Amazon's beehive. Costly startup failure. Indian tech trends.
A-holes and snipers
Hi there,
Credit Karma CEO Kenneth Lin will take the stage with Nathaniel Popper from The New York Times next week at The Future of Fintech. We’re excited that Ken will be announcing some much-awaited news on company revenue and how Credit Karma Tax did in its first year at the conference. Stay tuned.
Dude, you’re so disruptive
In November 2014, there was a Vanity Fair profile of Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, of whom one investor stated “It’s hard to be a disrupter and not be an asshole.”
Here are the results. I wonder if and how these results would be different today.
Warehouses galore
Today, Amazon was granted a patent for a multi-level “beehive”-like fulfillment center that would deploy and receive delivery drones. We dug into the retail giant’s patent activity which shows its steady focus on supply chain & logistics, including its various formats for warehouse networks.
Billionaire’s bitcoin bet
4 days until The Future of Fintech, and I’m happy to announce that we’ve just added hedge fund billionaire Michael Novogratz (formerly of Fortress Investment Group).
Novogratz has bet 10% of his net worth on cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ethereum. He says we’re in the “3rd inning” of the digital asset revolution and calls it the best investment of his life.
He’s joining us to talk about why he’s so bullish on crypto, where he sees it going, and when he thinks institutional money will make a big move into cryptocurrencies.
The reasons for failure are varied, but a few common threads do emerge such as the inability to generate sustainable revenue, bad product-market fit, and losing to competitors.
Return of the mack
So there is a narrative and some data that suggests that founder-led companies do better in the long-term.
And today, there was news of a petition to the board of Uber by Uber employees asking for Travis Kalanick’s return.
So our poll of the day question is:
When will Travis Kalanick come back as CEO (or as a senior executive) to Uber? (Click to vote)
Like shooting fish in a barrel
We have an amazing lineup of media attending The Future of Fintech next week. Here are the publications sending 1 or several journalists to cover the event.
The Financial Times
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
Bloomberg
Reuters
Fortune
Techcrunch
CNBC
Forbes
Business Insider
Fast Company
Entrepreneur
Digiday
American Banker
Corporate Counsel
Institutional Investor
The Financial Brand
Bank Innovation
IEEE Spectrum
Chosun Ilbo
Nikkei
The International Business Times
Yahoo! Finance
Canada — land of snipers, eh?
According to The Sun UK (don’t judge me), the world’s longest sniper kill-shot traveled over 2 miles and was fired by a Canadian sniper to take out some ISIS crazy in Iraq.
Interestingly, 3 of the top 5 sniper shots were by Canadians.
India tech
We analyzed financing trends and deal share distribution in India’s tech ecosystem since 2012. In Q1’17, there were 226 deals compared to the quarterly high of 278 seen in Q1’16.
Industry Standard
CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.
