Search Results for: beta boys

Tech and the Rise of the Beta Male

Facebook has been having to issue a fair number of apologies lately. Nothing new here: Facebook’s Ad Scandal Isn’t a ‘Fail,’ It’s a Feature, says Zeynep Tufekci in the New York Times. “What does it take to advertise on Facebook to people who openly call themselves “Jew haters” and want to know “how to burn Jews”? About $10 and 15 minutes, according to what the investigative nonprofit ProPublica recently uncovered.”

Apologies were issued, but let’s do the math. “The Zuckerberg principle of management is push to the extreme, see what you can get away with, and then apologize and try to shift attention elsewhere. It has apologized for Beacon, psychological testing, faulty ad sale metrics, India strategy that smacked of colonialism. I think you get the point,” writes Om Malik. “Being open and transparent is not part of its DNA. This combination of secrecy, microtargeting and addiction to growth at any cost is the real challenge. The company’s entire strategy is based on targeting, monetizing and advertising.”

Nor was the latest bout of anti-Semitic advertising the first or only one. Lest we forget, Videos (posted to Facebook) teach would-be Palestinian attackers ‘how to stab’ a Jew, showing detailed instructional guidance on how to stab Israelis, methods for maximum bodily damage, and ways to create deadly weapons to carry out attacks. Read More...

The Power of AI: Who Is Truly Hallucinating?

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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

It’s a tough funding environment right now and although we’ve often reminded founders that some of the most successful companies launched during the toughest times in funding, that fact often gets lost in the tough-times funding headlines.

The current exception seems to be if/when founders have ‘AI’ someone front and center in their pitches. As we all know at this point because the hype machine/tech press impresses it upon us every two or three headlines, AI is going to change the world, replace most jobs, eliminate entire professions.

Including coding itself, if Devin is any indication. Devin is “An AI startup that’s not even 6 months old says it’s worth $2 billion Cognition Labs is building an AI tool for writing code — and seeking a valuation six times its current level,” said Quartz. Read More...

Meet the New Club. Not the Same as the Old Club

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It isn’t often that a newco launches that fairly quickly captures unicorn-level attention the way that Clubhouse has. The audio-only social network, which has amassed 2M+ users and $100M in funding in just under a year after launch, seems to have raised the bar by lowering the barrier to participation, meaning, that in most rooms, anyone can raise their hand and, in most cases (depending on the moderator), participate in the discussion. It’s still in beta, so it’s currently iPhone only and invitation only: patience.

“If you could plug into a live conversation about a topic, you’re passionate about, on demand, anywhere in the world, and have an opportunity to not only listen to some of the smartest people on the subject, but also participate with them, would you?” asked Brian Solis in Forbes (The Latest Silicon Valley Unicorn, Clubhouse Raises $100 Million And Also Raises Attention To The Importance Of Audio-Based Social Networking). “…it represents an unquenchable thirst for meaningful community and engagement, especially in light of the chaos and devastation that played out in the forms of disinformation, political theater, and divisiveness across other social networks.” Read More...

Antitrust: The Bill Gates Playbook

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This week, in addition to the Federal probe, “States to Launch Google, Facebook Antitrust Probes,” The Wall Street Journal et al reported. As one commenter said, “The real problem with both is their pernicious theft of our personal data and sales of that data to all sorts of entities looking to prod us, outrage us, excite us, sell us, etc. This is what their businesses have become: resale of stolen data.”

Google (is also being) Targeted By 50 U.S. AGs In Potential Sweeping Antitrust Investigation Read More...

Did Google’s Sunday Outage Just Prove the Anti-Trust Argument?

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We’ve said many times that no one stays on top forever. The Justice Department is preparing a new antitrust investigation against Google parent Alphabet Inc. – again. To refresh your memory and as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “This comes six years after a similar probe from the Federal Trade Commission, which resulted in no significant damage to the company that powers more than 90% of the world’s internet search activity.”

Closer scrutiny is long overdue. What was not reported was the history of the past anti-trust investigation: it was 2013 – the days when Google executives were frequent guests at the White House during the past administration. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, Google visited the White House 230 times – more than all other tech companies combined. Both Google co-founder Larry Page and Google lobbyist Johanna Shelton met with FTC officials and top White House advisors. The investigation was then shut down when Google promised to voluntarily police itself. Interestingly, this is when Net Neutrality discussions also began and here’s an interesting statistic:

Alphabet/Google Market Caps prior to Net Neutrality: $399.05B for January, 2015. Market Caps as a result of Net Neutrality: $664.55B for Sept. 29, 2017 Read More...

1/31/12

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Good morning, All,

First, it’s that time again – our next Find A Cofounder is now scheduled for February 6th, with Charlie O’Donnell (Brooklyn Bridge Ventures), Mac Lipscomb (New York Angels), Jeff Zerofsky (‘wichcraft) and Cheryl Yeow (City Pockets). Besides this panel of investors and entrepreneurs, each startup will get a chance to pitch their idea to the crowd to maximize their chances of finding the right person for their startup. Register here: http://fac8.eventbrite.com/ and speaking of launching a new company, yes, we will be bringing along our low fat, healthy cookies and truffles for you to sample and purchase. Product catalog here: http://bit.ly/AuakzX No, we haven’t officially launched yet but still, marketing. So important, eh?

Jack Dorsey was 30 when he launched twitter, which is to say that he had some life experience before founding a company that would have a major impact on the global landscape. We mention this because of last week’s announcement that twitter would remove content, on a country by country basis. The company went on to say that they would also “give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.” (Tweets still must flow: http://bit.ly/A4KhF6) Larry Page and Sergei Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg founded Google and Facebook right out of school (yes, we know Zuck pulled a Gates never graduated) and built global companies without the benefit of having developed world views, and give no thought to the personal rights or privacy of their users. All your base are belong to us? This may well be their Achilles heel. (Google, Facebook, Privacy — And You: http://tcrn.ch/y7kl6O 7 Big Privacy Concerns For New Facebook and Open Graph (http://on.mash.to/zmSgXc). We leave you with this from Mark Birch: Twitter Censorship and Misplaced Outrage. And he’s right: twitter is being completely transparent and they’re far from being the evil empire. As he says in closing, “If we want to direct our anger, we would be better off focusing it on the real perpetrators of censorship.  And you do not have to look much farther than our own government and old guard, incumbent industries that look upon technology as more of a threat or a mystical art rather than the source of innovation, the savior of our economy, and a bastion of freedom worldwide.” http://bit.ly/xnFhKv Take note, Larry, Sergei and Mark as you so readily relinquish everyone’s privacy without any regard at all to the big picture – or the long term consequences. You won’t be on top forever and some day the very policies you implement today may well come back to bite you in the proverbial. Time to grow up, boys  – and stop playing firemen with each other. Onward and forward. Read More...