The Bold: February 14th, 2018
Happy Wednesday and most importantly Happy Valentines Day! For those who have yet to get a loved one a gift, there is still time =).
Also I want to personally thank each of you for signing up for the Bold. In this email, I hope you find some value that will help you on your entrepreneurial journey. Make sure to jump around to the parts that interest you, because life is too short to do otherwise. And for those who enjoy watching movies and TV shows, I think you will find the story covered in this edition of the Bold very interesting…
Now one important note to mention, in section two I include shoutouts to Cornell entrepreneurs who have emailed me looking to put their info in this newsletter. If you are interested in this section and have anything related to Cornell entrepreneurs that you want to share, please reach out to me so in the next edition I can hopefully loop you in. In fact if you are a student looking for an internship, one of the startups covered in this section may be very interesting to you.
That being said, here is the question of the week: How many weeks would an average worker need to be on a job in 2018 to obtain the living standard of someone in 1915?
To know this answer and why it is important to know as an entrepreneur, go to the bottom of section 4).
Finally, now to the action!
1) Facebook’s Plans for the Future
2) Blockchain, AI, and Cornell Shoutouts
3) The Fast Eight
4) Story of A Courageous Entrepreneur
Facebook’s Plans for the Future
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As an entrepreneur the ability of anticipation is vital. And with a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before, there is increasing pressure to make sure your products and services will serve not just the world of today but also the world of tomorrow as well. To get a sense of the future, we will dive into Facebook’s roadmap for what they believe the future will look like in 5–10 years.
In mid-2016 at Facebook’s annual conference event, Zuckerberg decided to make this event different than that in previous years. He gave Facebook’s ten year vision of what the world will be like, focusing on three main trends: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Connectivity, and Virtual/ Augmented Reality. Before I get into that…
How FB Makes Money: Facebook has only 2.2 billion monthly active users, which is why Facebook is able to command over one dollar for every five that is spent on digital ads in the U.S. That is quite a lot of Benjamin Franklin’s.
Now even though the new technologies I am about to mention may seem far out, no one expected that when the iPhone was released about ten years ago, that billions of people would have one in their hands in just a few years. With billions of dollars going into these technologies from many companies, it suggests that their are real results and improvements occurring in these industries. Now to Facebook’s ten year vision:
AI: We have all heard the term. But how does Facebook think it will influence everything? By providing better than human level perception to almost any task, and make all services more intuitive than ever before. Here were the services in specific Zuckerberg mentioned in his 2016 speech:
- Use AI to make it easy to communicate with any business in the form of chat bots
- Be able to translate language beyond the level of a human as well as summarize photos and articles with substantial improvement from today
Connectivity: About only half of the world has internet access, meaning 4.4 billion people are lacking internet. With internet being one of the most essential building blocks to innovation, one can argue that giving internet to everyone is one of the greatest challenges of today. Don’t worry, Zuckerberg is on the case. At the event, he introduced Facebook’s solar powered drones called the Aquila, which are aimed to beam internet to places currently without it. Yet Zuckerberg is not the only one aiming to achieve this dream. Here is a list of three other contenders looking to bring the internet to everyone:
- Google with Project Loon (balloon powered internet), Greg Wyler with OneWeb (Internet through satellites), and of course Elon Musk with SpaceX (satellites as well.) Both Greg Wyler and Elon Musk have claimed that they will be able to provide world-wide internet by 2027.
Virtual Reality: Zuckerberg believes that virtual reality headsets will be the platform of the future that we use to interact with the world, similar to the phones of today. Given the fact that not just Facebook, but Microsoft, Apple, Google, and many others are working to create this headset suggests innovation will continue to develop and improve. In fact, Magic Leap is a VR/AR startup that has raised over $2 billion without even releasing a product. Yes that is not a typo, $2 Billion. Yet this startup has finally come out saying its first product will be released in 2018. Curious what it looks like? Check it out.
Blockchain, AI, and Cornell Shoutouts
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After talking a little bit about the future, lets go to the present. Here are some of the news that caught my attention this week involving what I believe are the two most important technologies: Blockchain and AI. Also in this section there is information on my two fellow Cornell studs who reached out to me.
Blockchain — Quick Two
First I will talk about developments in blockchain. For those who feel stuck on the topic, check out this 20 min podcast. It is the best explanation I have heard on the topic.
Cryptocurrencies Drop: Bitcoin has dropped over 55% in the past month, and other cryptocurrencies have been descending. But why?
1) The South Korean government is considering a ban on cryptos, with the Prime Minister saying it is corrupting the nations youth. Given that 21% of the world’s bitcoin fee-based transactions use the Korean Won, any regulation in this nation would most likely hurt Bitcoin demand. That being said, no regulations have been delivered yet. In fact South Koreans love Bitcoin so much that in January, the price of bitcoin in South Korea was worth 40% more than bitcoin the U.S. However since the crypto collapse, the price of bitcoin has been the same in both countries.
2) About 60% of all bitcoins are mined in China. That is incredible to me. With recent reports that China might regulate or shut down Chinese cryptocurrency mining, people have gotten scared about holding on to cryptos.
The Biggest Heist Ever: The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange called CoinCheck had over $500 million dollars stolen about two weeks ago. This event could be one of the biggest heists of capital ever. Many people are now claiming to get their money back from this exchange.
AI — Fast Three
Twitter: Analysts were surprised this week by Twitter’s first quarterly profit. Part of the reason for this profit was international expansion. However monthly active users only increased by 4%, which is why Twitter has said another essential part of this increase in revenue is the power of machine learning (type of AI) to create more specific ads for its customers, which in turn makes advertisers willing to spend more for an ad. After many down quarters, Jack Dorsey is finally turning the ship around.
Cardiogram: This startup with just $2 million in funding was able to use AI and data from an Apple Watch to detect whether someone has diabetes with 85% accuracy. This matters because as AI gets better at predicting future possible medical conditions, the medical field might shift from treating people with serious medical conditions to focusing on pre-treatment of serious medical conditions.
Google’s Special AI Chips: AI is becoming more accessible around the world. Google is making the power of their Tensor Processing Units, known as TPUs, (a circuit made especially for AI) open to people outside of Google to use. This development will enable even more discoveries with AI.
Cornell Shoutouts
Thank you again to those who reached out to me! Here are the two companies:
VentureGeek.io: Started by Cornell juniors Robbie Klein and Jordan Wolkon. Helps connect students with internships at growing startups. If your a growing startup looking for employees, or a student looking for a great internship, hit them up!
PetsEmpower.org: Unfortunately, 50% of domestic abuse victims stay in violent homes because of their animals. To solve this, Jordan Ross has created PetsEmpower. If your interested, reach out!
The Fast Eight
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Eight Things I Found Interesting in the Two Past Weeks
1) Easily the Highlight of My Two Weeks, Watching the Falcon Heavy Rocket Take Flight: Here is video of the launch, and here is Elon’s reaction. To me this event showed the power and ingenuity of people who are determined to do good.
2) Welcome to Blockchain Nirvana: Whether you are a beginner or expert, this resource contains all the best cryptocurrencies and blockchain information you could ever want.
3) Facebook and 2016 Election: Incredible Wired story about how it all went down.
4) Apple Homepod: Shows Another Big Tech Company Making a Move in this Space.
5) Nebula Genomics: Legendary Geneticist George Church creating startup where Blockchain meets DNA.
6) Disney and Robotics: Meet Vyloo, the new robot at disney parks that responds to guest’s emotions. Watch more of these robots that respond to people’s emotions become created.
7) X.ai and Fiverr: These startups are taking traditional services and making them incredibly cheap. X.ai creates a free personal assistant, while Fiverr offers legal sources for incredibly cheap through crowdsourcing. It is cool to see startups that take traditional functions every business needs and make them incredibly cheap, which lowers the cost of creating a startup.
8) Founder of Alibaba Dropping Knowledge: One of the most inspirational leaders in the world, Jack Ma spoke in this interview about AI. The best idea I took from this interview was the concept that just like electricity started out with just the light bulb, AI is at the beginning stages. But just like electricity ended up impacting every part of our lives, AI has the real possibility to do the same or more.
Story of A Courageous Entrepreneur
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Hustle + Resourcefulness > Talent any day of the week. This statement is embodied by Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix.
Reed Hastings
Before Netflix become the online subscription behemoth that it is today, Netflix was in a different business entirely, the video home rental market. Netflix’s service was to allow customers to borrow DVD’s for a few bucks each without having to leave their home. At the time Netflix was born in 1997, the dot com bubble was booming. In just two years, Netflix was preparing for an IPO and everything was looking great. But like great entrepreneurial companies, trouble was brewing.
With the combination of 9/11 and the anthrax scandal, Netflix’s business took a serious hit since they delivered DVD by mail. And then the dot com bubble burst, and the planned IPO by the company had to be abandoned. As told by Patty McCord, a senior member of the Netflix team during that time, Netflix was in very difficult shape. Many companies did not survive this time. However Reed Hastings made a bold decision in the face of this adversity, by deciding to only keep the staff who were directly related to product. This action meant all mid-level execs were let go in the company, eliminating a third of the company instantly.
However like most startups, not only did this courageous leadership allow Netflix to thrive and became more productive, but also Netflix was lucky. Between the years 1999 to 2000, one of the biggest technological adoptions was under way. From 5% of the households in America owning DVDs in 1999, 13% of households held DVD’s in 2000. This massive 8% jump in ownership of DVD’s gave Netflix the advantage of having more customers which in turn helped enable Netflix to grow according to Patty McCord. This story shows that the greatest startups often have the combination of great leadership as well as the fortune of timing.
Despite Netflix becoming a far different company today, this hurdle was one of the most challenging in its history. It is amazing to think that if Reed Hastings did not fire those employees, and if DVD adoption did not jump 8% in one year, Netflix would not be the massive company it is today with over 117.58 million people subscribed to its service.
Answer to the question of the week: An average worker would need to work 17 weeks in 2018 to obtain the living standard of someone in 1915. The answer came from professor Autor’s incredible Ted talk. This question shows how part of what makes us human is that we always crave more and how in just 100 years we crave many more goods and services than we ever have before. As an entrepreneur, that leaves us with the ever present opportunity to create that next big startup.
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I want to say thank you again to all those who took the time to read this edition of the Bold. In our world today the most important commodity is our time, and I appreciate those who took even a fraction of it to check out this newsletter.
Any feedback is always welcome, and any Cornell startups that wants a shout out in the next edition of The Bold please let me know.
Have an incredible week and also that “The purpose of our lives is to be happy whenever possible. And it is always possible.” — Dalai Lama
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish,
Justin
