“Over the next 2 to 5 years, the world around us is about to light up with layer upon layer of rich and dynamic data that you can see and interact with. This magical future ahead is called the Spatial Web and will transform every aspect of our lives, from retail and advertising, to work and education, to entertainment and social interaction.” | learn more
Reinventing the $10T service economy.
Andrew Chen, a16z partner, discusses the coming tech innovation and disruption in the service economy – focused on marketplaces delivering access to regulated services. Really interesting thinking! | learn more
Nobody knows what Palantir is worth.
The tech unicorn is in a fight with Morgan Stanley. A fund of MS owns a small bit of Palantir and values it around $4B. Meanwhile, the MS investment bankers want to take them public around $40B. It’s all more rational than it seems. | learn more
Data scientist: marketers don’t know what they’re asking for.
“In the latest installment of our Confessions series, where we exchange anonymity for honesty, Digiday spoke with a data scientist inside the marketing department of a company who says marketers are still lost when it comes to the science and are wasting money on data scientists.” |learn more
Startup uses augmented reality to make physical therapy fun for kids.
“The software hooked into Piper’s home TV screen, which displayed an image of Piper standing next to robot avatar. When the avatar marched in place, jumped or balanced on one foot, Piper mimicked its movement. Piper thought she was enjoying a cool new tech toy. She was actually doing her physical therapy exercises.” | learn more
The end of the beginning.
In yet another example of top-notch content from the a16z team, Benedict Evans posted a video of his presentation at the firm’s annual tech conference. “Close to three quarters of all the adults on earth now have a smartphone, and most of the rest will get one in the next few years. However, the use of this connectivity is still only just beginning. Ecommerce is still only a small fraction of retail spending, and many other areas that will be transformed by software and the internet in the next decade or two have barely been touched.” | learn more
A conversation with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels.
“Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, joins YC Software Engineer Kyle Corbitt to share his experience and insights on tech and startups.” | learn more
Red flags and magic numbers in startup metrics.
Andrew Chen created this 80-page deck as part of his interview process at a16z, and now he’s sharing it with us. He digs deep into acquisition & retention metrics, and it’s wonderfully educational. | learn more
Is this AI? A flowchart.
Karen Hao from MIT Technology Review helps clear things up with a handy dandy flowchart. | learn more
SpaceX wins FCC approval to deploy 7,518 satellites.
As context, there are currently fewer than 2,000 operating satellites in space. | learn more