In the latest burst of indignant outrage that passes for news these days, a bunch of media outlets (of sorts) including Rolling Stone (huh?) jumped on a report by some obscure market data analytics company called Yard about the excessive use of private jets by celebrities. There were lots of statistics about carbon emissions, along […]
You’re either on the bus or off the bus. That’s a quote from Ken Kesey, the leader of the Merry Pranksters, a group of early hippies and hipsters who traveled on a bus called Further in 1964 and introduced LSD to the party scene. Kesey’s comment was both an inside joke – often one of […]
Tech investors who are tenured enough to recall the dot-bomb days may also remember the hype surrounding a personal transportation device that was said to disrupt walking. Investors lined up to throw money at the vehicle hailed as being “maybe bigger than the Internet” by notable venture capitalist John Doerr. “As big a deal as […]
Want to know the fastest way to make a million dollars? Invest a billion dollars in an airline. That old quip best describes how difficult it is to operate a profitable airline consistently over time. And that was before nature threw some Rona into the mix. Assuming that the pandemic will soon be behind us, […]
If you want a flying car, just put wheels on a helicopter. The man who said that commands ~70% market share for electric cars in the United States. Another comment Mr. Musk made was to imagine what a toy drone that’s 1,000 times heavier might sound like taking off from your driveway at 6:00AM. While […]
Many people say they enjoy our content because we’re not afraid to speak frankly and call things out. What they’re really saying is that mainstream content doesn’t do that anymore. That’s because everything has become political and people are afraid to speak their minds, despite that it’s often what everyone else is thinking. Even outside […]
The world has a very bad and serious case of cooties – and no one wants to catch it. That means many people have turned into hermits, avoiding contact at all costs. But this is the 21st century, so today’s recluse needs stuff, lots and lots of stuff. Naturally, e-commerce continues to soar (as Amazon […]
It’s been nearly a decade since venture capital firm Founders Fund published its manifesto complaining about the slowing rate of innovation, encapsulated by the tagline: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” (The line has been attributed to the firm’s founder and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, though the essay itself was penned […]
Remember Taxi Magic? No, it’s not a strain of cannabis. (You’re probably thinking of Somali Taxi Ride, which itself sounds like a questionable sex act that shouldn’t cost you more than a fiver.) Taxi Magic was an app that allowed you to hail a taxi on demand. That was back in 2008, about a year […]
One of the challenges involved in writing about emerging technologies for investment opportunities is that, well, you’re waiting for the technology to emerge at a stage where it is viable, scalable, and profitable. In the case of flying delivery drones, the issue is compounded by regulatory issues in the United States of operating aircraft – […]