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Ordering those six pairs of Game of Thrones-themed socks from Amazon and having them sent straight to your door sure is convenient, but what does it mean for the world we live in? Engineering professor Anne Goodchild talks about the new delivery economy, and how it’s going to affect the environment.

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Is the Delivery Economy Bad for the Planet?

This week on Innovation Hub, we're ready for some tradeoffs. We’ve got author William Bernstein explaining how trade has shaped our daily lives, from camels to the compass to that cute new pair of shoes. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers talks about what the government is trading away when it doesn’t fund science. Writer Andrew Winston sees if profit-driven companies might give something up in return for a healthier environment. Finally, engineering professor Anne Goodchild looks at the trade-offs of our new delivery economy.

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4.18.15 Making Trades

Among many things, Dennis Hong is an award-winning roboticist, a magician, a best selling author, and a master chef.  Robotics (his "day job," as he puts it) has won him spots on Popular Science's "Brilliant 10" list, Purdue University's "40 under 40," a place on the TED main stage, and get this - the coveted Louis Vuitton Cup Best Humanoid Award.

The all-star roboticist stops by Innovation Crush to dish on his personal philosophies, squash the fear of the machines, riff on science education, his experience as a contestant on Master Chef, and tell us what ties all his many sides together. Oh, and he also built a car for the blind to drive. ;) Feat. guest host, Paula Miranda.

https://twitter.com/dennishongrobot
http://www.romela.org/
https://twitter.com/paulaisms

#80:  Dennis Hong - Robots, Magic, and Happiness

If your income can flow from any place on the globe, and you can earn your money on the Internet, the question for individuals and startup teams alike increasingly is: where do I go? In the tech industry the answer more often than not has been Silicon Valley. For many people and companies that is still true, says Sten Tamkivi, CEO and co-founder of Teleport.org, but it’s not a simple binary answer any more. “It’s more a question of when, and how often do you spend time in Silicon Valley?” he says. And of course, why?

Quality, cost, and opportunity, those are the key elements to consider when deciding where in the world you want to be when you are starting a career -- and starting a company. In this segment of the pod, Tamkivi relates his own experience as an executive at Skype, and how he thought about its global workforce and what made it work so well. He also describes what he’s learned from starting his own far-flung company Teleport.org, which is in the business of helping people decide where in the world the best place for their career and company is. 

a16z Podcast: Software and Overcoming the Randomness of Birthplace

Last week at the Milken Institute conference, Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, sat down with Re/code's Kara Swisher.


A Conversation With @bhorowitz and @karaswisher

"This time is different." But it's always different! So what's going on now in the public markets? Why does this even matter? For one thing, tech markets have grown significantly. And one big reason is internet and mobile. It's like a multiplier for the market size and opportunity.

In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Scott Kupor, mobile analyst Benedict Evans, and corp dev research partner Morgan Bender break down <a href="http://a16z.com/2015/06/15/u-s-tech-funding-whats-going-on/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a slide deck</a> we recently shared, including answers to what all these so-called “unicorns” are, how it affects venture capital and the funding landscape, and how we define a "quasi-IPO."

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
 
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.

Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

a16z Podcast: The Rise of the Quasi-IPO

a16z’s Chris Dixon and Mike Hearn talked about all things bitcoin on the a16z Podcast a couple months ago, including an issue that has bitcoin developers on edge these days: the question of how best to scale the bitcoin blockchain before capacity runs out. Hearn and others offered a solution (Bitcoin XT) -- in the parlance, a “hard fork” -- and quite frankly, not everyone in the bitcoin community is in favor of this approach yet. Which we heard about from various online quarters!

So in the interest of airing diverse opinions and other options for solving bitcoin’s scaling problem, we invited two more experts from the bitcoin world, Adam Back and Alex Morcos, to share their views on the topic. A well-known applied cryptographer whose longtime focus has been digital currency, Back invented hashcash, a proof-of-work system used in bitcoin mining. He’s also the cofounder of Blockstream (which, full disclosure, may also have interests in the outcomes of this debate). Morcos is the founder of Chaincode Labs, based in New York City, and was a co-founder of quantitative trading company Hudson River Trading.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
 
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.

Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

a16z Podcast: Hard Forks, Hard Choices for Bitcoin

Legendary investor Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's financial partner and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway) invokes a set of interdisciplinary "mental models" involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management to keep emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment. In a new book focused on lessons learned from Munger, Tren Griffin (who works at Microsoft and has long focused on lessons learned from many investors) shares insights on decision making and the psychology of human judgment -- especially as it applies to investing and risk.

But Griffin believes that these lessons can be applied to all of us in our daily lives, not just by investors. (He also argues that investing may be one of the last liberal arts). So how then do we channel our inner Munger? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, we discuss how to think about thinking; why the best investors and business leaders spend more time on what they DON’T know; and how the best way to be smart is to ... not be stupid.

a16z Podcast: The Best Way To Be Smart ... Is To Not Be Stupid

Imagine explaining plate tectonics using only the 1000 most common words in the English language. XKCD’s Randall Munroe did just that, and he’s learned some lessons about science education.

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xkcd’s Randall Munroe Explains Things

The robots are coming. But before they do, we’ll need to give them our morals. Queena Kim reports on why “moral philosophy” will mean big business in the tech world.

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I, Moral Robot

This week on Innovation Hub, how things catch on. Jonah Berger looks at why everyone falls in love with fads.  XKCD's Randall Munroe tells us how his nerdy internet comic got so popular. And Michael Bess takes us into the future of body modification.

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Full Show: Modification

When he was only 12, Dimitri Chatzis built his own large 3D printer that he consequently used to build, two years later, a big humanoid and highly sophisticated talking robot. “Troopy” is one of the only six similar robots -based on the InMoov ecosystem- in the world. Dimitri is from the northern Greek town of Kavala and still a freshman in High School. He travelled to Athens, along with his robot “Troopy”, in order to take part in the Athens Science Festival during 2016 and found the time to talk to us about his passion for robotics, his love for research and his plans for the future. We’re pleased to say that “Troopy” contributed to the interview with a few words of his own.  Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #266 The Youngest Humanoid Robot Maker In The World

Innovation Hub looks at how to reinvent our world – from medicine to education, relationships to time management. Great thinkers and great ideas, designed to make your life better.