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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 24th, 2019

via KDNuggets

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Jeff Bezos Predictions from 20 Years Ago that Were Right on the Money. (BusinessInsider)
• Imagining the Smart Cities of 2050. (SingularityHub)
• Secrets of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. (CNN)
• How Designers Engineer Luck into Video Games. (Nautilus)
• CRISPR Gene Editing: Why We Need Slow Science. (The Conversation)

 

Trading Links:

• Why Companies like Lyft and Uber are Going Public without Having Profits. (Re/code)
• Are Animal Spirits Making a Comeback? (Bloomberg)
• This is What the Average American Spends in a Day. (Fool)
• The AI-Art Gold Rush is Here. (The Atlantic)
• Who Wants to See a Movie about High-Frequency Trading? High-Frequency Traders. (Wall Street Journal)

 

 

March Madness: The Quest For The Holy Grail

March Madness is in full swing and will have the world's attention for a few more days. As you could guess - most brackets have already busted. Louisville lost, UC Irvine won, and Duke barely weathered UCF's onslaught. 

 

via FanSided

Lots of skill, lots of adrenaline and lots of natural talents (including amazing physical talents).  Here is a picture of 7'6 Tacko Fall. Tacko still looks taller than his opponents even when kneeling. 

via UCF Basketball

The allure of March Madness is the same as gambling or trading.  These are all fertile grounds for emotion, biases, and statistics. 

The holy grail is mighty elusive in March Madness (as in most things)  ... For example, the odds of getting the perfect bracket is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (2.4 trillion based on a Duke Mathematician's formula that takes into account rank).  It's easier to win back-to-back lotteries than picking a perfect bracket. Nonetheless, I bet you felt pretty good when you filled out your bracket.

Here's some more crazy March Madness Stats: 

• 60 million tournament brackets were completed
• Companies expect $4 Billion of corporate losses due to employees tracking games
• The highest paid NCAA coach, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, makes a salary of $8,982,325
• It's expected to create $10 Billion in gambling (twice as much as the Super Bowl)

 

via Duke University

Feeding the Madness

"Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball." - Phil Jackson

 

In 2017, I highlighted 3 people that were (semi) successful at predicting March Madness. A 13-year-old who used a mix of guesswork and preferences, a 47-year-old English woman who used algorithms and data science (despite not knowing the game), and a 70-year-old bookie who had his finger on the pulse of the betting world.  None of them had the same success even a year later.

Finding an edge is hard - maintaining an edge is even harder.

That's not to say there aren't edges to be found. 

Bracket-choosing mimics the way investors pick trades or allocate assets. Some people use gut feel, some base their decisions current and historical performance, and some use predictive models. You've got different inputs, weights, and miscellaneous factors influencing your decision. That makes you feel powerful. But knowing the history, their ranks, etc. can be helpful in making an educated guess and they can also lead you astray. 

The allure of March Madness is the same as gambling or trading. As sports fans, it's easy to believe we know something the layman doesn't. We want the bragging rights of that sleeper pick, of our alma mater winning, of the big upset. 

You'd think an NCAA analyst might have a better shot at a perfect bracket than your grandma or your musical loving co-worker.

In reality, several of the highest-ranked brackets every year are guesses. 

The commonality in all decisions is that we are biased. Bias is inherent to the process because there isn't a clear cut answer. We don't have the answers to "who will win" and we don't have the answer to "what makes a perfect prediction". 

Think about it from a market efficiency standpoint. People make decisions on many factors - sometimes irrational ones - and that creates inefficiencies & complexities. It can be hard to find those inefficiencies and capitalize on them - but they're there to be found. 

In trading, that's where AI and advanced math come in - taking away our biases and identifying inefficiencies humans miss.

Can machine learning also help in March Madness?

“The greater the uncertainty, the bigger the gap between what you can measure and what matters, the more you should watch out for overfitting - that is, the more you should prefer simplicity” - Tom Griffiths

The data is there. Over 100,000 NCAA regular season games were played over the last 25+ years, and we generally have plenty of statistics about the teams for each season. There are plenty of questions to be asked on that data that may add an extra edge. 

That being said, people have tried before with mediocre success. It's hard to overcome the intangibles of sports - hustle, the crowd, momentum - and it's hard to overcome 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds. 

Two lessons can be learned from this:

1. People aren't as good at prediction as they predict they are.
2. Machine Learning isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to all your problems

 

Something to think about. 

Celebrating 30 Years of the Internet [Infographic]

"The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow" - Bill Gates

We take the internet for granted.  Honestly, we take a lot for granted.

Do you remember a time before cell phones, before the internet, before all these science fiction realities.  Even when the internet started … do you remember dial-up ... or when you needed dial-up for each individual site?

In March of 1989, Tim Berners-Lee published “Information Management: A Proposal” which outlined his vision for what would soon become the World Wide Web. March 12^th is the official anniversary.

In celebration of 30 years of the internet, here’s an infographic on the timeline. Click to see the full thing. 

 

 via AppInstitute

Think of the impact of that one paper has on so many aspects of our life. 

 

Information Gathering 

I remember being in law school, going to the library and scanning through microfiche (or actual books) to study or do research.

I remember reading encyclopedias (and photocopying relevant articles). 

I remember paying for newsletters that were mailed to me (or paying extra for fax delivery).

Having access to more data or faster delivery was a huge advantage.

Today, you have all the information you could ever ask for at the tip of your fingers ... Google and Wikipedia are just the tip of the iceberg.

There is almost too much information now.  It is hard to separate the signal from the noise.  It seems like anyone can find justification for almost anything.  The result is lots of data, but too little knowledge.

Part of what is needed is a way to help people make better decisions about what to trust, what it means, and what to use.

 

Social Interaction

People record every moment, every intimate detail of their lives online, contrasted by a fear of strangers and letting children roam. 

While riding around the neighborhood on your bike to see if your friends could come out to play is by no means outlawed - it does seem passé. 

Chat rooms, Facebook, Online multi-player ... many people's key friendships are born and kept online. 

I remember my son, 13 years old at the time,  sending 10,000+ texts a month and thinking it was a phase. I was wrong. 

The internet has radically changed the structure of relationships - for better, or often worse. 

 

Privacy ( ... or the lack of it)

One of the biggest changes is that we as individuals have become productized. We take advantage of all these free resources at the cost of being pixeled and cookied into oblivion. We've chosen convenience over safety. 

Remember, if you’re not paying for a product - you are the product.

Little bits of our private information, demographics, and psychographics are sold to advertisers to create smarter ads, new offers, and realistically we have very little control over that.

It’s been proven time and time again that these giants like Google and Facebook will find ways to sneak your data to advertisers even when it’s “illegal” with a slap on the wrist.

Data protection is a massive issue not only for corporations but for individuals. While many companies are trying to manage your privacy while still monetizing your data, there are just as many companies who couldn’t care less.

The GPDR - while frustrating for many - is a step towards protecting individuals.

Every action has a reaction, and every benefit has a cost. The internet is an amazing tool - but it can also be a weapon. 

 

What will the next 30 years of the internet hold?

"The Internet will disappear. There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with, that you won't even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room." — Eric Schmidt

It has been 30 years since inception, and there's radical growth. 

We’ve gone from bit speeds to megabyte speeds. We’ve gone from crappy-quality video taking hours to download to streaming HD quality video live.

How do imagine that the internet will evolve?

What influence do you think the Internet of Things will have?

It’s hard to foresee how innovation and regulation will change the internet, but it’s clear there will be change.

We live in exciting times!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 17th, 2019

The US grounded the Boeing 737 Max after similarities between two crashes. It's good they did, safety first, but it definitely caused some headaches coming back from Saskatchewan.  There's an interesting thought experiment here to understand the complexities that the airlines had to solve.

Imagine a 737 holds 200 people and does 4 or 5 flights a day. American has 24 737s in its fleet. That means each day ~24,000 people are displaced on American Airlines alone. They're replacing those planes with smaller regional jets – meaning more flights, more small airports, and more delays. The logistical/supply chain dynamics are a nightmare. 

 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• DARPA's New AI, Machine Learning 'Breakthrough'. (Realcleardefense)
• Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life inside Tesla's Production Hell. (Wired)
• The Psychology behind Costco's Free Samples. (The Atlantic)
• The Fall of Rome and the Lessons for America. (Time)
• How Timeboxing Works and Why It Will Make You More Productive. (HBR)

 

 

Trading Links:

• Despite Store Closings, There's Still One Blockbuster Store Left in the World. (USAToday)
• Oracle's Larry Ellison Has a $1 Billion Stake in Tesla. (TheStreet)
• Mansa Musa: the Richest Man Who Ever Lived. (BBC)
• Amazon Go Cashierless Stores are Coming to Airports. (VentureBeat)
• Millions of Japanese Homes are Abandoned, and Owners are Giving Them Away for Free. (BusinessInsider)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 10th, 2019

I was in Toronto this week – and it was COLD!

Daylight Savings Time just springed forward ... and here in Texas, it is getting warmer.  Perhaps winter is over?

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

 

Lighter Links

• The World's Fastest Supercomputer Breaks an AI Record. (Wired)
• Study Shows Parrots Can Pass Classic Test of Intelligence. (Phys)
• Huge Spider Drags Opossum across Amazon Rainforest Floor in Horrifying Footage. (Video)
• H.I.V. is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDS Epidemic. (New York Times)

 

Trading Links

• Bill Gates Reveals the 10 Breakthrough Technologies that Will Change the World in 2019. (Forbes)
• Artificial Intelligence Regulation Will Be Impossible. (Forbes)
• Scientists Just Pulled CO2 from Air and Turned It into Coal. (Forbes)
• Map: The Most Valuable Brand in Each Country in 2018. (VisualCapitalist)
• Who's the Richest Owner in the NFL? Cowboys' Jerry Jones Doesn't Even Crack the Top Three. (CBS Sports)

 

Funding Fintech's Future

I think it’s clear that Fintech is getting a lot of attention from the press, investors, and talent.  It is a hot space!

Here is a chart showing the Fintech companies that got the most funding recently.

 

via howmuch

Rapidly maturing sectors are payment processing, personal finance, and blockchain/crypto.

• Payment Processing - Stripe received $685 million in funding last year and is valued at over $20B
• Personal Finance - This is a broad market, but we're seeing the "average joe" empowered to make smarter personal finance decisions with companies like Robinhood, Acorns, and Credit Karma. Credit Karma raised $869M and is valued at approximately $4B
• Blockchain - While crypto is currently out of favor for many, blockchain is still an exciting prospect. Opendoor is bypassing real estate agents and brokers to disrupt the housing market. Receiving over $1B in funding last year, it is currently valued at $3.7B.

These are the sectors getting the most Fintech funding now (with payment processing the clear leader).

In my opinion, real disruption is brewing in the personal finance & Wall Street sectors ... and funding is ramping up there as we speak.

This Fintech sector reminds me of biotech.   Solutions have to be more mature and fully-tested before unleashing them on the public.  But winners will Win!

Wall Street is one of the smaller sections in this infographic.  Nonetheless, I think you'll be reading a lot more about this space soon.  Here are some of the companies worth noting.

• Symphony  does secure communications for companies like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. It helps with internal communication, and client-centric communication, and has various bots and apps to decrease decision time. 
• Addepar claims to "power the global financial system".  It's a performance reporting platform meant to provide better insights, and connect assets to goals. 
• Carta does equity management; helping private & public companies manage their cap tables, investments, and equity plans. 

Not seen on these lists are all the smaller companies at the beginning of their innovation cycle, and the companies doing their best to stay under the radar. More competitors and more opportunities mean more reason to keep your cards close to your chest. 

The funding cycle is always two steps behind the innovation cycle, which means ideas we've been hearing about from the likes of Gartner will be seeing increased publicity soon. 

I think 2019  will be a great year for innovation. What about you?

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 17th, 2019

NASA's Mars Opportunity Rover has officially lost contact with earth after a fierce dust storm. Its last message was "My battery is getting low and it's getting dark." The rover's original mission was scheduled for 90 days ... it lasted 14 years. 

 

via XKCD

 

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

 

Lighter Links

• A Quantum Future Awaits. (Science)
• Can We Make Artificial Intelligence Ethical? (Washington Post)
• Life's Secret Ingredient: A Radical Theory of What Makes Things Alive. (NewScientist)
• What Does "Dead" Mean? the Debate Continues Some 50 Years after Harvard Defined Death. (Forbes)
• Scientists Have Built a Real Star Trek 'Replicator' that Builds Objects with Light. (ScienceAlert)

 

Trading Links

• Warning: Stocks Have Only Been Stretched this Thin Once in the past 150 Years. (MarketWatch)
• From the Year When Nothing Worked in the Financial Markets to the Month When Everything Did. (CNBC)
• Mark Zuckerberg Adds $6.2 Billion in a Day, Vaulting to No. 5 Richest in World. (OCRegister)
• American Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Has Spent $700M on Personal Real Estate in Five Years. (CNW)
• There's a New Movie Coming out about High-speed Trading on Wall Street, and It Looks Bonkers. (BizInsider)

 

 

Presenting at IBM Think! 2019

This week, I spoke on stage at IBM's Think! 2019 conference in San Francisco. Our topic was "Gaining a Financial Edge through Fast Data and Analytics."  I think it went well (both the presentation and our exposure to lots of useful technology, talent, and opportunities).   

Moscone Center was filled with people clamoring for information about artificial intelligence, big data, and flexible computing (think of it as being able to do what you want locally, in the cloud, or with a hybrid cloud ... or through hardware or software).  That means solutions are becoming independent of how they are produced, delivered, or consumed.

Here is a picture of our team there.

 

 

Another cool topic that got lots of attention was Quantum Computing.  Here is a picture of me with one of the first Quantum Computers.

 

 

Pretty Cool!  But, remember, the hype cycle precedes the adoption and benefits cycle.  This will be an interesting decade.

The conference was in San Francisco.   That is where my oldest son lives. Lucky for him, the most romantic Valentine's Day dinner is one spent with your dad right?

 

 

I thought it was fun.  For them, at least there was Absinthe involved to dull the pain.

The Bizarre and Surreal Works of Deep Learning AI

One thing that Deep Learning excels in is analyzing pictures & videos, and creating facsimiles or combining styles. If you want to create art with deep learning look no further than the Deep Dream Generator or deepart.io which use Convolutional Neural Networks to combine your photo with an art style (if you want to do it on your phone another cool tool to check out is Prisma). 

via SubSubRoutine

Deepfake is it's exactly what it sounds like ... the use "Deep Learning" to "Fake" a recording.  For example, a machine learning technique called a Generative Adversarial Network can be used to superimpose images onto a source video.  That is how they made this fun (and disturbing) Deepfake of Jennifer Lawrence and Steve Buscemi.

 

via YouTube

While this is a fun example, Deepfakes create very real concerns. They're often used for more "nefarious" purposes (e.g., to create fake celebrity or revenge porn and to otherwise make important figures say things they never said).  It's likely you've seen videos of Trump or Obama created with this technology.   But it is easy to imagine someone faking evidence used at trial, trying to influence business transactions, or using this to support or slander causes in the media.

As fakes get better and easier to produce, they will likely be used more often.  So, as a reminder, don't trust everything you see on the internet. 

But also ... Technology is pretty freaking cool. Right?

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 27th, 2019

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

 

Lighter Links

• Giving Algorithms a Sense of Uncertainty Could Make Them More Ethical.(TechReview)
• How Musicians Communicate Non-Verbally While Performing.(PsychCentral)
• Welcome to the World's Largest Gathering of Humans. (NPR)
• The Evolutionary Advantages of an Addictive Personality. (Scientific American)
• George Orwell Predicted Cameras Would Watch Us in Our Homes; He Never Imagined We'd Gladly Buy and Install Them Ourselves.(OpenCulture)

 

 

Trading Links

• The Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. (Forbes)
• Apple Named 'World's Most Admired Company' for 12Th Year in a Row.(MacRumors)
• The Government Shutdown May Ripple through the IPO Market for Months. (Quartz)
• Billionaire Ray Dalio Shares a 3-Step Formula for Anyone to Start Investing.(CNBC)
• Ex-Goldman Banker Describes Finance as "Dark Art," Advocates Running McDonalds Franchise Instead. (News)