Tech Brew Ride Home

Latest Episodes:

Mon. 12/16 - Give Us A Name For $100MM AAR Startups! Dec 16, 2019

Show notes

Chrome 79 is wiping data from some apps, Amazon is about to deliver more than FedEx or UPS all by its lonesome, Argo plans to charge by the mile, smart TV’s make margin by watching you, does music lack pricing power and help me find a name for $100 million-dollar annual recurring revenue startups.

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Links:

Google pauses Chrome 79 rollout on Android after bug wipes data in some apps (Android Police)
Watch out, UPS. Morgan Stanley estimates Amazon is already delivering half of its packages (CNBC)
Self-Driving Mercedes Will Be Programmed To Sacrifice Pedestrians To Save The Driver (Fast Company)
Argo takes different road to skirt self-driving challenges (Reuters)
The falling price of a TV set is the story of the American economy (The Outline)
The newest members of the $100M ARR club (TechCrunch)
Zero-to-100 Million in 3 Years (Lemonade Blog)
Why Do We Still Pay Only $10 a Month for Music? (Rolling Stone)

(Bonus) Year-End Checkin On Crypto With Brady Dale of @coindesk Dec 14, 2019

Show notes

For the final weekend bonus episode of the year, I wanted to check in with Crypto. What a year for the space! Seemingly dead at the beginning of the year. But then the Crypto Spring™ happened. And then Libra happened. And so… where are we? No one better than CoinDesk’s Brady Dale to catch us up…

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Fri. 12/13 - The Next-Gen Xbox Dec 13, 2019

Show notes

Details about the next-gen Xbox, Apple makes an interesting acquisition around photography, Lyft will rent you a car, why I find Roku so interesting, and, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Links:

Microsoft’s next Xbox is Xbox Series X, coming holiday 2020 (The Verge)
Apple Buys U.K. Startup to Improve iPhone Picture Taking (Bloomberg)
Lyft launches a car rental service with no mileage limit (The Verge)
Google Maps has now photographed 10 million miles in Street View (CNET)
Roku Built the Dominant Streaming Box. Now It’s Under Siege (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

THE AGE OF INSTAGRAM FACE (New Yorker)
The Influencer and the Hit Man (OneZero)
Silicon Valley’s psychedelic wonder drug is almost here (Fast Company)
How Zoom Became the Best Web-Conferencing Product in the World in Less Than 10 Years (FYI)
“Link In Bio” is a slow knife (Anil Dash)
THE VERGE’S GADGETS OF THE DECADE (The Verge)

Thu. 12/12 - Maybe Just Throw A Dart, Seed Investors… Dec 12, 2019

Show notes

Google releases all the things at once, everyone is mulling over Jack’s decentralized Twitter idea, one last tech IPO of the year, should seed investors just say yes to every deal, why you should know the Canva story, and why Cousin Greg playing Adam Neumann is my Christmas dream come true.

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FTC Weighs Seeking Injunction Against Facebook Over How Its Apps Interact (WSJ)
Google is bringing spam detection and verified business messaging to Messages (The Verge)
Interpreter, Google's real-time translator, comes to mobile (TechCrunch)
Bill.com’s Stock Takes Off On IPO Day (Forbes)
AI R&D is booming, but general intelligence is still out of reach (The Verge)
Startup Growth and Venture Returns: What We Found When We Analyzed Thousands of VC Deals (AngelList Blog)
Bluesky early thoughts (Sriramk.com)
Hey @Jack Dorsey, decentralizing Twitter won’t solve hate speech problems (Digital Trends)
Inside the Podcast that Hacks Ring Camera Owners Live on Air (Motherboard)
Canva Uncovered: How A Young Australian Kitesurfer Built A $3.2 Billion (Profitable!) Startup Phenom (Forbes)

Wed. 12/11 - @Jack Wants to Decentralize Social Media Dec 11, 2019

Show notes

A bold new proposal to decentralize social media from Jack Dorsey, YouTube bans “malicious insults,” you can only clean your Pro Display XDR with a special cloth, Silicon Valley is no longer everyone’s favorite place to work and the big tech companies whistled past their troubles this year.

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Links:

The Bluesky Thread (@jack)
YouTube Will Ban Videos That “Maliciously Insult” People Based On Race, Gender, Or Sexual Orientation (Buzzfeed News)
Apple's Pro Display XDR With Nano-Texture Can Only Be Cleaned With Special Apple-Provided Cloth (MacRumors)
Intel's Manufacturing Roadmap from 2019 to 2029 (AnandTech)
Chrome 79 released with tab freezing, back-forward caching, and loads of security features (ZDNet)
Facebook, Google Drop Out of Top 10 ‘Best Places to Work’ List (Bloomberg)
Big Tech Is Under Attack, and Investors Couldn’t Care Less (NYTimes)

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Tue. 12/10 - Wheels For Your Mac Pro Are $400 Extra Dec 10, 2019

Show notes

Apple is suing its former chip architect, the Apple Card finally makes sense to me, wheels on the Mac Pro will run you $400, Softbank abandons Wag, Microsoft brings Office to Linux and I want the new tech bubble to be about exoskeletons.

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Links:

Apple sues iPhone CPU design ace after he quits to run data-center chip upstart Nuvia (The Register)
Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market (The Information)
Apple Cards' interest-free iPhone installment plan goes live, now with 6% back on Apple holiday purchases (TechCrunch)
SoftBank Is Selling Wag Stake Back to Company (WSJ)
Microsoft Teams is the first Office app for Linux (VentureBeat)
Mac Pro Build to Order Options (MacRumors)
VSCO acquires video editing startup Rylo (TechCrunch)
Robotic exoskeletons: Coming to a factory, warehouse or army near you, soon (ZDNet)

Mon. 12/09 - An Interesting Raise From... Us? Dec 09, 2019

Show notes

China orders its own crackdown on foreign tech, Google is bringing “feature drops” to Pixel Phones, the Mac Pro is here but Wunderlist is exiting stage left, Magic Leap seems to be having issues, and an interesting raise from, well… us.

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Links:

Beijing orders state offices to replace foreign PCs and software (Asian Financial Review)
Making Pixel more helpful with the first Pixel feature drop (The Keyword)
New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR orders start on December 10, Apple announces (9to5Mac)
Amazon blames Trump for losing $10 billion JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft (CNBC)
Microsoft to finally shut down to do list app Wunderlist on May 6, 2020 (TechCrunch)
Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses (The Information)
Amazon leases Hudson Yards office space less than year after HQ2 debacle (Curbed NY)
This podcaster wants to catch you up on the news on your ride home, no matter what you’re into (Fast Company)
Ride Home Media Raises $1M To Build “Summary-As-A-Service” Podcast Network (CrunchBase News)
The Daily Podcast Revolution (Medium)

(Bonus) A Human Algorithm With Flynn Coleman Dec 08, 2019

Show notes

I’ve been trying to read books about AI lately to get a firmer grasp on this important topic, and the best book I’ve read for both a basic grounding of the history and the state of play of AI, but also looking at potential frameworks for the technology, both ethically and socially is A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining Who We Are by Flynn Coleman.

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(Bonus) A Google Civil War? With Bloomberg's Mark Bergen Dec 07, 2019

Show notes

I had already reached out to Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen this week to talk about the Google Civil War, but then, of course, there was other big Google news this week. So, come for the assessment of Google’s culture at the moment but stay for an assessment of regime change and a lot more.

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Fri. 12/06 - The Future of the iPhone is NO Ports? Dec 06, 2019

Show notes

The Uber safety report, more Galaxy S11 rumors, could Apple be about to kill the charging port on iPhones entirely and what would that mean, Samsung’s new chips to make AR mainstream and of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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