Here Are The Hottest Companies In Tech Right Now, According To Goldman Sachs

Here Are The Hottest Companies In Tech Right Now, According To Goldman Sachs - TechCrunch

I think we’ve established by now that what happens in Vegas actually never stays in Vegas. And, as you can see by the agenda obtained by TechCrunch that’s embedded below this post, the Goldman Sachs Private Internet Company Conference scheduled to take place in Sin City over the next two days is no exception.

The Goldman Sachs conference for private web firms is one of the most high-end and hush-hush events in the tech world. It’s essentially like the Hackers Conference or dinners at Sheryl Sandberg’s house or Fight Club, except for tech executives who are likely to soon go through an IPO or big M&A deal. If you’re on the invite list, you’re in pretty good company — and the first rule is that you don’t talk about it to others.

Is Your Business Failing at Content Marketing?

I like this article from Inc.com- 6 Reasons Companies Fail at Content Marketing, by Dave Kerpern. Do yourself a favor and evaluate your content marketing strategy after reading the article.

 Here are the six reasons:

1. They have no subscription strategy. 
2. They fail to inspire brand evangelists. 
3. They still keep their content creators in silos. 
4. They place traditional marketers in content roles. 
5. They overlook internal marketing goals. 
6. They miss out on opportunities to partner with traditional media.

Happy New Year!

I wish the best of luck for everyone in 2014!

Will There Be Pizza on Mars?

Read about a very cool application of 3D printing technology is outlined in, "The Audacious Plan to End Hunger With 3D-Printed Food," from Mashable

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store.

Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store. Ubiquitous food synthesizers would also create new ways of producing the basic calories on which we all rely. Since a powder is a powder, the inputs could be anything that contain the right organic molecules. We already know that eating meat is environmentally unsustainable, so why not get all our protein from insects?

If eating something spat out by the same kind of 3D printers that are currently being used to make everything from jet engine parts to fine art doesn’t sound too appetizing, that’s only because you can currently afford the good stuff, says Contractor. That might not be the case once the world’s population reaches its peak size, probably sometime near the end of this century. “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” says Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone who reads this is having a great Christmas!