Category: Entrepreneurship

Europeans Regulate, or Not, Based on Which Label They Arbitrarily Apply to Uber

(p. B8) LUXEMBOURG — Uber asserted on Tuesday [November 28, 2016] that it was helping to bolster Europe’s digital economy as part of its defense in a long-awaited hearing to decide how the popular ride-hailing service should be able to operate across the region.
. . .
At the heart of the European court case — a ruling is not expected until April, at the earliest — is whether Uber should be considered a transportation service or a digital platform, which acts independently to connect third-party drivers with passengers.
If the company is defined as a transportation service, it must comply with national laws that may restrict how Uber grows in Europe.
Yet if the judges rule the company is just an intermediary that connects drivers with passengers, legal experts say, Uber may gain greater freedom to offer more transportation, food delivery and other services to European consumers.

For the full story, see:
MARK SCOTT. “Is Uber a Car Service or a Digital Platform?” The New York Times (Weds., NOV. 30, 2016): B8.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 29, 2016, and has the title “Uber, Seeking to Expand, Defends Itself at Europe’s Highest Court.”)

Blockchain Can Cut Out Financial Middlemen

(p. A9) Blockchains are basically a much better way of managing information. They are distributed ledgers, run on multiple computers all over the world, for recording transactions in a way that is fast, limitless, secure and transparent. There is no central database overseen by a single institution responsible for auditing and recording what goes on. If you and I were to engage in a transaction, it would be executed, settled and recorded on the blockchain and evident for all to see, yet encrypted so as to be villain-proof. “The new platform enables a reconciliation of digital records regarding just about everything in real time,” write the Tapscotts. No more waiting for that check to clear. It would all be done and recorded for eternity before you know it.
The digital currency bitcoin is currently the best-known blockchain technology. If I wanted to pay you using bitcoin, I would start with a bitcoin wallet on my computer or phone and buy bitcoins using dollars. I would then send you a message identifying the bitcoin I would like to send you and sign the transaction using a private key. The heavily encrypted reassignment of the bitcoin to your wallet is recorded and verified in the bitcoin ledger for all to see, and they are now yours to spend. The transaction is likely more secure and cheaper than a traditional bank transfer.
. . .
The layman, . . . , might want to wait for a more penetrable explanation of blockchains to come along–as one surely will if the authors’ predictions are even one-zillionth right.​

For the full review, see:
PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON. “BOOKSHELF; Bitcoin Is Just The Beginning; Imagine a personal-identity service that gives us control over selling our personal data. Right now, Google and Facebook reap the profit.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., May 27, 2016): A9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 26, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Tapscott, Don, and Alex Tapscott. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. New York: Portfolio, 2016.

Tesla Fights Car Dealership Monopoly

(p. B4) Tesla Motors Inc. filed an application for a dealership license in Michigan, setting up a potential legal fight over the state’s ban on selling cars directly to consumers.
. . .
About a year ago, Michigan passed a law prohibiting car makers from selling directly to customers in the state without an independent dealer as an intermediary. Tesla has opposed such dealer-franchise laws, calling them anticompetitive. Tesla allows customers to order vehicles directly from the company, something that other manufacturers are prohibited from doing.
A formal denial of its application by Michigan could prompt Tesla to pursue additional legal avenues to fight a law it calls “very harmful.”
“Tesla is committed to being able to serve its customers in Michigan, and is working with the legislature to accomplish that. The existing law in Michigan is very harmful to consumers,” a Tesla spokeswoman said. “Tesla will take all appropriate steps to fix this broken situation.”
. . .
Michigan and Texas are among a small group of states that have a flat prohibition on any direct sales. The laws were created to prevent car makers from building their own stores that would ​then ​compete with independent​dealerships. Michigan Automotive Dealers Association couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Such competition could potentially undercut independent dealerships’ prices and undermine investments made in their stores, according to lawyers and economists who have scrutinized dealer-franchise laws.

For the full story, see:
Ramsey, Mike. “Tesla Seeks License to Sell Cars in Michigan.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Feb. 2, 2016): B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date Feb. 1, 2016, and has the title “Tesla Motors Files for a Dealership License in Michigan.” The online version is slightly different from the print version. The passage quoted above is from the online version.)

Udacity Entrepreneur Counters Creeping Credentialism

(p. B2) Udacity, an online learning start-up founded by a pioneer of self-driving cars, is finally taking the wraps off a job trial program it has worked on for the last year with 80 small companies.
The program, called Blitz, provides what is essentially a brief contract assignment, much like an internship. Employers tell Udacity the skills they need, and Udacity suggests a single candidate or a few. For the contract assignment, which usually lasts about three months, Udacity takes a fee worth 10 to 20 percent of the worker’s salary. If the person is then hired, Udacity does not collect any other fees, such as a finder’s fee.
For small start-ups, a hiring decision that goes bad can be a time-consuming, costly distraction. “This lets companies ease their way into hiring without the hurdle of making a commitment upfront,” said Sebastian Thrun, co-founder and chairman of Udacity.
. . .
Mr. Thrun, a former Stanford professor and Google engineer who led the company’s effort in self-driving cars, said he was also trying to nudge the tech industry’s hiring beyond its elite-college bias.
“For every Stanford graduate, there are hundreds of people without that kind of pedigree who can do just as well,” he said.

For the full story, see:
STEVE LOHR. “Udacity, an Education Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Tryouts.” The New York Times (Fri., NOV. 18, 2016): B2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 17, 2016, and has the title “Udacity, an Online Learning Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Trials.”)

Farmer and Mechanic Invented Pivot Irrigation System

(p. D1) LINDSAY, Neb. — Paul Zimmerer’s contribution to agriculture is now forever immortalized.
A recent ceremony in Lindsay dedicated a memorial to the late inventor whose irrigation system dots the landscape throughout the country.
Zimmerer, inventor of the Zimmatic Pivot Irrigation System, died July 31, 2008, at the age of 94.
. . .
Dave Albracht, chairman of the Lindsay Village Board, said Lloyd Castner, a member of the Platte County Historical Society, first approached him about a memorial.
“I’m sure everybody knows that the small towns struggle, and Lindsay wouldn’t be where we’re at if it wasn’t for the Paul Zimmerer family,” he said.
. . .
Zimmerer opened a blacksmith shop in 1955 and sold modified car engines to be used on irrigation wells. His idea became the foundation of one of northeast Nebraska’s largest companies, Lindsay Corp.
He was a farmer and mechanic and owned Zimmerer Auto Repair and Gas Station in Lindsay before founding Lindsay Manufacturing Co., which is now Lindsay Corp.”

For the full story, see:
Patrick Murphy. “Memorial dedicated to Zimmatic Pivot inventor.” Omaha World-Herald (Fri., Nov. 25, 2016): 4D.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Dignity and Equality Before the Law Unleashes Creativity in the Poor

(p. A23) We can improve the conditions of the working class. Raising low productivity by enabling human creativity is what has mainly worked. By contrast, taking from the rich and giving to the poor helps only a little — and anyway expropriation is a one-time trick.
. . .
Look at the astonishing improvements in China since 1978 and in India since 1991. Between them, the countries are home to about four out of every 10 humans. Even in the United States, real wages have continued to grow — if slowly — in recent decades, contrary to what you might have heard. Donald Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University, and others who have looked beyond the superficial have shown that real wages are continuing to rise, thanks largely to major improvements in the quality of goods and services, and to nonwage benefits. Real purchasing power is double what it was in the fondly remembered 1950s — when many American children went to bed hungry.
What, then, caused this Great Enrichment?
Not exploitation of the poor, not investment, not existing institutions, but a mere idea, which the philosopher and economist Adam Smith called “the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice.” In a word, it was liberalism, in the free-market European sense. Give masses of ordinary people equality before the law and equality of social dignity, and leave them alone, and it turns out that they become extraordinarily creative and energetic.

For the full commentary, see:
DEIRDRE N. McCLOSKEY. “Economic View; Equality, Liberty, Justice and Wealth.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., SEPT. 4, 2016): 6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date SEPT. 2, 2016, and has the title “Economic View; The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice.”)

McCloskey’s commentary, quoted above, is related to her book:
McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital, Transformed the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Space Trash Start-Up Aims to Be Quicker than Government

(p. D1) Mr. Okada is an entrepreneur with a vision of creating the first trash collection company dedicated to cleaning up some of humanity’s hardest-to-reach rubbish: the spent rocket stages, inert satellites and other debris that have been collecting above Earth since Sputnik ushered in the space age. He launched Astroscale three years ago in the belief that national space agencies were dragging their feet in facing the problem, which could be tackled more quickly by a small private company motivated by profit.
“Let’s face it, waste management isn’t sexy enough for a space agency to convince taxpayers to allocate money,” said Mr. Okada, 43, who put Astroscale’s headquarters in start-up-friendly Singapore but is building its spacecraft in his native Japan, where he found more engineers. “My breakthrough is figuring out how to make this into a business.”
. . .
(p. D3) “The projects all smelled like government, not crisp or quick,” he said of conferences he attended to learn about other efforts. “I came from the start-up world where we think in days or weeks, not years.”
. . .
He also said that Astroscale would start by contracting with companies that will operate big satellite networks to remove their own malfunctioning satellites. He said that if a company has a thousand satellites, several are bound to fail. Astroscale will remove these, allowing the company to fill the gap in its network by replacing the failed unit with a functioning satellite.
“Our first targets won’t be random debris, but our clients’ own satellites,” he said. “We can build up to removing debris as we perfect our technology.”

For the full story, see:

MARTIN FACKLER. “Building a Garbage Truck for Space.” The New York Times (Tues., Nov. 29, 2016): D1 & D3.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 28, 2016, and has the title “Space’s Trash Collector? A Japanese Entrepreneur Wants the Job.”)

Uber Reduces Need for City Parking Spaces

(p. B8) Landlords battling high land costs are turning to a new partner: ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc.
As urban real estate becomes ever-more expensive, some property developers are shrinking or killing their parking spaces and offering Uber subsidies and other incentives instead.
Developers of shopping malls, stadiums and theme parks, meanwhile, are reimagining their exterior footprints to account for more Uber traffic, playing with new ideas such as widening curbside drop-off areas resembling those found at airports–some with concierges offering beverages–and shrinking parking lot space.
The moves show how ride-sharing is starting to change the way cities and urban landlords think about real estate.

For the full story, see:
ESTHER FUNG. “Dear Tenant: Your Uber Car Is Here.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Nov. 23, 2016): B8.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 22, 2016, and has the title “Dear Tenant: Your Uber Is Here.”)

Gates Foundation Funding “Second Green Revolution”

(p. A12) URBANA, Ill. — A decade ago, agricultural scientists at the University of Illinois suggested a bold approach to improve the food supply: tinker with photosynthesis, the chemical reaction powering nearly all life on Earth.
The idea was greeted skeptically in scientific circles and ignored by funding agencies. But one outfit with deep pockets, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, eventually paid attention, hoping the research might help alleviate global poverty.
Now, after several years of work funded by the foundation, the scientists are reporting a remarkable result.
Using genetic engineering techniques to alter photosynthesis, they increased the productivity of a test plant — tobacco — by as much as 20 percent, they said Thursday[November 17, 2016] in a study published by the journal Science. That is a huge number, given that plant breeders struggle to eke out gains of 1 or 2 percent with more conventional approaches.
The scientists have no interest in increasing the production of tobacco; their plan is to try the same alterations in food crops, and one of the leaders of the work believes production gains of 50 percent or more may ultimately be achievable. If that prediction is borne out in further research — it could take a decade, if not longer, to know for sure — the result might be nothing less than a transformation of global agriculture.
. . .
“We’re here because we want to alleviate poverty,” said Katherine Kahn, the officer at the Gates Foundation overseeing the grant for the Illinois research. “What is it (p. A24) the farmers need, and how can we help them get there?”
One of the leaders of the research, Stephen P. Long, a crop scientist who holds appointments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at Lancaster University in England, emphasized in an interview that a long road lay ahead before any results from the work might reach farmers’ fields.
But Dr. Long is also convinced that genetic engineering could ultimately lead to what he called a “second Green Revolution” that would produce huge gains in food production, like the original Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which transferred advanced agricultural techniques to some developing countries and led to reductions in world hunger.
. . .
The work is, in part, an effort to secure the food supply against the possible effects of future climate change. If rising global temperatures cut the production of food, human society could be destabilized, but more efficient crop plants could potentially make the food system more resilient, Dr. Long said.

For the full story, see:
JUSTIN GILLIS. “Taking Aim at Hunger, By Altering Plant Genes.” The New York Times (Fri., NOV. 18, 2016): A12 & A24.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 17, 2016, and has the title “With an Eye on Hunger, Scientists See Promise in Genetic Tinkering of Plants.”)

The Science article co-authored by Long, that is mentioned above, is:
Kromdijk, Johannes, Katarzyna Głowacka, Lauriebeth Leonelli, Stéphane T. Gabilly, Masakazu Iwai, Krishna K. Niyogi, and Stephen P. Long. “Improving Photosynthesis and Crop Productivity by Accelerating Recovery from Photoprotection.” Science 354, no. 6314 (Nov. 18, 2016): 857-61.

Do Manic Spells Help or Hurt Entrepreneurial Boldness?

(p. C1) In an author’s note, Mr. Kidder explains that “A Truck Full of Money” is a kind of sequel to “The Soul of a New Machine” (1981), his Pulitzer Prize-winner about the race to build a next-generation minicomputer. Fair enough: The writer is returning to his roots.
But a book about a software guy and software culture in 2016 isn’t nearly as novel as a book about hardware guys and hardware culture in 1981, and Mr. Kidder is not in the same command of his material.
. . .
(p. C4) There is, however, an element of Mr. English’s story that’s quite striking, one that makes “A Truck Full of Money” feel very much like a Tracy Kidder book.
In his 20s, Mr. English was told he had bipolar disorder. For a long time, he kept his diagnosis a secret. But today, he is wonderfully open and courageous about it.
Many of Mr. Kidder’s subjects are coiled with enough energy to launch a missile, of course, but Mr. English has a psychiatric diagnosis to go with it. The questions Mr. Kidder raises — Are Mr. English’s manic spells responsible for his entrepreneurial boldness? Or does he succeed in spite of them? — are well worth probing, and Mr. Kidder’s portrayal of living with manic depression is as nuanced and intimate as a reader might ever expect to get. On a good day, Mr. English’s mind is gaily swarming with bumblebees. On a bad one, though, he’s “Gulliver imprisoned by the tiny Lilliputians, laid out on his back, tied to the ground with a web of tiny ropes.”
Many of the features of Mr. English’s biography fit a familiar pattern. He was a low-achieving student with a high-watt intelligence. He discovered computer programming in middle school and was instantly smitten; today, he thinks fluently in layers of code — “each hanging from the one above, like a Calder mobile” — and his brain is a regular popcorn maker of ideas.
. . .
When he’s “on fire” (his term), he grows irritable with the slow dial-up connection of other people’s brains. He exaggerates. He slurs his words. His ideas range from extremely creative to flat-out wackadoo.
. . .
Over the years, Mr. English has tried a Lazy Susan of medications to subdue his highs and avert his lows. Many left him feeling listless and without affect. Being bipolar meant constantly weighing the merits of instability versus a denatured, drained sense of self.

For the full review, see:
JENNIFER SENIOR. “Books of The Times; The Road from Mania to Wealth and Altruism.” The New York Times (Tues., SEPT. 13, 2016): C1 & C4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date SEPT. 12, 2016, and has the title “Books of The Times; Review: ‘A Truck Full of Money’ and a Thirst to Put It to Good Use.”)

The book under review, is:
Kidder, Tracy. A Truck Full of Money: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success. New York: Random House, 2016.

Kidder’s wonderful early book, is:
Kidder, Tracy. The Soul of a New Machine. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1981.

U.S. Start-Up Helps Foreign Start-Ups Navigate U.S. Bureaucracy

(p. B7) Stripe, the San Francisco-based e-commerce start-up, thrives when other businesses do well. So the company wants to help many more businesses get off the ground.
That is the reason behind Stripe Atlas, a new product the company unveiled this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It aims to make it easier for entrepreneurs to set up small businesses in the United States. If all goes according to Stripe’s plan, Atlas could let start-up founders sidestep some of the bureaucratic hurdles that often hamper building a new business.
Determining eligibility requires little more than filling out a form. After that, Stripe will incorporate an entrepreneur’s company as a business entity in Delaware, and provide the entrepreneur with a United States bank account and Stripe merchant account to accept payments globally.

For the full story, see:
MIKE ISAAC. “A U.S. Start-Up Offers to Lend a Hand to Foreign Entrepreneurs.” The New York Times (Thurs., FEB. 25, 2016): B7.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 24, 2016, and has the title “Stripe Atlas Aims to Ease the Way for Foreign Entrepreneurs.”)