My grandfather lived through an incredible period of technological change. He saw the invention of the automobile, the airplane and the rocket. He lived through the dawn of the atomic age and the mainframe computer. He didn’t live long enough to see the PC or the impact it would have on my professional life, but he was around for the creation of a lot...
The reports issued by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are usually grim affairs. But even by that standard, last week’s seemed particularly bleak. The upshot is that the world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius, and we’re on track to hit 1.5 degrees Celsius — the “safe” limit set by the Paris Agreement — in the early 2030s. So unless we...
How is it that public health has delivered on its promise to improve the lives of millions, while failing to resolve the dramatic health disparities of people of color in the US? And what can the movement for tech governance learn from these failures? Through 150 years of public institutions that serve the common good through science, public health has transformed human life. In just a...
Since the start of 2023, more than 150,000 people have been laid off at tech companies, large and small. That’s a staggering number of people who have been put out of work. When you think about how Meta, Amazon and Salesforce have handled these layoffs, the situation becomes even more grim. Salesforce announced in January that it was laying off 10% of its approximately...
I rode the original Lectric XP electric bike for six months during the pandemic in 2020. It was a salve, a way to feel the breeze on my face during quarantine and go farther than usual without hopping on public transportation. I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Lectric’s aim was to deliver a foldable, powerful fat-tire ebike for under $1,000,...
The neocortex stands out as a stunning achievement of biological evolution. All mammals have this swath of tissue covering their brain, and the six layers of densely packed neurons within it handle the sophisticated computations and associations that produce cognitive prowess. Since no animals other than mammals have a neocortex, scientists have wondered how such a complex brain region evolved. The brains of reptiles...
ChatGPT and tools like it have made AI available to the masses. We can now get all sorts of responses back on almost any topic imaginable. These bots can come up with sonnets, code, philosophy, and more. However, while you can just type anything you like into ChatGPT and get it to understand you, there are ways of getting more interesting and useful results...
Assuming democracy remains intact in the years to come, Levitsky thinks the GOP will have to eventually moderate its stance in response to changing demographics. The current extremism will not be sustainable if the party hopes to win enough elections to wield power in the future. However, Levitsky thinks any adjustments could take longer than one would hope. “The problem is our incentives—the Electoral...
For every one of these companies, however, I saw just as many (if not more) that employed crypto while trying very hard to avoid mentioning that fact. Two companies claimed to be building the future of social media. Dig deep enough into their websites and they both offered users crypto-based incentives, but neither chose to feature crypto or blockchain tech as a selling point....
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. It’s hard to be proactive after the tide has already shifted. However, that’s what we’re seeing happen in the solo GP world, where investors, hearing about institutional investor risk appetite changing, are extending fundraising...
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