Surreal Value ~ Apple's Exponential Exhuberance

The FT reports on the Apple Effect...

"When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, it was valued at $3bn, less than one-tenth of Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial group then and now. Today, Apple is worth more than Germany’s 30 leading companies."

US Stock Market ~ 200 Year Sector Dynamics...

Visual Capitalist Visualizes 200 Years of U.S. Stock Market Sectors...

Global Exports ~ Physical Stuff Sold Internationally

HowMuch maps the Global Export Economy in One Map... 

"We got our numbers from the World Trade Organization [...] The WTO tracks the total value of physical goods each country sends across its borders. Remember, these numbers exclude services -- we are only focused on physical items. To create our map, we changed the size of the country depending on the value of exports, and we likewise added a shade of blue for easy reference. This approach highlights the outliers and identifies several key trends."

Biggest of US ~ Market Caps over Decades

Metrocosm spots a century of America's 10 largest companies compared by market capitalization...

Future Commerce ~ Rebooting Money & Markets!

Together with Brian Forde from MIT’s new Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) and Media Lab colleagues Alex (Sandy) Pentland and David Shrier, we explore new financial innovations via our Future Commerce offering this Fall 2015 every Tuesday afternoon 1-2:30p starting September 15th. Participants learn how to build new businesses and translate ideas to impact, in collaboration with experienced fintech executives, entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

Students will explore emerging technologies that will disrupt existing marketplaces and financial services by spending a semester building new business models, products or technical concepts, resulting in a substantial deliverable at the end of the term.

Tech Sector ~ Charting Market Value over Time...

The Economist's Dailychart‬ shows the changing shape of the US technology sector...

"Founded in 1911 as a manufacturer of punch-card machines, more than a century later IBM remains one of the largest technology companies in the world. But the days of Big Blue’s dominance are long past. It was recently surpassed in market value by Facebook, a company barely a decade old..."

Huge Fish Market ~ Tsukiji on Japanology Plus!

Tokyo's Tsukiji Market on Japanology Plus...

"The world's largest fish market -- hundreds of kinds of seafood from around the world are sold there. 40,000 people work at Tsukiji each day, and hordes of foreign tourists come to check out the vast, buzzing hive of activity. This time [...] we explore the customs and commerce of Tsukiji Market. Our guest is Masataka Fujiwara, a seafood expert who's been visiting Tsukiji regularly for more than 30 years."

And here's more intimate details...

Bye Bye Barcelona ~ On Tourisms Downsides...

Feargus O'Sullivan at Atlantic Cities asks what's Ruining Barcelona?

"'Barcelona? It's a theme park.' Spain's second city is so effortlessly attractive that it's hard to believe anyone could fall out of love with it. A new documentary called Bye Bye Barcelona, however, shows some long-term residents wondering aloud how much longer they can stay where they are. The problem? Tourism, specifically a local industry that has become so dominant it risks stifling ordinary, everyday life in the city's heart."

Life After Pi ~ Changing World of VFX & Film...

See here Life After Pi documentary about...

"Rhythm & Hues Studios, the L.A. based Visual Effects company that won an Academy Award for its groundbreaking work on "Life of Pi" -- just two weeks after declaring bankruptcy. The film explores rapidly changing forces impacting the global VFX community and the Film Industry as a whole."

Seeing What’s Next ~ Asymco on Adoption Rates

Asymco's Horace Dediu puts adoption of smartphones in context in his Seeing What’s Next post where he plots few other technologies and the time they took to grow from 10% to 90% penetration within the US market... This nearly 200 year vista is lovely, especially his addition of (a) blue bars = tech growth pulses with start year and duration, and (b) green bars = life expectancy of Americans in years.

Spillover Cities ~ Economist on Scale Dynamics

The Economist notes that America’s big cities are larger than Europe’s. That has important economic consequences...

"Differences in metropolitan populations may help explain gaps in productivity and incomes. Western Europe’s per-person GDP is 72% of America’s, on a purchasing-power-parity basis. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, the consultancy’s research arm, reckons that some three-quarters of this gap can be chalked up to Europe’s relatively diminutive cities. [...] Cities today have a productivity advantage for different reasons, to do with ideas rather than costs. When one firm in a city comes up with a new technique, product or design, nearby firms may quickly build on it or hire its creator. One firm’s innovation boosts its own productivity but also spills over to other businesses. Companies that prefer seclusion cut themselves off from these "knowledge spillovers."

R&D Megafunds ~ Novel Securitization Financing

Fascinating piece just published in Nature Biotechnology by our MIT colleagues Jose-Maria Fernandez, Roger Stein and Andrew Lo on Commercializing biomedical research through securitization techniques. They propose RIBOs -- Research & Innovation Backed Obligations -- or R&D megafunds...

"...a financial structure in which a large number of biomedical programs at various stages of development are funded by a single entity to substantially reduce the portfolio’s risk. The portfolio entity can finance its activities by issuing debt, a critical advantage because a much larger pool of capital is available for investment in debt versus equity. By employing financial engineering techniques such as securitization, it can raise even greater amounts of more-patient capital."

To exemplify this, they propose a cancer megafund. Read the paper for more details, but these illustrate flows...

Land Rush ~ International Aquisitions in Africa...

Map Porn spots The 21st Century African Land Rush...

Ultimate Propagandist ~ Bernays, Father of PR...

Thanks to Karl Smallwood, Jack Hall, Sara Ohlms for their piece in Cracked on The 7 Sneakiest Ways Corporations Manipulated Human Behavior. They spotlight...

"Edward Bernays, aka the godfather of spin and the forefather of modern PR"

Private Military Companies ~ Security Services++

One additional element about the civil conflict in Sierra Leone caught my attention, namely the disproportionately effective role of Executive Outcomes -- a Private Military Company or PMC -- in defending civilians and pushing back the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)... There's much more to be said about such modern mercenaries. Shadow Company is a compelling documentary on the sector...

Public Lands, Private Profits ~ Green Hysteria?

NYTimes Green blogger Joanna Foster spots mini-documentary Public Lands, Private Profits...

"The films focus on three treasured places in the public trust that are threatened by private mining and drilling proposals, including areas around the Grand Canyon that are still open to uranium mining, a proposal to expand coal mining near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah and the introduction of natural gas drilling around Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. [What is] appropriate use of the 700 million acres of public lands that belong to all Americans."

See trailer...

Darling Goes Adult ~ MIT Research on Porn+Tech

Our MIT Media Lab colleague Kate Darling (visiting from ETHZ) studies intellectual property and economics, including especially intangibles and what are sometimes called "soft assets". Since no media sector exposes more in this regard than adult, Kate has become deeply engaged in the porn industry, observing its dynamics up-close. She shares some penetrating insights in this recent interview with Jon Tribb of LadieZ Night, Kate Darling on Tech in the Adult Industry...

"The adult industry is notoriously innovative, and it’s going through the same technological disruption as other entertainment industries in the Internet age. [...] When I looked for research on the subject, I couldn’t find very much, so I decided to do it myself. [...] Adult entertainment has always been in tremendous demand. Also, many new media formats have increased privacy and convenience, which is something that consumers value highly. Another reason may be that the adult industry has never really had the option of fighting technological change. [...] As with previous technological disruptions, the companies that figure out ways to use this new architecture to their advantage rather than spend all of their resources trying to stop it are more likely to win in the end. [...] once the current dust settles, I think we will be left with some highly professional, smart, competitive players, and I think that they have a good shot at surviving, and even thriving."

Finally, Darling answers the obligatory question about sexbots...

"I’m fascinated with all of the directions that social robotics is taking and truly hope we manage to develop sophisticated sex robots"

Be sure to read the full, uncut interview;-)

From Blueprint to Scale ~ Savvy Impact Investing

Thanks to Acumen founder Jacqueline Novogratz for spotlighting From Blueprint to Scale: The Case for Philanthropy in Impact Investing, a new study by Monitor's Harvey Koh, Ashish Karamchandani, and Robert Katz which reports that...

"There is growing interest in the role of market-based solutions in addressing the problems of poverty, through inclusive businesses that tap into the potential of the global poor as customers and suppliers -- the so-called ‘fortune at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).’ Encouraged by the growth of microfinance, many promising new models are emerging. This has elicited a rush to the new field of ‘impact investing’ -- producing social or environmental good as well as financial return -- with hundreds of funds set up in just a few years and billions of dollars waiting to be invested. But many investors report that they are struggling to find good opportunities in which to invest for impact. [Indeed] impact capital alone will not unlock the potential of impact investing for the global poor. Because of the extreme challenges facing those who are pioneering new models for inclusive business, truly realizing the impact in impact investing will require more, not less, philanthropy, and will need that philanthropic support to be delivered in new ways."

Read the full report.

Champion Brands ~ Tasty Beautiful Infographic!

ChartPorn spots very cool tasty infographic of champion brands!

Essmart ~ They Deliver Essential Goods!

Check out Essmart's 90-second pitch video -- they deliver the goods!