Jeff Bezos adds record $13 billion to net worth in one day
Below are some interesting articles covering real estate innovation this week.
There is only 1 week left to nominate a candidate for an ASDAward. The nominees will be invited to the ASDAwards ceremony that’s held as part of AnySizeDeals Week – The Festival of Real Estate Innovation which takes place from September 8 – 11, 2020 at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.
This Week in Real Estate Innovation
STATE OF THE MARKET
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos adds record $13 billion to net worth in one day | Daily News
While the majority of Americans continue to stretch paychecks and unemployment aid amid the coronavirus pandemic, Jeff Bezos added a whopping $13 billion to his net worth in just a single day.
Already by far the richest man in the world, the 56-year-old Amazon founder’s assets have increased by $75 billion since the start of 2020 despite the U.S. entering its biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Following his massive boost in wealth, the Bloomberg Billionaire’s index estimated Bezos’ net worth to be at $189.3 billion…
Why Covid-19 Makes It Harder for Cities to Fight Climate Change| WSJ
Cities are trying to reduce carbon emissions at office buildings. That goal is now colliding with efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Landlords and property managers are pumping more outside air into their buildings, a procedure thought to reduce the likelihood of workers catching an airborne virus. But the practice leads to significantly higher energy bills and an uptick in emissions that can contribute to climate change…
Coronavirus Threatens the Luster of Superstar Cities | NY Times
Cities are remarkably resilient. They have risen from the ashes after being carpet-bombed and hit with nuclear weapons. “If you think about pandemics in the past,” noted the Princeton economist Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, “they didn’t destroy cities.”
That’s because cities are valuable. The New York metropolitan area generates more economic output than Australia or Spain. The San Francisco region produced nearly one of five patents registered in the United States in 2015. Altogether, 10 cities, home to under a quarter of the country’s population, account for almost half of its patents and a third of its economic production.
THE FUTURE OF WORK & THE WORKPLACE
Return to business as unusual: how to lead differently in the workplace of the future | Verizon
Is the future of work a bionic organization? This is the suggestion of Verizon Business’ CEO, Tami Erwin, and President of Verizon Global Enterprise, Sampath Sowmyanarayan, in a new white paper published this week. The paper, written in conjunction with Boston Consulting Group, is the third in a series looking at tactics for success in a post-COVID ‘business as unusual’ environment. The key recommendation is that organizations will need to intertwine the possibilities offered by technology with human capabilities to be successful in the future.
BLOCKCHAIN
ZERO Plans to Support Trading of Aspencoin Ski Resort Digital Security| Nasdaq
tZERO President Saum Noursalehi said Wednesday that his token trading platform plans to enable trading of St. Regis Aspen Resort digital securities later this quarter.
- The security-token focused offshoot of Overstock.com will support trading of âAspen Digital Tokensâ (ASPEN) in partnership with token issuer Aspen Digital Inc, a subsidiary of the real estate firm Elevated Returns LLC, the firms said in a press release.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & ROBOTICS
Dexterity exits stealth with $56.2M raised for its collaborative warehouse robots | TechCrunch
Dexterity emerged from stealth this week to announce its full-stack solution aimed at creating collaborative robotics systems. The hardware-software system is designed for a variety of different tasks, including bin picking and box packing, targeted at warehouse fulfillment and logistics needs.
Sony’s wearable air conditioner is pretty cool| Venture Beat
I don’t think my opinion on Japanese summers is particularly unusual, which is probably why Sony decided to go ahead with the Reon Pocket through its First Flight internal-startup-incubator-slash-crowdfunding-platform. First Flight has previously led to products like the FES E Ink watch, the Huis smart home universal remote, and the Wena Wrist modular smartwatch. Now we have the Reon Pocket, which can only be described as a wearable air conditioner, and I’ve been testing it out…
PROPTECH NEWS
Good business or digital bias? The divisive rise of ‘proptech’ | Japan Today
When Fabian Rogers first heard that his landlord wanted to install facial recognition cameras at the entrance of his New York City building, the recent university graduate was suspicious.
His flat was affordable because it was rent-stabilized by law, he said, but back in 2018 landlords could raise rents when tenants vacated – a legislation loophole that was closed last year after tenants’ groups said it incentivized evictions.
How long can this leading virtual tour player stay on top?| The Real Deal
Last August, R.J. Pittman hopped on stage at a Las Vegas conference to promote his company. A seasoned tech executive with stints at Apple, Google and eBay, Pittman was less than a year into his role as CEO of Matterport, which develops and sells cameras and software to create 3D digital models of interior space.
“Are you ready to step into the future?” he asked the audience packed with real estate executives and agents as he paced the stage in classic Silicon Valley fashion — dark jeans, sneakers and a blazer.
Greek proptech startup Prosperty raises €1.1 million seed funding to digitalise real estate processes | techeu
Athens-based proptech startup Prosperty has raised €1.1 million in seed funding from Velocity.Partners and Metavallon VC, as well as some angel investors. The real estate platform is about to launch in Greece and is slated to expand to other countries next year…
