It is easy for newspapers and other news outlets to fascinate tech-savvy readers with success stories of start-ups and skyrocketing valuations. Famous examples are Uber and Spotify: Uber targets a valuation of about §120bn in its floatation in 2019 (Davies and Neate, 2018) and Spotify went public in April 2018 and was valued at about $27bn (Nicolaou and Bullock, 2018). These companies stand for extremely fast growth and the disruption of their respective industries within an extremely short time period. To reach the highly sought-after unicorn status (a valuation of more than $1bn) it took the ride hailing start-up (Uber) only four years and six months and the music streaming startup (Spotify) five years and three months (Fleximize.com, 2018). However, the start-up Bird (bird.co) dwarfed the aforementioned growth rates in 2018 when it was valued with more than $1bn after only about eight months of operations (Griswold, 2018).

So how was Bird able to become so valuable in such a short term? What new technological invention was made? Turns out that Bird’s business model is not based on any new invention, but on a skillful orchestration of existing technologies at the right timing. Bird provides last mile mobility by renting dock-less e-scooters in major US cities. The renting process takes place through a user-friendly smartphone application and costs around $2.5 for a 10 min renting period. Taking funding rounds of the leading venture capitalists in the world as an indicator Bird will be able to change the way how people will move around in cities on a global scale.

How do you feel about such high valuations? Do you believe such growth expectations can be achieved? Is it necessary to scale/ fundraise at such a pace?

Davies, R. and Neate, R. (2018). Uber targets $120bn valuation for 2019 flotation. [online] theguardian.com. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/16/uber-targets-120bn-valuation-2019-flotation-report [Accessed 19 Oct. 2018].

Fleximize.com. (2018). The Speed of a Unicorn. [online] Available at: https://fleximize.com/unicorns/ [Accessed 19 Oct. 2018].

Griswold, A. (2018). Bird is the fastest startup ever to reach a $1 billion valuation. [online] qz.com. Available at: https://qz.com/1305719/electric-scooter-company-bird-is-the-fastest-startup-ever-to-become-a-unicorn/ [Accessed 19 Oct. 2018].

Nicolaou, A. and Bullock, N. (2018). Spotify ends first trading day at $26.5bn valuation | Financial Times. [online] ft.com. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/3cfb00fc-3745-11e8-8b98-2f31af407cc8 [Accessed 18 Oct. 2018].

Wilhelm, A. (2018). Why The Heck Is Bird Potentially Worth $1B?. [online] news.crunchbase.com. Available at: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/why-the-heck-is-bird-potentially-worth-1b/ [Accessed 17 Oct. 2018].

For a couple of years Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a highly discussed topic. On the one hand are many optimistic articles that present countless use cases of how AI will improve our everyday life and even save lives. On the other hand, are questions raised whether AI will harm humans and eventually extinguish humanity. The latter became recently more relevant when the US military increased investments in technologies to enable a more automated form of war. About $10bn will be invested in the Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (JEDI) project (Williams, 2018). This is a modern cloud platform that will enable to weaponize AI by pooling the military´s data and use machine-learning techniques to identify enemies and targets all around the world. Furthermore, all currently conducted AI projects are joined together and are endowed with an additional $1.7bn and the pentagon announced investments of $2bn into AI weapon research (Fryer-Biggs, 2018).

These investments are often described by leaders within the military as important milestones to improve precision of attacks and therefore will decrease the number of casualties in the long run. However, critics argue that there are countless stories of faulty algorithms (Tarnoff, 2018). A recent example is Amazon´s recruiting algorithm that had to be shut down in September after showing a bias against women (Dastin, 2018).

Now imagine that such biases and faults are part of AI algorithms that decide over life and death of a person. Scharrer, a former soldier and fellow at the Center for a New American Security, argues that further use of AI technology within the US military will not slow down soon and stresses that AI researchers should take a more active part in discussions around the use of AI technology by militaries around the world (Knight, 2018).

Dastin, J. (2018). Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women. [online] reuters.com. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].

Fryer-Biggs, Z. (2018). The Pentagon plans to spend $2 billion to put more artificial intelligence into its weaponry. [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/8/17833160/pentagon-darpa-artificial-intelligence-ai-investment [Accessed 13 Oct. 2018].

Knight, W. (2018). Why AI researchers shouldn’t turn their backs on the military. [online] MIT Technology Review. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611852/why-ai-researchers-shouldnt-turn-their-backs-on-the-military/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].

Tarnoff, B. (2018). Weaponised AI is coming. Are algorithmic forever wars our future?. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/11/war-jedi-algorithmic-warfare-us-military [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].

Williams, L. (2018). DOD releases $10 billion JEDI cloud contract. [online] DefenseSystems.com. Available at: https://defensesystems.com/articles/2018/07/26/jedi-hits-the-street.aspx [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].