AI trends in 2018. Dating app map. Medical device startups.
Love and hype
Hi there,
Happy Valentine’s Day.
I started ending these emails with “I love you” 2+ years ago. Back-of-the-envelope math suggests I’ve said those 3 words roughly 143,750,000+ times since then, and we have 398,100+ subscribers today.
While the “I love you” started as a bit of a joke/Easter egg to see if people were reading, it’s become a great part of conversations with readers, and it’s something that folks have (mostly) liked.
So thank you for reading, sharing the newsletter with your colleagues, sending us terrible pie charts, and sending the occasional — but always hilarious — hate mail.
Now, let’s dig into data, hype, and more.
Debunking the Gartner Hype Cycle
Over the years, we’ve been a vocal critic of the Gartner Hype Cycle — a phenomenally marketed piece of pseudoscience.
But then I stumbled across this analysis by Michael Mullany of Icon Ventures in which he analyzes 20 years of hype cycles to find “the median technology doesn’t obey the hype cycle.”
A little competition
In 2017, China accounted for nearly 50% of funding going to AI startups, surpassing the US in terms of dollars for the first time. Read about this trend and more in our 38-page Artificial Intelligence Trends Report.
An analysis of 10 years of earnings transcripts for 6500 public companies highlights how dramatic the shift has been.
We also dig into what AI-related terms they’re using in this analysis. Neural networks vs deep learning? What terms are public co execs dropping more? Read on.
On-the-market market map
Looking for love this Valentine’s Day? There’s a map — and an app — for that. We rounded up 50+ dating apps, covering everything from group dating to musical matchmaking, to help you make a love connection.
The hottest devices
Simplify Medical, a manufacturer of non-metal spine implant technology, raised just over $23M in a second round of Series B funding this week.
We’ll be discussing medical device startups, their products, and more in our webinar on February 20. Sign up here.
No one is safe
AI is coming for white-collar jobs. Startups are building expert automation and augmentation software across a number of industries, from journalism to law to wealth management.
Find out which industries are most at risk of automation in our Artificial Intelligence Trends Report. Also be sure to catch tomorrow’s State of AI briefing. Sign up here.
Innovation, strategy, and the great big world
Our friends at Foreign Affairs (the Council on Foreign Relations magazine) will host our March 6 – 7 CB Insights Councils meeting at their Harold Pratt House offices in New York.
We hear they’re inviting someone interesting to join us for a dinner conversation.
Councils meetings are strictly limited to execs at the SVP level and above from companies with $1B+ in revenue. These events feature peer-driven case studies, a master class from CB Insights, and small-group discussions on the toughest issues faced by corporate innovators.
At A-ha!, WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg suggested to Reuters’ Jonathan Weber that we might be seeing the end of big platform dominance.
Recent headlines suggest he might be on to something. Matt also suggested the control big platforms exert over users is a greater risk for small publishers than the FCC ruling on net neutrality.
