Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
How Bill and Melinda Gates Are Transforming Life for Billions in the 21st Century Fortune (reading time: 6 minutes)
The results being achieved by the Bill Melinda Gates foundation is nothing less than extraordinary. This should come as no surprise though. Bill and Melinda have been on a path to eradicate the world of some of the most deadly diseases and in some of the most neglected places. I highly recommend this post if you want to see when you blend unlimited determination, good strategy and focusing on results.
Billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs Turned Her LLC Into a VC Machine Bloomberg (reading time: 9 minutes)
In another story of tech royalty, Laurene Powell Jobs has definitely been busy since her famous husband passed away. This piece in Bloomberg sheds light on her investment company, Emerson Collective. Her organization invests in non-profits but is set up as an LLC which permits investments in for profit initiatives as well. Behind the fame and appeal of the Jobs name, there is an interesting debate on how to invest in non-profits and the best strategy moving forward.
Winning in a world of ecosystems Mckinsey (reading time: 5 minutes)
We’ve been doing some work in ecosystems and marketplaces for customers recently. This article from McKinsey explains what they are, how they enhance customer relationships and the distinctive business models that improve profitability.
Will artificial intelligence enhance or hack humanity? Wired (reading time: 58 minutes!)
OK, this article is really long but has great insights. This is an hour long interview of Yuval Noah Hariri and Fei-Fei Long. Yuval is a historian and author (of which I am a huge fan) and Fei-Fei is a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence. The debate covers the moral and philosophical implications of AI technologies and what will happen when we hack the brain. It’s worth at least skimming through.
Microsoft, Slack, Zoom, and the SaaS Opportunity Stratechery (reading time: 12 minutes)
While the battle for consumer seems to have been settled by Google and Facebook, cloud computing at the enterprise is heating up. These are several IPOs notably Slack and Zoom. Ben Thompson from Stratechery dissects Microsoft’s role in this. For a brief moment, they surpassed $1 trillion in market capitalization last week. He argues that they have a great job at expanding their revenue within existing customers but young upstarts are limiting their growth by capturing new customers.
