growth and decline in connected devices" ebooks vs gaming vs smartphone vs tablets

Proliferation of  Digitally Connected Devices

London's hottest 3 start ups in 2015

Which  industry verticals  are venture funds most likely to invest in

London’s investors list an average of 13 market  verticals tags each and are most interested in the large general markets like  (404), Consumer Internet (367), Enterprise Software (266) and E-Commerce (215). The most popular markets for London’s investors:

1)DELIVEROO 76-78 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4QS

 Deliveroo drivers collect the food and deliver it "usually seven to eight minutes after it leaves the kitchen".Its a QS food ordering system as well as provides logistical support to fast food giants as well as neighbourhood stores.Orders can be delivered only via tablet ( android and iOS app). Its present in ten UK cities -- as well as Dublin, Paris and Berlin -- Deliveroo raised £16m in January

and plans to expand into 30 cities by year end

Co Founders:Will Shu and Greg Orlowski

 2)IMPROBABLE 20 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3HE 

Improbable calls itself as an enabler of connecting gaming enthusiasts online . Its vision is to  create vast online games with thousands of players playing across virtual worlds.The company is using the " technique of "distributed systems" used in high-frequency trading and applying them to video games.
 the company recently announced $20 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

Co-founders:  Cambridge graduates Herman Narula and Rob Whitehead

3)WORLDREMIT 66 Hammersmith Road, London W14 8UD Worldremit is your typical money exchange services, much like western union. However WorldRemit makes the process easier while charging lower commission than high-street banks. The company already has raised fund to the tune of raised $100 million in February from Technology Crossover Ventures and Accel, with plans to expand into the US and worldwide The World Bank estimates that international money transfers will hit $646 billion in 2015.

Co-founders :Having a former UN advisor as a co-founder surely helps . Its founded by  former UN adviser Ismail Ahmed.

Marco Rubio campaign contributions and donations

Marco Rubio first rose to elective office in 2000 and holds an elected position to this day. Rubio has served as an elected official for a total of 15 years and counting, which is exactly the average for 2016 presidential candidates. Of of  1st November he has raised $47,713,472

Start Up Focus :The making and funding of Spotify

CEO and Co-Founder of Spotify Daniel Ek became a multimillionaire at age 23 when he sold an online advertising company in his native Sweden in 2006.

Not many know that it was a rejection  from Google which made " Daniel what he has achieved today As a 16 year old he was turned away when he applied for a job at Google. This, daniel says was a start of a journey and a turning point  " when he undertook a resolution' of not letting age interfere with his knowledge and subsequently gave birth to an idea, which he has since never looked back 

The idea behind Spotify was " the opportunity" it gave to  the sputtering music industry to create an alternative to music-piracy services such as Napster. Spotify gives a cut of the revenue to record labels and music publishers, which in turn pay out their artists and songwriters at varying rates.

The major labels – Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and Access Industries’ Warner Music Group – also own about 15%of the company, collectively. Spotify reported in November that its 2013 revenue was €747 million ($842 million) and it lost €57.8 million ($65 million).

 Spotify revenue model is based on a bait that " offers a limited, free version of its service", hoping users will eventually subscribe. The company counts 15 million subscribers to its $9.99 premium plan, and about 45 million active users of its free, ad-supported version – by far the biggest global user base of any subscription music offering

List of  VC  Funding and Equity Investments in Spotify; As of 2015 137 VC funding firms have a stake in the company 

GoPro releases its first images shot from its new quadcopter drone

via Statista

In April 2014, GoPro was listed by Adweek as one of the "Top 10 Best Brand Channels on YouTube" based on a combination of views, shares, comments and overall engagement

 while early this year there were rumors about GoPro  making a quadcopter drone, but few details have since been shared about the project. However today that was confirmed as GoPro had just uploaded the first footage from the drone to its YouTube channel .GoPro ( former  Woodman Labs, Inc), is an American manufacturer of action cameras, often used in extreme-action videography.

The quadcopter drone "video grab were remarkably smooth, and the video also claims that the footage was not stabilized in post, but this could just be a result of careful filming.

In about 13 months since GoPro’s IPO , it is  currently trading at around $60 per share (up 150 percent from its IPO price of $24) and reported another great quarter this week, with the company posting a $35 million profit on revenue of $420 million.

Apple's shrinking Ipad business vs stunning Iphone success

The study of 2 contrasting products from Apple stable : iphone vs iPad

The Ipad continues to bleed as the IPhone continue to ride on unprecedented growth. From a peak of 25 million Ipads  in December 2014.

Ipad shipments  has slumped to 9.9 million last quarter, down 20% year-over-year. However it still managed to do about $4.3 billion this quarter , but whats disappointing, is that this was the first time  that Apple shipped fewer than 10 million iPad's in a quarter since the June 2011 quarter.

 In contrast the story of iPhone is something remarkable.The very fact that iPhone manages to sell upgraded versions year after year, without a  radical change in its product is remarkable. This quarter iPhone made up 63% of  overall Apple revenue ,selling more than 48 million  iPhone's a 22% YoY growth

The biggest growth for Apple came from China, as sales grew  99% year-over-year,mainly due to the early launch of the iPhone there this year.

Highest Paid CEO's compared with their 1 year shareholder return to investors

These are the top 10 highest paid Chief Executive Officers

Top 10 CEO compensation ranked by Shareholder Returns

While compensation levels of CEO's have skyrocketed.. so have the attrition rate . The average stay of Fortune 500 CEO's have today come down to an average of less than 3 years compared to 5 years a decade ago. This chart published by Wall Street Journal compares the compensation of top 10 executives versus the shareholder return in the last one year.

Only 4 companies  General Electric ,Liberty Global , Aetna and Estee Launder managed to deliver a whooping more than 100% return , with GE and Liberty global delivering 250% shareholder return

Oracle's Larry Ellison and  Iger Roberts of Walt Disney have their shareholders a negative return of -18% and -8%

Timeline of Facebook Features: Infographic

FACEBOOK FEATURES TIMELINE

Evolution of Facebook Features: 2008 to 2015

asian start up companies with over $1billion valuation : top 15 list

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These are the top 15 start up companies in Asia which has been valued above a billion USD.

European tech start ups with the highest valuations

These are the top 10 European start ups with highest valuation

Spotify, Global Fashion group and Delivery hero are among the top 3 European start ups with the highest valuation.

Spotify is valued at $8.5billion with a total equity funding of $1.0billion,
The global fashion group is valued at $3.5billlion with a equity of $1.5billion.
Delivery Hero ranks number 3 most valued start up with 3.1billion USD  having been funded to the extent of 1.3billion USD

US top 3 billion dollar start up valuation exceed $95billion

These are the top 10 highest valued start ups

source : Wsj

The top 3 start ups  in US is now valued at a combined $95 billion. Uber leads the list with $51billion  followed by  Airbnb which is valued at  $25.5billion while Palantir is valued at $20billion

Snapchat and SpaceX is respectively valued $16billion and $12billion .

Meanwhile in terms of available funding these 5 top start up companies  has been funded combined upto the tune of $16billion. Effectively the  start up funding to valuation ratio for these top 5 companies is 5 times.

10 biggest technology start ups in terms of valuation

The biggest start ups by valuation

For a start up, being a unicorn ( over  $1 billion valuation )was considered a massive success for tech startups. But in recent years that one billion seems to be a history, as billion-dollar valuations are almost starting to feel routine rather a norm in tech industry.The start up darling continues to be the cab aggregator site UBER which in the last few months, once more raise its equity funding to $7.4 billion. UBER is now  worth over $50billion, and is valued currently with  $51 billion, according to statista

That is double the worth of Airbnb, which is third in the ranking of the world’s top 10 startups with a valuation of  $25 billion 

Xiaomi which has over the last one year notched up impressive marketshare is now valued at $46 billion 

Snapchat ranks 5th in the list with $16billion valuation meanwhile Indian eCommerce  marketplace Flipkart is valued at $15billion, out of  total funding  of $billion it received 

Walmart, Yum Brands and McDonald's are the top 3 biggest US employers

These are the top 30 biggest employers

AMERICA'S BIGGEST EMPLOYERS

 Company                                                                                                                      Employees      

The US Government is one of Apple's biggest Customers :Billing from Govt contracts

Apple does a huge chunk of work for the US  Government  and  it has been working with the US Defence, Security and Exchange Board, Federal divisions, and NASA

Since 2000 Apple has signed on a record 1299 contracts with the US Government with 75 being signed only in 2014 , with a guaranteed amount of $30.3million(source)

VC funding vs PE vs Hedge Funds : Investors behind PINTEREST

These are the top 5 biggest Pinterest Inventors s

Pinterest Inc.'s Investors | FindTheCompany

The Investors behind PINTEREST

1)Venture Capital Investors: 

a)Bessemer Venture Partners
b)FirstMark Capital
c)Andreessen Horowitz

2)Private Equity Investors: 

a)Goldman Sach

3)Corporate Investors:
a)Fidelity Management & Research Company
b) Rakuten

 4)Hedge Fund Investors:
a)Valiant Capital Partners

Pinterest Top 5 biggest VC Investors

These are the top 5 biggest Pinterest Inventors s

Pinterest Inc.'s Funding - Peer Comparison | FindTheCompany

American CEO's with most generous compensation packages

These are the top 10 highest paid jobs

The average American makes $50,000 to $70,000 per year. The lowest-compensated person on this list — a breakdown of America’s 25 highest-compensated executives — made $44.3 million in 2014. In America.. the CEO-to-employee pay ratios, numbers can be sometimes be as lopsided as 738-to-1. Globally this might be more

 To put that in context, the typical American would have to work 738 years straight to match the 2014 compensation for David C. Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development.The following table breaks down each of the 25 highest-paid executives in America, complete with the year-over-year change in compensation, where available. The data comes from the SEC and is visualized by FindTheCompany.

Top 10 US cities with highest pay vs highest number of jobs

Which US Cities has the biggest pay and highest career options

The above chart shows the changes in salaries across the last 15 years in US and how it has changed over the last few years

The charts above compares US cities whihc pays highest that any other US city vs US cities which provide the highest employment

CEO compensation face off : Microsoft vs Oracle

Compensation levels compared between the 2 tech giants : Microsoft's satya Nadella vs  Oracle's Lawrence Elison

LARRY ELLISON

Executive Chairman of the Board and CTO at Oracle
Total Annual Compensation: $67,261,251
Reported Accumulated Compensation: $622,002,138

SATYA NADELLA

director and CEO of Micrososft
Age: 47 ETotal Annual Compensation: $84,308,755
 Reported Accumulated Compensation: $91,977,707

the real reason why iphones and ipads cannot be manufactured in US

r those of you using apple products . specially iphone and ipad would have noticed the following t? "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.". So why exactly does ipad and iphone cannot be made in US, is it the cost of production, the costs of labor in US that makes it  difficult to made iphones in US.. Why cant  apple 's  iPhones, iPads, and all the rest of Apple's magic gadgets be built in the States?

The real story of why this cant be done ... will be a revelation .. and its also a sad  comment how America  have been loosing its " manufacturing base"  and we are no longer producing the kind of people " with the required skills "

 The New York Times asked that question, and after an extremely well-researched report involving interviews with both former and current executives at Apple, the answer the Times found is both simple and chilling: iPhones aren't made in America because they just can't be, not because of  manufacturing costs and other hyperbole . The infrastructure and labor force that apple needs to manufacture iphones and ipads  doesn't  exist at any levels  in US , which is necessary to support Apple's operations -- in fact its not even close to China...

• The Chinese factory where most iPhones reach final assembly employs 230,000 workers. Compare this with US: how many cities in the US have a population higher than that, ( according to SIRI the answer was a mere 83 cities )-- and that's total population, not workforce. With an average labor force of around 65 percent of the population, only 50 US cities are large enough to provide that kind of labor pool... and even in the biggest US city of them all, New York, 230,000 people still amounts to almost three percent of the city's entire population. 

•  One of apple's biggest supplier Foxconn  has  over  60,000 people living and working at the factory. Many of the people at "Foxconn City" work six days a week, twelve hours a day.. In US you just cannot do that .Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States, less than a fifth the number of contractor employees assembling iPhones at one Chinese factory

• Even though the 200,000 assembly-line workers putting part A into slot B could potentially be classified as unskilled labor, the 8700 industrial engineers overseeing the process  are highly skilled -- and according to the nytimes Times, finding that many qualified engineers in the States would take 9 months . Chinese manufacturers found them all in 15 days..In US the demand and supply gap between engineers who  graduates every year is appalling .

 So the reason of iphone being manufactured  is not " a merely"  manufaturing cost issue,, Instead, it's about who can build manufacture  the greatest number of iPhones within the shortest period of time, all while remaining flexible and instantaneously adaptable to Apple's needs.