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CMU and Facebook AI Research use machine learning to teach robots to navigate by recognizing objects

Carnegie Mellon today showed off new research into the world of robotic navigation. With help from the team at Facebook AI Research (FAIR), the university has designed a semantic navigation that helps robots navigate around by recognizing familiar objects.

The SemExp system, which beat out Samsung to take first place in a recent Habitat ObjectNav Challenge, utilizes machine learning to train the system to recognize objects. That goes beyond simple superficial traits, however. In the example given by CMU, the robot is able to distinguish an end table from a kitchen table, and thus extrapolate in which room it’s located. That should be more straightforward, however, with a fridge, which is both pretty distinct and is largely restricted to a singe room.

“Common sense says that if you’re looking for a refrigerator, you’d better go to the kitchen,” Machine Learning PhD student Devendra S. Chaplot said in a release. “Classical robotic navigation systems, by contrast, explore a space by building a map showing obstacles. The robot eventually gets to where it needs to go, but the route can be circuitous.”

CMU notes that this isn’t the first attempt to apply semantic navigation to robotics, but previous efforts have relied too heavily on having to memorize where objects were in specific areas, rather than tying an object to where it was likely to be.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Clover Health expands its coverage to eight states and triples its footprint

Clover Health, the medicare advantage health insurance provider for older Americans, said it will triple its geographic coverage through an expansion to eight states.

The company is adding Mississippi to its roster of states covered under its insurance plans and will expand its footprint in a number of states it already operates within. The company said it would be adding 74 new counties in Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Clover touts its ability to offer care recommendations to physicians and ensure that primary care providers are receiving the latest evidence-based protocols, the company said.

“We knew that if we wanted to successfully bring great healthcare to every senior, including those in traditionally underserved communities, it was essential for us to actively provide value to the system, and we couldn’t play the same games as other insurers who shuffle risk and exploit flaws in the MA program,” says Andrew Toy, president and chief technology officer of Clover Health, in a statement. “Through our unique ability to power two-way conversations with clinicians at the point of care, Clover Assistant gathers and shares the most accurate data on a member’s disease burden, which is critical to developing and validating care plans.”

Clover focuses on rural communities where insurance coverage is sparse.

Individuals eligible for Medicare in these new counties can sign up for Clover’s plans during the Annual Election Period, which runs from October 15 to December 7, with coverage starting on January 1, 2021, the company said.


Source: Tech Crunch

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How to approach your IPO stock

Peyton Carr
Contributor

Peyton Carr is a financial advisor to founders, entrepreneurs and their families, helping them with planning and investing. He is a managing director of Keystone Global Partners.
More posts by this contributor

Companies like Uber, Lyft, Beyond Meat, Peloton, Slack, Zoom and Pinterest all made public market debuts in 2019, creating wealth and liquidity for many of the 2019 IPO class of founders.

This year, stockholders have seen anxiety-inducing volatility in their holdings, leading many to realize that they need to rethink their approach to their concentrated post-IPO stock position.

In this guide, I’ll walk through a framework of how to think about post-IPO or concentrated stock holdings objectively. While this is written specific to public company stock, many of the same fundamental concepts apply to private stock and the decision whether or not to sell. Some risks should be understood if you are relying on one stock to achieve all of your financial goals since that subjects you to having “too many eggs in one basket.” Many shareholders in the 2019 IPO class have experienced this risk over the last few months and are reevaluating their situations.

Nevertheless, following my advice may be challenging since we all have heard of someone who made it big by swinging for the fences. The key is understanding the true success rate and risks involved with this approach; it is all too common to hear others share their standout victories, while more common failures are rarely mentioned.

What do I do now?

Usually, I advocate for reducing concentrated positions in IPO stock upon lockup expiration, or via scheduled selling for more significant positions; however, for those that have not sold, it is clear that the unexpected macroeconomic downturn has materially increased the volatility of some high-valuation company share prices. If you find yourself in this position here are a few items to consider:

  1. What is your time horizon? Are your investments intended for the long term or the short term?
  2. What are your liquidity needs? Do you need to raise cash to pay for taxes or upcoming expenses? Do you need cash in the upcoming 1-2 years?
  3. What other assets do you have?
  4. How does this impact your financial plan? Can you tolerate possible further declines?

It is not comfortable to be in this position, and decisions at this juncture can be critical in achieving long-term goals. I suggest you find an advisor to talk to if you are unsure what the best choice is. Below we review some considerations that can help build more confidence in your decision.

What’s the plan?

The decision of what to do with your stock should start at a higher level. Where does this stock fit into your investment strategy, and where does your investment strategy fit into achieving your long-term goals?

Your goals should drive your investment strategy, and your investment strategy should drive the decisions regarding your stock, not the other way around. With the proper goals set, you can use the investment portfolio, and the company stock(s) within it, as tools to achieve your goals.

For example, a goal could be to work ten more years, then partially retire and do some consulting. Defining goals helps you make objective decisions on how to best manage concentrated stock positions. There is a trade-off between maximizing the potential return in your investment portfolio, by maximizing risk with concentrated portfolios, and minimizing the risk of a catastrophic loss, by having a well-diversified portfolio. This decision is unique to each individual. The best way to maximize the odds of achieving your goals is different from the best route to maximizing your portfolio’s return possibilities.

FOMO

In these discussions, there is always an immense fear of missing out. What if this stock becomes a multibagger over time? It’s easy to look to the Zuckerbergs and Bezos of the world, who have amassed great wealth through holding concentrated stock, and think that holding a concentrated stock for the long term is the way to go.

There is also no doubt some public stocks have been runaway financial home runs, like investing in Apple or Amazon. If you had invested in those stocks since the beginning, you could have earned a 40,000% or 100,000% return. However, a rational, evidence-based decision process presents a very different picture. A statistical analysis on how IPOs and concentrated portfolios have fared in the past is covered in part two of this three-part series.

Concentration involves risks you may not have considered. In part two, I will walk you through critical considerations when maintaining a high concentration of company stock and things to consider from a big-picture perspective. I also dive into the benefits of diversification, taking it beyond the basics to show you the advantages of having a more balanced portfolio.


Source: Tech Crunch

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‘Edtech is no longer optional’: Investors deep dive into the future of the market

One reason some venture capitalists and founders don’t enter edtech is because the space has a sluggish stereotype, thanks to red tape, slow sales cycles, and, in America, a fragmented customer base.

But data suggests that edtech’s reputation is not entirely earned. Byju’s is India’s second-most-valuable company. Since 2013, there have been 300 acquisitions in the space. And if you only understand success in terms of unicorns, two edtech businesses, Quizlet and ApplyBoard, were recently added to the $1 billion valuation club.

The tension between edtech’s stereotype and its potential for return, plus the surge in remote learning due to coronavirus-related shutdowns, poses an interesting challenge for the market.

In the beginning of the pandemic, TechCrunch talked to a group of edtech investors to get their knee-jerk reaction to the remote learning boom. Unsurprisingly, many commented that the heat-up of the sector will materially impact K-12 and higher education and unlock new opportunities. Others warned early-stage edtech startups about how newfound competition could hurt content, quality and effectiveness of their end product. Overall, the general message was that the boom is here, everyone is excited and waiting to see what happens next.

Fast forward a few months, mistakes and extended school closures later, edtech now has a better inkling on what the next billion-dollar business needs to get right. Last week, we got into trends that have promise in a post-pandemic world. Today, we’ll step out of sub-sector specific dialogue and get into the macro-impact of rapid change on edtech as a whole. You’ll get an eagle-eye view of what rapid change, adaptation, and for lack of better phrasing, popularity does for the market.

Today you’ll hear from the following investors:


Source: Tech Crunch

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The Station: Summer of the SPAC, Adam Neumann returns and the Nissan Ariya debuts

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox.

Hello and welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B.

The dog days of summer are almost upon us. Technically, we won’t enter this period until July 22. In normal times, vacation season would be well underway and the hit song of the summer would be established and a regular guest at every beach party, barbecue and dance club. That’s not exactly what’s going down this summer. However, we do have ourselves a hit financial instrument of the season. The SPAC, or Special Purpose Acquisition Company, is this summer’s “Seniorita.” Everywhere you turn, there it is.

More on the SPACs and other fun stuff below. Vamos!

Reach out and email me anytime at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, offer up opinions or tips. You can also send a direct message to me at Twitter — @kirstenkorosec.

Micromobbin’

the station scooter1a

We know that COVID-19 has changed the way we work and move around cities when we do leave our homes. Public transit ridership has dropped in many dense urban areas. And so did shared scooter and bike ridership, although there is evidence that these two modes of transportation are rebounding.

Micromobility company Lime looked at its ridership data the month before the lockdown began  and compared it with the month after. Lime CEO Wayne Ting noted in a blog post this week a few emerging trends. People are riding scooters 34% longer and 18% farther; and they’re using them for recreation and to run errands. Lime also discovered that travel is starting in neighborhoods more often than in pre-COVID times.

And bikes, as we’ve noted here before, are back and more popular than ever. Lime said its e-bike rental service has seen record usage, with users taking longer journeys and the bikes being used more frequently. In London, Lime recorded its highest-ever usage in a single day last month, with over 4,000 new users, the company said.

While the survey by Lime might seem self serving, the data has been compelling enough to change how, and more specifically where, it operates. The company has taken the bikes and scooters out of areas typically dominated by tourists and moved them into neighborhoods. It’s also rolled out new flex passes and is finally bringing some of those Jump bikes back to cities.

In other micromobility news …

In the mopeds arena, TechCrunch’s Catherine Shu examines Taiwan-based WeMo and its plans to expand internationally.

Meanwhile, shared electric moped startup Revel received a permit that will allow it to operate in San Francisco, beginning in August. Revel will start with a fleet of 432 mopeds featuring a new paint scheme and a more powerful engine to help riders get up and over the city’s infamously steep hills.

Over in the bikes world, a new brand has emerged called Superstrata that hopes to standout with its 3D printed carbon fiber unibody that is based on precise measurements of each customer. Superstrata told TechCrunch that this translates into more than 250,000 unique combinations

But Superstrata is not just some new bike startup. It’s a new brand under Arevo, the Bay Area-based additive manufacturing startup. Superstrata is meant to demonstrate Arevo’s push into manufacturing as a service and composite additive manufacturing.

The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition will hold its two-day summit virtually next month. Registration is $50. While many of the discussions will have a local focus, these are universal issues that cities around the U.S. and beyond face. Expect discussions on slow streets movement, equity, bikeway designs and safety.

Deal of the week

money the station

Remember way back in January when it looked like direct listings were the going to be the favored method to bringing a company public? Welp, direct listings are out and SPACs are in.

Electric car maker Fisker has become the latest example of this trend. The company, which just raised $50 million from investors, said it reached an agreement to merge with Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management Inc. As a result, Fisker will become a public company with a valuation of $2.9 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Fisker said this will provide the funding it needs to bring its first product, the all-electric Fisker Ocean SUV, to production in late 2022.

The agreement marks the latest company to turn to SPACs in lieu of a traditional IPO process. Online used car marketplace startup Shift Technologies, Velodyne Lidar and Nikola Motor have all gone public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company.

SPACs are not new, even if you’re learning about them for the first time. Would a SPAC by any other name smell as sweet? Why yes, yes it would. These have been around for decades and have gone by different names, including “blind pools” and “clean shell companies.” These blank-check companies — see another name — is a corporation that has no defined business plan or purpose other than to raise money from public markets to acquire a private company.

Other deals that got our attention this week …

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann Visits Shanghai

Adam Neumann, the controversial co-founder and former CEO of WeWork, is back and investing in the shared economy. This time with a focus on mobility.

Neumann’s family office, 166 2nd Financial Services, invested $10 million into GoTo Global as part of a $19 million Series B round. GoTo Global is a shared mobility company that operates in Israel and Malta and aims to expand into Europe later this year. The company is aiming to cover the entire range of shared vehicles from cars and mopeds to bicycles and electric scooters.

Neumann has a 33% stake in GoTo Global and can appoint one board member on his behalf. Existing shareholder Shagrir Group Vehicle Services, a publicly traded Israeli company, also participated in the round.

Drover, a UK startup that provides access to flexible car subscriptions for private users, raised  £20.5 million ($25.7 million) in a round of funding co-led by Target Global, RTP Global (the Russian company formerly known as ru-Net) and Autotech Ventures. New investors Channel 4 Ventures and Rider Global, as well as previous backers Cherry Ventures, BP Ventures, Partech, Version One and Forward Partners also participated. Drover did not disclose its valuation. The company has raised £27.5 million to date.

Chinese electric automaker Li Auto filed for a $100 million IPO and plans to list on the Nasdaq. (missed this filing last Friday). The company recently raised $550 million.

Navistar and self-driving trucks startup TuSimple deepened their two-year relationship and  announced plans to develop and begin producing autonomous semi trucks by 2024. Navistar also took an undisclosed stake in TuSimple. The plan is to move away from retrofitting the Navistar International commercial trucks that TuSimple currently uses and instead develop semi trucks specifically designed for autonomous operations.

Self-driving trucks startup Plus.ai is in talks to raise $60 million, The Information reported. The fundraising for the company that is based in China and the U.S., is still under negotiation. Hong Kong-based investment and securities firm Guotai Junan International is expected to lead the round that could value Plus.ai between $600 million to $1 billion.

Skydio raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Next47. New investors Levitate Capital and NTT DOCOMO Ventures joined the round with existing backers a16z, IVP and Playground. The funding will be used to accelerate product development efforts, expand its go-to-market strategy beyond consumer applications to enterprise and public sector drone technology.

Uber acquired Routematch, an Atlanta-based company that provides software to transit agencies as the ride-hailing company looks to offer more SaaS-related services to cities. Expect more public transit SaaS deals.

Uber did not share terms of the deal. This doesn’t appear to be a minor “acqui-hire,” in which a company is purchased to land a few talented employees. Instead, Uber is making a strategic acquisition for a company that has developed software used by more than 500 transit agencies. The operations of the 170-person company will continue and CEO Pepper Harward will remain.

More Uber news. This time the company is reportedly talking with investors about taking a stake in its Uber Freight division, Bloomberg reported. Discussions are underway to raise $500 million, a round that would give the freight business a standalone valuation of about $4 billion after the deal.

Startup spotlight

The startup spotlight is like a mini version of my “startup editions” newsletter that was sent out earlier this month. I’m not using a scientific method to pick these startups and when I do, it might not even be tied to a particular announcement. Basically, if I see something interesting I will put it here.

Which brings me to Onfleet, a SaaS company that created a platform for last-mile delivery services across a wide array of industries. The software platform handles the logistics of delivery such as route planning, dispatch, real-time tracking, analytics and communications for companies like Imperfect Foods, MedMen and Total Wine & More. As you might suspect, deliveries are hot right now. But that doesn’t mean Onfleet hasn’t had to adjust.

Onfleet UI Full

Image Credits: Onfleet

Co-founder and CEO Khaled Naim and I spoke awhile back about how the company has had to change in response to COVID-19. For instance, the company created a contactless signature feature that it rolled out in early May. Now its corporate customers can include a special URL in the SMS notifications that go out to recipients when a driver gets close to their destination. The user, say a person waiting for that wine or beer delivery, is then prompted to sign for the package on their phone. It has been a critical addition for regulated industries such as alcohol, cannabis and pharmaceuticals, where a signature is legally required, Naim said, noting these are significant segments for the company.

Onfleet has seen deliveries explode since March and is now averaging more than one delivery per second throughout the week, with peaks of more than three deliveries per second, Naim said.

Global delivery volume is up with notable spikes in alcohol, cannabis, grocery, pharmacy, prepared meals, meal kits and restaurants. He added that a handful of sectors like catering, laundry and dry cleaning have been hit pretty hard by COVID-19.

There are new segments emerging as well. For instance, seafood distributors and breweries, which once were delivering to restaurants, have shifted to business-to-consumer operations. Pet food deliveries are also up as local pet stores find new opportunities to generate revenue.

“A lot of our customers have been stretched and are trying to serve an increase in demand, while at the same time struggling with a shortage of drivers,” Naim said.

In response, Onfleet created a delivery driver job board to connect drivers with delivery gigs globally. And as global demand has surged, Onfleet had to add four languages to its driver app, including Italian, German, Dutch, and Arabic. French and Spanish have been available for awhile now.

If you have a mobility startup that has adjusted its business model due to COVID-19 or have some interesting data to share, email me. As always, I never promise coverage but I will take a look. 

Notable reads and other tidbits

More transportation news! Let’s get to it.

Autonomous vehicles

the station autonomous vehicles1

AutoX, autonomous vehicle startup backed by Alibaba, has been granted a permit in California to begin driverless testing on public roads in a limited area in San Jose.

German lawmakers are preparing legislation that could commercialize driverless vehicle technology by next summer. The landmark legislation, if passed, would provide a long overdue framework that would cover both homologation and road traffic requirements for robotaxis in which the computer controls the vehicle at all times, Automotive News Europe reported.

Nuro posted a blog in Medium about food deserts and the role that autonomous delivery bots will play in providing more healthy options to underserved communities. The company calculated how many homes could theoretically be reached within 30 minutes from all major supermarkets with a self-driving delivery vehicle operating at speeds up to 45 mph. Nuro compared that data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) data on food desert locations. The startup said it could reach 14 million low-income households in food deserts nationwide, or 70% of the total low-income population in food deserts. (Again, this is all theoretical at this point. I noted here to illustrate potential scale and the company’s ambitions.)

SAFE published a report called Fostering Economic Opportunity through Autonomous Vehicle Technology that aimed to better understand the transportation challenges in low-income communities. The study concluded that about two-thirds of Americans live in neighborhoods that are beyond their means because of largely unseen transportation costs. SAFE, of course, sees autonomous vehicles as a way out. The hypothesizes that AV transportation could reduce household costs by as much as $5,600 per household.

Cities

Berkeley is taking police officers out of traffic enforcement and replacing them with unarmed employees of a newly formed Department of Transportation, per Streetsblog.

Silicon Valley cities San Jose, Cupertino and Santa Clara have been mulling a transit system that would connect its growing airport with major employers and other high-profile destinations along the Stevens Creek Boulevard corridor, an area that includes Apple headquarters. The group asked companies to submit proposals for innovative transit modes. A consultant, who hired to evaluate the proposals from companies that included The Boring Company, BYD and Bombardier, has released its findings. San Jose Mercury News has the breakdown of the top proposals, which included personal pod cars, hyperloop and driverless shuttles.

It’s electric

the station electric vehicles1

Dan Brouillette, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, announced $139 million in federal funding for 55 projects that will support advanced vehicle technologies. Six of these innovative projects will be led by teams in Michigan.

BMW struck a long-term deal with Swedish-based Northvolt for $2.3 billion worth of battery cells.  The battery cells will be produced in Europe at the Northvolt factory that is under construction in northern Sweden.

Nissan is moving on from the Leaf. The automaker unveiled the Nissan Ariya, an all-electric SUV with an estimated 300 miles of range and a starting price tag of $40,000 that marks the beginning of a four-year plan aiming for growth and profitability. The Nissan Ariya will first be sold in Japan in mid-2021, before heading to dealerships in the U.S. and Canada later in the year, the company said in digital event in Yokohama, Japan.

Nissan electric Ariya

Image Credits: Nissan

Tesla has secured more than $61 million of tax incentives if it builds a $1.1 billion factory near Austin, Texas. Commissioners in Travis County, home to Austin and the possible next Tesla factory, approved Tuesday property tax breaks worth at least $14.7 million — and potentially more — over 10 years. The incentives are on top of $46.6 million in property tax abatement that the Del Valle School District Board approved earlier this month. 

Elon Musk disputed a German court ruling that bans the company from using on its website or other advertising terms like Autopilot or “full potential for autonomous driving.”

Future Cars!

Automakers are rethinking the interior of vehicles, the WSJ reports.

Ford relaunched Bronco after a 24-year hiatus. There was an abundance of coverage on the Bronco 2, Bronco 4 and Bronco Sport — including my story that looked at how the automaker leaned heavily on nostalgia, customization, functional design and technology.

Ford Bronco

Image credits: Ford

And finally, as autonomous vehicle technology companies continue the slog towards commercially deployed Level 4 trucks and robotaxis, automakers have turned to advanced driver assistance systems. It’s a trend that I first noticed back in late 2018 and into early 2019. Now, it’s at full tilt as automakers race to offer hands-free — but driver engaged — systems. Reuters examines the ramifications and challenges to this pursuit.

See ya’ll next week.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Enabling humanoid robot movement with imitation learning and mimicking of animal behaviors

Rish Joshi
Contributor

Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT.
More posts by this contributor

Over the past two decades, humanoid robots have greatly improved their ability to perform functions like grasping objects and using computer vision to detect things since Honda’s release of the ASIMO robot in 2000. Despite these improvements, their ability to walk, jump and perform other complex legged motions as fluidly as humans has continued to be a challenge for roboticists.

In recent years, new advances in robot learning and design are using data and insights from animal behavior to enable legged robots to move in much more human-like ways. 

Researchers from Google and UC Berkeley published work earlier this year that showed a robot learning how to walk by mimicking a dog’s movements using a technique called imitation learning. Separate work showed a robot successfully learning to walk by itself through trial and error using deep reinforcement learning algorithms.

Imitation learning in particular has been used in robotics for various use cases, such as OpenAI’s work in helping a robot grasp objects by imitation, but its use in robot locomotion is new and encouraging. It can enable a robot to take input data generated by an expert performing the actions to be learned, and combine it with deep learning techniques to enable more effective learning of movements. 

Much of the recent work using imitation and broader deep learning techniques has involved small-scale robots, and there will be many challenges to overcome to apply the same capabilities to life-size robots, but these advances open new pathways for innovation in improving robot locomotion. 

The inspiration from animal behaviors has also extended to robot design, with companies such as Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics incorporating force modeling techniques and integration of full-body sensors to help their robots more closely mimic how animals execute complex movements. 


Source: Tech Crunch

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The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

One of the upsides of this job is that you get to see everything going on out there in the startup world. One of the downsides of this job is seeing just how many ideas out there aren’t all that original.

Every week in my inbox, there is another no-code startup. Another fintech play for payments and credit cards and personal finance. Another remote work or online events startup. Another cannabis startup, another cryptocurrency, another analytics tool for some other function in the workplace (janitor productivity as a service!)

It honestly feels at times like we are stuck: it’s the same rehashes of old software, but theoretically “better” (yes it is a note-taking app, but it runs on Kubernetes!). In fact, that feeling of repetitiveness and the glacial pace of true innovation isn’t just in my head or maybe yours: it’s also been identified by scientists and researchers and remains a key area of debate in the economics of innovation field.

Of course, there are a bunch of new horizons out there. Synthetic biology and personalized medicine. Satellites and spacetech. Cryptocurrencies and finance. Autonomous vehicles and urbantech. Open semiconductor platforms and the future of silicon. In fact, there are so many open vistas that it surprises me that every entrepreneur and investor isn’t running to claim these new territories ripe for creativity and ultimately, profit.

It’s a quandary at least until you begin to understand the entrance requirements for these frontier fields.

We’ve gone through the generation of startups you can do as a dropout from high school or college, hacking a social network out of PHP scripts or assembling a computer out of parts at a local homebrew club. We’ve also gone through the startups that required a PhD in electrical engineering, or biology, or any of the other science and engineering fields that are the wellspring for innovation.

Now, we are approaching a new barrier — ideas that require not just extreme depth in one field, but depth in two or sometimes even more fields simultaneously.

Take synethtic biology and the future of pharmaceuticals. There is a popular and now well-funded thesis on crossing machine learning and biology/medicine together to create the next generation of pharma and clinical treatment. The datasets are there, the patients are ready to buy, and the old ways of discovering new candidates to treat diseases look positively ancient against a more deliberate and automated approach afforded by modern algorithms.

Moving the needle even slightly here though requires enormous knowledge of two very hard and disparate fields. AI and bio are domains that get extremely complex extremely fast, and also where researchers and founders quickly reach the frontiers of knowledge. These aren’t “solved” fields by any stretch of the imagination, and it isn’t uncommon to quickly reach a “No one really knows” answer to a question.

It’s what you might call the dual PhD problem of today’s startups. To be clear, this isn’t about credentials — it’s not about the sheepskin at the end of the grad program. It’s about the knowledge represented by that diploma and how you need two whole rounds of it in order to synthesize the next generation of solutions.

Now, before you start yelling, let’s talk about teams. There is a reasonable argument that teams with the right specializations can come together and solve these problems. You don’t need a single founder with experience in bio and AI or cryptography and economics or computer vision and mobility hardware — you just need to bring the right talents together in the room to make innovation happen.

There is certainty truth in that, and indeed, that’s the impetus for many of the companies we are seeing today in these fields.

But that also feels like precisely the block today for pushing innovation even farther forward. Today’s startups have a biologist talking about wet labs on one side and an AI specialist waxing on about GPT-3 on the other, or a cryptography expert negotiating their point of view with a securities attorney. There is constant and serious translation required between these domains, translation that (I would argue mostly) prevents the fusion these fields need in order for new startups to be built.

Perhaps there is no greater and more obvious example of these domain requirements than the response to COVID-19. Epidemiology and public health are quite possibly the two most difficult fields out there in terms of the number of specializations required simultaneously to do them well. You need to know medicine and human physiology to understand the etiology of diseases, have the social science background to understand how humans interact individually and in groups, understand the economic and public policy implications of different prophylactics to comprehend the trade-offs involved, and finally, master the statistical training to read, understand, and build correct data models.

All this, and all at the same time. Is it any wonder that so little consensus emerges when so few people have all the requisite skills in their head?

The reason that teams run into resistance is that each specialist needs to understand the constraints that all the other specialties have, while also having enough nuance to understand what is really a barrier and what is perhaps a rule that can be broken. You can’t have a non-technical PM manage an AI product (“Can’t we just use TensorFlow for that?”) anymore than you can have these companies built by incompatible experts, always trying to explain to the other why an idea isn’t fathomable.

We aren’t used to this sort of cognitive challenge. Software is so democratized today, we forget just how blisteringly difficult almost all other facets of human endeavor are to even start. A middle schooler can build and deploy a web service scalable to millions of people with some lines of code (learned from easily and widely accessible resources on the internet) and some basic cloud infrastructure tools that are designed to onboard new users expeditiously.

Try that with rocketry. Or with pharma. Or with autonomous vehicles. Or any of the interesting new frontiers with green fields that are just sitting there waiting for the taking.

So to propel the progress of the world further, we need to fuse more fields together and compress the requisite knowledge faster and earlier for more people. We can’t wait until 25 years of school is complete and people graduate haggard at 40 before they can take a shot at some of these fascinating intersections. We need to build slipstreams to these lacuna where innovation hasn’t yet reached.

Otherwise, we are going to see the same pattern in the future that we see today: the thirtieth app for X with no barrier to entry whatsoever. That’s not where progress comes.


Source: Tech Crunch

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Original Content podcast: ‘The Old Guard’ is extremely dumb fun

Even though we did a lot of arguing about Netflix’s new action movie “The Old Guard,” we’re mostly in agreement: The movie is both reasonably entertaining and astonishingly stupid.

We didn’t take issue with the basic concept, which sees Charlize Theron leading a small group of immortal mercenaries. But the plotting feels arbitrary and lazy (yes, even by the standard of Hollywood action), with lots of clunky, on-the-nose dialogue — all the more disappointing since the screenplay was adapted by acclaimed comics writer Greg Rucka from the graphic novel he created with artist Leandro Fernández.

The debate, then, was whether “The Old Guard” remained delightful despite its dopiness, or whether the film’s virtues — Theron’s charisma and her commitment to the kinetic action scenes — only made it passably entertaining.

In addition to our review, the latest episode of the Original Content podcast also includes discussions of NBCUniversal’s newly-launched streaming service Peacock, Ted Sarandos’ appointment as co-CEO of Netflix, as well as mini-reviews of “Palm Springs” on Hulu and “Greyhound” on Apple TV+.

You can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:34 Peacock launch discussion
2:21 Ted Sarandos discussion
13:25 “Palm Springs” mini-review
18:20 “Greyhound” mini-review
26:44 “The Old Guard” trailer
43:01 “The Old Guard” spoiler discussion


Source: Tech Crunch

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It’s time to build against pandemics

Rish Joshi
Contributor

Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT.
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We’re a few years out from the call to action Bill Gates made in his TED Talk on preparing for pandemics back in 2015, yet the state of scalable software for important workflows like data collection and contact-tracing has greatly lagged expectations during the current pandemic.

The Trump administration’s letter to health agencies regarding data-sharing guidelines asked for daily Excel uploads, and manual contact-tracing efforts without software have proven difficult given the scale of the current pandemic. 

Everything is being built right now. 

Research universities are helping build models used by the CDC for case prediction, and that’s brought to light the dire issues around incomplete data sharing between health institutions and governments. 

Dozens of contact-tracing apps are springing up, surfacing design decisions around privacy, the need for newer technologies beyond Bluetooth for near-field communication and leading companies like Google and Apple to strike partnerships to power cross-platform mobile capabilities.

The good news is that the current efforts are taking seriously the need for better software and driving necessary innovation to help society better prepare for pandemics.

How can detailed case data be shared by hospitals with governments to better predict case and mortality numbers, and used to better allocate medical and labor resources? 

How can software help local and state governments make better policies, and help digitize contact tracing while appeasing privacy concerns?

Software has the ability to power many of these capabilities, and it is creating new opportunities for startups to vet the newly formed appetite for better data and digitized workflows on the part of health agencies, local and state governments and other organizations involved in fighting pandemics.


Source: Tech Crunch

Posted on

Startups Weekly: The TechCrunch List reveals investors who founders love to work with

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here.

We’re pleased to kick off this week’s newsletter by sharing an important new project: The TechCrunch List. It’s a database of investors who have shown a commitment to first checks and leading rounds from seed through growth, based on founder recommendations we’ve received as well as learnings from our own research.

Our goal is to quickly help founders talk to the investors who are serious about writing them checks when they need it most. You can filter by industry vertical, round size and location to find the best people for you. Today you’ll see 391 investors based on more than 1,200 recommendations across 23 main verticals. Since launch on Tuesday, we’ve received another 600 recommendations and counting fast, so we’ll be providing another big update next week.

My colleague Danny Crichton, who leads the project, has written up an FAQ for people who want to know more about the methodology, or how they might submit a recommendation. For Extra Crunch subscribers, he also put together a list of the 11 investors who have had the most positive recommendations, and an explainer about why certain investors earn great ‘founder NPS’ scores.

Now stop reading this for a minute and check it out.

Brad Feld

Image Credits: Dani Padgett / StrictlyVC

Brad Feld on how to influence your odds of success

Connie Loizos caught up with long-time VC Brad Feld of Foundry Group, who has a new book out about startup ecosystems. Some of it is theoretical, as you can read about in the full interview, but Feld connects his points to more tactical advice. Here’s a great example:

TC: Your new book talks about complex systems. How do founders balance the need to manage these complex systems with the fact that controlling these complex systems is sometimes out of their hands?

BF: The first step is getting rid of the notion that you can control the systems, and instead focus on what you can influence [because] in the context of what you can influence, that starts to become a place to focus where you put your energy.

An example of this would be in the current moment. If you have existing investors, and if you have not asked your existing investors directly how much money they have reserved for you for future financings and what you need to do to get that money from them, you’re not focusing on what you can influence.

The worst thing your investor can do is say, ‘I’m not going to tell you that.’ But if your investor is really on your side and wants to see you be successful, it’s likely your investor will say, ‘All right, well, you know . . .’ There might be some wishy-washy [talk] and [dollar] ranges and non-committal language, but you’ll at least have a frame of reference whether that’s zero dollars, a little bit of money, or a lot of money. And you can start to understand, ‘Well, what do we need to do given this moment?’

Edtech goes back to school

Natasha Mascarenhas surveyed eight leading edtech investors for Extra Crunch about the latest changes happening in the space, especially as its importance has grown during the pandemic. “Investors differed on which subcategories benefitted the most,” she writes, “but it’s clear that the pandemic didn’t lift up the entirety of the edtech space. One investor noted that the pandemic made them even less interested in ISAs, while other venture capitalists noted how valuable the financing instrument is now, more than ever before.” She also took a look at a flurry of acquisitions happening globally in the vertical.

(Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

A pledge to support international students

The Trump administration backed down from forcing international students to leave the country if their courses went online-only this week, shortly after being sued by some leading universities and 17 state attorneys general. Following the push against most worker visas and other anti-immigration measures, everyone affected expects more problems. To that end, resident TechCrunch immigration legal expert Sophie Alcorn cofounded a new effort to support international students. Here’s more detail:

We proudly announce the Community for Global Innovation (CFGI), a movement centralizing how companies and individuals around the world can stand in solidarity with international students and the belief that everybody deserves a chance to succeed. CFGI is a constellation of top startups, VCs, professionals, nonprofits, international students and grads. We pledge to support international students, create awareness and effect change.

Through the platform, companies take the CFGI Pledge to support international students: ‘If you’re international, no problem. In our team, everybody has a chance.’ We also teamed up with Welcoming America, a leading U.S. nonprofit, accepting donations to make the U.S. more inclusive toward immigrants and all residents. We’re actively seeking the support of volunteers, corporate donors and community members such as international startup founders who know it’s time to share their stories.

An immersive chat future

Podcasting, social audio and virtual reality are combining into a potentially new trend, Lucas Matney writes for Extra Crunch this week. “As audio-centric platforms garner investor interest, virtual reality founders of old are trying to push 3D audio as the next evolution, presenting the tech in a way that looks entirely different from today’s voice chat platforms. Though some of these efforts have been in the works for a while, the fledgling platforms are a lot more interesting, as social efforts like Clubhouse take flight and investors continue to eat up audio startups.” Top early examples so far include High Fidelity and Teooh. 

Around TechCrunch

Ready, set, network! CrunchMatch is now open for Early Stage 2020

Everything you could possibly want to learn about fundraising will be covered at TC Early Stage

Marketing, PR and brand building, oh my! TechCrunch Early Stage goes down July 21 and 22

Here’s your chance to meet with Sequoia’s partners at TC Early Stage

Sign up for next week’s Pitchers & Pitches competition on 7/23

TechCrunch talks virtual events and event technology

Learn how to build a company that puts profits and users first, and VCs last, at Disrupt 2020

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to Disrupt 2020

Emily Heyward will teach you how to make your brand awesome at TC Early Stage

Across the week

TechCrunch

US beat China on App Store downloads for first time since 2014, due to coronavirus impact

China Roundup: Tech giants take stance on Beijing’s data control in Hong Kong

Legal clouds gather over US cloud services, after CJEU ruling

India smartphone shipments slashed in half in Q2 2020

Equity Monday: India’s digital economy attracts ample attention, three funding rounds and earnings season

Extra Crunch

Extension rounds help some startups play offense during COVID-19

How Thor Fridriksson’s ‘Trivia Royale’ earned 2.5M downloads in 3 weeks

Investors are browsing for Chromium startups

As companies accelerate their digital transitions, employees detail a changed workplace

An unsurprising wave of video-focused startups is trying to make video calls better

#EquityPod

From Alex Wilhelm:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week was full of news of all sorts, but as we recorded, both Danny and Natasha “not Tash” Mascarenhas were still locked out of their Twitter accounts after a proletariat revolution on the social platform saw the ruling Blue Checkmark Class forced into silence. That’s not really what happened, but it sounds better than what actually went down at Big Social.

Anyway, Twitter accounts or not, the three of us gathered to parse through a wave of news:

It was a lovely time and there is a bit of show news. Namely that Equity is coming back to YouTube either this week or the next. So if you want to see us talk, soon you will be able to! Again!

Oh, and follow the show on Twitter. If you can, that is.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.


Source: Tech Crunch