This is an issue of my monthly newsletter. Main topics: technology, startups, business growth, and marketing. See other issues on my blog or subscribe. ~Max
Now, get a cup of coffee and enjoy!
Technology and Startups
- Latest YC Batch: 64 Startups. (Techcrunch)
- Crypto Canon. A list of crypto learning resources. (A16z)
- A visualization of how self-driving cars see the world. (Waymo on Medium)
- Live video of the Falcon Heavy launch. This was just epic and worth a re-watch. (SpaceX)
- B2B Buying Guide – AI, HR, legal, finance, marketing, productivity, and other products. (Y Combinator)
- Cora. The electric aircraft company that Larry Page invested in unveiled its first “self-piloting” product.
- The Building Blocks of Interpretability – visualization of image recognition machine learning algorithms. (Distill)
- Here Come the Fake Videos, Too. It gets increasingly easy to develop fake videos using machine learning. (NYT)
- YouTube, the Great Radicalizer. YouTube’s recommendations might lead you to increasingly radical content – no matter the topic. (NYT, Zeynep Tufekci)
- 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2018. Sidewalk Labs’ “sensing city” and “zero-knowledge” proofs facilitated by Zcash cryptocurrency are interesting. (TechnologyReview)
Growth and Marketing
- What 10 Studies Say About The Best Time To Send Email. Best options: Tue at 10 am, Thu at 8 pm, Wed at 2 pm, Tue at 6 am, and Thu at 10 am.
- Analysis of the Dropbox financial model based on the S-1 filing. 1.1B revenue; 35% YoY; 7.97 multiple; 67% gross margin; -0.1% net income margin; 2% Free–>Paid conversion; 93% of customers are self-serve. (Tom Tunguz, VC)
- Lessons from Spotify. Atypically for tech, Spotify’s marginal cost is not zero as it pays royalties. Since it’s hard to negotiate better rates with the music industry, Spotify will either need to tightly control operational costs or cut out the labels altogether – not a likely option. (Stratechery)