What We’re Reading
Here are a few good articles the Collaborative Fund team came across this week.
Wisdom
This podcast with Naval Ravikant of AngelList is great:
I’ve realized the older we get the harder it is to unlearn. Though we can create new neural pathways, many of the existing ones can be become stubbornly entrenched. I’ve met many people who are learning machines but far fewer who can unlearn as quickly.
Marketshare
This week’s Amazon-is-taking-over-the-world statistic:
According to research from Slice Intelligence, Amazon captured 38 percent of all dollars spent online during the holiday season. The next-closest retailer, Best Buy, had a mere 3.9 percent.
Transparency
The movement toward combating false information is growing:
Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of eBay, wants to support investigative journalism and fight “fake news.”
His philanthropic investment firm, Omidyar Network, announced Tuesday a $100 million commitment to address some of the causes of what the firm describes as the “global trust deficit.” … The funding will be doled out over the next three years to outlets across the globe. The initiative is focused on “strengthening independent media and investigative journalism, tackling misinformation and hate speech and enabling citizens to better engage with government on critical issues,” the group said.
Incentives
This is a good piece on skin in the game:
I have learned a lesson from my own naive experiences,
Beware of the person who gives advice, telling you that a certain action on your part is “good for you” while it is also good for him, while the harm to you doesn’t directly affect him.
The asymmetry is when the said advice applies to you but not to him –either because he is selling you something or getting you to marry his daughter or hire his son-in-law.
Sharing economy
GM’s new idea for car ownership:
For $1,500 a month, the program covers ownership costs and lets members trade in and out of Cadillac’s 10 models up to 18 times a year.
The effort is the latest experiment by a car company to test whether people are willing to treat personal transportation like a Netflix account, where temporary, on-demand access outweighs the benefits of ownership.
Gender bias
This is highly disappointing:
Only 7% of decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms are women, according to an Axios analysis. Moreover, women effectively control just 4.7% of all venture dollars raised in the past five years by U.S.-based firms.
Have a great weekend.