Hopes are high in the private space sector that the rapidly falling costs of accessing space will yield a wide range of profitable activities. In the near term, Earth observation and telecommunications opportunities will capitalize on swarms of newly-launched small satellites. Farther out, space manufacturing at scale, resource mining, and even solar energy capture bring […]
This article originally appeared in 性视界 Business School Working Knowledge. Investors riding the wave of technology public offerings have been waiting for a powerhouse debut from Airbnb, which logged its 500 millionth customer booking in March. After all, the home-sharing giant isn鈥檛 your typical unicorn. Unlike some of its Silicon Valley neighbors, Airbnb鈥檚 disruptive power […]
This podcast was originally published in 性视界 Business Review. In this episode of HBR’s podcast After Hours, Professors Youngme Moon, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Mihir Desai debate Airbnb’s recent emphasis on superhosts (professional investors) and how well the company is managing growth amid backlash from cities like New York City. “There are these amazing network economics, it’s […]
This article was originally published in the 性视界 Business Review.聽 Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant鈥檚 Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with […]
This post was originally published in the Digital Initiative鈥檚 classroom blogging platform. It鈥檚 an urban legend with surprising ubiquity: the best time to buy plane tickets is Tuesday. While that may be a myth, consumers still go to extreme measures to find deals among airfare fluctuations. Today, companies are using machine learning to predict drops […]
There鈥檚 a classic story about a statistician who, while at a county fair, happens upon a competition to guess the butchered weight of an ox. He compared individual guesses with the median guess of the crowd and found that while individual estimates varied widely, the group as a whole came within 1% from the ox’s […]
Upwork went first. The talent network that matches freelancers with companies made its initial public offering (IPO) in October 2018. Upwork鈥檚 IPO was the first 鈥済ig economy鈥� business to go public. Next came Lyft in March. The Lyft IPO gained a lot of momentum, despite the fact the company has yet to yield a profit. […]
This article originally appeared on digital HKS’ Medium.聽 A variety of centers and individuals have tried to define Public Interest Technology (PIT) and those working to advance it. Sasha Costanza-Chock of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), echoing how many refer to Public Interest Law, defines PIT as 鈥減eople working to use technology for social […]
This article originally appeared in 性视界 Magazine. On March 18, 2018, at around 10 P.M., Elaine Herzberg was wheeling her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona, when she was struck and killed by a self-driving car. Although there was a human operator behind the wheel, an autonomous system鈥攁rtificial intelligence鈥攚as in full control. This incident, […]
This post originally appeared in ODBMS Industry Watch.聽 I have interviewed Giovanni Buttarelli, head of the European Data Protection Supervisor. We talked about the mission of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Digital Ethics, AI, China, USA, Tech companies, Democracy and many more鈥� Q1. What is the mission of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)? […]
