The 2017 tech year-in-review

The year is about to come to an end and I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about some of the events that I have found most significant in the tech and startup spaces over the last 12 months.

(1) Amazon goes brick and mortar

 If there is one major corporate transaction that I would highlight that would be Amazon's $14bn purchase of Whole Foods. We are all well aware of Amazon's clout and how much many of us rely on it for buying and selling stuff. This acquisition is a game changer and, even more importantly, it seems like it is not going to be the last of its kind, as in recent weeks there have been multiple rumors, in particular around French leader Carrefour, about Amazon acquiring in Europe.


As NYU Stern's professor Scott Galloway usually says, Amazon is slashing value out of traditional retailers and is likely to become the first $1tn company in the world.  Interestingly, he also points out how Amazon is a threat for competition and advocates for antitrust action that could easily to breaking the company up in different pieces.

Even in such a scenario, Amazon is a global "darling". Case in point: the beauty pageant / auction launched by Amazon among American cities for the purpose of erecting its second American HQ. An astonishing 238 proposals have been received. Game on.

(2) The crypto hype
As blockchain technology evolves, 2017 will be remembered as the year when cryptocurrencies became a new hot thing in tech. I would not dare say the became mainstream but it is obvious that when your mother asks you what bitcoin is and how she can invest in it, there is something going on. I already blogged about this some months ago.

The main cryptocurrencies (in particular bitcoin and ethereum) have had dramatic price increases (chart below; source: Coinbase), which has led to lots of market debate as to whether we are in a new bubble or if, on the other hand, bitcoin is for instance the new refuge replacing gold. There are arguments and interest of all kinds. From Jamie Dimon's - JPMorgan Chase's CEO - calling people "stupid" for buying bitcoin to the CME Group's launch of bitcoin futures a few weeks ago.

But this crypto frenzy has gone past bitcoin and ethereum. ICO is the acronym of the year and funds raised through this mechanism have exceeded $3bn. We have seen a proliferation of new ethereum-based tokens relying, in many cases, in dubious business models.

I took the time this year to learn a bit about all these topics and decided to invest (ie. gamble) some money in various cryptocurrencies to give this thing a shot. It did not go badly, although I am kind of expecting a short term correction and have therefore cashed in for the most part. In any case, in spite of diverse theories, I'd argue nobody has a real clue about how to value these new assets and how things are going to go down the road.

(3) The Uber crash

Uber has been for years the darling among startups and venture capital investors. Aggressive growth all over the world, increasing valuation round after round, huge losses relying on future market domination...and all of this relying on a "bro-kind-of culture" of work hard play hard.

In 2017 the foundations of Uber became under substantial scrutiny as a result of a very unfortunate  sexual harassment scandal which, rather than an isolated event, proved to be part of the company's culture itself. The whole thing led to CEO Travis Kalanick's resignation and to significant user backlash...and planted the seed for the #MeToo movement - which Time magazine has fairly acknowledged as "person of the year" - that exploded with the whole Harvey Weinstein "plot" .

I am very curious to see how Uber recovers under new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi after having moved into such a slippery slope. Corporate culture matters and now that culture-related scandals are reportedly bringing valuation down, executives will most likely pay more attention to it.

(4) Disney threatens Netflix

Star Wars: Episode VIII premiered in L.A. on December 9 and just a few days later in Europe. But this was not the only surprise that The Walt Disney Company had for us before the year end. On December 14 it was announced that Disney would be acquiring 21st Century Fox film and tv studios for $66bn (including debt) which, among others includes the FX and National Geographic networks, a large additional stake in Hulu and valuable franchises such as Alien and Avatar, or TV shows such as "How I met your mother". A massive move that I expect will change the playing field very significantly in the coming years.

I have thought for a long time that entertainment consumption has changed forever and that TV as we have known it is doomed. Disney has understood this and in the last year they have amassed a ton of content on top of their traditional stuff, including Marvel, the Star Wars franchise. Now it is this bold move.

In the last months there have been rumors about Netflix being a target for Disney. However, this may no longer be the case. After deciding to pull content from Netflix, all points in the direction of launching its own service, either from scratch or on the back of Hulu. If you add sports content (i.e. ESPN) to the mix, we do have a new streaming battle ahead. Watch out Netflix, Amazon.

(5) The advent of fake news

2017 has been the year when fake news have become a major threat globally. It all started at the time of the US presidential election in late 2016. As it has been proven, Russia played a a central part in creating fake news that substantially contributed to changing public perception and generating opinion in favor or Trump. Upon becoming president, Trump started a PR war accusing CNN and others of being fake news. Several examples of this unacceptable activity followed for instance with the French election and, more recently, with the pathetic allegations against Spain's democracy fabricated by the Catalonian pro-independence block (and the likes of Russia and Venezuela) supporters) in their crazy and illegal pursue of independence.

Fake news are a 21st century weapon aimed at bringing down the foundations of democracy as we know it. And it is in this instance that technology companies - in particular Facebook and Google given their size and business models - have a huge responsibility to prevent, or at the very least minimize, fake news from happening. They have the budget, the resources and, increasingly, the technology (e.g AI) to address this. I am hoping that they honor their duty.

It's been an interesting year. I am sure 2018 is going to be a ride, which I am going to have to follow even closer. More to come soon.

Happy holidays!

Learning from tech leaders I admire

Today I have read a very interesting piece that Fast Company - one of my must-read publications -  has recently produced on Uber and its CEO Travis Kalanick. It is priceless to better understand the company's ethos and driving forces. This has led me to think a bit about some of the people in tech I admire.

When it comes to leaders in the technology space, a few names come to mind quickly to the general public. A simplified classification I have come up with - Forbes, for instance, has its own ranking of "The Richest People in Tech" - would break down such leaders in three groups:

(1) those who are no longer active or in executive roles but whose influence is still undoubted today (Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates);

(2) those who have rather recently disrupted the world (and continue to do so) and have already significantly cashed out (Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban); and then

(3) those whose companies are on the verge of becoming - to some extent they already are - the next big thing (Travis Kalanick, Elon Musk, Brian Chesky)

Week-in week-out I read a lot of stuff about many of them. And there is always stuff you can learn and try to apply to your more mundane existence. Some takeaways for my own sake are the following:

- long term vision vs. short term profit: I love Amazon's Jeff Bezos' approach to this and how he continues to drive innovation at Amazon by continuing to invest heavily in new services and products (Prime, Amazon Web Services, you name it...), instead of giving in to The Street's pressures for boosting the company's present stock price. At the end of the day, and as obvious as it sounds, the latter will be accomplished if things work out just fine - the last months' stock price evolution being a good example.

- challenge the statu quo: I am gonna go with Uber's Travis Kalanick. I love his strength to challenge what is widely perceived as a legally-protected dated monopoly (i.e. cab service) in pretty much all countries around the world. When customers love your service the regulators can do nothing but ultimately changing the rules of the game.

- dare to dream: nobody in my view is better at this than Elon Musk. From the hyperloop train to life in Mars; from space "tourist" travel to the perfect car. If I had to pick one guy as "the" visionary, I'd pick him. Such "visions" are sometimes broadly praised and some other times hammered. However, few people feel indifferent.

- learn, learn, learn: when Mark Zuckerberg started to take the stage as Facebook's CEO and main spokesperson he was widely criticized for his relative weakness with presentation and public speaking skills. He has invested time and effort in getting better and the results have been evident, his notorious recent presentation in Chinese being a great example. Just because one is at the top of the world does not mean that he knows it all. Be humble and never stop getting better.

- be generous: you can call tax planning...or you can call it giving back to the community. Or you can argue that it is a bit of both. But the huge contributions that the likes of Microsoft's founder Bill Gates continue to make to try to make the world a slightly better place should not be unnoticed.

These are just some ideas. There are a zillion others. But I do know that working for and/or with someone you admire and look up to makes your work more rewarding. Plus it commands an extra "something" that at the end of the day results in self-improvement, additional commitment and increased loyalty. 

The Social Network

"The Social Network", David Fincher's movie based on Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook will be coming out in a couple of weeks. There is quite a lot o buzz about it, so I am just posting a pretty thorough article about Zuckerberg published on The New Yorker. It is quite long but worth reading

"The Face of Facebook"

I am also posting a link to the movie trailer (nice song!) and official site. I look forward to watching it.

Google vs Facebook on social...again

Last February I wrote a couple of posts about how Google and Facebook were somehow challenging each other: Google was making a move into social with Buzz and Facebook was planning on creating @facebook email accounts. I did not expect much success of either and, five months later none of the initiatives has crystalized.

Now seems like Google is striking back with a social initiative, named Google Me. Apparently, according to Techrunch, it was Kevin Rose, Digg's CEO, who first mention this on his Twitter. A lot of comments have been made about this and Google is reportedly giving top priority to this venture. This is not Google's first move on "pure" social networks, since it already owns Orkut, which is very popular in very important markets such as Brazil.

I understand it if Google is worried about the Facebook effect. More and more people spend more and more time on Facebook (and on other social networks) and that means less time searching on Google and, in turn, fewer ad impressions and clicks on Google.  Btw, some sources are claiming that FB's 2009 turnover was around $800m, more than doubling that of FY 2008...impressive.

I have to admit that I am curious to see the new thing that Google will be offering. That said, I am doubtful about whether I will be signing up. If it is to offer the same thing Facebook does, what is the point? And at the end of the day I will only sign up if my friends do so. Or maybe someone will be coming up with an app that will sync FB and Google Me... but then again, what's the point if the offering is the same?

Wait and see...

Privacy is in fashion

Internet users' privacy has always been a concern. That is obvious and reasonable. It must not be allowed that companies do whatever they want with the data they might gather. Over the past couple of weeks, significant outcry has raised against two giants such as Google and Facebook.

Google has faced trouble in countries such as Ireland and Germany. Apparently, Google gathered data from unencrypted wifi  networks while getting info for location-based products from its Street View cars. The Irish authorities have forced Google to delete all the collected data and Google has met that demands quickly and has confirmed through a public statement .

On the other hand, Facebook has experienced the last of its many incidents concerning the use of its users' private information. I am quite an avid Facebook user and I must admit that I have never paid super detailed attention to my Facebook privacy controls beyond the people I share pics and information with. The other day, after reading about Mark Zuckerberg explanations (how many so far!!) on the Washington Post I went to my Facebook's settings and they are a mess and hard to understand. Zuckerberg acknowledges that, though people are willing to share information (but with the people they want to, not necessarily with third parties, I'd say!!!!!), they want simpler privacy controls and claims that Facebook has heard such feedback from users and that some changes will be introduced shortly. Well, this sounds to me like the same old story. It is the "n-time" that Zuckerberg goes out there to apologize/explain their treatment of users' data. C'mon guys, enough, just do what you have to do (i.e. all settings should be "private" and "opt-in" by default) at once. I understand that Facebook might need such information to monetize its audience through third parties but this is not the right way to do it.

These have been to of latest stories about privacy. Rest assured it they won't be the last.

Google vs Facebook

I have just read today that Facebook is working on creating @facebook.com email -the so-called Project Titan- accounts and Google is considering setting up status updates on Gmail so you can see what your friends are up to. Interesting.

Gmail is a pretty good email service, offering lots of capacity and quite user-friendly. I still miss the typical folder structure because I am one of those who hates having a lot of stuff in his inbox and with Gmail that is exactly what happens. The labels that you can now attach to each emails somewhat replace such feature but to a lesser extent. Overall I am happy with Gmail and given that I have been using it for so long, I find it hard to think about changing overnight to Facebook mail or to any other. The only idea of replacing all my signing in details in every single site in which I am active or the transition process until everyone is aware that you have a new email account are big deterrents.

On the other hand, the move by Google to offer status updates to Gmail users is quite curious. At this point I do not really see myself using it. My audience is different on Gmail, Twitter and Facebook. As of today I make a difference between fun (Facebook) and work (Twitter-Linkedin) and that is why I to not have updates in sync. Audiences differ and I do not necessarily want one audience being aware of some issues and vice versa. My Gmail contacts at this point include people from both audiences so it would be hard for me to filter. The fact that people are spending so much time on Facebook might be a little worrisome for Google and the status update move might work in that direction.

Socially in sync?

Being in sync social network-wise is not easy, in particular if you are not programming-savvy. Dealing with code, even if it is the simple one from a Blogger template is a nightmare for me.

Yesterday evening I decided to try to link up my blog, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. After some quite thorough research I realized that it is a little more complicated than it seems to do that. Conclusions: (1) you can link up Linkedin and Twitter quite easily (I think I have succeeded!); (2) you can have Twitter and FB in sync, as long as the input comes from Twitter, not the other way around; (3) it is possible to link FB and Linkedin but only by syncing Linkedin with Twitter and Twitter with Facebook).

Then the blog comes into play: (1) it is quite easy to share your posts on Facebook by including a share button on your blog; (2) it is a little more complicated with Twitter, and I have ended up using Twitterfeed; (3) it is not possible to share a post on Linkedin directly, I reckon. What you need to do is to share it on Twitter and then hope for the Twitter-Linkedin sync to work. This post will actually test if (2) and (3) are right.

Update: It has actually worked!

I do not mean to have a super cool blog full of gadgets, widgets and so forth, but I have to admit that I was surprised by the very little help that you can actually get from Blogger tools. Fine, it is a free service and probably if you go for a premium service things will flow better. But still, I was hoping for a little more help, considering that it is open source.

This exercise has made me think about where and with whom I want to share this blog. First I was thinking about sharing it with my FB community (I even shared a post that I removed later) but I realized that it is not the right forum, considering that this is not a pure personal blog and most people probably don't give a shit about the stories I tell here. At the end of the day, I am writing this with a professional mindset, so my Linkedin network is the right audience and Twitter the tool that I have to use for such purpose (and in which I have to dig a little more). Each social network serves its purpose. I seem to have figured out what I want from each.

Takeaways from traveling

I have had the opportunity to enjoy a 3-week trip to Australia over Xmas time. In addition to swimming trunks, sunglasses and short-sleeved t-shirts, I took my "technical" equipment with me. A couple of quick takeaways:

(1) I really need to be connected. I haven't watched tv, I haven't spoken on my cell much...but I have really longed for an internet access all the time. Not from a laptop but, more importantly, from my phone. I can survive easily sending emails rather than calling, I like updating my Facebook status and uploading pictures, Google maps is a life-saver, mobile access keeps you entertained while waiting for the bus... No doubt, I do need it.

(2) My Storm sucks. This is nothing new, though. In addition to being slow and battery-consuming as hell, the installed applications (from Facebook to Google Maps + push email) will not work with another carrier, even if your phone is unlocked (I guess this applies to all Blackberries). I still find this hard to believe. I am sure there is a way... but it is not user friendly, at least for me. I had to access everything through my browser. A pain in the neck. Hope Android and Apple do a better job at this.

(3) Telcos are dinosaurs. They do operate in a lively sector, they are supposed to provide state-of-the-art new services, they are at the forefront of technology... but at the end of the day they are dinosaurs. How is it possible that a global company such as Vodafone -my service provider in Spain- cannot offer me a better deal in Australia -where it is present- than any other carrier? Rather than global companies, they are a sum of local ones. Same thing applies to the Telefonicas and Oranges of the world, I pressume.

Had Vodafone offered me a good deal, I would have gone with them while in Australia. On the contrary, by not giving me the unlocking code, they forced me to go to Storm Unlocker (check it out, really cool, quick and effective, and even featuring Paypal) and switch to another carrier instead.