Tag: Metropolis

Theranos’s Fail, Cities Grow Up or Out, and What Capitalism and Thelma and Louise Have in Common

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Photo: Fortune

Theranos Fails the Test
Theranos’ precipitous fall offers lessons for NewCos and their investors. A Conversation piece by Norman A. Paradis, professor of medicine at Dartmouth, includes all the usual we-should-have-seen-it-coming roundup of the facts. But near the end of Paradis’s article is one crucial warning sign that even those not steeped in the world of medical devices should have caught. Theranos insisted it had to operate in extended stealth mode to keep a competitive advantage, which meant it didn’t publish peer-reviewed studies. In other words, you had to trust. You couldn’t verify. This fact was further compounded by a lack of anyone with deep knowledge of medical testing on Theranos’ board. That will likely turn out to be a disaster for the investors. We’ll never know what the company could have learned and corrected for had it followed a more open approach.

A Country of Two Cities
Well, two kinds of cities, anyway. American cities grow in one of two ways: up or out (Fast Company), according to an analysis by contractor broker Buildzoom. Cities that stop expanding get too expensive for most people (hello, San Francisco!); cities that sprawl keep housing prices under control as the notion of a city center turns more diffuse.

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Copenhagen Chooses Bikes, The Tech-Government Revolving Door, and How Basic Income Might Work

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Photo: Wikimedia

Copenhagen Finds The True Cost of Cars
 It’s difficult–but important–to consider all the costs involved when you’re making a business or policy decision, which makes this report on how Copenhagen is using data to move from cars to bikes (Fast Company) so heartening. When the city makes basic decisions about transportation, it doesn’t just compare the cost of a bikeway to a road for cars, it also includes “the cost of road accidents to society, the impact of car pollution on health, and the cost of carbon emitted to the atmosphere.” As researcher Stefan Gössling from Lund University notes, “If we want people to cycle, then we have to change our approach towards urban infrastructure. Cyclists will only cycle in large numbers when they feel physically safe and when it’s fast.”

The Tech-Government Revolving Door
 There are plenty of high-profile examples of companies challenging governments (most recently Apple and Microsoft), but how can tech truly challenge government when the two are connected by a revolving door? In The Guardian, Danny Yadron traces the Valley’s long and close relationship with the U.S. government and how some are thinking differently about it now that Twitter has hired Kathy Chen, once an engineer for the People’s Liberation Army, to run ad sales and bizdev in China. It’s complicated, of course — you do recall that Twitter is currently banned in China if you don’t have a VPN? But it’s a reminder of how inextricable tech and government, in particular the military part of government, have become.

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The Two Stories of NewCo Detroit

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Detroit carries two conflicting stories: one of hopeful optimism, the other present-day realism. Both of them are true, but at NewCo Detroit last week we saw optimism win.

During NewCo’s kickoff last week, Paul Riser, managing director of TechTown Detroit, highlighted his organization’s work supporting Detroit entrepreneurs with investment and advice. His dissection of the tension between what entrepreneurs need and what markets want has ramifications beyond the realities of one tough city. Entrepreneurs anywhere have to be optimistic — the best ones, after all, are creating something new that they’re bringing into the world — but they also have to be realistic.

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Damn — It’s Hard to Pick Where To Go For NewCo Boston!

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But here’s my lineup….


The first ever NewCo Boston goes off in less than two weeks, and I’ve been studying the schedule and making my picks for the companies I most want to visit. The lineup is insanely great — Boston is brimming with innovative NewCos, 79 of which will open their doors on April 27th. Thanks to our partners at MassTLC — you guys really know how to do it right!

Tuesday, April 26th, 6 pm: VIP Kick-off & Reception @ Hatch Fenway NewCo Boston kicks off at Hatch Fenway, a NewCo incubator that was once an industrial hub. Mingle, swill, and get inspired by host company CEOs, city leaders, and VIP ticket holders alike.

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Video Spotlight: Detroit Experience Factory Is Not About Tour Buses

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Detroit Experience Factory believes the best way to revitalize its city is to engage its people. It’s doing that with experiential tours. Last year the company took 17,000 people across the city to show them what small businesses are doing, how the city’s past is affecting its future, and what the city already has to offer.

“People hear the word ‘tour’ and think double decker bus. That is not what we do,” Jeanette Pierce, Detroit Experience Factory’s executive director, tells NewCo. Its tours are interactive, focused on meeting local business owners, visiting city landmarks, and providing historical context and meaning for what’s happening in the city today. “We want to help people understand the history, the culture, the communities, the neighborhoods, and have an economic impact on the city of Detroit,” Pierce says.


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Video Spotlight: Atlas Obscura Celebrates Curiosity With the Weird and Wondrous

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In May 2015, people watched from the India Street dock in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as The Revolution, a World War II Yard Patrol boat, approached. After boarding, they set course for the city’s lesser-known islands, those that once housed undesirables: criminals, the diseased (“Typhoid” Mary), and what we then called lunatics. Those on the boat paid for the privilege. Between visiting the forgotten ruins of prison camps, psychiatric institutions, and sanatoriums within view of Manhattan and Brooklyn, they drank beer and had lunch while ferrying down the East River. The tour was just one of 150 events in 39 states and 25 countries, that took place on Obscura Day.

Riverside Hospital, a destination on Obscura Day in 2015, is where “Typhoid Mary” spent her last days. Photo by Reivax

Organized by Atlas Obscura, more than 35,000 people have turned out for its events. The events, however, are just a small part of what they company does. Working off the premise that you haven’t seen anything yet, Atlas Obscura is creating an online compendium of “the world’s most curious and awe-inspiring places.” Think of it asNational Geographic for the millennial generation.

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Sh*tty Data, Bankers on the Bread Lines, and Tesla’s Shot Clock

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The Truth Beneath Our Cities
If you want to understand a city, dig into its sewage. That’s what researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab do, turning sewage into data that reveals multitudes about a city’s health and more. The Senseable Lab is best-known for its work above ground, showing that NYC cab rides could go multipassenger and cumulative trip length would still go down. But the Lab thinks it can learn even more about how cities work by using robots to sift through human sewage. As The Guardian notes, “analyzing a city’s wastewater could allow outbreaks to be anticipated, antibiotic resistance to be mapped, and public health interventions to be monitored in almost real time.” The Lab started investigating the sewers of its hometown Cambridge, Mass.; it has a $4 million grant to go below Kuwait City later this year.

More Banking, But Fewer Bankers
It’s a bit late for Citigroup to release a report called Digital Disruption (PDF), but its projections are significant: the U.S. financial industry, already down 300,000 jobs from its pre-crisis peak of 2.9 million, will lose another 800,000 by 2025. It’s even worse for European banks. If you look deeper in the report, though, it’s a loss but it’s also a shift: the report’s authors point to the rise of fintech startups as the primary driver. There will certainly be job losses, but plenty of people will still be working in the banking industry, just not as many for the incumbent banks. What the Citigroup report mourns is the shift of power more than the absolute numbers.

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Why Solar Panels Matter, Subsidizing the Internet, and What Makes Vibrant Cities

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Why Solar Panels Matter
People put solar panels up on the roof everyday; MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman digs deep and rethinks what’s really going on. He describes the social framework for his not-as-expensive-as-he-feared solar install, built around Lawrence Lessig’s Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. The 1999 book (updated in 2006) spells out four ways societies regulate behavior (laws, markets, norms, code), which Zuckerman uses as his map for understanding his motivations, sense of reward, and value created. Most of the attention Lessig has gotten lately has been due to his brief presidential campaign; this essay is a heartening reminder that Code lives on and is relevant even in unexpected contexts. Zuckerman writes, “It’s rare to feel like you can do something unambiguously good for the world — generating solar power is one of those rare cases, thanks in part to [Lessig’s] four levers of social change coming together.”

Subsidizing the Internet
With all the attention paid to efforts by Facebook, Google, and others to deliver free or inexpensive Internet access to developing nations, it’s easy to forget that not everyone in the First World has adequate access, either. That’s why this week the Federal Communications Commission will debate whether to extend its Lifeline program (SF Chronicle), created in 1985 to subsidize phone service for low-income Americans, to the Internet. According to the Pew Center, more than 60 million Americans don’t have Internet at home. Some subset of these people do have smartphones but, as one person interviewed in the Chronicle article points out, it ain’t easy to fill out a job application on a smartphone.

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Bad Urban Planning, Less Risky Innovation, and SXSW Rocks On

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Take Me to the River
Urban planning can do bad things to communities. For example, some New York suburbs feature low bridges intended to keep out busses and the poor people who ride them. And, The Nation reports, the revitalization of Los Angeles’s neglected 51-mile riverfront “has gone from social-justice crusade to money-soaked land grab.” Will the Los Angeles River Become a Playground for the Rich? answers its own question with a resounding “It’s already happening.” Reclaiming the riverfront is a beautiful and beautifying idea, but according to this report, it’s happening in a top-down fashion that threatens to upend communities closest to the gentrifying area. There’s still time to get it right, and the Mayor’s office has already reacted to community pressure by hiring consultants to help them give affected communities “a sense of ownership” in the project, but more than “a sense” is required when projects of this scope are considered.

Managing the Risk of Innovation
If necessity is the mother of invention, could the father be … insurance? The romantic conventional wisdom about innovation is that it’s more likely when you’ve got your back to the wall, but Robert J. Shiller, in How Wage Insurance Could Spur Innovation (NYT), argues that wage insurance, now focused on Americans who have lost their jobs to foreign workers, should be expanded and could help “spur innovation in the economy.” Shiller continues: “Rational people would want to pay for this benefit so that they could take promising but risky employment opportunities.” There are potential downsides (moral hazard, anyone?) but there are many, many people stuck in BigCos who are afraid to take a risk. This might even the playing field and let these people loose. And before you argue, let’s remember that Shiller’s a Nobel Laureate who called two of the last two downturns — and we’re not.

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My Picks for NewCo Detroit in April

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Last fall I had the great pleasure of moderating a conversation featuring four Detroit companies that showcased a community of businesses on a mission. I was impressed by the collective imagination and grit in the room. I am looking forward to returning next month when we hold the citywide NewCo Detroit festival on April 13.

There are many ways to plan a full-day NewCo festival. In Detroit this year, there are two pre-planned tours, one focusing on women leaders and the other examining Detroit 2.0. Or you can plan your own route. One of my favorite — and most frustrating — tasks here is deciding which companies to visit during a NewCo festival. We often have more than a half-dozen simultaneous events. And they’re all great; we wouldn’t select organizations as NewCos if we didn’t think they were worth visiting. Choosing just one company to visit each hour is tough. But choose I must, so here goes:

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