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Startup Watch: Robots, iPhones, hacking of Ukraine and Bitcoin's rival

Startup Watch: Robots, iPhones, hacking of Ukraine and Bitcoin's rival

The world of entrepreneurship news is a complex one, with people ever ready to give their two cents on how you should be running your business/VC fund/incubator.

Here’s what we’ve been reading on how new hires need to fit in with your company culture, the poor assembly line life of Apple workers, and Moroccans clearing up trash with an app.

Robotic oncologists? The robot will see you now. Well, it’s not that literal, but venture capitalist and Sun Microsystems cofounder Vinod Khosla was saying this week that jobs within the medical profession could face the chopping block. He is not alone in expecting to see changes, like human radiologists not existing in five years. He also added that climate science was going to suffer majorly because of AI - it’s basically not sexy to work on climate science, apparently.

The hacking playground that is Ukraine. This is a longer read, looking at how Ukraine has been attacked, on pretty much every level, in a cyber capacity. They say it’s the Russians, and “ international cybersecurity analysts have stopped just short of conclusively attributing these attacks to the Kremlin”. Either way, this article is arguing that Russia is simply using Ukraine as a testing ground for perfecting new forms of global online combat. If true, watch out world.

Another picture of sinister hands on a keyboard to denote hacking. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Looking good on paper but not IRL. Apparently, the hiring of c-suite execs isn’t that successful. According to stats from the US as many as 75 percent of employees see their direct line manager as the worst part of their job, ouch. A common problem with new hires is that they don’t fit with company culture, despite their excellent resumes. HBR shares three tips: breakdown their values so as to see if they are in line with yours; know your own values and organizational culture; don’t assume a new leader can’t make changes to your current culture - it could be a good thing.  

Wamda of the week: Morocco’s trash spotting app. We’re all too familiar with the rising amount of waste that we’re producing and the fact that it isn’t always being disposed of in the most suitable or ecological fashion. In Morocco, with the rising smartphone penetration, a new startup has created an app that allows its users who spot uncollected trash, to report it to public authorities, by taking a picture of it and sharing it on the platform through a software as a service application.

The sad case of an Apple factory. This extract from his book ‘The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone’, Brian Merchant tells the chilly tale of getting into a Chinese factory where iPhones are made. It is also where there have been multiple suicides among the assembly line workers putting together those sleek devices.

Unappealing - workers in an electronics in a Shenzhen factory. (Image via Flickr/Steve Jurvetson)

Move over Bitcoin. Did you know that the cryptocurrency that we all love to talk about, but half the time don’t understand, has a rival? It’s called Ether. It lives on a network called Ethereum. Its value has risen 4,500 percent since the start of the year.

A tip for your Uber. So Kalanick is gone but tips for Uber drivers are here. It’s not a new thing, Uber’s main rival in the US, Lyft, has already enabled this function (it’s in-app). Three cities in the US will be trialing the feature first and apparently international drivers will be able to use the feature in the near future. Careem, any tips?

Feature image via Wikimedia Commons.

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