Thursday, October 23, 2014

Thiel



Seven Takeaways from Marc Andreessen's Interview With Peter Thiel
The eBay acquisition of PayPal was famously drawn-out and, in fact, took five separate negotiations to finally complete. .... "In June 2002, there was this eBay convention in Anaheim. We managed to get a booth there even though they weren’t that friendly to us at the time, so we sent 30 people down to the convention. And we handed out all these PayPal T-shirts. They saw all their power sellers wearing PayPal T-shirts, and at that point, they decided to buy the company.” ......... how Musk crashed his uninsured million-dollar sportscar with Thiel in the passenger seat on the way to a venture capital meeting
http://a16z.com/2014/10/17/a16z-podcast-the-definite-optimism-of-peter-thiel/

Thiel is a big picture person. He has a stellar track record. And he paints in broad strokes.

Things, Stuff



The Sectors Where the Internet of Things Really Matters
The Internet of Things is emerging as the third wave in the development of the internet. While the fixed internet that grew up in the 1990s connected 1 billion users via PCs, and the mobile internet of the 2000s connected 2 billion users via smartphones (on its way to 6 billion), the IoT is expected to connect 28 billion “things” to the internet by 2020, ranging from wearable devices such as smartwatches to automobiles, appliances, and industrial equipment. ..... five key verticals where the IoT will be tested first: Connected Wearable Devices, Connected Cars, Connected Homes, Connected Cities, and the Industrial Internet........ Within the vast Industrials sector, the IoT represents a structural change akin to the industrial revolution.