Events happen so quickly in the wacky whirlwind world of Donald Trump that it’s hard to react in anything close to real time, but there was an interesting story in the Guardian last weekend that I think deserves some technical context. The Great British Brexit Robbery: How our Democracy was Hijacked is a breathless but well sourced story about how a U.S. billionaire harnessed Big Data to split up the European Union and steal a U.S. Presidential election. It’s an interesting read, but the point I want to make here is that the tale was entirely predictable and if one side hadn’t done it, the other would have. Next […]
Trump’s 2016 Big Data political arms race
Let them eat veggies: Obama has dinner with Steve
President Obama last night had dinner at John Doerr’s house in Silicon Valley and for some reason I wasn’t invited. I wish I had been. Can you imagine Obama making small talk with Steve Jobs? This is an instance where Steve’s lack of an internal censor probably served the event well, or at least I hope it did, because when it comes to the dinner’s goal of stimulating innovation in America every Administration from any political party needs all the help it can get. I should know, because I’ve been working a bit with those White House would-be innovators, trying to get them in the right groove.
Remember Startup America is the name of the TV […]
Wall Street and Main Street Don’t Cross
When Barack Obama was running for President one of his favorite sound bites was that any financial bailout should not just involve Wall Street, but Main Street, too – that the government’s responsibility was to help both bankers and homeowners. But now that the election is won and Obama is in office, the two streets are still being treated very differently, with Main Street getting a lot less help from Washington.
This is a HOUSING crisis, not a BANKING crisis, yet $700+ billion has gone to help bankers and only $75 billion to “help” homeowners. The banker’s money has mainly been spent and the homeowner money has hardly been touched. If this is a […]
The Not So Bad Bank
We’re seven weeks into the Obama Administration and still looking for a way out of both the banking and housing crises. TARP didn’t seem to work, at least not as its designers intended. The new housing plan hasn’t been well received and now that more details are out you’d think there would be an even more negative reaction, but the press doesn’t seem to have even noticed the details were released last week.
Had anyone actually read the press release they would have noticed the Obama plan is no longer limited to refinancing 105 percent of a home’s purchase price, but offers instead what’s essentially a 5/1 Adjustable Rate Mortgage for homeowners and […]
Surviving 2009
Microsoft
Microsoft may or may not make a deal for Yahoo’s search service. What neither firm realizes yet is there is a better way to do searches with value advertising. It will be easier than what Google is doing and can produce more tangible results. Right now both firms are in the mind set of “competing with Google” instead of being creative and innovative. When they start thinking independently and start tuning into what the customer needs, Google will have some competition.
Apple
If Apple would port its Mac software (iWork, iLife, Final Cut, etc) to Windows it could quickly OWN the software market. Microsoft’s competitive advantage is not Windows — it is Office. Apple could take them out if it chose to. They won’t in 2009. […]
