Hello, friends!
There’s a lot to talk about. A lot that is interesting.
A common theme that I think is becoming increasingly prevalent is the fungibility of technology. Not just software, but all of tech, including biotech, across all industries and aspects of life. What I mean is that technology is increasingly not its own confined domain, but something that is becoming foundational to everything that we do, to our future, and to our world. Probably not news to you at this point, especially if you are young and already have (overwhelming?) engagement with technology, but this is an important theme. Observing (and investing) in technology is not just about technology at the expense of everything else. What is becoming clear is that technology is everything because everything is or soon will be technology.
The article below on how a pastry AI learned to detect cancer is an interesting example. Not only because there is such thing as a pastry AI that is apparently very successful in Japan (yes, anything and everything will adopt technology), but that the technology is fungible and can be used for doing something entirely different like detecting cancer. It’s not everyday that a pastry-anything can be used for something entirely different like cancer-detection, but it certainly illustrates the point very well that we should see technology jump across areas / industries in unexpected ways. Especially if that technology is starting from a technically challenging industry already (like hard sciences) and moving into less technical areas.
What an amazing world we live in.
And it’s interesting to consider how the equation has reversed around what drives the world. For 100 years, it almost seemed as if the world is driven by politics / geopolitics alone (and maybe the whims of some colorful characters). And everything else is sort of a derivative of that political environment. But increasingly, I think it’s becoming obvious that politics and geopolitics is becoming subservient to technology. The single most powerful driver of everything in the world today is technology. Even politics is now driven by technology.
🤑 Economics
#1 Biden’s $2 Trillion American Jobs Plan
While the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic and delivering relief for working families, this is no time to build back to the way things were. This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy. The American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China. Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.
Source: The White House
Biden released details of his American Jobs Plan (focused on infrastructure whereas prior stimulus was more focused on alleviating pandemic stress).
It’s BIG. And will be spread out over a 10-15 year period. Ranges from basic infrastructure like roads, bridges, and safe drinking water to efforts to tackle climate change, rework supply chains, and make the US more competitive in the long-run.
China gets a few mentions (not surprising). And corporate taxes are going to go up to help pay for this. What I think is getting less attention than it deserves is the global minimum corporate tax (21% minimum globally and will be enforced country-by-country in order to squash tax havens). I think this is way more important than people realize because it will change currency dynamics and foreign investment dynamics quite a bit. I think the impact on investments is getting some attention (i.e. if there is no tax advantage abroad, you might be more encouraged to invest in the US assuming you can get similar operating expense structure, though that is potentially a questionable assumption because American labor and land is far more expensive than basically anywhere else), but the currency impact is not getting as much attention.
Currently companies invest abroad and keep most of their money abroad because it gets taxed when it is repatriated to the US. If they never repatriate it, they never pay taxes on it. But if the US establishes a minimum global tax that must be paid, it means that corporations will start to bring back some money if only just to pay the tax. This is dollar positive. It will create pressures to push the USD upwards because corporations will be forced to convert the profits they generate in other currencies back into dollars (i.e. corporations will be forced buyers of dollars). Currently the narrative against the dollar is INSANELY strong. But I think that’s wrong. It might be temporarily right (as it was for the past 6 months), but we are in a structurally strong dollar regime. Anyone betting against the dollar is likely to be wrong, in my opinion.
#2 God and Man Collide in Bill Hwang’s Dueling Lives on Wall Street
The story thus far — of a mind-boggling fortune made in stealth and then wiped out very publicly in a blink — has sent shock waves through some of the world’s mightiest banks. Estimates of the potential size of his position before it imploded have spiraled toward $100 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the disaster, which has set teeth on edge in trading rooms across the globe.
…
Archegos — a Greek word often translated as “author” or “captain,” and often considered a reference to Jesus — was believed by many traders doing business with the firm to be sitting atop $10 billion of assets. That figure, representing Hwang’s personal fortune, was actually closer to $20 billion, according to people who did business with Archegos.
To put that figure in context: Bill Hwang, a name few even on Wall Street had heard until now, was worth more than well-known industry figures like Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen and David Tepper.
Even more remarkable is the breakneck speed at which Hwang’s fortune grew. Archegos started out in 2013 with an estimated $200 million. That’s a sizable fortune but nowhere near big money in the hedge fund game.
Yet within a decade, Hwang’s fortune swelled 100 times over, traders and bankers now estimate. Much of those riches accrued in the past 12 to 24 months alone, as Hwang began to employ more and more leverage to goose his returns, and as banks, eager for his lucrative trading business, eagerly obliged by extending him credit.
Source: Bloomberg
The last edition of Tidbits included an article about Archegos and how it had caused a major market dislocation two weeks ago. While the dislocation was big, you may not have noticed it unless you pay attention to Chinese ADRs or certain parts of US tech and US media companies, the areas where Archegos were concentrated in. For example, Viacom, Discovery, Baidu, Shopify, GSX, and several other names saw significant sell-offs because of this. Quite disorderly…
Bloomberg just published a fascinating profile of Bill Hwang with very interesting details around his history and personality. He’s quite different from the average Wall Street “Master of the Universe”.
The most unusual thing in this is that Archegos was a family office (the money invested was almost entirely his). When most hedge funds fail, it’s usually “other people’s money” that disappears. But in this case, the vast majority of the money that went down the drain was Bill Hwang’s own money (and it sure seems like all $20 billion has been vaporized in under the span of a week). You would think that someone investing their own money would be quite a bit more conservative than taking on 5-10x leverage. Even more unfortunate that he apparently had a $20 billion fortune and still thought it a good idea to continue to take so much risk in order to make EVEN more money.
🗺 Geopolitics
Still all about chips, chips, chips. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking around this area. Will have a few things to say in a dedicated post soon.
#3 TSMC to spend US$100 billion on expansion over next 3 years
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is planning to invest US$100 billion over the next three years to expand operations.
TSMC said the massive investment will aim to use more resources for research and development and upgrading technologies, to maintain the company’s lead over its peers on the global market.
Source: Focus Taiwan
That’s a lot of money. Very few companies can invest at that kind of level. Very few countries can invest at that kind of level.
BUT, in a way, this type of investment is also somewhat of a defense investment. The best protection Taiwan has against war of any kind and reinforcing the status quo is ensuring that the cost of attacking the island (if you’re China) is high and ensuring the value of protecting the island (if you’re the US) is high. The way to kill both birds with one stone is to invest and ensure that TSMC foundries in Taiwan remain at the leading edge ahead of the rest of the world.
Yes, TSMC is building a fab in the US, but it is going to be 1 node behind the fabs in Taiwan. This is required by Taiwanese law. TSMC is not allowed to build a truly peer leading edge fab anywhere outside of Taiwan.
#4 Exclusive: A billion for every chip-maker who ‘makes in India,’ sources say
India is offering more than $1 billion in cash to each semiconductor company that sets up manufacturing units in the country as it seeks to build on its smartphone assembly industry and strengthen its electronics supply chain, two officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ drive has helped to turn India into the world’s second-biggest mobile manufacturer after China. New Delhi believes it is time for chip companies to set up in the country.
“The government will give cash incentives of more than $1 billion to each company which will set up chip fabrication units,” a senior government official told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak with media.
Source: Reuters
Echoing what I said in the last edition of Tidbits – Good luck. Everyone wants a fab in their own country, but it’s way more expensive than most countries can afford…especially when you compare the paltry $1 billion India is offering vs the $100 billion that TSMC is going to spend in the next 3 years.
India might get some fabs, but they definitely won’t be leading edge. Some trailing edge fabs might be incentivized to move. India is a very large market that is about 15 years behind China, but it could be very relevant in a decade or two. It’s already one of the 10 largest economies in the world, despite significant underdevelopment.
#5 US, Europe ‘unrealistic’ in fab expansion drive, says TSMC chair
It would be “economically unrealistic” for the US and Europe to expand semiconductor fab capacity to satisfy their own needs, according to TSMC chairman Mark Liu.
Source: Digitimes
Mark Liu is a straight shooter.
🎭 Society
#6 Tinder will soon let you run a background check on a potential date
Tinder and other Match Group-owned apps are going to let their users run background checks on possible dates. The company announced an investment in Garbo, a nonprofit that looks to allow people to run background checks with only their first name and phone number or full name. The investment, of which Match didn’t disclose the amount, will help make the group’s tech available to Match’s users, starting with the company’s most popular app: Tinder.
This means Tinder users will be able to vet their dates with details like their arrest record or history of violence. That could dramatically affect who finds success on the app and who doesn’t. Garbo says it collects “public records and reports of violence or abuse, including arrests, convictions, restraining orders, harassment, and other violent crimes,” and its website says it accepts manually submitted “police report(s), order(s) of protection / restraining orders, and other legal documents that report abuse, harassment, or other crimes.” (That manual function isn’t currently live, however.)
Source: The Verge
Sounds kind of creepy, but there’s also a powerful argument in there about protecting people from others with troubling records of violence or abuse.
Not sure whether this will be a hit or not, but I am certain that for the people that want this information, they will pay a decent amount of money (likely a lot more than the <$20 ARPU that Tinder currently generates per user).
💰 Fintech
#7 ShopeePay tops Indonesian e-wallet game in Q1: Survey
Sea Group’s ShopeePay has quickly become a serious contender in Indonesia’s e-payment scene. A recent survey by market research firm Snapcart found that it was the most used e-wallet in the country this March.
ShopeePay has been used by 76% of the respondents, followed by GoPay (57%), Ovo (54%), Dana (49%), and LinkAja (21%), as reported by local media Bisnis Indonesia. The survey also revealed that users frequently pay offline transactions with their e-wallet. Snapcart Indonesia director Astrid Williandry said that the high usage was due to promotions and partnership with many merchants, including retailers and restaurants.
Snapcart claims that as of this month, ShopeePay has a 38% market share and is widening the gap with other players. Both Ovo and GoPay only reached half of ShopeePay’s share, while Dana (10%) and LinkAja (4%) were trailing behind.
Source: KrAsia
Nothing warms my heart more than this!
While SE is hardly an underdog anymore since it is now the largest company in Southeast Asia (it’s clearly a monster)…ShopeePay is still somewhat of an underdog since it only officially launched recently. It’s incredible how much SE has accomplished with ShopeePay after only officially launching just about a year ago. This further cements my belief at how incredible SE’s execution capabilities are. Either that or the claimed network effects of SE’s peers are bogus. It’s even more incredible because their peers are not all standalone wallets (which arguably have weaker network effects). For example, GoPay is the digital wallet of the leading ride-hailing company, Gojek. Ride-hailing does have meaningful network effects. For ShopeePay to come in so quickly and take the pole position from Gojek / GoPay is actually quite shocking. But if you ask the losing competitors, they will quickly point out to you that SE is subsidizing ShopeePay usage quite aggressively. The question is whether consumers that are adopting it now because of subsidies will continue to use it when the subsidies decline.
#8 Miley Cyrus Surprises Fans by Giving Out $1 Million in Stocks via Cash App
Miley Cyrus has partnered with Cash App to distribute $1 million in stocks to fans, becoming the first person in history to give away such a high volume of shares en masse in a nearly instantaneous fashion, according to the announcement.
In a post uploaded to Instagram and Twitter this morning, Cyrus wrote, “Nothing is more important than investing in yourself. I want to spread ownership to as many people as I can, so I’m teaming up with @CashApp to give out $1 MILLION in stocks.”
Source: Variety
If there’s another digital wallet that has execution as good as ShopeePay, it has to be Square’s Cash App.
Back in Tidbits #34, we discussed how incredible Cash App’s marketing has been. Cash App has been able to acquire users at an average cost of $5. Not $50 or $500. Literally $5! That’s cheaper than buying an ad placement on Google once you taking into consideration the conversion ratio that you normally get on an ad.
This marketing effort with Miley Cyrus continues to show how Square thinks outside of the box. For $1 million, if they acquire anything more than 10k users, that would already be a VERY good outcome. But somehow I think they will acquire more.
What’s even more interesting is how the marketing efforts have evolved.
Cash App used to give away cash. Now they are giving away stock. Why does this matter? This matter because when you give users cash, it will leave the system when they eventually spend it. If you give them stock, it remains within the account. If they sell the stock, they will get cash but it will likely remain in the account until it is eventually used to buy stock (or crypto since Cash App is now one of the easiest ways for “normals” to buy crypto). Usually when people have investing money, they keep it as investing money rather than spend it. It’s a bit of mental magic there. Humans are pretty good at bucketing things even though money should be fungible across all use cases. Square continues to engage in masterful psychological sorcery.
#9 Facebook messaging service gets delayed Brazil nod for payments
Brazil’s central bank on Tuesday cleared the way for Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service to let its users send each other funds using the Visa Inc and Mastercard card networks, months after vetoing WhatsApp’s initial attempt.
When WhatsApp tried to launch the transfer service last June, the central bank said it could damage Brazil’s existing payments system in terms of competition, efficiency and data privacy, adding that the service had failed to obtain the needed licenses.
…
After initially trying to avoid becoming a financial services company in Brazil and seeking to piggyback on Visa and Mastercard’s existing central bank licenses, WhatsApp surrendered to regulatory pressure, obtaining formal approval as a payments initiator using Visa and Mastercard as processors.
…
Still, WhatsApp is only allowed to do peer-to-peer payments, not involving merchants, unlike the free Pix service, which can be used to pay businesses and individuals. Facebook is still seeking approval to operate with merchants.
Source: Reuters
Brazil and India are testing grounds for Facebook’s fintech ambitions. The approval for WhatsApp payments in Brazil is an important step, though it’s still currently hobbled without the capability to pay merchants.
Although WhatsApp’s efforts are being hobbled / delayed by the government, WhatsApp does have a dominating presence in the country (over 100 million users). Messaging has very strong network efforts, so it still seems like it’s WhatsApp’s game to lose.
This is important to monitor as it somewhat competes with Mercadolibre’s MercadoPago digital wallet in Brazil.
#10 Exclusive: Visa moves to allow payment settlements using cryptocurrency
Visa Inc said on Monday it will allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, the latest sign of growing acceptance of digital currencies by the mainstream financial industry.
…
The USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar.
…
Traditionally, if a customer chooses to use a Crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency held in a cryptocurrency wallet needs to be converted into traditional money.
…
Visa’s latest step, which will use the ethereum blockchain, strips out the need to convert digital coin into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled.
Source: Reuters
Crypto is being folded into the traditional finance / payments infrastructure, but likely not in the ways crypto-enthusiasts imagined.
Visa is enabling crypto payments, but it’s really just trying to infuse USD with some of the benefits of blockchain technology and fewer of the downsides.
In the coming years, Central Banks around the world will likely launch their own cryptocurrencies. It will be interesting to see what happens to some portions of the crypto market when that happens.
#11 Okta and Cloudentity partner to drive open banking
Okta is partnering with Cloudentity, an identity authorization and API governance company, to serve the growing open banking market with zero trust authorization services.
Open banking is a concept that is catching on globally. It enables third-party developers to access a consumer’s banking data via APIs, so they can provide new financial services and tools — such as the mobile payment service Venmo or the online finance tools from SoFi.
To facilitate open banking, Okta said this week, it’s using Cloudentity’s Dynamic Authorization technology to automatically onboard APIs and cloud services into the Okta Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) ecosystem. This will protect the APIs and services with dynamic access control policies designed for heavily-regulated industries like finance.
Source: ZDNet
I’m going to need to do more work to understand what this is, but it sounds potentially transformative actually. It’s another instance where Okta is shifting from enterprise identity (i.e. managing employee identity and access) to consumer identity (i.e. managing a company’s customer identity and access).
This is also very interesting because my gut feeling says this brings them A LOT closer to what Plaid is doing. And Plaid is worth a lot of money and getting a lot of attention. Plaid is basically a hub for managing your fintech credentials and allowing your fintech apps to access your bank accounts. What Okta is doing with Cloudentity sounds a lot like it could be heading in the same direction.
🛍 Commerce
#12 Nike Building In-house Social Commerce App Aimed at Gen Z
Nike is looking to create its own social shopping niche outside the bounds of TikTokand Instagram.
The athleticwear giant recently set up a landing page for what its dubbed Nothing but Gold, an app in “super stealth mode” aimed at young women shoppers. The project is clearly making an attempt to build something of a Nike community among the group, with the site calling for young women to “tell us why you’re nothing but gold on [Instagram] for a chance to build the future with us.” The site also has a moving banner that repeats “good vibes only” and “surround yourself with love.”
According to the landing page, the app will present a mix of “sport, style and self care,” but gives little other detail. The Instagram page it directs to has about 8,800 followers. Nike’s main Instagram page has more than 140 million followers while its main women’s page has nearly 8 million. A Nike representative could not be reached for comment on the new app.
Source: WWD
Hmmmm 🤔
Wonder if this is going to be Nike-only or something broader. Not sure how many people will want to download an app that is only for Nike content (especially since Nike already has several other apps).
But in other news, social commerce is coming to EVERYWHERE near you. China is already showing the world how engaging and powerful social commerce can be. And the rest of the world will likely turn out no different.
👨💻 Technology
#13 Microsoft $22 Billion U.S. Army Deal for HoloLens Advances
The deal, initially unveiled three years ago, is now worth as much as $21.9 billion over 10 years, according to Microsoft. The agreement runs for an initial five years, with an option to add another five years. The software maker will manufacture the augmented-reality devices in the U.S. The Army announced the contract Wednesday on its website.
…
The program, known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, aims to develop a “heads-up display” for U.S. ground forces, similar to those fighter pilots use in the cockpit. The system would let commanders project information onto a visor in front of a soldier’s face, and would include other features such as night vision. In October 2018, the U.S. Army awarded Microsoft a $480 million contract to adapt its HoloLens AR headset, a set of goggles that overlay holograms on top of a user’s field of view, for the program.
The headset “delivers a platform that will keep soldiers safer and make them more effective,” said Alex Kipman, a Microsoft Technical Fellow, said in a blog post shared by email. “The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios.”
Source: Bloomberg
Wow. This is the largest commitment to AR / VR of any kind so far. This is a major stamp of approval for Microsoft / HoloLens.
And as the old joke goes, military and pr0n have been at the forefront of technology since the beginning of time (these two industries were inventors / early adopters of things like the internet, GPS, VHS, radar, planes, computers etc). With the military on board (pr0n was already on board with VR for years), it may mean that AR / VR is almost ready for mainstream adoption 😄.
#14 Facebook Reality Labs VP: We Won’t Have Phones in 15 Years
Great two part interview with Facebook’s Bosworth on AR / VR. Also touches on some of the controversies surrounding the impact of social media. Bosworth’s views introduce more nuance than what media sound bytes generally offer.
Source: Bloomberg
Source: Bloomberg
#15 Google is making some big upgrades to directions in Google Maps
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406882/Indoor_Live_View_2.gif?w=1088&ssl=1)
One of the biggest announcements is that Google is bringing its Live View augmented reality directions to airports, transit stations, and malls. Live View directions let you hold your phone up, point your camera at the world around you, and see arrows and icons pointing you where you need to go, and previously, they only worked outdoors.
Source: Google
The AR directions look good! Too bad, I think it will be mostly used on glasses that will controlled by Google’s competitors when AR glasses become prevalent.
Google Maps has so much potential, yet Google has moved awfully slowly to capture any real value here…for perspective, Google Maps was launched when Yahoo’s MapQuest was still dominant. That’s like a millennium ago in internet space. And Google Maps had a huge lead over Apple Maps for years. It still does, but the gap has narrowed quite a bit.
#16 Fiat made a ‘Hey Google’ car
Three new special edition Fiat 500s — the Fiat 500, 500X crossover, and 500L MPV — have been branded with Google livery that extends from using the tech giant’s corporate colors in the cars’ seat upholstery to placing “Hey Google” badges above their front wheel arches. Having this sort of branding inside a car is not unusual, but this is the first time we’ve seen a tech company’s logo appear on a vehicle’s exterior.
…
All three vehicles come with 7-inch touchscreens with Google Assistant built in, naturally, but offer some unique features thanks to integration with Fiat’s Mopar Connect service.
These will let users monitor and control certain aspects of their car remotely through Google’s digital assistant on their phone or Google Nest Hub. They can check on the car’s fuel level, see if it’s locked, switch on its emergency lights, or even find the closest Fiat service station. Alerts can also be sent to the owner if the car exceeds a certain speed or leaves a certain geographic area. (Though not all these features will be available globally.)
Source: The Verge
Yea or nay?
Note – This is NOT an autonomous car. This is purely a Fiat car with Google Assistant integration and some Google-y design accents.
💉 Health
#17 The Pastry A.I. That Learned to Fight Cancer
In early 2017, a doctor at the Louis Pasteur Center for Medical Research, in Kyoto, saw a television segment about the BakeryScan. He realized that cancer cells, under a microscope, looked kind of like bread. He contacted brain, and the company agreed to begin developing a version of BakeryScan for pathologists. They had already built a framework for finding interesting features in images; they’d already built tools allowing human experts to give the program feedback. Now, instead of identifying powdered sugar or bacon, their system would take a microscope slide of a urinary cell and identify and measure its nucleus.
Source: The New Yorker
This is a long read, but like most things in The New Yorker, it’s quite enjoyable. It’s a fun read about how an AI system originally developed to recognize pastries in Japan is now used for detecting cancer.
Technology is amazing. The fungibility of technology and science across various aspects of life!
For those that understand a little bit about AI, the kicker here is that this AI system is quite sophisticated despite not using deep learning. The developers behind this technology have gotten really far on traditional AI methods and vision algorithms.
#18 Letter Urging HHS to Increase NIH-Moderna Vaccine Access
We write about the soon-to-issue-patent, U.S. Patent No. 10,960,070 (“the ’070 patent”),1 that protects the use of proline-substituted coronavirus spike proteins stabilized in their prefusion conformation as a vaccine immunogen. The mRNA-1273 vaccine, co-developed by NIAID and Moderna, utilizes this technology for its immunogen.2 The ’070 patent is owned by the United States Government, reflecting the critical contributions that NIAID and NIH made to the invention of this technology.3
…
The U.S. government has not licensed the patent to Moderna.5 It is imperative that the NIH uses any licensing agreement to include provisions to help increase global access to this lifesaving technology, rather than just a monetary royalty.
…
2. Require technology sharing with the World Health Organization to help ramp up global production.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization has urged countries to share vaccine technology and know-how openly to help build global manufacturing capacity.6 Moderna has so far ignored requests from developing country manufacturers to share technology.7 Requiring Moderna to work with the WHO’s COVID-19 technology access pool can help unlock additional production.
Source: Public Citizen
Moderna has likely been impacted recently by Public Citizen’s call for basically semi-nationalization of Moderna’s vaccines on the grounds that this is important and life-saving technology that should not be kept undersupplied.
It reads a bit scary (for Moderna)…but it’s unlikely to lead to much.
On the bright side, nothing like a major non-profit marketing Moderna as life-saving and critical technology.
For our Moderna investment, COVID-19 vaccines is near-term important, but what I’m really interested in is all the other stuff that you can eventually do with the powerful technology that is now demonstrated to work in close to half a billion people (between all the mRNA vaccine players, not just Moderna). Never before have we had a single health technology so widely validated in such a short period of time.
🤔 Hmm…
#19 New Space Race Shoots for Moon and Mars on a Budget
The first space race was a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for national pride and military advantage. Now NASA is farming out missions to private companies, and other countries have joined the race — notably China and India. The moon and Mars remain tantalizing goals for many nations, as are the technological advances that space exploration can drive.
Source: Bloomberg
This article is from a while back. I just came across it a few days ago, but I LOVE that cost chart. It also includes a great overview of what various players / nations are planning.
SpaceX is incredible and may go down as one of the most important companies of this century. It is incredible what a private company led by a capable founder (Elon Musk) has been able to do in such a short period of time.
In addition to SpaceX, I’m also very curious about Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos’ rocket company) and their plans. I wish that chart above included the cost structure for Blue Origin as well. From what I’ve read elsewhere, Blue Origin is also quite competitive.
And moon bases are coming soon:
Under NASA’s plans to return this decade with the Artemis program, a craft powered by its new Space Launch System rocket would dock at a lunar orbital platform, hosting four-person crews for up to three months. Astronauts would descend from there to the surface, where minerals could be mined and resources tapped to create oxygen, water and rocket propellant. A refueling module would service the space station as well as Mars missions. SpaceX is developing its Starship spacecraft for flights to the moon and beyond. Separately, Blue Origin has its own plans for a base on the moon’s south pole.
Source: Bloomberg
#20 Announcing the AWS Space Accelerator for startups
In other news…AWS is funding space startups.
Helping startups succeed, from inception to IPO, has been an integral part of Amazon Web Services (AWS) since our beginning. Today, more startups build on AWS than any other cloud provider, and many of our customers and partners started with AWS at an early stage. For example, Capella Space began their journey on AWS as a startup to provide customers with access to satellite data within minutes of capture—far faster than traditional satellite data services, and at a lower cost.
As the global aerospace and satellite industry enters a new age, leveraging the power of startups will drive innovation and improve accessibility to space data. AWS understands the importance of creating and nurturing startup communities, and today, we are proud to announce the launch of the AWS Space Accelerator.
Source: Amazon / AWS
One thought on “Tidbits #38 – The Pastry AI That Can Detect Cancer”
Comments are closed.