'technology' Category
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Mobile messaging: is it (finally) the Americans’ time ?
April 12, 2016Long time readers of this blog will recognize my fascination with mobile messaging apps for a while now (Don’t shoot the Messenger, Line vs WeChat, My personalized Line stickers, etc.). For years now I’ve argued that the modern wave of messaging rose in Asia, with the West playing catch-up. Last year I wrote about my […]
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Weekend fun: Buy, Sell, or Hold
April 2, 2016On a recent homecoming visit to Silicon Valley I played a little Buy, Sell, or Hold? with a bunch of smart people out there. Here are the results: (For those not familiar with the game: Buy, Sell, or Hold? is quite simple. If <X> were a stock, would you buy, sell, or hold ?) . […]
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There’s a new « mot de buzz » in town
March 24, 2016Maybe it’s because I was out of France for 8 of the past 11 weeks, but it feels like there’s a new buzzword in the air: Ubérisation It’s difficult to open a French website without the seeing the word in a headline; journalists cannot get enough of it. One would be forgiven for thinking that […]
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GDC 2016: Où est LaFrenchTech ?
March 18, 2016The debate on the value of holding country pavilions at large tech conferences has merit. Whatever your views on the topic may be, France was conspicuously absent from this week’s Games Developers Conference in San Francisco. Germany, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, even Wallonia (Wallonia!) all hosted large structures at the conference, and […]
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No disrespect to VR, but I think HTML5 games will become trendy again
February 12, 2016Almost exactly three years ago I attempted to expose my thinking on why I was enthusiastic about HTML5, at least from an investor’s perspective. Three years is of course an eternity in tech, and HTML5 has certainly progressed substantially in some ways I expected, while in other ways demonstrated my zeal in overestimating the immediacy […]
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The lifecycle of a Fintech startup
February 5, 2016I couldn’t resist re-publishing this Financial Times characterization of the Lifecycle of a Fintech Startup (If you pitch my Fintech partner, be prepared to respond to a question about which phase you’re in !):
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FrenchTech: One step forward, three steps back
January 26, 2016For entrepreneurs and investors in the French tech ecosystem (and even potentially for outsiders looking in), it has been a discouraging couple of weeks for us. While I still believe that 2016 will be the year of the European entrepreneur, I sincerely hope that politicians do not thwart France’s momentum in innovation when we’re just […]
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2016 Will Be The Year Of The European Entrepreneur
January 4, 2016Making predictions are hard, especially about the future. I may be underestimating the time horizon, but for me the trend is unmistakable. The European entrepreneurial ecosystem is poised to enter the major leagues, and I predict that this will happen in 2016. Our vieux continent already boasts a burgeoning collection of tech unicorns, with the […]
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Four things Japan Inc. should learn from Softbank
December 18, 2015The op.ed. in this morning’s Japan Times from William Pesek of Barron’s Asia strikes me as incredibly relevant and timely. Japan’s small business leaders just voted Toyota’s Akio Toyoda as CEO of the year. Credit to Toyoda-san, who drove Toyota to record profits in a difficult economic year. However, as Pesek points out, another CEO […]
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Opportunity for a high-calibre French ICT entrepreneur to speak at G7 Ministerial Summit
December 16, 2015The upcoming G7 Summit will take place in Japan next Spring, with the Ministerial session on ICT taking place on the island of Shikoku, Japan on April 29-30. Each member government will propose a handful of keynote speakers for the summit, one of whom could include a leader from a promising French startup. So if […]
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Europe’s tech IPO market: Where’s Santa?
December 10, 2015Just when it felt like the market for European tech IPOs was opening, the events of the past few weeks have dashed those hopes. Days after Deezer announced the delay of its initial public offering, HelloFresh drew the same conclusion. In France, the only notable IPOs of late were Amundi and ShowroomPrivé. The asset management […]
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A global, dream team workforce that doesn’t cost a cent
November 3, 2015Fans of Elon Musk know that in addition to his primary projects of Tesla and SpaceX, the seemingly tireless Musk has also espoused the construction of a hyperloop. The hyperloop is a vacuum-like transportation pod that if successful, could whisk passengers from say, San Francisco to Los Angeles in just over half an hour. Pretty […]