time for investors to help build companies in this space. Read More

 Lyft is now partly owned by Saudi prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. The prince led a recent $247.7 million round for a roughly 5 percent stake in the ridesharing service – putting up $105 million in his own funding as part of the deal for 2.3 percent of the pie. Al-Waleed is a global investor and business magnate some have dubbed the “Arabian Warren… Read More

 Holiday shopping, long a staple in American life, has undergone significant change over the past half century. The “Miracle on 34th Street” post-war tradition of heading downtown to Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s has evolved from quaintly old-fashioned to downright anachronistic. The other holiday shopping tradition of hopping in the family truckster on Black Friday and… Read More

 Alibaba will reportedly invest $1.25 billion in Ele.me, a food delivery service based in Shanghai, says financial news site Caixin (link via Google Translate). The deal would Alibaba the startup’s biggest shareholder, with a 27.7 percent stake. Read More

 Convincing people that the development of the logistics industry is a scintillating topic is difficult. I mean, just look at this stock photo. The artist had to layer together at least five (possibly seven) pictures to make a single image about logistics even somewhat interesting. But logistics don’t just go round the world—it also makes the world go round. Read More

 ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not an iPhone was buzzing, nor the click of a mouse; The Androids were plugged on the night stand with care, In hopes that new Snapchats soon would be there; The children were nestled in their new Casper beds; While Spotify Discover Weekly songs rang in their heads; And Mamma in her Net-A-Porter, and Dad in his Mr. In a… Read More

 Following in the footsteps of China and the U.S., Southeast Asia is on the cusp of an e-commerce golden age. With online shopping accounting for only 1 percent of retail today, the region is slated to reach double-digit China-esque numbers within the next 4-5 years. Read More

 On the day before Christmas, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey took to Twitter to amp folks up about what’s to come sometime in Q1 next year, the consumer version of the Rift. There are tons of questions around the product itself including guesses on how Oculus will actually execute the distribution of the Rift. The original founder of the company has continued to support the original mission… Read More