Top articles of the week | November 25th

November 25, 2017

Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!

Meaningful ICOs Todd Simpson, iNovia

Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs are the rage these days. They seem spammy and some are even fraudulent.

The power of a compelling decentralized economic system, as encoded in a token structure and possibly an ICO, is to change the balance of power, control, rewards, and evolution/governance of a system.

Todd provides some interesting insight in how decentralized systems operate, what makes an ICO really compelling and how venture capital can take advantage.

Business Lessons from Ben Thompson of Stratechery Tren Griffin, 25iq

I’m a proud subscriber to Stratechery from Ben Thompson. Ben is a prescient business analyst that deeply understands how technology impacts strategy. If you don’t know his work, this article from Tren Griffin provides a great summary of some of the core tenets of Stratechery that are very relevant today.

The era of the customer-centric business Justin Gage, Cornerstone Venture Partners

The importance on focusing on your customer is not something new but has taken on new significance with the constant connectivity. Justin Gage looks at the importance of customer lifetime value and how products like Zodiac Metrics gives businesses a whole new level of understanding of their customers.

This Man Is Leading an AI Revolution in Silicon Valley—And He’s Just Getting Started Fortune

This is a great read on Jensen Huang, the cofounder & CEO of Nvidia. Nvidia is a semiconductor and software maker that is on fire. Their products are behind many of the consumer applications & artificial intelligence people use.

He is being compared to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk but he is not your typical silicon valley CEO. He was named Fortune’s business person of the year.

Taming the masters of the tech universe Financial Times

Eight of the world’s most highly valued companies are technology businesses. The combined market capitalization of these companies is $4.7tn. What are the implications of the dominance of these companies? This Financial Times provides an interesting economic analysis of the world’s most valuable technology companies from the US and China. The article also raises questions about the societal impact of these firms.