Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: tech

  • Revolutionizing the online buying and selling of consumer real estate

    This week it was announced that Social Capital Hedosophia II — a special purpose acquisition company associated with Chamath Palihapitiya — will merge with the real estate startup Opendoor, effectively taking the company public. Without going into all of the details, SPACs are kind of popular right now. They’re a way to take companies public without going through the traditional IPO process. And Chamath is clearly a believer in the approach, as he has gone ahead and reserved all of the symbols from “IPOA” to “IPOZ” on the New York Stock Exchange. $IPOB is what will be merging with Opendoor.

    But SPACs are not the point of this post. The point is that I have written a lot about Opendoor over the years on this blog. (Here are those post.) And I’m pretty sure that, on a number of occasions, I have referred to it as one of if not the most promising consumer-facing real estate startup. So in my view this announcement is a pretty big deal for both the company and for the industry. As Chamath puts it in the below investment thesis, “real estate is the largest, undisrupted form of buying/selling in the US worth more than $1.6 trillion annually.” And it’s only a matter of time before that process moves online.

  • Twelve climate technologies

    This is an excellent blog post by entrepreneur and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla about some of the “instigators” that are working to help solve our climate crisis and some of the areas in which we probably should be focusing on next. One of the things that’s noteworthy about the post is that he distills it all down into 12 areas of focus that — if solved and if scaled — could have a material impact on carbon emissions. They are (verbatim):

    1. Electric vehicles & automotive batteries
    2. Food & agriculture, especially meat
    3. Low carbon transportation: Air transportation (jet fuel), shipping (electrofuels, biofuels?)
    4. Cement or substitute construction material
    5. Low carbon dispatchable electricity generation (fusion, geothermal, nuclear)
    6. Public transit
    7. Grid storage (long duration battery storage)
    8. HVAC
    9. Industrial processes (hydrogen?)
    10. Fertilizer (hydrogen)
    11. Water
    12. Steel

    Looking at this list, it is clear that some of these things are already happening (and some aren’t). I currently own an ICE vehicle, but I’m fairly certain it will be the last non-electric vehicle I ever own. It’s also not clear whether I will want to continue owning a car. Dynamic mass transit and overall autonomy are things that we’ve talked a lot about on this blog.

    But here’s the other idea put forward in Khosla’s post. If these are in fact the 12 most impactful and important categories, then we may only be 12 or so companies away from real solutions. We only be 12 or so entrepreneurs away from meaningful societal change. When you look at it this way, the climate crisis should hopefully feel a lot less daunting.

  • The new normal, whatever that is

    Back in February, I shared a presentation by Benedict Evans about the macro and strategic trends that have been playing out in the tech industry. (Of course, the potential impacts go well beyond tech.) Well that was February and lot has happened since then. So he has updated a bunch of his slides and it is now called, “Tech and the new normal.” We know that things have changed, but we don’t know what things will really look like when this is all over — and which changes will have durability. Benedict doesn’t necessarily prognosticate in his presentation, but he does provide valuable historical context and some great data. So there are a lot of conclusions that you might be able to draw from it on your own. It’s also my kind of slide deck. Not a lot of text. Lots of graphics/diagrams. And really only one key takeaway per slide. Here you are.

  • Zoomed out

    Joining a Zoom (or other video) meeting is as frictionless as opening up the calendar invite and clicking the link. No need to login or do much else, except maybe fiddle with the audio for a bit. “Can you hear me now?” The benefits to this are obvious. But if you’re Zoom (or another video conferencing company) there could be a slight problem: I don’t really care where that link is taking me, as long as it’s taking me to the meeting I was supposed to join 4 minutes ago. In other words, there aren’t really any network effects. The service doesn’t get any better for me as more people use it, because anybody can join the link that I send them. Benedict Evans recently made this argument, here, and he goes on to posit that video calls, like voice calls, are destined to become a commodity. All that will matter is how you package them up. Makes sense.

  • Exposure tracing APIs to be released May 1

    The “contact tracing” API that Apple and Google are working on and that I wrote about earlier this month is set to be released on May 1. Given all the concerns around privacy, it’s now being referred to as “exposure tracing.” The idea, here, is to emphasize that it is being designed to trace the coronavirus and not individuals.

    To be clear, we’re talking about APIs, and so third party apps will need to be built on top of this tech before we can start downloading anything to our phones. But I am sure that will happen very soon and I will gladly opt in.

    It’s also worth mentioning that this entire concept of smartphone exposure tracing only works when Apple and Google cooperate. Whatever apps ultimately get built need to work across both platforms, otherwise there would be far too many gaps in the network. So this — along with the focus on privacy — has become a bit of good PR for “big tech.”

    The smart people working on exposure tracing over at Oxford University seem to think that (alongside other interventions) we could stop this virus with only about 60% of the population using an exposure tracing app. (They ran models with a pretend city of 1 million people.) But even at 50% penetration, they believe it could make a meaningful contribution.

    These are numbers I think we could easily get to in major cities. Overall, I suspect it could also make people feel a lot more comfortable about going out. And going out is what’s going to be required as we gradually reopen the global economy. How many of you think you will opt in to something like this once it becomes available?

  • Intimacy at a distance

    In 1956, Donald Horton and Richard Wohl coined the term parasocial interaction to describe the psychological relationship that people were starting to have with TV personalities. Though radio had already started this phenomenon, the television brought with it an entirely new dimension. People started to really feel as if they knew that person on TV. They had become a friend.

    But as Christopher Mims points out in this recent article about loneliness during the coronavirus pandemic, the problem with parasocial interaction is that it’s entirely one-sided. It also isn’t real: “Sitting around the house watching television, parasocializing with our favorite news anchors or sitcom characters, didn’t confer the same benefits as socializing with real people.”

    The internet has further enhanced the way we parasocialize. Similar to how TV built on radio, the internet has built on TV. Instead of just scripted television shows, we now have Instagram Stories, TikTok videos, inappropriate Snaps, and many other methods of communication, some of which are maybe a little less scripted.

    Of course, we also see our real friends online and those people we know, but never actually spend time with, maintaining only a loose “relationship” via the occasional emoji reaction. Mims argues that this has created a new kind of “mental equivalence.” It has become harder for our minds to distinguish between our real friends and our parasocial friends.

    Recently, we have all become familiar with terms like “flatten the curve” and “social distancing.” But what is clear as we all start isolating ourselves at home — whether mostly or entirely — is this: it sucks. Even with all of the tech and social media that we now have available to us, we cannot replace what it’s like to give someone a hung, look them in the eyes, and have a meaningful conversation.

    That said, the Italians seem to have really mastered this whole self-isolation thing with their balcony orchestras and internet videos like this one here:

    Stay strong, friends. Normalcy will return.

  • Why are people buying Apple Watches?

    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. You have to be selective with your notifications. Generally speaking, I find it very useful, though not necessarily invaluable.

    But every now and then I come across a new use case and think to myself, “well this is pretty cool.” I recently discovered that you can use it for boarding passes, which means one less thing in your hands at the airport. And this week I’ve been using it while snowboarding, which is helpful if you’re trying to manage a WhatsApp group chat and you don’t want to take your phone out on the lifts.

    The numbers also suggest I’m not alone in finding utility. Here are Apple’s sales numbers from Neil Cybart of Above Avalon:

    Apple has sold more than 90 million Apple Watches to date with 29 million sold in calendar year 2019. With an average selling price of more than $400, the Apple Watch is bringing in $12 billion of revenue per year, and that total is growing by 30% per year. After taking into account upgrade trends, the number of people wearing an Apple Watch has crossed 65 million. Based on my forward projections, the Apple Watch installed base will surpass 100 million people in 2021.

    In Neil’s view, the Apple Watch is indeed one of those paradigm shifts in computing. It is taking over tasks that our phones used to do and it is allowing for entirely new use cases. Neil cites three important features. We are now able to (1) seamlessly track/monitor aspects of our health, (2) intelligently receive small bits of information, and (3) augment our surroundings (“contextual awareness.”)

    For more on why the Apple Watch is / could be fundamentally changing mobile tech, click here.

  • Who is spending on developing autonomous vehicles

    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 been working on AVs for about a decade and the industry seems to believe that they are the furthest ahead. Still, the technology is not yet there and their AVs — which are operating in Phoenix — require lots of human supervision.

    The sentiment right now is that self-driving cars are going to take much longer than initially anticipated and many more billions in R&D spending. Last year, Waymo was looking for financing from outside investors. Morgan Stanley said the business was worth about $105 billion.

    Graph: The Information

  • The future of clothing

    Today’s post is going to be a bit of a departure from our regularly scheduled programming. But it’s so cool that I had to share it. It’s a company called Vollebak, and they use science and technology to make highly technical clothing (or, as they call it, the future of clothing). It was founded by two brothers.

    Every month they launch a new clothing concept. (Sign up here if you want to get on their list.) But each new piece they develop could take anywhere from one to five years to actually produce. Usually we’re talking about new production methods and materials that have never before been used for clothing.

    Examples include an indestructible puffer jacket designed to help us withstand up to -40 degrees; a solar charged jacket; a “black squid jacket” that reflects visible light to go from black to bionic; and a plant/algae t-shirt that is grown and can later be composted.

    But the piece I’m really eyeing is this blue morpho ski/snowboard jacket. It uses two billion microscopic glass spheres to try and replicate the wings of a blue morpho butterfly. During the day the jacket is matt blue. But as soon as you shine light onto it, it looks like the above photo.

    This would be useful if you were, say, caught in an avalanche and a helicopter searchlight was trying to find you. Hopefully that’s a use case that none of us have to experience. But it could also be invaluable if you were out walking or cycling at night and you wanted to make sure that cars could see you.

    (Please note how I somehow managed to make this post mildly relevant to cities.)

    Image: Vollebak

  • The “job” of a McDonald’s milkshake

    Management guru Clayton M. Christensen died this week. Sadly, he was only 67 (leukaemia). A professor at Harvard Business School, Christensen was best known for probably two things: His work on disruptive innovation and his teachings on how to live a more fulfilling life. If you’ve read anything on innovation and disruption, I am sure you’ve come across the work of Christensen. He had a way of explaining things by reframing them. Here is a short video about the “job” of a McDonald’s milkshake. And here is another one where he explains the cycle of disruptive innovations, sustaining innovations, and efficiency innovations. Both videos are worth watching.