In March of this year, California was host to a spectacular sight: one of the greatest super blooms in years. Lake Elsinore (halfway between LA and San Diego) was so alight in poppies that the incredible blooms could even be seen from space. It was an Instagrammer’s paradise… and everyone knew it. Within days, the […]
Air travel is stressful. Long lines at security, cramped seats in coach, lost baggage, and tight connecting flights—there is no shortage of pain points in any journey. Machine learning can’t give you more leg room, but it is poised to revolutionize your travel experience. In her recent collaborative work with Heathrow Airport and researchers at […]
Hopes are high in the private space sector that the rapidly falling costs of accessing space will yield a wide range of profitable activities. In the near term, Earth observation and telecommunications opportunities will capitalize on swarms of newly-launched small satellites. Farther out, space manufacturing at scale, resource mining, and even solar energy capture bring […]
This article originally appeared in Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. Investors riding the wave of technology public offerings have been waiting for a powerhouse debut from Airbnb, which logged its 500 millionth customer booking in March. After all, the home-sharing giant isn’t your typical unicorn. Unlike some of its Silicon Valley neighbors, Airbnb’s disruptive power […]
This podcast was originally published in Harvard Business Review. In this episode of HBR’s podcast After Hours, Professors Youngme Moon, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Mihir Desai debate Airbnb’s recent emphasis on superhosts (professional investors) and how well the company is managing growth amid backlash from cities like New York City. “There are these amazing network economics, it’s […]
This article was originally published in the Harvard Business Review. Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with […]
This post was originally published in the Digital Initiative’s classroom blogging platform. It’s an urban legend with surprising ubiquity: the best time to buy plane tickets is Tuesday. While that may be a myth, consumers still go to extreme measures to find deals among airfare fluctuations. Today, companies are using machine learning to predict drops […]
There’s a classic story about a statistician who, while at a county fair, happens upon a competition to guess the butchered weight of an ox. He compared individual guesses with the median guess of the crowd and found that while individual estimates varied widely, the group as a whole came within 1% from the ox’s […]
Upwork went first. The talent network that matches freelancers with companies made its initial public offering (IPO) in October 2018. Upwork’s IPO was the first “gig economy” business to go public. Next came Lyft in March. The Lyft IPO gained a lot of momentum, despite the fact the company has yet to yield a profit. […]
This article originally appeared on digital HKS’ Medium. A variety of centers and individuals have tried to define Public Interest Technology (PIT) and those working to advance it. Sasha Costanza-Chock of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), echoing how many refer to Public Interest Law, defines PIT as “people working to use technology for social […]
