Strictly Curious Newsletter №70
Top News
Healthtech: The tech startups fighting coronavirus. Six founders talk about their coronavirus-fighting tech. Link
Challenger banks: Revolut raises $500 million at a $5.5 billion valuation. Link Also…this is the Revolut pitch deck used to raise a £1.5m seed round of funding. Link
Leadership: What companies can learn from a Cambridge physics laboratory. Ernest Rutherford’s pioneering science facility offers great lessons in modern teamwork. Researchers under his direction won eight Nobel Prizes in physics in 20 years: more than all of France, all of Italy, and all of Japan combined. This was unprecedented. How did he do it? Link
World-changing ideas: This edible blob filled with water means you don’t need a plastic bottle. Notpla has found a way to make water bottles that you can eat (or compost) when you’re done. What’s next? Getting rid of plastic ketchup packets. Link
Retailing: After testing its technology in smaller spaces, Amazon opens cashierless supermarket in latest push to sell food. The e-commerce giant is also looking into licensing the checkout-free technology to rival retailers. Link
User Experience/Design: How to design mobile apps for one-hand usage. 90% of the smartphones sold today have >5-inch displays. Bigger screen real estate presents newer challenges and opportunities for app makers and designers. This article shows how designing apps for one-handed usage can solve these challenges. Link
Marketplaces: The Andressen Horowitz Marketplace 100 Index. This is a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. Link
Trending: Hotels aim to help guests travel lighter. To help guests ditch excess baggage, hotels are partnering with fashion companies to deliver Instagram-worthy outfits directly to their guest rooms. Link
Electric vehicles: Tesla autopilot saved 8 lives in storm Dennis. Link
Robotics: The new burger chef makes $3 an hour and never goes home. Link
Social media: Teens have figured out how to mess with Instagram’s tracking algorithm. They are using group accounts to flood Instagram with random user data that can’t be tied to a single person. Link
Online marketplaces: Airbnb is pushing surveillance devices as ‘party prevention’. The company is offering discounts on devices that alert hosts when there’s an unusual amount of noise. Link
Awareness: Brain scans reveal structural differences In people with “smartphone addiction”. Link
Geeky: Your USB-C Charger Is More Powerful Than Apollo 11’s Computer. But your power adapter won’t take you to the moon. Link
Blog Posts
Psychology: How to be more optimistic. Life is better with a half-full glass. Link
Family: Oh No, they’ve come up with another generation label. How much do members of “Generation Alpha,” or any generation, really have in common? Link
Interesting Numbers
Subscription video on demand: Its penetration in the UK has surpassed 50% for the first time. Netflix is clearly the favourite amongst Brits, being subscribed to by 12.35 million households. Link
Remote conferencing services: Zoom has added more videoconferencing users this year than in all of 2019 due to coronavirus. The company added 2.22 million monthly active users so far in 2020, while in 2019 it added 1.99 million, according to Bernstein’s estimates. Link
Video: Your life is driven by network effects
Detours
Transport: SpaceX will launch private citizens into orbit. Link
Interesting: Madame Yale made a fortune with the 19th century’s version of Goop. A century before today’s celebrity health gurus, an American businesswoman was a beauty with a brand. Link
Retail Therapy
Adopt a coral. Link
Contemplation
“Instead of worrying about what you can’t control. Shift your energy to what you can create”
(Roy T Bennett)
