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The Internet is the Battleground for Perpetual Warfare

Norse has a really, really cool real-time visualization of cyber attacks. It’s quite mesmerizing to watch.

Most of the attacks stem from US and China, at least in the few minutes that I watched. What’s interesting is that you see big name corporations as the Attackers. I happened to notice A LOT of Microsoft Corporation. I have no idea what that means; I’m very from being any kind of security expert. I just noticed this and thought, “hmmm”.

I’m sure this is just a fraction of what goes on out there. Which makes this pretty scary. I’ve been in software a long time and I’ve never come across or heard of code that didn’t have bugs or couldn’t be hacked.

Add to that the fact that we have assigned some of the best and brightest to find all these holes (re: Wikileaks CIA hacking tools release and NSA leaked hacking tools).

And then of course I’m always reading about how fragile, old and outdated our infrastructure is. We’re so exposed. Is a nuclear threat really the biggest threat out there?

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Hold Hold Hold … It’s So Hard Not to Sell

BitCoin and Ethereum (as well as other cryptocurrencies) are on a parabolic trajectory. It’s so hard not to sell here. I mean, when you’ve 3x and 6x your investment and you see this trajectory, isn’t it prudent to take some winnings off the table?

I would say normally, taking some off the table (at least lock in the initial investment so that what’s left is “house” money). But here is my investor greed setting in, perhaps.

I truly believe that this is really only the very very beginning and HUGE gains are ahead because the blockchain technology is that revolutionary. I don’t want to get into the mindset of trading in and out because the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) if I sell will kill me more.

I don’t have a huge portion of my portfolio allocated into these, so I can afford to lose it all and still sleep at night. These really are like lottery tickets, but I like the odds here.

I’m considering diversifying and buying into some Ripple. I’ve been reading that Tezos is also an ICO to watch for. These aren’t as simple to buy, though. I mean, they aren’t hard, but I’d have to set up other wallets.

Interesting times…

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Seth Rich Story could get VERY Interesting

Do you know who Seth Rich is? This story is going to make one heck of a movie one day, I’m sure. Or at least a season of Serial podcast by Sara Koenig.

In short, Seth Rich was a 27-year old employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who was murdered on July 10, 2016; shot while walking home from his neighborhood bar. He was shot twice in the back. He was found conscious, but then died in the hospital.

The media reported that it was an attempted robbery. Apparently, he had bruises on his hands, knees, and face; indicating a struggle. But the really interesting fact is that nothing was taken from him. He had his watch, money, his credit cards, his phone…nothing was robbed.

The conspiracy theories are out in droves. The primary conspiracy story is that Seth Rich is the one who leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, which led to the firing of Debbie Wasserman Shultz.

Julian Assange in an interview last August hinted that Seth Rich was the leaker, but never explicitly admitted it.

Supposedly, one of the FBI or the DC Police have his laptop, but neither is pressing forward with any investigation with it. Apparently, the DC Police didn’t even interview any of the bar staff of the venue Seth Rich was in that night.

I’m trying not to get sucked in to the lure of a great conspiracy story, but man, this one smells of something.

Then, to top it all off, Kim Dotcom, yes that guy of all people, tweets out the other day:

Seems so random…

…The story is that Kim Dotcom is seeking revenge against Hillary Clinton and Obama, as they succumbed to Hollywood power brokers and targeted Kim Dotcom in the biggest copyright infringement case in history – which included a massive illegal (and then legal) raid on his New Zealand mansion by armed officers.

Let’s see what he comes out with on Tuesday…

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Silicon Valley is Losing her Luster

According to The Kaufman Foundation 2017 Startup Activity report, SF & San Jose slipped several spots. Cities such as Miami, Austin, and Los Angeles are moving up. St. Louis, Cincinnati and San Antonio are cities that jumped up the most.

Silicon Valley will always be Silicon Valley. It is la creme de la creme. But it makes perfect sense, and is good overall, for entrepreneurship to extend beyond the valley.

The greatest concentration of engineers is in the valley. The greatest concentration of venture money is in the valley. But if I’m starting a new company, I wouldn’t start it in SF; it’s just too darn expensive.

We used to live up in SF area and we have a strong network still there. But, even if we wanted to move back, it would be extremely difficult to do (while maintaining the same lifestyle). The bang for the buck is so much better outside of the valley. As a company, I think you could attract the talent with a pretty good salary (but much less than a SV rate) and better cost-of-living. A $200K salary in the bay area is perhaps $100-120K outside, but that person can get a 3-Bdrm, 2-Bath house for $250K Vs $2M.

We’ve thought about moving out of California as well because the state taxes are ridiculous. This makes Texas and Florida very appealing (we do enjoy the sun). But alas, California weather is the best. Where else can you Snowboard and Surf on the same day?

I do like the start-up activity moving south. Los Angeles is nice, but the traffic is terrible. I’d love to see more companies moving down to Irvine. It will happen, I’m certain, the appeal is too great (think SF to San Jose). If a company is really good, the talent and money will come to it.

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3 Little-Known Companies Helping Shape the Movement to Autonomous Vehicles

Quanergy, Velodyne, and Luminar Technologies. They are all LiDAR technology companies.

LiDAR is how the vehicles detect what is around them. LiDAR sensors measure distances by measuring the Time of Flight (TOF) that it takes a short laser pulse to travel from the sensor to an object and back, calculating the distance from the known speed of light.

Each of those 3 companies has raised many millions in early rounds (none beyond Series B). According to James Altucher sources, they each carry a $1B+ valuation which puts them in the Unicorn classification. (I can’t link to the source because it is an insider newsletter)

James believes that Velodyne is the clear leader at this point. Velodyne raised $150M in August 2016 from investors that included Ford, Google, and Baidu. He mentions that Velodyne’s products are currently being used in 25 different self-driving programs.

Of course, as private companies, we can’t invest in these companies. But James is recommending to look at Ford as a way into Velodyne.

Of all the car companies, I do like Ford the best. They have made interesting investments and partnerships. My wife has a Ford Focus and it’s a pretty decent car.

I can’t bring myself to invest in car companies at this time, though. I’ve been reading too much about sub-prime car loans going bust, similar to how sub-prime housing went bust in 2007. Obviously, the car market isn’t nearly as big, but it’s still significant.

I’m currently short GM and that is going pretty well so far…

 

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5 Ideas for Chorus.ai

I have no affiliation with Chorus.ai. I read about their Series A funding in February and upon learning about their solution, I was intrigued enough to request a demo.

Again, I only had a single brief demo, so I’m no expert. But, essentially, what Chorus.ai does is record and automatically transcribe meetings so that they can be used for review and coaching/training purposes. It also syncs to SalesForce; which is awesome, assuming that what syncs are the meeting notes or a summary of the transcription (full transcription could be too much).

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.” — Alfred Bernhard Nobel

In any case, I’m sure they have plenty of ideas to spend the newly minted $16M raised capital. Here are my 5 ideas for Chorus.ai:

  1. Give a Free (or very cheap) Single License to Very Early Start-ups. When it is early and there is no sales team, the early conversations with customers/prospects can be the foundation of training for the first sales hire. It’s hugely valuable for a new rep to hear the real pitch in action, the reception by the prospects, the objections and the overall context of how these conversations go. Founders can also get outside coaching from Advisors. And lastly, as the company grows and builds out its sales force, Chorus.ai is already part of the fabric of the company, up-selling to regular seat licenses (or whatever the model) should be easy.
  2. Offer a Self-Serve Single Seat License. Perhaps a company isn’t ready to bite on a company-wide licensing deal. However, individual reps could be interested. As a rep, I would be interested if there was a self service sign-up (and individual plan advertised on the website); no demo. It would save me LOADS of time putting notes into Salesforce. This should easily pay for itself in saved hours and pain of data entry. Then Chorus.ai can shift to account based marketing and level up within the org to managers/VPs.
  3. Target Inside Sales Teams. For the enterprise deals, target the inside sales teams first. These folks are typically more junior and need more coaching and are more open to adoption new solutions. Also, if I were an outside rep being passed a lead, I would certainly invest the time to listen to the call that qualified the lead. At that point, you’re also seasoning the outside team with the value of Chorus.ai. Lastly, if my company was using an out-sourced business development team, I would definitely want a solution like Chorus.ai in place as an oversight mechanism. This is not saying to ignore the rest of the sales org, but targeting inside sales and inside sales managers on a smaller deal could lead to accelerated deals and then easier up-sells.
  4. Market to Marketing Too. Have Marketing contribute to the budget (or at least get them into the groundswell. Marketing campaigns can be expensive. Therefore, Marketers usually A/B test things before they scale campaigns. Chorus.ai enables Marketing to work with a sales rep or two to test different messaging on a smaller, but still effective, scale. Also, by searching for trigger words like “competition”, they could get early indicators of new market threats and understand when it’s time to craft a campaign to combat them.
  5. Invest in SEO. I like the Chorus.ai tag line “Conversation Intelligence” as a branding tag line, but I doubt that anyone searches for that term. But I bet that people are searching for “sales call recording software” or “sales coaching solution” and derivatives of those. Writing blog posts and PR with long-tail terms around those core themes could help attract leads more cost effectively.

What do you think about these ideas? I enjoy these kind of brain exercises. If you’re interested in getting any kind of ideas for your company or job or other, simply drop me a private message and ask. I’d be happy to turn on the Thinkolator for you. 🙂

 

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When a Stock Breaks $80 to the Upside, It Often Finds its Way to $100

This is a theory that I heard a while back and it has stuck with me. I wish I had the skill set to backtest this theory. I don’t know if I happen to notice this more because I’m aware of the theory or because it actually holds true more often than not. (You know when you think: “most BMW’s are black, you start to notice more black BMW’s”)

The most recent stock that seems to be experiencing this phenomenon is Shopify (SHOP). Look at that chart…Amazing! Maybe dangerous territory at this point as it has gone parabolic. But SHOP has to be one of the best performing stocks of 2017 so far.

Shopify isn’t profitable yet, but the growth rate is really strong. Shopify is an e-commerce platform that makes it super-easy to set-up and e-commerce shop. Rumor is they are a takeover target.

Another recent one is Dycom (DY). I totally missed this boat. I’ve been watching this stock for a while and I believe in the story of this company. They help build out networks for the giants. It’s probably not too late to invest here. I think this is a good company to average into.

As a trading strategy, the 80-to-100 strategy could offer a good risk/reward ratio. You want to buy on a close over $80. Let’s say you put a stop-loss at 8%, which is $6.40. Therefore, your stop-loss is $73.60. Your target is $100. That’s a 3:1 ratio. For this strategy to be profitable, it only needs to be right 33% of the time.

Again, I haven’t backtested this, but it could be interesting to and see if it worked. You could also apply other rules such as trailing the stop to $80 once it hits $88 or so (10% trail).

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We Can No Longer Trust Any Recorded Audio or Video

We’re in for some scary times. Who knows what or who you can trust.

Check these demos from Lyrebird. The first on there is a conversation between Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

Lyrebird claims that they can take a 1-minute recording of someone’s voice and compress the voice DNA into a unique key. Then they can generate anything with its corresponding voice.

So, basically take any clip off YouTube for any celebrity and BOOM, you can create an instant celebrity endorsement for whatever.

The voices aren’t​ perfect…yet. I mean, the intonation of the Trump/Obama/Clinton voices sound robotic; but I can definitely say that it sounds like them. Obviously, the technology will only get better.

Now, couple that with this video technology and we’re in for some serious trouble as a society.

In the future, I believe everything will have to have an authentication key of some sort with every piece of media. In other words, people will come to not trust anything without this key. Without such a mechanism, the world will drown in “Fake Media” and these technologies will be used for evil.

This may be yet another application for the blockchain…

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