Category: Random, But Interesting

What Do Drones Mean for Humanity?

predator-firing-missile4(Image) One of the “artifacts” that Sara and I are paying close attention to as we work on the book is “the drone.” Drones ply the liminal space between the physical and the digital – pilots fly them, but aren’t in them. They are versatile and fascinating objects – the things they can do range from the mundane (aerial photography) to the spectacular – killing people, for example. And when drones kill – well, what does it mean, to destroy life, but to not be physically present while doing it?

Until today, drone warfare for me has been a largely intellectual concept: I followed the political and social issues closely, but I avoided emotional engagement – most likely because I knew I hadn’t quite worked out my point of view on the ethical issues. But after reading Matthew Power’s Confessions of a Drone Warrior, I can no longer say I’m not emotionally involved.

The article profiles Brandon Bryant, a retired Airman  trained to pilot Predator drones above Iraq and Afghanistan. Bryant’s story frames all that we’re struggling with as a nation, as citizens, and as human beings when it comes to this new technology. As Powers writes:

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A World Lit, Literally, By Data

data bulbsAs you work on a book, even one as slow to develop as if/then, certain catch phrases develop. People ask you what the book is about, or the shape of its core argument, and some of the descriptions start to stand out and  hit home. One of those is “a world lit by data,” an idea I’ve been toying with for some time now. It’s a metaphor that’s not entirely worked out, but it seems to get the job done – it paints a picture of a time when everything of value around us – everything we “see” – has a component of data to it. In a world lit by data, street corners are painted with contextual information, automobiles can navigate autonomously, thermostats respond to patterns of activity, and retail outlets change as rapidly (and individually) as search results from Google.

The tortured bit of the metaphor is in asking you, the reader, to believe that we will live in spaces full of data, just as we live in spaces filled with light (be it natural or man made). Everyone understands the idea of light as metaphor. But data? Well, to my mind, they are quite connected. Without light, we can’t (easily) take in information about our physical surroundings. In darkness there is far less data. Equating “light” with “data” isn’t too much of a stretch.

Now, the interplay of light and “information” is dangerous but well-trodden ground. After all, in the Old Testament, the first thing God did after creating the physical (Heavens and Earth) was to turn on the lights. And after further contemplation, Christians decided that before Light, there was The Word, which was God’s will made flesh (John 1). Since then, of course, “the word” has come to mean, well, encoded information, or data. Loosely put (and I know I’m on thin ice here) – first we establish the physicality of that which we don’t fully understand, then we bathe it in light, hoping to understand it the best we can.

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Twitter’s S1: How Do the Numbers Stack Up To Google and Facebook?

Twitter’s S-1 filing is now public, you can read it here. There’s no dearth of coverage, just Google News it. I’m interested in a few metrics compared to its most likely comparables, namely Google and Facebook. First, a couple tidbits from Twitter’s S-1:

* Top line growth y/y: 118%. Twitter shows financials up to Q2 2013, so through June. Growth 1H 2012 to 1H 2013 is our most recent comparison: $101.3mm in 1H ’12, to $221.4mm in 1H ’13. That’s impressive y/y topline growth of $120.1mm, or 118%.

* Implied 2013 topline: nearly $600mm, but possibly pushing $750mm. Twitter’s earned 62% of its 2012 revenue in the second half of the year. If it does the same this year, that would imply a topline revenue for 2013 of $582.4mm and a second half of around $361mm. Given Twitter took the option of filing its IPO under the JOBS Act, which allows for confidential filing for businesses under $750mm in annual revenue, one could argue that it filed because it knew it was going to have a blowout second half, which would push its FY topline over $750mm. If indeed revenues are accelerating beyond the norms set in 2012, we may see a second half revenue figure of closer to half a billion, which would be pretty spectacular.

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Here Are the Companies I Chose For OpenCo SF This Year. Damn, That Was Hard

opencosfI spent about an hour today choosing which companies I plan to visit during next week’s OpenCo. And I have to say – despite my obvious bias as a founder of the event – the difficulty I had deciding only gets me more excited about participating. There are just so many great organizations opening their doors during this two-day festival, and it makes me so proud that this thing is, well, happening. I mean, it’s really happening – 135 or so companies are letting the public come inside, and they’re talking about what makes their  organization special, what makes it tick. And for two days, I get to hang out in their space, take notes, get inspired. It’s just…really cool.

I like this so much more than hanging out in yet another ballroom at a tech industry confab. I mean, I love those conferences. It’s great to see all my pals and meet new people. But OpenCo really is different. The serendipity of each company’s vibe, the instant social network that forms around each session (“So why did you come to see Rock Health?!”), the seemingly endless choices. Nearly 2500 people have registered, and we expect to break 3,000 by the end of the week. You can’t fit 3,000 people in the ballroom at The Palace Hotel. But the city will welcome us all next week. It’s just … cool.

So here are the companies I chose, and why:

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Get Out of Your Office, And Into The Modern Working City: OpenCo SF Is Live!

Openco113I’m bustin’ with pride to announce that after great festivals in London, New York, and Detroit, OpenCo is returning next month to its home base of San Francisco, and the lineup is 135 companies strong*.

For those who haven’t heard about it before, OpenCo is an “inside out” event – instead of going into a ballroom and hearing CEOs talk at you, you go to literally inside their companies, and interact with the people and the cultures that are changing our world. It’s a really cool idea, and it’s really, really a different experience.

Oh, and it’s free. As in, no cost.

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At Google Zeitgest 2013: A Conversation with Mark Kelly, featuring Gabby Giffords

For the past four years I’ve been honored to help moderate portions of Google’s annual Zeitgeist conference, which assembles a powerful lineup of speakers each year in the Arizona desert. I hosted the last segment of the day, and sat down with astronaut Mark Kelly, who is known for his career as a fighter pilot and Space Shuttle commander, and of course, as the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords. Since Giffords was shot two years ago, and after the terrible Newtown attack, Kelly and Gifford launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, a SuperPAC that is trying to take on the NRA using NRA lobbying tactics. Gabby comes on toward the end and left no one in their seats. Inspirational stuff – one of many such talks at the conference.

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The Best Platform for Incubation Is the Web

egg_20hatch1(image) Yesterday in the course of my seemingly endless attempt to stay current in this industry, I came across this article on VentureBeat: Searching for the next Zuckerberg: A day in the life of a Lightspeed Fellow. It chronicles the experiences of the chosen few who have made it into a VC-backed incubator, focusing on two Stanford students who are trying to create a new sensor for lap swimming.

I recently took up the sport, and find the gadget interesting. But what really struck me was the casual use of Zuckerberg’s name in the headline, and how it was used in context of the ecosystem that has sprung up in the past five or so years around entrepreneurship. Don’t get me wrong, I think incubators and accelerators are important components of our business ecosystem. But I’ve always liked the fact that anyone with a great idea, access to the Internet, and an unrelenting will can spark a world beating company simply by standing up code on the Internet, and/or leveraging the information and relationship network that is the web.  That’s how Facebook started, after all. And Google, and Amazon, Twitter and eBay, and countless others. No gatekeepers, no contests, no hackathons or pre-seed rounds. A great idea, and a great platform: the Web.

I wonder if the next Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg would ever start at Lightspeed, Y Combinator, or TechStars. Certainly amazing companies and ideas have come from inside those estimable establishments, and more will come in the future. But the peculiar fire which drives folks who are truly “the next Zuckerberg” – I wonder if that fire needs stoking from anything else than the Internet itself. If we institutionalize that fire, I think we lose something. A simple page on the open web, offering a service, waiting to be engaged with, to learn from that engagement, to rapidly iterate and grow, to fall down and fail and try again.

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Want to See How Detroit Is Coming Back?

OCDet

Tonight I checked into my hotel room in Chicago as part of my regular cadence of visiting FM’s offices around the country. I flipped on the TV and the local news featured a dismal report about Detroit’s suburbs. The copy of Time magazine I had in my bag, same thing: Detroit Goes Bust.

Well, we all know things are tough in Detroit right now. Which is exactly why we’re bringing OpenCo there next month.

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Four Minutes on the Future of Marketing

Earlier this year I sat down with a videographer at the Bazaarvoice Summit in Austin. He asked me about the future of marketing, in particular as it related to data and consumer behavior. Given what I announced earlier this morning, I thought you might find this short video worth a view. Thanks to Ian Greenleigh for doing all the work!

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Liquid Markets Win: On Boats, Planes and Automobiles

Marthas_1775_Blask-wbOne of the key themes in our upcoming book has to do with the interaction of information and the physical world – in particular, how all things physical become “liquid” when activated by just the right information. But when you’re writing (and thinking out loud) about this topic, it’s easy to fall into an academic cadence, because information theory is a thicket – just try reading “The Information” in one sitting, for example.

So I’ve found it’s best to just tell stories instead (and to be honest, I’d wager that nearly all information theory should be reduced to narrative, because narrative is how we as humans make sense of information, but I digress). Here’s a story that happened just this past weekend.

If you’ve been reading for more than a year, you know that I spend a good part of August working on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s a special place where my great grandmother settled in the 19th century, the kind of place where you visit graveyards with your kids to remind them of their own history, then hit a carousel and ice cream shop in the afternoon.

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