Autonomous Transport Et. Al

While Facebook’s data privacy scandal continues to dominate headlines, recent events shift focus on the other big question – how much can we “trust” machines?

I strongly believe autonomous transport is the future (think of the car as the new mobile, with an OS), but a fatal accident involving the Tesla autopilot raises pertinent questions on adoption, yet again. Messrs Zuckerberg and Musk, who are now both in the eyes of different storms, have famously been on opposite sides of the AI and machine “trust” debate.

Meanwhile, the fight for supremacy in non autonomous transport continues to intensify, with Uber and Indian cab aggregator Ola reportedly looking to merge. I think this will be an Uber acquisition, unlike China/SEA, where Uber got pummeled by local players.

Ola’s and Uber’s large stakeholder, Softbank, is now looking to raise a gigantic $200 Bn fund. I am unsure if the liquidity being pumped into the ecosystem is good because it allows companies to remain private ad Infinitum (read: Uber, Airbnb). Speaking of remaining private, Dropbox’s IPO saw the share price up by 40% – I am a strong believer in going public to truly scale beyond the interests of a few stakeholders. 

This week, I look at Turtlenecks, Communism and Bike Sharing et al.

1. [Large Startups]: Black turtlenecks, Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos
2. [Work Culture]: EBay’s CEO on dumping the myth of the high achiever
3. [Growing Startups]: The Bike Share oversupply in China
4. [Buzzwords]: Drowning in cryptocurrency tokens
5. [Life x Startups]: Classic financial statements don’t work for digital companies
6. [The New Monopolies]: The Facebook brand
7. [Data!]: Self taught AI’s struggles with the real world
8. [Modern Economics]: Wall Street looks overvalued
9. [Classic Economics]: Anti-anti communism
10. [Business is Entertainment]: Free speech and the necessity of discomfort