Rishi Taparia - Issue #4
Wrapping up a week that featured two titans of industry partnering to battle a grocer, Uber finding a CEO, India rolling out a bill pay solution, NBA all stars looking for slam dunk investments and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
Google and Walmart Partner With Eye on Amazon
House Walmart and House Google partner to battle House Amazon for the retail throne. The partnership has a wide range of implications, too many to go through here. Now that Game of Thrones had their season finale, this is sure to be among the more interesting dramas out there. I wonder who bent the knee in this allegiance…
Jack Ma: Logistics a 'key challenge' to Indonesian ecommerce
Jack Ma certainly knows a little something about scaling businesses. Since accepting a role on the Indonesian government’s advisory role last year, he and Alibaba have been busy. Now he’s identified what he thinks is the big challenge in ecommerce - logistics to support a 13,000 island large archipelago.
JD.com, Thai retailer Central in talks for $500 million e-commerce JV
Southeast Asian ecommerce is heating up. After Tokopedia announced their $1.1bn investment, rumor has it that China’s JD.com Inc is in advanced talks with Thailand’s Central Group to launch an e-commerce joint venture in Thailand alongside a $500m investment.
Amazon will lower Whole Foods prices right away and Prime members will get special discounts - Recode
Bezos is wasting no time jumping into offline grocery. Who would have thought “cheaper avocados” would be a Prime benefit? Millennials everywhere rejoice - maybe this means they can afford houses now.
FinTech
China’s digital-payments giant keeps bank chiefs up at night
As Ant Financial continues their quest for global domination, regulators are becoming the biggest risk. Who blinks first?
Bharat Bill Payment System: Where there is a bill, there is a way: Why the nationwide payment network NPCI is a revolution in making
In August 2016, the National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI) piloted a launch of the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), offering integrated bill payment to customers around the country. A year later, the pilot is expanding but will users come around?
Technology
The Beginning of Uber
In week that ended with Uber’s chosen Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as CEO, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp shared Uber’s original slide deck. Something very well worth flipping though cover to cover - amazing how the company has fulfilled on their original vision and beyond.
Uber Chooses Expedia’s Chief as C.E.O., Ending Contentious Search
Uber’s board has found their man, after courting a few women and a lot of other men. The countdown is on for either the Times or Recode get forwarded his first company-wide email.
Amazon's patent on one-click checkout is about to expire
One of the world’s most influential patents is about to expire. Crazy to think it’s been 20 years…
Random Tidbits
The New Off-Court Play for NBA Stars Is Startup Equity
“It’s the same journey we’ve taken as basketball players…It’s all or nothing.” A great story discussing the crossover between professional athlete and professional investor.
China, Like U.S., Struggles to Revive Industrial Heartland
While most economic news out of China seems to skew very positive, this was an interesting article about those citizens not participating in the ‘tech boom’. As factories slow down their production, state and local governments are trying to draw innovative companies to their cities - an story we know all too well here in the US.
Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency
Last week I shared an article about how phone numbers might be the ultimate ID in a digital world. Now, a timeline article about phone number porting attacks are being used to get access to people’s emails and files through…you guessed it, the phone number.