H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (3 November 2018) – How You Can Use Pixar’s Creative Process to Supercharge Your Success

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (3 November 2018) – How You Can Use Pixar’s Creative Process to Supercharge Your Success

Companies

• A look at China’s massive music streaming industry and how it differs from Spotify (TIA)
• NetEase rumored to re-structure gaming departments (Technode)
• A snapshot of live streaming platforms in China: From Kuaishou to Bilibili, what are some of the biggest names you should know about China’s burgeoning livestreaming market? (KRA)
• Pentamaster earnings up on higher revenue (Star)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Softbank, Samsung

• Robin Li emphasizes coming “AI boom” at Baidu World Conference (Technode)
• Alibaba cuts sales forecast on economic uncertainty, trade fears (Reuters, Nikkei, WSJ, SCMP)
• Alibaba’s Ant Financial Services logged its largest quarterly loss in years, showing how costly it is to compete in China’s rapidly evolving Internet-consumer economy. (WSJ)
• 19-year-old QQ is doing its best to stay young (Technode)
• Tencent unrolls multibillion dollar bet on the cloud (Technode)
• Tencent is launching its own version of Snap Spectacles (Techcrunch)
• SoftBank’s Latest Investment Is a $1.1 Billion Bet on Smart Windows; View is the maker of glass used in internet-connected windowpanes for smart buildings (Barron’s)
• Samsung and Huawei locked in mobile industry’s prize fight; Battle of smartphone giants will be fought with foldable technology (Nikkei)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

• Apple to stop revealing unit sales sparking peak iPhone fears; Shares slide as much as 7% and analysts worry about less transparency on prices (FT)
• Driverless cars reach commercial milestone on long road to future: Waymo’s move to start charging for rides creates fresh questions for investors (FT)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• Warburg Pincus walks away from Lianjia funding round over valuation bubble concern (KRA); Winter is coming for China’s private equity as market rout slashes start-up firms’ valuations (SCMP); China overtakes the US in number of new companies worth at least US$1 billion, report says (SCMP)
• ‘World’s first’ foldable smartphone unveiled by Chinese startup; Royole beats Huawei and Samsung in race to commercialize next-gen handset (Nikkei)
• Toyota-backed flying car zooms toward commercial reality (Nikkei)
• Korean education startup SmartStudy, which owns intellectual property rights of hit animated characters including Pinkfong, is preparing to go public in 2020 (Investor) 

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• At Telematics crossroads, TomTom CEO plots next move (Reuters)
• UberEats is using data to create cool, non-existent restaurants (qz)
• Software Companies Could Become Important Partners With the U.S. Defense Department (Barron’s)
• With Red Hat, IBM Makes a Big Cloud Promise. The Reality Is Far More Hazy. (Barron’s); IBM’s $34bn all-cash deal for Red Hat is the largest-ever software acquisition, and represents nearly a third of IBM’s own stock market value. (FT)
• Digital Disruption Snarls Madison Avenue; Once big beneficiaries of the online-ad boom, agency groups now face existential threats (WSJ)
• Cadillac Cancels $1,800-a-Month Car-Subscription Service; GM brand was among the first to launch a Netflix-style alternative to owning a car; exit comes as more car makers dabble with such subscriptions (WSJ)
• Chip companies’ warnings should send shudders down the spine of any tech investor, as this usually presages a deeper downturn (MW)
• Can startups beat AWS and Alibaba to meet the increasing demand for cloud computing? (TIA)

Life

• How You Can Use Pixar’s Creative Process to Supercharge Your Success (Medium)
• Risky business: Startups.co interview with Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder of Andreessen Horowitz (e27)
• It’s All About Business Model Innovation, not New Technology; New technology, no matter how transformative, is not enough to propel a business into the future. (WSJ)
• Revenue Recognition at TSA Inc.: A Roller Coaster Ride; This case chronicles revenue recognition practices at TSA Inc. — which develops and sells software to facilitate electronic payments — over the six years from 1997 to 2002. TSA’s revenue recognition footnotes provide a rich setting in which to illustrate the complexities and judgments involved in revenue recognition. As revenue recognition guidance for the software industry became more detailed, TSA’s revenue recognition practices became more aggressive. Following the demise of Arthur Andersen in 2002, TSA’s incoming auditors re-evaluated its revenue recognition policies and required the company to restate its financial statements for three prior years. (SSRN)