Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 1st, 2018

 Happy April Fool's Day. What were your favorite pranks?  Here is a list of some that made news this year.

 

via LegallyDrawn

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Daniel Pink How to Make Better Decisions and Be More Creative. (Tim)
• 2018 Framework to Understand Digital Innovation. (HackerNoon)
• Why Dogs Really Do Love You, According to Science. (Inverse)
• China's 'Social Credit' System Bans Millions from Travelling. (Telegraph)
• We Asked Astronauts If They Think Aliens Exist. Here's What They Said. (Mashable)

 

Trading Links:

• What Exactly is Vladimir Putin's Net Worth? is He the Richest Person on the Planet? (CNW)
• China's One-Man Show. (JacobinMag)
• The next Housing Crisis: a Historic Shortage of New Homes. (Wall Street Journal)
• A Nobel-winning Economist is Part of a Team Launching a Low-volatility Cryptocurrency. (Quartz)
• President Trump Reportedly Obsessed' with Regulating Amazon, Wants to Clip Jeff Bezos' Wings. (GeekWire)

Why You Can't Predict March Madness

Last year, I shared some facts about March Madness. For example, the chances of a perfect bracket are  at 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. For those who don't wanna do the math that's 9.2 quintillions. 

This year, 16-seed UMBC (The Chesapeake Bay Retrievers) beat 1-seed Virginia, and left no perfect brackets after only 28 Games. 

As we came into the Elite Eight, nobody picked all eight. Almost nobody predicted No. 3 Texas Tech making it this far ... and there were 17,304,320 digital brackets this year. 

Is there any way to accurately predict something with this many potentialities and this much discord?

Different factors can feel like they provide an edge ... knowing the history of teams, their ranks, how often they've been to the Final Four, or how great their coach is ... but even that knowledge can lead you astray. You'd think an NCAA analyst might have a better shot at a perfect bracket than your grandma or co-worker, but several of the highest-ranked brackets this year were guesses. 

via ESPN

It's fun guessing when you're making bets on college basketball, but what if this is your livelihood ...

Prediction is hard ... especially about the future.

The way people fill out their brackets often mimics the way investors pick trades or allocate assets. Some use gut feel, some base their decisions on rank and past performance, and some use predictive models ... and some of us get disappointed when Duke loses.

 Apparently, humans aren't as great at prediction as we think we are. 

How Blockchain Will Eventually Disrupt Every Industry

Recently, I shared an infographic with 25 notable cryptocurrencies and restated that the support technologies for coins (specifically, blockchain and smart contracts) are more exciting than any individual currency. 

Blockchain is radically changing the future of transaction-based industries. Industry leaders are fervently evaluating and exploring blockchain to determine its potential for disruption, and for developing a long-term strategic advantage over their competitors.  

Blockchain is disruptive because of its ability to digitize, decentralize, and secure the validation of "transactions".  Everywhere there's a hand-off of information or goods, blockchain has the opportunity to improve that process. 

Imagine being able to see the entire history of a property, and know it's accurate. Imagine being able to track individual shipments globally through your supply-chain with ease. Imagine being able to enter/exit countries without the elongated passport check-ins. 

The list goes on ... Aviation, Big Pharma, Manufacturing, Finance, SaaS ... In the same way that artificial intelligence is transforming what's done by humans and what's done by machines, the blockchain is transforming security and how we transfer data. If data is the new currency, blockchain is the banking system. 

Blockchain enables transparency and accountability on a radically bigger scale. 

Here are 36 companies already using blockchain to innovate, and here's a simple infographic for some of the basic applications of blockchain in non-financial industries.

 

NewCoShift via Crowd Companies

 

I've said this before, but it's worth echoing ...  Some of what was once Impossible becomes Possible.   Some of what became Possible becomes Probable.  And, and some of what became Probable becomes Inevitable.

Blockchain is happening.  Technological shifts,  like this, require you to think about your industry and your potential opportunity differently.

Change is happening faster (and creating bigger edges) than ever before. 

What a great time to be an entrepreneur.

Seize the Edge!

Onwards.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 11th, 2018

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Google Teaches AI to Fool Humans So It Can Learn from Our Mistakes. (TheNextWeb)
• Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Explain a Simple Way to Build an Inner Circle that Helps You Be Great. (Inc)
• The Moon is Getting a Reliable 4G Connection before Certain Parts of the UK. (Alphr)
• Ce*sored! China Bans Letter N (Briefly) from Internet as Xi Jinping Extends Grip on Power. (TheGuardian)
• Here's the One Thing that Would Make Oprah Run for President. (Huffington Post)

 

Trading Links:

• Does Anne Hathaway News Drive Berkshire Hathaway's Stock? (The Atlantic)
• Billionaires Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio Agree on What to Do in a Volatile Market. (USAToday)
• Who is a Better Insider Trader, Gary Cohn, Carl Icahn, or the Folks at the SEC? (ComplianceX)
• Opening a Bank is a Genius Move for Amazon. (TheNextWeb)
• S&P Global Buys Startup in Artificial-Intelligence Push. (Wall Street Journal)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 25th, 2018

Sometimes it is nice to be reminded that  great works are often performed by perseverance rather than strength.

 

via BrainyQuote

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 5 Ways Blockchain is Changing the Face of Innovation of 2018. (Forbes)

• Singularity's Top 50 Breakthrough Tech Predictions. (Diamandis)

• Don't Be Fooled: Russia Attacked U.S. Troops in Syria. (Bloomberg)

• Not the End of the World:  The Return of Dubai's Ultimate Folly. (TheGuardian)

• The Price Per Square Inch of Pizza at 8 Major US Pizza Chains. (Visual)

 

Trading Links:

• It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies. (Bloomberg)

• In Praise of Elon Musk. (NationalReview)

• It's Time to Make Every Road a Toll Road. (Wired)

• No End in Sight for Amazon's Wild Ride. (Wall Street Journal)

• Apple Sold More Watches Than Rolex, Swatch, and the Rest of the Swiss Watch Industry Combined. (Insider)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 4th, 2018

Cloning primates ... What could go wrong?

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• U.S. Soldiers are Revealing Sensitive and Dangerous Information by Jogging. (WashPo)
• Billionaire Saudi Prince, Alwaleed Bin Talal, Freed from Detention. (New York Times)
• Science You Might Have Missed in 2017. (Bloomberg)
• Yale's Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness. (New York Times)
• Machiavelli's Advice for Nice Guys. (YouTube)

 

Trading Links:

• Apple Buying Tesla Doesn't Sound like a Crazy Idea Anymore Here's Why. (Insider)
• Every One of the World's Big Economies is Now Growing. (New York Times)
• We are on the Verge of a Consumer M&A Avalanche. (TechCrunch)
• Blockchain Will Transform and Reinvent Organizations, Ecosystems and Economies. (Forbes)
• One Brutal Chart from the Biggest Hedge Fund in the World Explains Everything. (BusinessInsider)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 28th, 2018

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Trump Reportedly Uses an Indian Accent to Mimic Modi at Meetings. (Quartz)
• Statistician is One of the Fastest-growing Jobs for the Future. (Qz)
• Compare Your Fears against Reality. (FlowingData)
• Vladimir Putin Takes Dip in Freezing Water to Mark Epiphany. (CNN)
• China, Russia and the U.S. are Running Neck-and-neck in an AI Military Arms Race. (Latest)

Trading Links:

• How Blockchain Could Radically Alter Global Finance. (Insight)
• Davos: a Rough Guide to the World Economic Forum. (BBC)
• Are Google and Facebook Monopolies? (Review)
• 10 Charts that Will Change Your Perspective on Artificial Intelligence's Growth. (Forbes)
• Apple Rises to Become World's Fourth-Largest PC Maker with around 20M Macs Sold Last Year. (MacRumors)

What Does The Average NBA Player Look Like?

Each sport has a different ratio of ethnicities. You might expect more Pacific Islanders in Rugby or Caucasians in Golf. 

So what happens when you average the top players' faces in various sports?

As you might expect, you get very different results depending on the sport.  See what I mean?

  osmutiar via Reddit

Not particularly surprising.

What is worth noting, however,  is that while you may be thinking "this player must be unstoppable" ... statistically, he's average.

The "composite" NBA player would be the 112th best player in the league. He's the fourth best starter on an okay team. 

We found the same thing with our trading bots.  The ones that made it through the most filters weren't the star performers.  They were the average bots that did enough not to fail (but failed to make the list as top performers in any of the categories).  The survivors were generalists, not specialists.

The reminder is that you won't find exceptional specialists if your focus is on generalized safety.

Onwards.

Which Industries are Prime for Disruption?

Last year, I talked with the CEO of CB Insights about how Fintech was disrupting the value chain of financial services. 

Since then, it's become even easier to see how disruptors are changing every industry, and becoming leaders in their fields.

 

via McKinsey

 

Companies like Lyft, Tesla, and Netflix changed paradigms and are now leading the pack, but what industries are next?

Looking at a report by McKinsey&Company, we find that the 5 industries with the least digitization account for 34% of GDP and 42% of all employees. 

 

1. Agriculture and Hunting
2. Construction
3. Hospitality
4. Healthcare
5. Government

via Quora

But, being less digitized than competitors, alone, isn't enough to indicate it's ready for disruption: 

 

How Regulated Is The Industry?

Heavily regulated industries mean that any company that can find a way around current regulations and tax structures can become an effective competitor fast ... i.e Lyft and Tesla

Is There Too Much Competition Already?

How many competitors are in the space? Is there spare capacity, or does the current model waste resources? Think taxis waiting for customers or empty seats on airplanes. 

Can it Be Automated?

Lot's of industries and tasks are ready and waiting to be automated - and only haven't been due to the cost of switching to new technology. 

 

To put it another way - are you solving a customer headache while lowering costs for you and the customer? 

The only constant is change, and digitization and automation are only increasing the rate of change. The type, quality, and the number of jobs being offered are changing rapidly. 

As digitization increases so does adoption of AI-related technologies. 

McKinsey Institute via Vox

AI is coming, disruption is coming.

It's no longer possible, it's not even just probable, it's inevitable

This interactive graph tells you if your job is automation proof, and what percentage of your job can be automated.

What industry do you think is next?

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 21st, 2018

It's day 2 of the government shutdown; but what does that actually mean?

In short: 

• "Essential" government services will still run even if employees aren't getting paid - USPS, TSA, Social Security
• Other "non-essential" government employees will be "furloughed" and told to stay at home. 
• Military will be required to work, but won't be paid until Congress comes to an agreement
• Employees will be paid retroactively once an agreement is met. 

 Efficiency at its finest ... or a force function to get the children to play nicer with each other?

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Want to Get Wisdom? Be Your Own Crowd. (Bloomberg)
• NASA Just Proved It Can Navigate Space Using Pulsars. Where to Now? (Wired)
• It's So Cold in Russia that Thermometers are Breaking. (BGR)
• What Robot Strippers Say about Sexism, Tech and the Future. (AP News)
• Benjamin Franklin Built His Character around 13 Virtues and Following His Weekly Plan Could Change Your Life. (BusinessInsider)

Trading Links:

• How Donald Trump Has Remade the Rules for Business. (Wall Street Journal)
• Fed Paid $29.3 Billion to Banks 'Not' to Lend in 2017; Gave $80 Billion to Treasury. (ZeroHedge)
• One Person is Probably Responsible for Almost 600 Percent of Bitcoin's Price Rise. (Mashable)
• Kodak's Pivot to Crypto Seems to Be Working out Quite Nicely. (FastCompany)
• These are the Biggest Risks for Businesses in 2018, According to the World Economic Forum. (Fortune)