Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Meet The Billionaire Who Defied Amazon And Built Wish, The World’s Most-Downloaded E-Commerce App Forbes
Ecommerce is far from a mature market. Case in point is a company called Wish. This bio in Forbes explains how 37-year-old Peter Szulczewski built a US marketplace that competes with Amazon. It’s a great story that explains how the $9 billion company built its service and has managed to grow rapidly.
Nine Reasons Why Disney+ Will Succeed Redef
Disney is trying to build its own streaming service that is set to launch soon. It’s a transformational bet in B2C. It is a massive challenge but this author believes in Disney’s strengths and outlines them in this article. There are some significant challenges along the way and I’m fascinated to see how it plays out.
Why Not Appoint an Algorithm to Your Corporate Board? Slate
I almost laughed at the title of this article yet still wanted to read the argument. There is a set of limited use cases where this can make sense even today. The author provides an example notably a Hong Kong based investment firm. I still think we’re pretty far away from this type of technology being useful in a corporate board. What I do happening is specialized algorithms augmenting decision making at the board level.
Inside the new L.A. Times, a 100-year vision that bets on tech and top-notch journalism Nieman Lab
This is a great turnaround story in a struggling industry. The LA Times is focused on rebuilding its newsroom and increasing digital subscriptions in a very tough environment. Their strategy? Rebuild fundamental newsroom resources and magnify their impact across all the means of distribution and audience engagement that technology now enables.
McDonald’s Bites on Big Data With $300 Million Acquisition Wired
When I heard about the acquisition of Dynamic Yield this week, I was a bit dumbfounded. I know the tech company and have a friend that works there in New York. Why is a fast food company buying a machine learning company? This piece in Wired helps explain why. Quite frankly, this looks like some brilliant thinking on behalf of McDonalds.
Look at the Dynamic Yield acquisition, then, not as the start of a digital transformation, but as the catalyst that evolves it.
