Newsletter No 64
Monday! Hope your week is off to a good start :-)
News
Technology Trends: Top 10 world-changing technologies that are poised to rattle the status quo. Link
Retail: How fashion brands are experimenting with resale. Link
Entertainment: The team behind digital James Dean forms new company to resurrect other legends. Link
E-Commerce: Japan’s biggest supermarket group, Aeon Co Ltd has hired British online grocery pioneer Ocado to develop its e-commerce business, hoping to fend off rivals such as Amazon as more customers buy groceries online. Link
Robotics: Alphabet X’s Everyday Robot Project. Teaching robots to help with everyday life. Link
Consumer Trends: Five powerful consumer trends for 2020. Five opportunities. Are you ready? Link
Leadership: Amazon has become America’s CEO factory. Its executives are spreading the giant’s scrappy mentality throughout the economy — and leaving harsher parts of its culture behind. Link
Ride-hailing apps: After Uber arrives, heavy drinking increases. Ride-hailing apps have allowed more binging — and increased demand for bartenders. Link
Startup Funding: A guide to government funding for startups (from Forward Partners). Link
Fundraising: How to raise your next funding round. Link
Food and Drink: 28% of younger millennials drink at home because it takes too much effort to go out. Link
Music and Sustainability: Acts like Coldplay, Billie Eilish, and The 1975 are leading the sustainable touring movement. Link
Performance: New study shows golfers can improve their performance just by watching a video of an expert putting a ball and imagining they are going through the same motions. Link
Music: Universal features of music around the world. Two articles in the most recent issue of Science support the idea that music all around the globe shares important commonalities, despite many differences. Link
Blog Posts
Polymaths: Why some people are impossibly talented. Polymaths excel in multiple fields. But what makes a polymath — and can their cross-discipline expertise help tackle some of society’s most pressing challenges? Link
Teams: Frustrated at work? That might just lead to your next breakthrough. Don’t discount the misfits on your team. Link
Interesting Numbers
VC Funding: European tech startups break records with $34bn in venture capital funding this year. There has been a massive 40% jump in venture capital funding for European startups this year, even as funding for US and Asian startups stagnates. That’s just one of the seven key takeaways from Atomico’s State of European Tech report. Link
AI: Next wave of Artificial Intelligence market worth $190B by 2025. Link
Video: President Nixon never actually gave this Apollo 11 disaster speech. MIT brought it to life to illustrate power of deepfakes
Detours
Social Media: In the 2010s, Instagram became the world’s filter. Co-founder Kevin Systrom on truth, scale, and influencers. Link
Decision-making: A guide to making smarter decisions and fewer errors. Link
Retail Therapy
A luxury hotel made with 3D-printed sand is coming to Mozambique in 2020. Link
Contemplation
“Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.” (Bernard Williams)
Enjoyed this issue? Please forward to a friend.
Have a great week,
Costas
