Stealing Signs - Issue 03 (12/06/19)
Bundles, Big Projects, Craft Beers, Art Basel, and Reverse Turing Tests
Worth Reading
Construct & Fill Open-Ended Roles in Elite Culinary Groups
“Organizations cannot grow and develop without acquiring new members...existing theories cannot—and were not intended to—fully address situations in which organizations must acquire new members whose roles are open-ended or the dynamics of membership in elite groups that must be staffed from elite aspirant pools and that face uncertain future demands...I describe how nine elite high-end, cutting-edge culinary groups in the U.S. and Europe, ranging from innovative restaurants to culinary R&D groups, use negotiated joining—a previously undocumented process—to systematically construct and fill these emergent, open-ended roles”
Corporate innovation groups come to mind here. Think GoogleX. It appears, broadly, that the first hurdle is recognizing when a role is emergent and/or open-ended. This, interestingly enough, is not usually the issue in corporate innovation groups, as these roles are often recognized as open-ended and emergent from the start. Instead, the people in corporate innovation groups are rarely empowered to be innovative or take risks.
The Car Bundle
“Car ownership is a compelling deal because it bundles together four core jobs, and practically all car owners use them for at least two of these things: commuting, shopping, kids, and recreation...Kids and recreation will be to the car bundle as live sports is to the TV bundle: the enduring, critical function that keeps the bundle together for a long time.”
Another brilliant piece from Alex. He makes a compelling case for why cars will be harder to get rid of than we might think and proposes a new car bundle that may be as effective kids and recreation. Hint: OOO (but still on Slack, duh).
Big Projects, Small Companies
“People who want to start startups aren’t exposed to enough of the right frustrations. Sure, it’s slightly annoying to split a bill with friends. But the frustration is small. The market difficult to monetize. It’s really annoying to use Google Groups in a large organization. And that’s very easy to monetize. I doubt most humans know this “secret”.
Neat write up on potential startup ideas. The excerpt above is very well said imo. I like #3 and #6. #3 for obvious reasons :) and #6 because charts/graphs are so incredibly effective. #dataviz is a great hashtag on Twitter for this stuff.
The MSFT Team Tracking the World’s Most Dangerous Hackers
Q: Why did Microsoft win the $10B Pentagon contract to host the US Military’s cloud computing system?
A: “Microsoft sees stuff that just nobody else does...it has eyes, ears, and software everywhere...That’s the thing that nobody else has: visibility and data.”
Ballast Point: Sold! Wait, to Whom???
“Four years after paying $1 billion for Ballast Point Brewing Company, Constellation Brands today threw in the towel on its big craft bet, announcing an agreement to sell the San Diego craft beer brand along with “a number of its associated production facilities and brewpubs” to Kings & Convicts, a little-known Chicagoland craft brewing company.”
My favorite anecdote: “During the Beer Marketer’s Insights Seminar last month, Constellation Brands CMO Jim Sabia admitted that the company’s “hypothesis was wrong” — instead of a couple of big players existing in craft, the segment turned “really local.” Shocker. The market for beer based on small batch brewing and independent ownership turned out to be “really local.” Haha kidding. Mostly. But interesting to hear the CMO admit so bluntly that their hypothesis was wrong.
<stuff> Weekly!
LOL Weekly
I’ll be thinking about his for a while lol.
Funding Weekly
“users will be able to connect personal data sources, such as social media accounts, location, shopping information, as well as answer daily questions about their behaviour, current events, and macroeconomic trends. These consensually-shared data contributions will become the source that drives what Delphia called its investment advantage.”
This is a fascinating approach. Much more interesting and probably more lucrative than simply cutting individual users a check for their data (as I understand it, individual user data is not all that valuable). Very interested to track their “investment advantage.” I wonder how unique this data set will be from other alternative data sets that hedge fund buy. Thinking it will be quite a diverse group of users
Baseball Weekly
“MLB regularly performs lidar scans of all 30 MLB ballparks. The raw data is used to generate accurate 3D ballpark maps called “point clouds”, which allow for easy identification and measurement of specific features of the ballparks, such as the precise location of walls, seats, banners, or any other visible reference point. A relative measurement within this point cloud is accurate with ISO traceability down to 3 mm.”
Great breakdown of how the MLB projects home run distance using lidar. Some pretty cool visuals in here. So much more technology in use around the league than is publicized.
Video Weekly
“They start by jumping into GTA 5, an online game with a convincing simulation of a busy city. They turn off the map, names, and other indicators that show where players are. Dennis gets a head start, changes his clothes, finds a new car, and tries to blend in with the AI-controlled traffic and pedestrians going about their business. His friends team up and try to find him.”
Tense. Electric. Hysterical. Brilliant concept. I particularly like his internal debates sprinkled throughout the videos about if the AI would have made a specific lane change or something similar. He routinely breaks down the hunters’ strategy (the team of friends trying to find him) and how it informs his actions - like deciding which car to hijack based on what type of AI cars are likely to render and which care the hunters are likely to notice.
This episode is awesome, too.
Art Weekly
Art Basel Miami kicked off yesterday. Here’s my favorite piece. It reminds me quite a bit of the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I can’t articulate why else I like it, but I really do.
Chart Weekly
Gerrit Cole's pitch mix by count this season. It’s INSANE how many favorable counts he gets in. The hitter is almost always at a disadvantage as soon as 1 to 2 pitches into the at-bat. Crazy.
What’s also crazy is that he gets a ton of swinging strikes early in the count on pitches that would otherwise be balls because his pitches move so much and are often 90-100mph, including his slider and changeup (!!!!).
