Hi hi hi! As I suspected, and warned, it was practically impossible for me to send out a Pivoting las
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December 12 · Issue #23 · View online
Technology, Startups & the Future. I'm lucky when it comes to finding amazing content written by others and want to share that luck with you. Find me at http://twitter.com/bryceadams đ
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Hi hi hi! As I suspected, and warned, it was practically impossible for me to send out a Pivoting last week. In between 50+ hours of flights/travel, I pretty much deprived myself of any sleep as I made the most of my time in Philadelphia, attending two conferences, numerous dinners and a good couple hours of karaoke. Iâll be sure to share a talk I gave on Metorik at one of the conferences when it becomes available over the next few weeks. Fortunately, thereâs quite a lot of good content to share with you this week, so have a read and enjoy your Monday! đ
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Magic Leap is actually way behind, like we always suspected it was
Itâs almost like finding out Santa isnât real.
It feels like only yesterday, Wired did an incredible long read on Magic Leap, at the time considered one of the worldâs most secret startups. The article explored AR - augment reality - and how Magic Leap was at the forefront of revolutionising a technology we were pretty unfamiliar with. While VR offered us a look into a world we didnât yet know, AR promises to accompany us into the only world weâve ever known. Through a string of similar articles and demo videos, Magic Leap made a name for itself (the $1 billion + it received in funding didnât hurt either). But now weâre hearing that Magic Leapâs promise of revolutionary AR technology is many years away. Perhaps that doesnât really come as a surprise, but what I didnât expect to hear was that itâs noticeably inferior to Microsoftâs HoloLens headset.Â
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Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline
Alphabetâs CFO Ruth Porat wants to bring focus to Mountain View. Can the moonshot factory adapt? This was a good read. Google hasnât really had the typical speed-bumps that most companies run into (at least it appears that way from the outside). With year-after-year (and often quarterly) growth in double digits and tens of billions of dollars generated by its advertising business every year, theyâve been able to keep investors and shareholders happy while taking huge risks through its multiple R&D departments. But not everything works out, and as this article explores, even the wealthiest companies sometimes need to take a step back and ask âis this worth it?â. Iâm going to quote the last paragraph of the piece here because itâs just so good, but you should still give this piece 15 minutes of your attention. In a picnic area just outside, X engineers pick at seared tofu, while a few feet away, whirring drones take off and land, and self-driving cars shuttle in and out of a parking garage. Nothing out of the ordinary by Googleplex standards. âIf weâre working on a really huge problem,â says Teller, âthat motivates people to come here, and it motivates them to stay. Thatâs very real. Thatâs not a marketing thing for Google. Itâs why this place works.â
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Amazon Opening Store That Will Eliminate Checkout â and Lines
Amazon.com Inc. unveiled technology that will let shoppers grab groceries without having to scan and pay for them â in one stroke eliminating the checkout line. Youâve got to hand it to Amazon. Theyâre a huge company, with an origin that isnât quite as exciting as Airbnbâs turning of the hotel industry upside down or Teslaâs brilliant electric cars. But yet, they continue to innovate and consistently release useful, well-executed products. Amazon Web Services, Alexa, Amazon Dash, Prime, and now, Amazon Go.
The idea is kinda brilliant and Iâm surprised that none of the other big tech companies or supermarkets have at least tried it. Using proprietary technology (pretty much just a bunch of cameras and other sensors), theyâve designed and built a grocery store that has no checkout, no cashiers, not even self-serve checkout machines. You simply walk in, take what you want and leave. A moment later youâll receive a receipt, with the payment charged to your Amazon account. Iâm guessing thereâs some kind of system where you check in when you arrive so they know you have an Amazon account and that youâre in the store, but the specifics arenât really relevant just yet. Itâs pretty exciting stuff. Ben Thompson, in a Stratechery daily update last week (highly recommended), mentioned something that I thought worth sharing: To that end, and given the caveat that this is only a test, the business potential of Amazon Go is pretty extraordinary; from what information I could gather wages are about 45% of a convenience storeâs non-product costs, and about 13.5% of costs overall.
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How to Hide $400 Million
When a wealthy businessman set out to divorce his wife, their fortune vanished. The quest to find it would reveal the depths of an offshore financial system bigger than the U.S. economy. I almost didnât share this, just because #firstworldproblems, and the protagonist [wife], ends up being a not-quite-that-nice person herself, but I still found it to be a pretty great read that opened my eyes a bit into a world we often donât see inside of. Also, the artwork is just beautiful and very Archer-esque. It involves a Finish businessman that made millions through numerous internet scams, and his wife, who came along for the whole ride. Years later, she discovers heâs been cheating and they start to get a divorce. Through so many layers of companies, trusts, international entities and banks, countless lawyers and accountants and deceit, a small law firm tries to uncover where the money is hiding.
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Fitbit Buys Software Assets From Smartwatch Startup Pebble
Fitbit Inc., the fitness band maker, has acquired software assets from struggling smartwatch startup Pebble Technology Corp., a move that will help it better compete with Apple Inc..
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Elon Musk touts Universe, a platform for AI agents
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And follow me if you havenât alreadyâŚ
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