14 Months, 120 Cities, $2 Billion: There's Never Been a Company like Bird
The first 10 Birds descended on Santa Monica, California, in early September 2017. Within days, this small migration became more like an invasion. Soon, locals woke to see Birds scattered across the city's sidewalks and bike paths and on the boardwalk at Venice Beach--some 250 e-scooters left by the fledgling startup Bird Rides, along with instructions on how to rent them using an app. No one had invited Bird to Santa Monica. There were also no laws that specifically banned (or permitted) Bird's business--the closest were the city's regulations governing sidewalk food stands. "We are not selling hot dogs and tacos," Travis VanderZanden, Bird's founder, CEO, and head provocateur, said in March. "We felt we were in a gray area."
How Chinese companies are planning a global fin tech coup
Murugan is the owner of a small cloud kitchen in Shanghai. He speaks fluent Tamil, passable Mandarin, and a bit of English. The 41-year-old small time entrepreneur supplies Indian food to universities and office establishments in the city.
“I do it all on WeChat,” says Murugan, explaining how he runs a WeChat group called Murugan’s Kitchen where he posts a daily menu, takes orders and receives payments. “Most of my expenses are managed through WeChat,” he says. He serves between 100 and 200 customers daily.
The robots are coming. Let’s help the middle class...
Are U.S. workers now threatened by a new and powerful form of automation that could displace tens of millions from their current jobs and dislodge them from the middle class? If so, are college-educated or professional workers at the upper range of the middle class as much threatened as those with fewer such credentials at the lower end? And can policy do much to protect the middle class status of either group?
The Founder’s Guide to Discipline
Front has a story that any budding startup would envy. Highlights from the past four years include scaling to 100 employees, acquiring more than 4,000 customers, raising almost $80 million in funding and closing the books on its first acquisition ...
The AI boom is happening all over the world, and i...
The rate of progress in the field of artificial intelligence is one of the most hotly contested aspects of the ongoing boom in teaching computers and robots how to see the world, make sense of it, and eventually perform complex tasks both in the physical realm and the virtual one. And just how fast the industry is moving, and to what end, is typically measured not just by actual product advancements and research milestones, but also by the prognostications and voiced concerns of AI leaders, futurists, academics, economists, and policymakers. AI is going to change the world — but how and when are still open questions.
NotPetya leads to unprecedented insurance coverage dispute
On June 27, 2017, a major global cyber attack harmed several companies. The cyber weapon of choice was malware dubbed NotPetya. NotPetya was a variation of ransomware called Petya that was first discovered in 2016. Companies such as FedEx and Merck reported that NotPetya disrupted their operations and earnings. Among the companies infected was Mondelez International Inc.
If you are wondering, Mondelez is a big deal. It manufactures and markets snack food and beverage products for consumers in approximately 165 countries. Its portfolio includes many iconic brands such as Nabisco, Oreo, belVita biscuits, Cadbury chocolate, Toblerone chocolate and trident gum.