

Startups 2.0: A Cambrian Moment - irickt
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/01/special-report-startups-20

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irickt
A special report of 9 articles with these leads:

Platforms: Something to stand on PROVIDING THE RIGHT platform is sometimes all
it takes. Instead of planning new pedestrian plazas by the usual bureaucratic
means, New York City’s department of transportation just marks an area on...

Building companies: Rocket machine WHY BOTHER WITH accelerators? Why not just
hire a bunch of clever youngsters, provide them with the necessary cash,
support and technology, and tell them to pursue a business idea with a proven
suc...

Tech startups: A Cambrian moment ABOUT 540M YEARS ago something amazing
happened on planet Earth: life forms began to multiply, leading to what is
known as the “Cambrian explosion”. Until then sponges and other simple
creatures ha...

The dark side: Founder’s blues A YEAR AGO Jody Sherman shot himself. His
online shop, Ecomom, which sold eco-friendly and health products for children,
was running out of cash. A few weeks later the business closed its virtual
d...

Accelerators: Getting up to speed IT FEELS LIKE some prayer meeting. Two
middle-aged men start by telling the audience how important it is to pitch in.
A booming voice announces the acts, greeted by loud cheers; then some
enthusias...

Creating a business: Testing, testing “WE EVEN HAD to host the servers in our
own office.” Naval Ravikant laughs as he describes how in 1999 he and some
friends founded his first startup, Epinions, a website for consumer reviews.
They ...

Venture capitalists: From leafy to lofty TECH MONEYMEN LIKE altitude. In
Silicon Valley the leading venture-capital firms cluster on a leafy hill
overlooking Stanford University. And when Benchmark Capital opened a branch in
San Francisco...

Hardware startups: Hacking Shenzhen OH NO, NOT another accelerator, you may
think. But this one is different. On the tables are not just the obligatory
laptops and smartphones but circuit boards, cables, screwdrivers and a few
items ...

Business communities: All together now BLOCK 71 HAS long been slated for
demolition. A look at the tenant list for the seven-storey industrial building
on Singapore’s Ayer Rajah Crescent helps explain why it is still standing:
nearly 10...

