A new mechanical keyboard, portable with decent battery life and it looks great!
Anybody fancy getting me a (very) early birthday present then feel free.

A new mechanical keyboard, portable with decent battery life and it looks great!
Anybody fancy getting me a (very) early birthday present then feel free.
Now everybody who knows me will know that I’m a fan of a Burger King (my preference is the XL Double Bacon & Cheese). So as part of my healthier eating lifestyle drive I’m fascinated by this news.
The global benefits of moving away from meat eating are well documented so anything that helps us move in this direction is a good thing. Looking forward to it coming to the UK!
Links worth checking out: Impossible Foods | Memphis Meats
One of the tech world’s ‘hardest to define’ areas but one with the highest level of investment. There is certainly a lot of players in the market right now (see image below on Enterprise AI by Topbots)
Whether it be super advanced personalisation, on the fly, that gets me just the right product recommendation at precisely the right time or being used to automate transportation to optimise traffic flow or even being used to construct a new cure for horrific diseases like cancer and alzheimers there is for sure a wide range of possibilities with AI.
Alternatively ‘the machine’ may grow smart enough to realise that the single greatest threat to our planet and thus it’s own survival is the human race. What with our propensity to abuse, waste and ultimately destroy the good stuff we discover…
Ultimately, it’s probably going to be a mix of all of the above, over time and with highs and lows in the journey. Like every genuine game changer in the technology ecosystem there will be winners and losers – but it will move us along the road a bit further and open up a whole range of other possibilities that we can’t even dream of right now.
An interesting read on who is doing AI well today…
https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/03/29/5-european-companies-advancing-ai/
“People who bought a big-mac also bought this milkshake”.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90325388/mcdonalds-tries-to-be-more-like-amazon-with-300-million-ai-bet
If they can learn that I never want gherkins with anything then it’s money well spent in my opinion.
$300m to make a big step forward with their data and AI capabilities.
It’s amazing what can be done in a busy market when a great company creates a great product.
Zoom achieves 2x revenue growth in the run up to their IPO.
How?
Easy right?
For the full S-1 filing then visit the SEC website here
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1585521/000119312519083351/d642624ds1.htm
Or if you want a brilliant complete breakdown of their S-1 filing then take a look at this by Alex Clayton.
https://medium.com/@alexfclayton/zoom-ipo-s-1-breakdown-119249acadd3
So there is definitely money in process automation then… So much opportunity in legacy organisations where manual processes are so prevalent.
Robotics process automation startup UiPath raising $400M at more than $7B valuation
From my experience the challenge for most older businesses is not recognising the need for this change but rather structuring the change required to get from where they are now to where they need to be. The usual ‘anti-bodies’ surface when this sort of thing gets looked at and in more traditional matrix businesses the operational leads have a habit of reverting to type and protecting the status-quo in terms of people / roles / change etc…
My advice when approaching this: (sort of in order but can be run in parallel…)
There are many other things to look out for when getting your automation strategy up and running like how you create business cases for automation, the benefits of creating POCs running alongside existing manual process to mitigate risk, how to use the data generated by automating processes for wider business optimisation etc… but the points above should help get you started.
Any questions or thoughts on this then please comment below.
Because share options are so last year! Perhaps a sign of things to come but ultimately depends on the liquidity. Good to see Square leading the way here.
I really like what these folk are doing with ‘in-destination’ services. Glad it’s got some more funding – worth a look. Plus always had a soft spot for the Greeks!
🤦🏻♂️ Oh dear… That’s a large chunk of my 20s wiped from the internet. Probably a good thing!
Really interesting interview with Julie Zhuo, VP Product Design at FB. Some great advice about the importance of asking the right questions as a manager – looking forward to reading her new book.