In this week’s edition…how to measure what your boss really makes…why women in tech are finally speaking out…dreaming of prime numbers…why we haven’t found aliens – yet…the death of cash in China…and more. Have a great weekend! Business & Economics Monetary Policy in Japan Has a New Problem: Amazon Japan isn’t alone in its
In case you missed it, Aeon has a great piece by Caleb Scharf (Director of astrobiology at Columbia) on the idea that human consciousness might one day merge with machines. Some excerpts: Superficially, the logic behind the conjectures about cosmic machine intelligence appears pretty solid. Extrapolating the trajectory of our own current technological evolution suggests that with
Recently, a colleague of mine recommended I read Scale, the new book by Santa Fe Institute physicist, Geoffrey West. At 448 pages, West’s book certainly does its subject credit, and it will reward anyone who completes it with a wide-ranging and very interesting analysis of how systems as diverse as a human body and a giant
In case you missed it, HBR has a nice piece on how startups often skirt (or ignore) laws during their early stages of growth. Some excerpts below: One of the unheralded advantages of a startup is what at first glance appears to be its weakness. Initially, a startup has no business model and no market
HBR has what I think is their first ever piece on the topic of neurodiversity as a competitive advantage. I recently had the chance to speak with Rajesh Anandan, co-founder and CEO of Ultra Testing (as well as SVP of Strategic Partnerships at UNICEF ventures), a firm built around a neurodiverse workforce. We discussed not just
Last week terrorists once again attacked the people of London. Lives were shattered and lost yet again, and as such the nation’s leadership was forced to respond to the continuing threat that terrorists post to open societies. Leading the charge, the U.K.’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, decided to place a large part of the blame
Good piece on Bloomberg about why teenagers in the U.S. are working fewer summer jobs. Some excerpts: For Baby Boomers and Generation X, the summer job was a rite of passage. Today’s teenagers have other priorities. Teens are likeliest to be working in July, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that’s not seasonally
In case you missed it, Andreessen Horowitz’s Bendict Evans has an interesting take on what differentiates tech with game-changing potential from mere novelties. His post is worth a careful read. Some excerpts: It is unquestionably true that many of the most important technology advances looked like toys at first – the web, mobile phones, PCs, aircraft, cars and
Excellent piece on MIT Tech Review about how deep learning works. Some excerpts: Already, mathematical models are being used to help determine who makes parole, who’s approved for a loan, and who gets hired for a job. If you could get access to these mathematical models, it would be possible to understand their reasoning. But banks,
I come across a lot of interesting writing in my work, but I have to note that one of the most thought-provoking scholarly pieces I have read recently is the working paper published earlier this year by Nicholas Bloom, Charles I. Jones, Michael Webb (all Stanford) and John Van Reenen (MIT). Their paper is entitled, Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?, and both the question they pose
