Technology Trends, Dec 1st Edition!
Tech Trends is a new, daily report, designed to help you discover and capitalize on the tech trends that matter. It’s brought to you by the team at The Mission.
A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation. — Andy Grove
Leadership & Culture
Tim Kendall is saying goodbye to Pinterest
GM’s self-driving car division, Cruise, has hired their first CTO: AG Gangadhar, a former Uber and Google engineer
Cryptography & Security
- Brian Armstrong, Coinbase
- Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum
- Juthica Chou, LedgerX
- Jack Dorsey, Square
- Terry Duffy, CME Group
- Charlie Lee, Litecoin
- Naval Ravikant, MetaStable, CoinList
- Elizabeth Rossiello, BitPesa
- Barry Silbert, Digital Currency Group
- Balaji Srinivasan, Earn.com
- Elizabeth Stark, Lightning Labs
Smart Self Improvement
The Mission newsletter and The Mission News are the best source for smart self improvement! Check them out. Also, if you’re looking for better inputs to become a better function that produces better outputs… check out The Best, where we curate a daily list of what we’re doing, using, learning, reading, writing, etc.
VR & AR
From the Economist: Game over for virtual reality?: Unimpressed, consumers embrace the relevance of augmented reality instead
Robotics & Drones
Underwater drones are here, and we’ve got our eyes on five:
OpenROV Trident
Fathom ONE
Deep Trekker DTG2
iBubble
Loon Copter
IRL
A new study from Mckinsey predicts that robots may replace a third of the U.S. workforce by 2030.
Researchers at Northwell Health have founded a genetic overlap between a person’s cognitive ability and their longevity.
Design & Software
Yesterday, we talked all about Amazon. Here’s yet another thing they are up to:
“Amazon Web Services launched a new service today that’s designed to provide developers with a full development environment running in its cloud. Called AWS Cloud9, it’s designed to give developers a collaborative workspace for writing code and running the terminal commands necessary to create and deploy software.” -VentureBeat
Biology & Science
Our deepest ancestors are none other than… the sponge!
While we may look significantly different than other species, our main biological difference doesn’t lie in the body — it lies in the brain:
“The most dramatic divergence between humans and other primates can be found in the brain, the primary organ that gives our species its identity.
However, all regions of the human brain have molecular signatures very similar to those of our primate relatives, yet some regions contain distinctly human patterns of gene activity that mark the brain’s evolution and may contribute to our cognitive abilities, a new Yale-led study has found.
The massive analysis of human, chimpanzee, and monkey tissue published Nov. 23 in the journal Science shows that the human brain is not only a larger version of the ancestral primate brain but also one filled with distinct and surprising differences.” -Sciencedaily
Robotics & Hardware
We talked about cool tech gifts already, but here’s one to add to the list:
“Google is offering a new way for Raspberry Pi tinkerers to use its AI tools. It just announced the AIY Vision Kit, which includes a new circuit board and computer vision software that buyers can pair with their own Raspberry Pi computer and camera. (There’s also a cute cardboard box included, along with some supplementary accessories.) The kit costs $44.99 and will ship through Micro Center on December 31st.” -The Verge
Apple has decided to start designing their power chips in-house.
Venture Capital & Investing
Tencent Music and Spotify are in talks to discuss swapping 10% stakes in one another’s companies.
“Amid record amounts of capital raised by VCs worldwide, and a sharp rise in the number of private “unicorns” valued at $1 billion-plus, there has been a quiet, barely noticed implosion in early-stage VC activity worldwide.”
Q&A
From an event last night- So how do I meet smart, interesting and ethical people in Silicon Valley?
In business, meeting smart, interesting, talented, and ethical people can be challenging. Many people talk the talk but they don’t walk the walk. This is what we’ve done to help filter the wheat from the chaff. Go to hubs where a trusted source puts on an event. Meet people. Judge them, but don’t forget to judge yourself with just as much (if not more) rigor. Meet up with them in real life after the event. Ask people you trust about what they think about them. Work with them on small things like introductions. Then start working with them on larger projects. You’ll only discover how people really behave and what they’re like after putting in the work and the T-I-M-E. We’ll be covering this in more detail in upcoming videos and podcasts. Stay tuned!
What are you struggling with right now and how can we help? We’ll pick the best questions and answer them here in the newsletter. Tweet or Message them to us on Facebook.
Opportunities Spotlight
Our friends at Sphero are hiring!
If you want to help people learn about tech, AR, play, and laugh… you’ll love working at this company. Check out their open roles here. If you’re interested, send us a resume and a message. If there is a good fit, we’ll introduce you.
From the Archives
Rocket AI: 2016’s Most Notorious AI Launch and the Problem with AI Hype by Riva Tez
How Virtual Reality is Changing Storytelling Forever by Adriana Vecchioli
I Interview An Anonymous Guest on Hacking, Government, Bitcoin and Terrorism by James Altucher
