One little-known fact about Silicon Valley darlings Uber and Airbnb (and many others) for lay folks is how little of the underlying tech platform they directly control, and how much is really hacked together cleverly using public APIs (application programme interface).
Uber uses Google Maps, Twilio (SMS notifications), SendGrid (e-mails), and Braintree (payments) to make the magic happen. Airbnb, too, uses SendGrid, Twilio, and Braintree.
Hacking (or cobbling) together the …
Written a day after the Umpqua Community College shootings.
From whatever I have read about the U.S., there is virtually zero chance of rewriting the 2nd amendment.
We know Mike Bloomberg has plans. Sure Bloomberg is worth $37b and if he goes all out, it may make some impact. But I am really sceptical. Many Americans love their guns, and attitudes are unlikely to change soon. So what should …
Sometime in 2013, I restarted my dormant twitter account, treating it akin to a RSS reader, curating a mix of interesting people to follow and learn from. Some of these were writers, some politicians; others included philosophers, flaneurs and a few executives. Consistently I began to find that the most interesting tweets were from (Valley) VCs – Marc Andreessen, Benedict Evans, Paul Graham, Chris Sacca, Fred Wilson (NYC though) etc. …
I love Monday Note. It is one of my favourite media + tech blogs (along with Benedict Evans and Stratechery). I like it so much that I even adopted the wordpress theme that they use, for this blog. Imagine my disappointment then, when I came across their recent article on Monday Note – lamenting LinkedIn’s failure to become a publishing major domo. The article clearly missed a few …
In a previous post A Listing of EdTech Investment Themes I laid out EdTech investment themes into three buckets
In the post, I had shared that I would go into greater detail on bucket #3 in a future post, as to which of the various business models and processes could be rethought, and …
Every once in a while, in parties, at coffee klatsches with friends, and in business meetings, I hear this line. It is typically said by those whose kids are in middle grade, all in premier schools, usually of the IB ilk. It is usually to the tune of “I got into IIT / IIM but my son / daughter is unlikely to”. Sometimes, it is followed up with a question, …
I like to collect examples of college alternatives. I know this is unusual, given that most people like to collect coins, or matchbox labels, but I do think college alternatives are fascinating things.
College alternatives are educational programmes, typically a year or even two years long, which provide real-life learning through a mix of vocational classes and hands-on learning via internships, leading to a career pathway, almost always in tech. …
EdTech funding is hitting record levels, never seen before. A recent report by Ambient Research put edtech funding for H1’15 at $2.5b (in contrast to $2.4b funding for the whole of 2014).
In India we haven’t seen the kind of frenzy around edtech funding we have seen in China. 8 Chinese companies saw funding of $50m+ in the first half of 2015. These 8 companies raised more money than all …
An open letter to John Fallon, Chief Executive of Pearson Plc
Dear John
For the nth time, congratulations on the sale of FT to Nikkei for £825m ($1,288m).
Everybody says £844m, but you and I know that with FT Group’s £19m in the bank, the funds you have got from Japan are a tad lower at £825m. Still that is a bucketload of money. And with The Economist Group’s 50% …
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
As you would all know by now, Pearson sold the FT Group yesterday to Nikkei for US$1.3b. The FT Group includes FT, some magazines such as Banker, Investor’s Chronicle, a 50% stake in Russian Biz Paper Vedomosti, an-EIU type co called Medley Global Advisors etc.
The valuation, at ~35X the adjusted operating income of $37m (on rev of $559m for 2014) is amongst …