David Lidsky's Blog, page 3039
March 5, 2015
The Denim Empire: See The History Of Gap In 4 Minutes
There's nothing more American than blue jeans. Here's how two married entrepreneurs turned that idea into a booming business.
When it launched in 1969, the Gap was a cool store sandwiched between a high school and a college that sold only jeans and music. (Early name idea: Pants and Discs. Seriously.) Now, thanks in part to a series of iconic ads featuring celebs and civilians alike, Gap is a billion-dollar retail business with several spin-offs, and still an American classic.
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Meet The Woman Who Combined Neuroscience Tech And Mindfulness
Ariel Garten combined her background as a therapist and fashion designer to make Muse, the brainwave-reading wearable, a success.
Ariel Garten has turned a knack for connecting the dots between things that seem to have nothing in common into a successful startup.
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March 4, 2015
Etsy Files For IPO
The goods seller is finally going public.
Etsy, the Brooklyn-based online retailer that makes it easy for people to market and sell their handmade goods, is going public. The company filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday and will trade under the symbol ETSY. Founded in 2005, the company is looking to raise $100 million.
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Ad Legend Alex Bogusky Partners With Fusion: The Complicated Backstory
The man who once fronted for Burger King and Coca-Cola will now spearhead the social impact engine for the new millennial media company.
Alex Bogusky, the ad world's agile master of reinvention, has now paired up with new media outfit, Fusion, which itself hopes to reinvent media. Fearless, as Bogusky and Fusion's "full-service social impact agency platform" is called, will work with companies, foundations, and nonprofits looking to court Fusion's millennial audience through socially minded campaigns that span TV, digital, and social. The agency will execute everything from concept to media planning to measurement.
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Budget Smartphone Upstart Xiaomi Invades Europe--Without Phones
Xiaomi plans to open an accessories store in Europe offering headphones and fitness bands, but no phones yet.
In the barely five years since its founding, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has aggressively carved out a space for itself in the smartphone market with low-cost, feature-rich phones sold at razor-thin margins. Today at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Xiaomi announced plans to open its first online store for Europe—stocked with accessories only, no phones—and it's just the kind of strategic move to expect from Xiaomi.
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Should The Destruction Of Ancient Monuments Be Considered A War Crime?
The Islamic State's continuing destruction of ancient monuments has sparked a call for changing the legal definition of war crimes.
In the past several months, in addition to continuing an ethnic cleansing of the Assyrian populations of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has burned down Iraq's Mosul library, which housed more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts; burned churches and Muslim shrines; and, most recently, destroyed ancient Mesopotamian sculptures in Iraq's Mosul Museum, including winged bull deities from the ninth century B.C. that once guarded the Assyrian king's palace. The vandals, who released a video of their pillaging online, claim these ancient works promote idolatry.
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Antibiotic Resistance Could Kill Us All: Here's How To Stop It
Pharmaceutical companies don't want to make new antibiotics and academics don't want to research them. Something needs to change.
Antibiotics have saved countless lives in the last 80 years, but they're not as effective as they once were. We use too many of them, and so bacteria are developing resistance more quickly than we can come up with new drugs. The result is a growing spate of untreatable infections. In the U.S. alone, 23,000 people die from "superbugs" each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Private Spaceflight Gets A New Boost From Silicon Valley
If BVP's investment is successful, satellites could be launched for the price of a not-particularly-luxurious Manhattan apartment.
One of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capital companies is making a big bet on outer space. Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), which manages more than $4 billion in capital and primarily invests in cybersecurity and enterprise technology firms, announced a new aerospace investment practice this week. The launch coincides with the appointment of satellite industry veteran Scott Smith as a part-time partner and an undisclosed Series B funding round in New Zealand firm Rocket Lab, which produces low-cost rockets designed to send miniature satellites into space.
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What A Pong-Beating Robot Says About Where Silicon Valley Is Taking AI
Google DeepMind's breakthrough hints at the possibilities of multipurpose artificial intelligence.
Back in 1975, two young computer hackers named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak helped create a game called Breakout. Inspired by the popular paddle-and-ball game Pong, Breakout asked players to use a similar setup to smash bricks on a screen by bouncing a ball back and forth. While slightly derivative, the presence of the two future Apple cofounders at a critical stage in their careers underscores just how significant video games have been in the history of groundbreaking high-tech.
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March 3, 2015
The Secret To The Monster Success Of "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood," According To Kim Kardashian
With an estimated $200 million in yearly revenue, the game delights fans by planning for happy accidents.
Last year, game studio Glu Mobile unleashed a monster hit from which the world never fully recovered: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. As a role-playing game it was an enormous success, with initial (and perhaps overstated?) estimates predicting $200 million in annual revenue. ($85 million of which would go to Kardashian-West herself). So far, the game has tallied 28 million downloads to go with 11 billion minutes played since last summer. The list of Kardashian-sized triumphs goes on and on and on.
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