Rishi Taparia - Issue #76
This week we look at Kroger and Microsoft tag teaming retail, Square going online (and straight after Stripe), the GPS network and its challenges, burnout amongst millennials, the Secret Service’s latest warning and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
Kroger, Microsoft Create Futuristic Grocery Store. Amazon, Take Note
Krogers and Microsoft have teamed up to create a better check out experience (read: take on Amazon). Leveraging a digital shelving system and mounted cameras, the new experience is intended to personalize the shopping experience while also helping in store support staff assist customers and ensure stocking is done promptly.
…digital displays that light up with a personalized icon when shoppers reach an item they put on the shopping list in the Kroger app. Ellipse-shaped black-and-white devices that look like a cross between a camera and a smoke detector are mounted on ceilings, crunching data and monitoring for out-of-stock items. In a refrigerated meat case, temperature sensors appear every few feet, automatically flagging workers if the case warms up too much, helping prevent the roughly $10,000 worth of meat inside from spoiling.
The smart shelves light up to help store employees pick orders for Kroger’s curbside grocery pickup service, where customers order online and then later in the day have their bags brought out to their car in the parking lot. The companies say this “pick-to-light” system can cut in half the time required to pick each order, a possible advantage as rivals such as Walmart and Target perfect their own curbside pickup services.
The self checkout space continues to attract talent and venture dollars. The co-founder of Pandora announced his company Grabango along with a $12 million Series A to create the Amazon Go for everyone. Given how buggy the Amazon Go experience still is and the lack of any startups actually having working technology in the space (despite the now hundreds of millions of dollars and massive amounts of time, money and effort), part of me secretly wonders if it’s all a long con by Amazon. Focus everyone’s attention on the bright shiny object over there before launching what they truly believe will be the retail as a service model, catching everyone by surprise.
Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson Reins In Predecessor’s Ambitions: ‘I’m Not Howard’
Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’s new CEO, is aiming to bring discipline and focus to the chain’s plans for new stores as it recovers from traffic declines at its signature coffee shops. This includes scrapping a previously planned rollout of Reserve, a more upscale coffee experience. Johnson certainly seems to believe high end, curated experiences may not always be best. Based on my experience with Reserve in SF, I would probably agree (at least for Starbucks).
Nail and waxing salons are among the lucky few that will survive the retail apocalypse
A deep dive from Axios into the changing retail landscape over the past two decades and what is poised to thrive in the coming years.
“The stores that will do well are the ones that know how to get you to leave your house.” — Natalie Bruss, partner at Fifth Wall Ventures, a retail investment firm
What are people looking for? Experiences and vanity.
Strong Economy Can’t Save Macy’s From Retail Shifts
Despite strong early sales indicators, low unemployment and higher y-o-y spend, the strong U.S. economy wasn’t enough to give many mall-based retailers the year-end boost they were looking for. Macy’s and others posted lukewarm holiday sales, fueling a selloff in retail stocks to start the year.
FinTech
Introducing Square In-App Payments SDK
Square, welcome online. The primarily offline focused payments company that has expanded into other areas including lending and invoices is now taking their talents offline. Square announced the launch of the new Square In-App Payments SDK, which allows developers to securely accept payments in their iOS, Android, or Flutter application and puts the company squarely (pun obviously intended) in competition with Stripe. Now, this would have happened sooner or later, as my hunch is Stripe comes up with their own POS offering before the end of the year. As always, usage will be key and Stripe has the dominant position online, but Square continues to impress. Game on.
Secret Service: Theft Rings Turn to Fuze Cards
The trouble with cool technology is it can often be used in unintended ways. The Fuze Card seems to be the latest example. A ‘credit card’ that allows you to add up to 30 separate cards onto it, allowing you to ditch your George Castanza, hernia inducing wallet, is now being used by fraudsters to quickly cycle through fake cards at check out. The Secret Service put out a memo warning financial industry partners about the risks. And yes, the people who protect politicians and jump in front of bullets, often represented in movies by Gerard Butler, Clint Eastwood and Jack Bauer, sorry, Kiefer Sutherland, put out the memo because they are also responsible for safeguarding the payment and financial systems of the United States from a wide range of financial and electronic-based crimes. There’s your fun fact for the week!
Bill seeks to mandate digital receipts in California
Paper receipts should be the exception, not the norm. One California legislator is trying to make that a reality. I’m interested to see how this progresses and what the arguments against are.
FinTech ecosystem playbook
A solid report on the fintech ecosystems outside the US, including VC investment and rising trends.
Technology
The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan
A fascinating read on GPS technology and the planet’s reliance on this small satellite network. Tl;dr - if someone got access to these they could literally change time since most of the phones and computers out in the market rely on these satellites to determine what time it is. As expected, this network is subject to a lot of potential threats.
The Chinese takeover of Indian app ecosystem
India is the target of many a tech company, Chinese tech companies being no exception. 2018 was the year Chinese companies broke through, going from 19 of the top 100 apps in the play store to 44 of the top 100 apps in the play store. With money to spend and 200-300m potential users “the message is clear for the Chinese — if you want growth, conquer India.”
Artificial Intelligence Can Detect Alzheimer’s Disease in Brain Scans Six Years Before a Diagnosis
Talk about awesome. UCSF researchers programmed a machine-learning algorithm to diagnose early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Still early days, but this would be an amazing breakthrough.
Ping An Good Doctor launches commercial operation of One-minute Clinics in China | MobiHealthNews
Last year, Ping An Good Doctor, a one-stop healthcare ecosystem platform from China, piloted unstaffed clinics that employ artificial intelligence called “One-minute Clinics” in the Wuzhen Scenic Area outside of Shanghai, which connect patients with a clinician on Ping An Good Doctor’s in-house medical team. They got them in 8 provinces with contracts for over a thousand of these. From the outside it seems like an incredibly handy service. I wonder what the limitations would be (I’m sure there are many) to bringing it to the US.
Random Tidbits
How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation
A different perspective on the millennial generation that everyone seems to have their own gripes with. Worth a read in its entirety.
Underrated | By Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry takes us into his mind as an unrecruited, skinny, underrated basketball player and what continues to drive him to do better.
Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think?
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest, this time looking at marijuana. The premise: Permitting pot is one thing, but promoting its use is another.
Meet the 52 Places Traveler for 2019
A shout out to Sebastian Modak, a classmate of mine from Jakarta International School and recently selected as the NYTs traveling for 2019. “I’m ready to embrace all the uncertainty that comes with an opportunity like this and see where it takes me.”
Quote I’m thinking about: “Practice the pause. Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you’re about to react harshly and you’ll avoid doing and saying things you’ll later regret.” ― Lori Deschene