The next platform for Innovation is Wi-Fi.

My WiFi went out again, so I had some time to type this up.

While the tech community is trying to figure whether the next platform of innovation is VR, messaging, or automobiles. I believe that Wi-Fi is the next great platform for innovation, and many startups such as Eero, Luma, Zenreach seem to agree with me. As the world becomes more connected, and businesses are built on the internet, having reliable, robust Wi-Fi has become more important than ever.

I believes there are three areas where Wi-Fi will be innovated and builit upon: 1) Better Wi-Fi 2) Wi-Fi analytics 3) Wi-Fi access.

Better Wi-Fi

A decade or so ago a router would serve one or two computers and that is it, now we have phones, tablets, TVs, and household devices. The proliferation of streaming and connected devices is crowding our networks. Startups like Eero and Luma is innovating amazingly in this category. Luma and Eero is trying to provide surround Wi-Fi, fixing Wi-Fi ‘deadzones’ by helping guide their users into the best place to place their routers, so they no longer will have their Wi-Fi drop for no reason.

A stable Wi-Fi connection is extremely important, especially for growing startups. At the first startup I worked for, we were in a co-working space, and for nearly a week the Wi-Fi at the place continuously dropped in and out, and because of this productivity was greatly affected. Because of the internet age, many new businesses are being built online, and use their connection to the online world for their transactions. Even a moment of not being able to connect to the internet will greatly hinder most startup.

Wi-Fi Analytics

In the world of Foursquare predicting Chipotle sales, or Orbital Insights providing satellite imagery of parking lots to predict retail sales, alternative data has become the new alpha for many hedge funds and other investment institutions. Startups such as Purple WiFi and Zenreach have caught on to this and will be the pioneers of Wi-Fi assisted analytics. Zenreach and Purple WiFi both provide businesses a way to keep track of their customers through the power of Wi-Fi. When customers connect to the Wi-Fi from of businesses using Zenreach or Purple Wifi their activity is tracked and data is provided for these businesses to provide better services for their customers. If a business is noticing less people are active in their stores on Tuesdays they can send out coupons and deals to drive more people in during those specific time. Malls can also use this data to keep track of which stores, consumers visit the most and their walking patterns to provide better marketing efforts.

Alternative data is going to be a really important driver of future b2b growth. As of now these datas are only useful for investment professional, when determining whether to invest in companies or not, but Wi-Fi analytics will be cheap enough that SMBs can afford to adopt and use, which in return will encourage more startups to innovate in that space.

Cheaper Wi-Fi

With the advancement of technology, we will reach a point where Wi-Fi will soon be cheap enough to be a public good. Just check the NYC subway system, now on almost every platform, New Yorkers can connect to the internet, and while the speed is nothing to gloat about, it is a step towards the right direction. Google created, Sidewalk Labs is another startup that is using Wi-Fi to improve everyday living. Sidewalk Labs has the goal to create ‘smart cities’ by connecting all aspects of the public to the IoT. To reach this goal however Sidewalks Labs is attempting to provide Wi-Fi access to the public. Imagine just walking around your city no longer having to worry about data usage, because the very city is a Wi-Fi hotspot. FreedomPop is a startup that is offering unlimited Wi-Fi access to its users at $5/month, which if successful will greatly damage data carriers like Verizon.

Wi-Fi will be an amazing platform to innovate on, and although there might be startups that push limits of Wi-Fi to possibly breaking physics (uBeam) I am incredibly excited to see what the future holds.

Boring is Good.

In the tech world, boring is good. Think about it, the computer used for the first space launch had less computing power than the smartphone in your pocket. That's right that little rectangle in your pocket can send a man to space, amazing isn't it?

Well actually it's not. It's actually boring. While rocket scientist could have used our phone's computing power to send someone to space, we use it to launch birds at green pigs. Our phone has become something as common as sand on the beach, and sands on the beach is boring.

But boring is good, it means that we have reached a point of advancement with technology, that we can find advancements, that a decade ago would have been a miracle. This is good, we have become bored with technology advancements and that just means innovators and entrepreneurs have to try even harder to excite us, and we see in currently in our environment. From meatless burgers, to being able to travel the whole world without ever leaving your living room. My only hope is that another decade from now, we also find this boring. Because boring is good, and its good to be boring.

Apple's WWDC 2016

What pains me after Apple's WWDC were the reporters and journalist being congratulating Apple and being amazed at what they introduced. With buzz words like "runs faster","new UI", "integration", it makes Apple seem like and entrepreneur trying to get funding for his startup.
"Look my company has an amazing UI that allows integration of Apps and helps them run faster." Ok maybe the pitch is not exactly like that but this years WWDC Apple sounds very similar to that.

It seems that Apple, known for introducing the world to the smartphone, a company that is known for it's innovation is at a stand still,  a mid-life crisis, in which Apple is trying to show the world that it is still the hip, young company you wished your company was, but it can't fool anyone.

Changing up its messaging app to have everything that WhatsApp, FB Messaging, WeChat already have is not innovation, it is an attempt at relevancy. Now by no means do I think Apple will ever face a sad decline like that of Yahoo, but I would compare Apple's future to that of Microsoft; yes you still have to use their Office Suite, but thats about it. Apple has become boring for many because it has stopped growing, and lack of growth, no matter how many billions you brought in last quarter is a death sentence for a Silicon Valley company.


**typed on a newly purchased MacBook pro, while listening to music on my iPhone 6.

Apple's Big Bet, Maybe Buffett's too.

Apple $1 Billion Bet

Apple announced Thursday that it had invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, the leading ride-hailing service in China. This is a surprise considering Apple usually reluctant to make big investments in the past, with the last largest purchase, being Beats for $3 billion. It is now obvious that Apple is very serious about transportation, with rumors of Apple’s “open secret” car project. It is possible that Didi Chuxing could be Apple’s first customers when and if Apple’s car come out.

With China being a critical market for Apple, this huge investment might make it easier for Apple to expand into the country that has recently ban iTunes Books. Apple is the most successful American tech company in China, and the country has been Apple's main engine of growth in the past few years. Last year, Apple pulled in $59 billion in revenue from China.

Warren Buffett Is Bidding For Yahoo

Legendary billionaire investor, Warren Buffett, and Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert are bidding for Yahoo’s internet assets. Apparently Buffett is backing a group of investors in the bidding war for Yahoo’s web assets. This is shocking considering the fact that the famed Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman usually opposes to investing in companies that he doesn’t understand (i.e. technology companies). The only company close to the Yahoo in his portfolio is IBM, which have seen a few bumpy past years. Yahoo is currently in the second round of bidding for its core assets.

YouTube's New Challenger, Facebook and LendingClub is in Trouble

Amazon Video Direct vs YouTube

The battle of internet giants refreshes once again as Amazon releases its own YouTube like service Amazon Video Direct. Amazon will let people post videos on its website and earn money through advertising, and royalties, very similar to Google’s own Youtube. Whole Amazon already offers movies and television shows that compete with Netflix, it is obvious Amazon sees video as a way to attract new customers and retain existing ones. The new Amazon service gives video producers many ways to get paid. They can sell or rent their programs on Amazon, or make videos available to all Amazon customers (not just Prime subscribers) in an advertising-supported format. Another option: Provide videos to Amazon Prime members and get royalty payments based on how many times the content is streamed, or as part of an add-on subscription.

Facebook Is In Trouble

The Senate Commerce Committee has sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to answer some question regarding Facebook’s Trending Topics feature. Trending Topics displays daily trending news and headlines, next to the main news feed. Facebook faces allegations that the social media giant was suppressing conservative media on its social platforms, while Facebook denies these allegations, it seems like the government wants some answers.

LendingClub CEO Fired

On Monday Renaud Laplanche who was the founder of fintech company LendingClub that upend the finance industry by connecting borrowers directly with investors, was ousted from his firm after the board said it found problems with its lending practices, as well as the executive’s lack of disclosure surrounding his personal investments. A board review found that the company sold an investor $22 million in loans whose characteristics violated the investor’s “express instructions.” The board found that some people at the company knew the loans didn’t meet the investor’s criteria and that the application date on $3 million of those loans had been altered to make them comply.

Why this tech "bubble" is not like the Dot-Com one.

A few weeks ago famed venture capitalist Bill Gurley, who has invested in Uber and Snapchat wrote on his personal blog that “there has been a fundamental sea-change in the investment community that has made the incremental unicorn investment a substantially more dangerous and complicated practice.”

If you don’t yet know what unicorns are, they are startups that are valued at $1 billion or more (Uber/Snapchat), and in 2016 there are more than 160 unicorns now, and of course not all unicorns are worthy of their valuations. With many bad press, and trouble facing unicorns this year (bankrupted Powa, Theranos FDA investigation), many are beginning to talk about a possible tech bubble.

At the end of the dot-com bubble in 2000 many companies that gone public, only to disintegrate and run out of money completely, hurting the public investors that bought into the hype.

However the reason this bubble might be different is because of where the money are coming from this time. This time the funding sources are hedge funds, sovereign- wealth funds, investment banks, and high net worth investors, thus if there is indeed a bubble burst there will be a much reduced pressure on the general public, as they have less exposure to these companies.

Another reason is debt. During the Dot-Com bubble many companies borrowed billions of dollars to finance their company, and they lost money, unable to get new financing, the companies in the current environment have very little debt, and therefore if it burst the economic damage will be much less painful than the 2000s.

Just who is the Inventor of Bitcoin? Twitter tries hard to let us Connect.

Will the Real Satoshi Please Stand Up?

Australian Craig Wright has officially confirmed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of crypto-currency Bitcoin and claims to provide “extraordinary proof”. Wright told the press “I firmly believe that ­bitcoin and the blockchain can change the world for the better. I didn’t take the decision lightly to make my identity public and I want to be clear that I’m doing this because I care so passionately about my work and also to dispel any negative myths and fears about bitcoin and the blockchain.” So the week ahead many people will be glued to Wright’s blog to see the proof that he claims to have, only time can tell…

Twitter’s Connect

Twitter has announced a new feature that makes it easier for their users to find relevant users to follow on its service. The new “Connect” tab is located in the top left of the Twitter app on both iOS and Android, which combines the ability to find associates from your phone’s contact list and Twitter’s own recommendations. While the ability connect was always available on Twitter, this new tab just make things easier. With Twitter stocks dropping to all-time lows, let us just hope this new addition helps connect Jack Dorsey with Wall Street.