Looking Back, Looking Ahead: How the pandemic shook the industry, the Big Tech backlash, and trade war fallout
In the final #techspansive episode of 2020, Ross Rubin and I recap the biggest stories of the year and look forward to 2021. We analyze the industry’s biggest tech stories, including: —How tech and other industries will take the first steps toward the post-pandemic future —How Google and Facebook will react to their government lawsuits as Apple faces developer […]
The Need to Accelerate Vaccine Distribution
Vaccine Distribution has been abysmal. Governor Cuomo issued an executive order increasing penalties for disregard of vaccine prioritization. While it is perhaps well-intentioned, it is likely the wrong approach. At least right now, scarcity of vaccine supply doesn’t seem to be the problem. In Virginia, we’ve only distributed about 20 percent of the stock of […]
The Physics of Baseball
At any instant, one side of the ball will be moving in the same direction as the air and the other side will be moving against the air. The side of the ball moving in the same direction as the air will have a region of air at higher velocity, and therefore less pressure (Bernoulli’s […]
Zeynep Tufekci on COVID Mutations
Zeynep Tufekci has a great piece in the Atlantic about the COVID-19 mutation first documented in the United Kingdom. Like I her, I discounted the initial news because viruses mutate and there have been many “doomsaying headlines” in the last year related to virus mutation. To understand the difference between exponential and linear risks, consider […]
Battling Zoom Fatigue
Advice for battling Zoom fatigue from business psychologist Stuart Duff, a partner at Pearn Kandola Mr Duff says that companies should try to make video meetings less structured, and that more time should be built in for allowing informal chit-chat. When it does come down to formal meetings by video, he helps his clients to […]
Might Tech Companies Become Nonprofits?
Given the early mission of the internet to democratize information, it’s somewhat surprising that we don’t see more nonprofits operating in the tech space. Wikipedia is the strongest example of what that model might look like. In New York, The Driver Cooperative (TDC), is trying to launch a ridesharing app that would get closer to […]
The Future of On Demand Retail
We’ve seen how Ghost Kitchens have started to change the face of restaurants. Ghost Kitchens are essentially restaurants with no physical space for customers which means they are delivery-only restaurants. And in fact, some Ghost Kitchens will actually support multiple online-only restaurants from the same location. The economics of Ghost Kitchens are very different than […]
The Competitive World of Bird Watching
…anyone can view rankings of the top eBirders in different hot spots, counties, states, and entire countries. You can even peruse a list of the top 100 eBirders in the world. These types of competitive lists have birthed trends like endless Big Years, in which birders constantly compete to see who can spot the most species in a year. […]
Reid Hoffman’s Airbnb Reflections
Reid Hoffman posted some reflections on Greylock’s investment in Airbnb. Reid is a wonderful writer and his post is provides a wonderful narrative on how the investment came about. The part that caught me was this: Part of the reason that Blitzscaling opens with the Airbnb story is that it demonstrates how when you win a winner-take-most […]
Facebook’s Antitrust Woes
Tim Wu is out with a few things press keeps getting wrong about the Facebook antitrust case. Tim’s second point is most insights. The government doesn’t have a duty to prove that Instagram or WhatsApp, absent the merger, would have become significant competitors. Too many journalists have been falling for this assertion — and reporting […]
