Entrepreneurs and tech executives are widening their gazes outside of developed nations for their next source of growth. Ubiquitous cheap phones and increasingly affordable phone plans such as Jio in India are helping another billion users join the internet. What do those users want though, and how are they the same and different than existing […]
View More Who are the next billion users and what do they want?Category: infrastructure
Dragonfly, ethics, and infrastructure spending
Yesterday’s analysis of the ethical tradeoffs faced by engineers working in the Valley certainly lit up my inbox with responses. The general thesis of that piece is that startups and tech companies face more — and worse — tradeoffs as they have migrated from the “purity” of the early internet into more socially and ethically […]
View More Dragonfly, ethics, and infrastructure spendingHow far are you willing to go for growth?
There is a deep dilemma facing startup founders that I think just isn’t brought to light often enough. On one hand, almost all (and I do mean almost all) founders are reasonably ethical people. They can be over-optimistic, they can over-promise, they can be inexperienced around management, but at their core, they want to improve […]
View More How far are you willing to go for growth?Why can’t we build anything? (Part 2)
One of the major themes we are working on these days at the Extra Crunch Daily is trying to understand why America and many other Western nations can’t seem to build infrastructure anymore. The answers are complicated but critical: our infrastructure is decrepit, climate change is intensifying, and population growth will put even more strain […]
View More Why can’t we build anything? (Part 2)Facebook expands its internet infrastructure projects
Like every year, Facebook is using MWC Barcelona to focus on its infrastructure projects. While you may mostly think of Facebook as a social network, the company started launching infrastructure projects for connecting bringing more people online (and onto its network) many years ago. These projects include things like the (now-cancelled) solar-powered Aquila drone and […]
View More Facebook expands its internet infrastructure projectsCan we ever evaluate technical debt?
Every couple of months, I talk to an entrepreneur who is interested in building a marketplace for buying and selling app businesses (i.e. the actual IP and ownership of an app or other piece of software). These markets always seem to suffer from a lack of liquidity, and one reason why is that it’s really […]
View More Can we ever evaluate technical debt?Blockchain is solid, in that there is no liquidity
The quality of a financial market is driven by liquidity. Companies want to list on the NYSE, because that’s where the most financial investors in the world are located, and the thicker the market for investors, the better the valuations for companies. The NYSE has “problems” though — its closed most hours of the week, […]
View More Blockchain is solid, in that there is no liquidityTiming and why we’re all VCs
Timing is the single most valuable skill of the modern economy, but I would argue its’s the least understood and also the least practiced. Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should you start a company? What company should you start? When should a VC invest? When […]
View More Timing and why we’re all VCsWhy can’t we build anything?
Last week, California governor Gavin Newsom announced that he was intending to aggressively scale back plans for the state’s high-speed rail system, which in its most ambitious routing would have connected Sacramento to San Diego. The immediate cause was ballooning costs, which have risen from $33 billion to $77 billion and looked likely to exceed […]
View More Why can’t we build anything?The LibreRouter project aims to make mesh networks simple and affordable
In the city, we’re constantly saturated with the radio waves from ten or twenty different routers, cell towers, and other wireless infrastructure. But in rural communities there might only be one internet connection for a whole village. LibreRouter is a hardware and software project that looks to let those communities build their own modern, robust mesh networks to make the most of their limited connectivity.
View More The LibreRouter project aims to make mesh networks simple and affordableThe economics and tradeoffs of ad-funded smart city tech
In order to have innovative smart city applications, cities first need to build out the connected infrastructure, which can be a costly, lengthy, and politicized process. Third-parties are helping build infrastructure at no cost to cities by paying for projects entirely through advertising placements on the new equipment. I try to dig into the economics […]
View More The economics and tradeoffs of ad-funded smart city techFCC cracks the whip on 5G deployment against protests of local governments
The FCC is pushing for speedy deployment of 5G networks nationwide with an order adopted today that streamlines what it perceives as a patchwork of obstacles, needless costs, and contradictory regulations at the state level. But local governments say the federal agency is taking things too far.
View More FCC cracks the whip on 5G deployment against protests of local governments