Archimedes, one of the greatest scientific minds in antiquity (c.287-212 BC), was the first to describe the mathematics of levers. Given a fulcrum point, a small mass can balance a much heavier one at the opposite end of a lever:Given a long enough lever, anything is possible. “Give me a place to…
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You’ve probably used Twilio many times without ever knowing it. When a website sends you a text message with a code for two-factor authentic
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The big picture is that software is eating the world—that is, many of the products and services developed over the past 150 years are transf
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Roku was founded by Anthony Wood in 2002. Recall that in 2002, the internet was in its infancy, and streaming wasn’t yet a thing (Netflix didn’t start streaming until 2007). In the early days, Roku was focused on building internet radios, high-definition media players and digital signage. Over th…
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Slack Technologies is another recent investment we made. I’ve been following the company for a few years, and this year I had the opportunity to attend Slack Frontiers, the company’s two-day user conference in San Francisco, held in late April. I’ve been spending most of my research efforts makin…
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Shopify’s goal is to build a global operating system for retail. To understand what this means, think of Shopify as a website anyone can visit to sign up for a store—prices start at $29 per month for a full online store experience including unlimited product listings—and get up and running in a f…
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You have probably heard of Square’s first product, launched in 2010. It was a credit card reader that plugged into the headphone jack of your phone: That little square dongle is simple. The magnetic stripe on the credit card can be read much like an old cassette tape, and that’s what this little…
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Payments are an interesting space undergoing a lot of innovation. Last month, our partnership became part owner of what could become the world’s largest cryptocurrency-based payments network. This happened on June 18th when Facebook made two important announcements.First, it published technical p…
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What is most susceptible to disruption after all, traditional or new technologies?
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