In September last year, I was having a drink in San Jose with someone from Japan. He’s an old friend of mine and it had been over 25 years since the last time I saw him in person. He now runs a public real estate development company in Japan, and we talked about a US real estate project tied to EB-5 visa program. EB-5 is one-of-a-kind category to get a green card by merely investing money on the US soil, either half million dollars or a million, depending on the location. Many projects and businesses are specifically structured to attract EB-5 investors, and one of them is 15 Hudson Yards, a high-end condominium development in New York. We talked about 15 Hudson as my friend was interested in bringing similar crowdfunding scheme to Japan. We chatted over some other stuff; then I went home.
Who created unicorns?
Unicorns – startups valued over $1 billion – were once as rare as the namesake mythical creature, but now they count almost 150. A herd of unicorns is called a blessing; quite ironic when the bursting smell of unicorn bubbles is wafting over the valley.
Who created the unicorns?
Can Theranos be the third blood test lab?
Can Theranos pivot to become a blood test lab (if it hasn’t already)? To see if their low prices can be sustainable, I compared some of them against Japan’s nationally mandated low fees. (Japan’s healthcare cost is 10% of GDP, as opposed to 17% in the US.) Above chart is the result. For 41 tests I compared, Theranos tests were 2.5 times more expensive on average than the same tests in Japan. While this doesn’t prove Theranos-as-a-test-lab would work, it’s reassuring.
Which startup database is better? Comparing CB Insights, PitchBook, PrivCo, DataFox and Mattermark
I recently compared several private-company databases, as my one-year subscription to CB Insights was coming to an end. I casually signed up for free trials for similar services, without any intention of doing the thorough comparison I ended up doing. But here I am, having created a 26 column spreadsheet dissecting PitchBook, PrivCo, DataFox, mattermark, and CB Insights, I would like to share what I have found.