
FactorDaily's Tyagarajan S was transported to 2020. The good news is that Starbucks sells a very decent south Indian filter coffee in the future. Everything else was a bit dodgy, to say the least.
“It travels in time,” said the note stuck to the strange-looking machine. It had a yellow seat and a red button. There was no choice of a date, like the ones in movies.
Predictably, it caused a flutter at FactorDaily. “Wonder what’s new at Netflix in the future?” mused Shrabonti. “We could get ahead of the news!” gushed JPK. “We should report from the future!” declared Pankaj Mishra, the boss. Then he looked at me.
I was transported to 2020. The good news is that Starbucks sells a very decent south Indian filter coffee in the future. Everything else was a bit dodgy, to say the least
Finance minister Vijay Shekhar Sharma today announced a 5% holding charge on all savings above Rs 100,000. This applies to savings being held digitally in wallets, bank accounts or even as bitcoins. This new surgical strike is expected to drive spending and consumption in the economy and is part of government’s decade-long masterplan to make India the leading economy in the world.
“Countries should be like startups. They need to be disrupted regularly” — FinMin
Just months after fixing the issue of being stuck at intersections for a really long time, Uber’s self-driving cars seem to have hit a bigger snag: dangerous driving. Multiple reports have emerged of the ‘increasingly aggressive’ cars that are jumping signals, cutting across other vehicles and honking incessantly. Even as the Karnataka government is considering asking the company to suspend operations, Uber claims that it is being singled out.
“Our self-driving cars now give passengers an authentic Bangalore riding experience” — Uber
Ex-investment advisor at Sequoia Rahul Yadav’s new fund has been in the news recently with at least four of his ex-colleagues set to join him. New information indicates that the fund will likely have a radical investment theme.
Rahul Yadav’s recent tweets have hinted that his fund will focus on ‘hyper early-stage’ founders even without a business plan. “I mean babies,” he clarified in a follow-up tweet. He then went on to claim that he was working on advanced AI and genetic profiling to identify great potential company founders as soon as they are able to walk.
Rahul Yadav’s love-hate relationship with Sequoia seems to have hit a low again as he signed off his tweet storm with: “Eat that @sequoia”.
In its largest initiative so far to serve the growing need and popularity of fake news and information, Facebook yesterday launched Fakebook — a version of the site focussed only on fake news sites and content creators. While launching the new site, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Facebook was a pioneer in providing a platform for fake information. Even when people were calling it a bug, I contented that it was a feature. Today, I’ve been proven right.”
“Facebook was a pioneer in providing a platform for fake information. Even when people were calling it a bug, I contented that it was a feature. Today, I’ve been proven right” — Zuckerberg
Following a spate of foreign-born founders getting Indian citizenships to take advantage of the Indian government’s scheme to give tax holidays and other incentives, Flipkart co-founder, Sachin Bansal has demanded that the founders must be genetically tested for ‘Indianess’ in order to be eligible for these sops.
Sachin’s comments come on the heels of Jeff Bezos and Travis Kalanick recently acquiring Indian citizenships in order to avail Indian government incentives. Flipkart, which was bought by Alibaba and merged with PayTM a few years back, is locked in an intense battle with Amazon in India.
Snapdeal proved once again that there is no better company when it comes to pivoting away from an impending funding cliff-edge when it announced that it would now solely focus on fake products.
“The taboo around fake products is fast disappearing. People want value for money. Who is to say what’s real anyway?” — Snapdeal
Unicon Baba, one of India’s most influential voices in the startup ecosystem, has been appointed as an advisor to the PMO on how to build India’s startup space. Following the announcement, Unicon Baba tweeted, “Time for the startup system to wake up. No more crony investors or copy-cat businesses. Baba is here.”
“Time for the startup system to wake up. No more crony investors or copy-cat businesses. Baba is here” — Unicon Baba