H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (8 December 2018) – Bandai Namco Establishes Research Institute for Entertainment via AI + How Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (8 December 2018) – Bandai Namco Establishes Research Institute for Entertainment via AI + How Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America

Companies

• Bandai Namco Establishes Research Institute for Entertainment via AI, Other New Tech (ANN)
• Tencent Music Executive Is Accused of Defrauding Early Investor (Bloomberg)
• Huawei Effect Threatens China’s Spy-Tech Champion Hikvision (WaPo, Nikkei)
• Kakao Bank’s co-CEOs reappointed for another term (Investor)
• HCL Drops Most in Seven Weeks on $1.8 Billion IBM-Asset Buy (Bloomberg)

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

• Amazon is crowdsourcing Alexa’s answers to tough questions (Techcrunch)
• Arms Merchant for Anti-Amazon Sellers; Nearly 80% of the top 500 internet retailers use PayPal Checkout, seven times Amazon Pay, its closest competitor, at 11% (Barron’s)
• The Promising Business That Could Pull Apple Out of its Tailspin (Barron’s)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• The People’s Republic of Desire: Inside China’s lucrative livestreaming craze (Technode)
• ‘Huawei freeze’ chills global supply chain; Tight web of partnerships makes Chinese equipment tough to replace (Nikkei)
• TikTok parent ByteDance said to raise $1.45 billion for AI and content (Techcrunch)
• Grab invests $100M into India’s OYO to expand its budget hotel service in Southeast Asia (Techcrunch)
• Snapshot of Tokopedia’s company structure and major shareholders; SoftBank affiliated funds and Alibaba’s Taobao are the biggest backers behind Tokopedia. (KRA)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• How Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (Barron’s)
• Slack is a runaway success in the US. But can the ’email killer’ translate worldwide? (CNN); Slack hires Goldman Sachs as it eyes IPO next year; Workplace messaging app looks to go public after raising nearly $1.3bn privately; Slack was valued at $7.1bn in its latest fundraising in August (FT)
• I. as Talent Scout: Unorthodox Hires, and Maybe Lower Pay (NYT)
• Online cosmetics retailer Birchbox eyes ‘casual beauty customers’ with Walgreens launch (Reuters)
• DocuSign Stock Surged After It Named a New Female Board Chair (Barron’s)
• Here’s the Innovation Videogame Companies Can’t Afford to Get Wrong (Barron’s)
• Ad Tech’s Impossible Mission; Why ad tech won’t be the internet’s savior in its battle for television dollars. (Medium)

Life

• The Eisenhower Code: Happy to Serve, Reluctant to Lead: Sometimes, the best leaders are those who don’t covet the top job (WSJ)
• Why do so many people fall for financial scams? Fraudsters play on different emotions, from greed to kindness (Economist); Lessons From the Bernie Madoff Fraud, 10 Years Later (Barron’s)
• ‘I was vindicated a long time ago,’ says Iceberg’s Arnaud on Noble probe; Noble disputes regulators’ allegations of improper accounting (BT)
• Attention is not a resource but a way of being alive to the world (Aeon)
• Want to find fulfillment? Stop trying so hard to find it: You won’t find a magic bullet when it comes to being happy. (FastCo)
• When Self-Help Just Makes Your Life Worse: The pitfalls of organizing your days around productivity hacks, scheduled mindfulness, and constant self-improvement (Medium)
• Why Do (So Many) Startups Fail? (Medium)