Honestly, along with this recent news - Meta seems to be its most brazen phase since going public in 2012 https://www.adweek.com/media/whistleblower-alleges-meta-arti... (See the section Recovery from Apple’s privacy changes) Cambridge Analytica was perhaps more about incompetence than complicity. But the patterns now seem intentional, and reminiscent of its early days documented well in Steven Levy's book.
One reason might be that, if you buy a Macbook with a touchscreen, there is less reason to buy an iPad in addition to the Macbook.
I had one laptop with a touchscreen and it was so annoying that I disabled it. Every time I would brush something off of the screen, or someone would point at my screen and touch it, unexpected things would happen. Keyboards are much more efficient than touchscreens, so there didn't seem to be any point.
They're probably right about that. But they could put the pin sensor technology from the iPad Pro into an iMac and get a pretty good product. They did a fantastic job with it.
I never thought I could move to a touch only phone because I do a lot of "proper" typing on my phone, which is why I stuck to my Blackberry until my first iPhone which was a 5 (yes that long). Which is to say, I don't think we will miss the tactile escape and function keys. And same goes for dedicated HDMI port and microsd card slot (seriously how often does one use the latter)
Remember when apple got rid of the floppy drive and then the disk drive? Do we still complain about those?
Headphone jack on iPhone is a different concern, since bluetooth headphones are still not as ubiquitous and having something else to charge a headache.
But none of these concerns (except for maybe the absence of Magsafe) is really a dealbreaker.
If this valuation is based on the "future potential" of GitHub, I would keep track of GitHub's data ownership policy. I wouldn't be surprised if all of a sudden GitHub decides it owns the commercial rights to all code hosted on GitHub, at least for the free plan ;)
There's a key mental difference between traveling for leisure and for business.
When you are holidaying, you are looking for those little experiences that make every trip unique, and living in someone's home definitely adds to that.
But when you are traveling for work, anything that's not work is distracting. So one seeks 'familiarity', and that's where the experience of just getting back to a hotel with no surprises waiting wins.
It's the same reason I chose Starbucks to work from whenever I am traveling. I know I'll get the same environment, same mediocre coffee and similar wifi. No surprises, so I can GSD.
For me that exaggerates the contrast. One of the things that makes at least some business travel worthwhile is that I have the opportunity to spend at least a little time on distractions in the local environment, whether taking a walk or eating a meal. I don't go out of my way to seek out Starbucks though I'll go there if that's what is convenient.
That said, I generally try to simplify with respect to the hotel stay. I may or may not stay with a familiar chain but I'll generally book with something that looks to be a reliable business hotel.
You should reclassify this as Blockchain, and separate the application on currency (Bitcoin). The bigger fundraising events this year has been around the "Blockchain" technology while investors' appetite to startups focusing on Bitcoin as a currency has dwindled significantly.
>> 2. It feels like nobody here actually read Adora Cheung's quotes about multiple lawsuits coinciding with investment timing. That is obviously the reason they shut the doors.
Everybody did. It seems like a convenient face-saving excuse. The company didn't grow fast enough. If the all the numbers were impressive enough, investors would've taken the risk, especially the ones that already had $40m in.
Winner will take all. Uber will be the Uber for X (for everything) and AirBnB (potentially) AirBnB for everything. Low margin markets are usually zero sum in the long-term.
My and mbesto's point was that making an app to get any service on demand doesn't really work except for a few high-volume, low margin markets such as ride sharing and maybe food delivery. The businesses that can be disrupted are the ones where low margins are made up by massive volume. Most service businesses actually operate the opposite way - high quality, high margin. Uber, Google, and pretty much anyone else who wants to try won't be able to successfully disrupt the majority of service business markets unless they radically alter the economics associated with the overhead costs required to maintain quality in these businesses. Slapping software with a 5 star ratings system on the consumer front end to expose your business to millions of more customers is not a radical alteration of the business fundamentals associated with many of these types of businesses.
Sorry to comment on a super dead post, but I like this comment "unless they radically alter the economics associated with the overhead costs required to maintain quality." That is my focus, but it's really challenging. The margin is comfortably high in Japan, but ignoring quality kills retention and maintaining quality brings overhead costs back up to the level of existing franchise-model businesses.
I doubt they will do that for personal devices. I think they will have two tiers: personal and enterprise. Personal would essentially be bundled up with PCs for "free" to the end-users with money coming from the OEMs. They will then "upsell" the likes of Office for a subscription.
But I find the subscription concept interesting for enterprise customers who are already used to it. Bundle support services and extra add-ons tailored to enterprises in general or particular industry, could have a huge potential for them.
Just to add what have already been mentioned, Term Sheet by Dan Primack for all startup news, mainly around funding + other deals including PE. An aspiring VCs best friend https://fortune.com/newsletter/termsheet/
