Posts from October 2016

Its that time of year. World Series, Halloween, Daylight Savings Time, and Thanksgiving. 

It’s a wonderful time of year even though the days are getting shorter, it’s dark outside on my way to the gym in the morning, and I have to wear a coat to work.

There is something about the change of seasons, kind of like cranes actually, that reminds us that change is never ending, and that is a good thing

Happy Halloween everyone.

I was walking down a street in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC this morning and came across a street closing.

The entire block was closed to cars because that crane was busy lifting heavy material to the upper floors of a building that is being constructed right now.

This is a common occurrence in NYC these days. There is construction all over the place.

I was in a cab last week and the driver told me that he has never seen more street closings and cranes in NYC than right now. He was complaining about it.

But I have a different view. Cranes, street closings, road construction, manhole work, etc are an inconvenience for sure. But they are a sign of vitality, the look of a city evolving and growing in front of our very eyes. Lose the cranes and the construction crews and you will see a city slowly dying.

I understand the anti-development, anti-gentrification folks. I appreciate that they are trying to maintain some semblance of history and personal scale. And I appreciate that they are trying to protect people from being forced out of their homes, schools, and neighborhoods by the capitalist desire for more, more, more.

But there must be a balance. We cannot decide to stop evolving and growing. We need to find ways to do it gracefully and respectfully. The anti-development forces are doing us all a favor by making sure that happens. But when they dominate the discussion, things grind to a halt and nothing happens. That is not where we want to be.

So when I see a street closed by a crane, I celebrate it. It’s progress. No pain, no gain.

I think this is the most interesting of the six Trust Disrupted episodes:

The Cubs and Indians face off tonight, tomorrow, and sunday and the result of these three games will say a lot about who is going to walk away with the World Series ring this year.

I think the Cubs will be strong at home and believe they will win at least two of these three games and possibly sweep.

What do you think?

My partner Andy blogged this week about an investment we made earlier this year. It is called NuRx and its an entirely new way to get medications.

Here’s the value proposition (from their website):

Compare that to this (from Andy’s post):

When you need to see a doctor, there are typically 5 or 6 steps you need to take before a potential outcome: finding the doctor; finding time to schedule the appointment; visiting the doctor; getting a diagnosis and prescription; visiting a pharmacy and paying for your medication.

The efficiency of scrolling through a mobile app, finding the medication you need, filling out some information, and then having the meds show up at your door a few hours later is vastly superior to the process Andy described.

We are looking for services in health care that dramatically improve the user experience of obtaining health care services and lower the cost of providing those services. We also believe that these services, when delivered on the device you have with you all of your waking hours, will over time become an important repository of your personal heath care information. And one you control and have the primary access to.

All of these things; improved user experience, dramatically lower costs, user control over their data, portability of providers, are a direct and aggressive challenge to the existing incumbent health care system.

And I can’t think of any industry that deserves that challenge more than health care.

Applications are open for New York’s seventh annual FinTech Innovation Lab, a 12-week program that I have blogged about a bunch here on AVC. This proram is for early and growth stage companies that have developed cutting edge technology products targeted at financial services customers. The program has a particular interest in: Augmented/ Virtual Reality; Data Analytics using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning; Digital Customer Engagement Tools; Enterprise Dev Ops; RegTech; Security, and other Disruptive Financial Services Models.  For a complete list of focus areas, click here.

The FinTech Innovation Lab is run by the Partnership Fund for New York City and Accenture. Accepted companies will get the chance to refine and beta test their financial technology products in New York City in partnership with the world’s leading financial services firms and receive mentorship from the Lab’s Entrepreneurs Network.

Through a competitive process, the chief technology officers of the participating firms will determine which proposals are accepted for further development and deployment. The participating firms are:  AIG, Alliance Bernstein, Ally Financial, Amalgamated Bank, American Express, AQR, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, BBVA, BlackRock,  Capital One, CIT Group, Citi, Credit Suisse, DE Shaw, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Guardian Life Insurance, JPMorgan Chase & Co., KeyBank, MasterCard, Morgan Stanley, New York Life Insurance, Pitney Bowes, Rabobank, Scotiabank, Synchrony, UBS and Wells Fargo.  Several venture firms also support the Lab, including Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Nyca Partners, Rho Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Warburg Pincus.

For more information sign up for their information session on Monday, November 7, 2016 from 5:30 – 6:30 PM – Register

Application deadline is December 1, 2016– APPLY

Last week Coin Center published a primer on app coins. It is very good.

I particularly like this part:

Open platforms have proved difficult to create because it has been historically difficult to monetize them even if they become successful—by nature they are public goods. Now, however, the developers of a cloud storage service can incorporate a scarce access-token, an appcoin, into the design, distribute that token to users, retain some amount of the token for themselves, and if the platform proves popular, the token (alongside the holdings of the developers) will grow in value and remunerate the developers for providing a public good. This new model challenges the concept of equity as traditionally understood, and carries entirely different risks and rewards.

The idea that we now have a monetization model for creating and maintaining a public good (ie Twitter) is something that makes me incredibly happy and poses all sorts of interesting questions about the future of venture capital.

I read this story about how hackers got into Colin Powell and John Podesta’s emails.

It is somewhat shocking to me that Google’s algorithms allowed fake emails from Google to get into a Gmail user’s inbox.

One of the many reasons I use Gmail over any other email service is its algorithms that keep spam and malicious emails out of my inbox. They have done a remarkably good job of that for me over the ten(ish) years I’ve been on Gmail.

This is not only a black eye for the Clinton campaign and Colin Powell. It’s a black eye for Google and Gmail.

I hope they take this as a challenge to improve their anti-phishing algorithms.

As many readers likely know, this week New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill called S6340A/A8704C, which will levy heavy fines on individuals who advertise short-term rentals of residential multiple dwelling units in New York. This ends an effort that lasted several months to convince the Governor to veto this bill which was passed by both legislative bodies in Albany earlier this year.

Airbnb promptly filed a federal lawsuit as the New York Times reported. The Times piece states that:

In its lawsuit, filed Friday afternoon in Federal District Court in the Southern District of New York, the company contends that the law violates the company’s constitutional rights to free speech and due process, as well as the protection it is afforded under the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that says websites cannot be held accountable for content published by their users.

It is possible that this matter will be settled by the courts.

But it is my hope that, instead, calmer heads will prevail and New York State will pass sensible legislation that allows short term rentals when the tenant or owner is not present.

Airbnb has proposed a five point plan that attempts to address many of the issues that New Yorkers have with short term rentals.

This proposal is similar to legislation that has been adopted in large urban cities like Chicago.

There are many reasons why the current situation is not ideal for anyone. Most people living in apartment buildings don’t like the idea of an Airbnb in their building. It is also problematic when landlords to take apartments off the rental market and create illegal hotels. And landlords need a way to enforce the rules outlined in their leases.

On the other hand, many New Yorkers use income from short term rentals to allow them to afford an apartment in NYC when they have jobs that require them to travel extensively. There are also many New Yorkers who rent their homes during busy periods to make some extra income.

An outright ban on short term rentals is a bad thing for many New Yorkers.

I am certain there is middle ground to find a compromise that addresses the legitimate issues while allowing short term rentals to continue. And I am hopeful that will eventually happen.

Both sides are to blame for where we are right now. Airbnb allowed the NY short term rental market to emerge over the past seven years without sufficient concern over the negative impacts of unregulated short term rentals. It took way too long to engage in a real and substantive discussion with legislators and regulators and when it did, there was a lot of bad blood between both sides.

On the other hand, the hotel unions and the real estate industry have used their significant clout in Albany to push for a law that is overly restrictive and hurts many New Yorkers. And they got the legislature and the Governor to support it. It shines a bright light on the kind of back room dealing that voters are sick and tired of, in Albany and all around the US.

I would urge the Governor to provide some leadership here now that he has satisfied the legislature by signing their deeply flawed bill. There is a proposal on the table from Airbnb to regulate short term rentals sensibly. The Governor and the legislature should engage with that proposal. And the real estate industry should engage as well. Short term rentals can be a good thing for them too.

I am confident that we have not seen the end of Airbnb and short term rentals in NY State. If calmer heads prevail we can get short term rentals that make sense for NY State and NY City. And that is what we should do.