Wired recently published a long read called, “I stumbled across a huge Airbnb scam that’s taking over London.” Apparently the people who do these sorts of things on the platform (things that are both illegal and questionable) call it “systemizing.” This is the process of… Read More
I have been using an Apple Watch for a couple of months now. A lot of people ask me why I feel it is necessary to have a screen on my wrist, and I certainly get why some would see it as a massive distraction.… Read More
The Information estimates that around $16 billion has been spent over the last few years on developing autonomous vehicles. This is across some 30 companies. But about half of this spending has come from just three companies: Waymo (Alphabet), Cruise (GM), and Uber. Waymo has… Read More
“Every failed idea from the dotcom bubble would work now.” — Marc Andreessen Every year, Benedict Evans publishes a “big presentation” on the current trends in tech. They are always excellent and they help to put a lot of things into perspective. This year he… Read More
Analytics firm, App Annie, has just published its annual The State of Mobile report. As you might expect, our phones continue to consume more of our time, attention, and money. Last year, there were over 204 billion app downloads across the world. Global mobile advertising… Read More
A recent study by the City of Toronto has looked at why tech firms cluster (agglomeration economies) and where they cluster in the city. Here are maps of what they found: Downtown captured almost half (49.2%) of all tech employment in the city with some… Read More
I would like to revisit the post that I wrote last week about the Brazil-based real estate startup, Loft. In it, I said that they are doing in Brazil what Opendoor, and others, are doing in the US. They are buying and flipping homes using… Read More
At the beginning of this year, a16z announced that they co-led a $175 million investment in the real estate company Loft. Based in São Paulo, Loft is doing in Brazil what Opendoor is doing in the US. They are bringing more liquidity to the residential… Read More
Benedict Evan’s latest post on Microsoft, IBM, and anti-trust is excellent. In it he argues (reminds us) that market power during one generation of tech, doesn’t necessarily guarantee market power in the next. And that anti-trust intervention isn’t actually responsible for Microsoft missing out on,… Read More
A few weeks ago, I tweeted that I was creating a simple email newsletter that would notify you of new planning/development applications (and updates) near where you live (in Toronto). About 100 people subscribed following that tweet and we then spent the following few weeks… Read More
