TLDR 2019-10-02

Facebook's CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg will fight efforts to split up the tech giant. He says that breaking up Facebook won't solve issues with spreading misinformation or with election interference. Problems with these issues are likely to increase if the tech giant was split up as the separated companies will find it more difficult to coordinate and work together. Many people and politicians have called for Facebook to be broken up as the platform has developed an unprecedented amount of power. Zuckerberg says that Facebook's intention is to work with the government and to do good things.

Tesla is acquiring DeepScale, a computer vision start-up that could help Tesla deliver cars with advanced driver-assistance systems. DeepScale's systems use low-wattage processors to power very accurate computer vision. Its autopilot is good enough to be used in robotaxis. Forrest Iandola, DeepScale's CEO, has recently joined Tesla as a senior machine learning scientist. The acquisition of DeepScale could help fill the talent gap in Tesla's Autopilot division as 11 engineers have recently left the team.

Picnic, a Seattle startup, has created a system that makes custom pizzas with little human intervention. The device looks simple, but it is able to assemble up to 300 12-inch pizzas per hour. While machines have been making frozen pizzas for years, Picnic's robot is different in that it is small enough to fit in most kitchens, the recipes are easily changed, and the ingredients it uses are fresh. It still requires humans to prepare the dough, make sauces, and to bake the finished pizza. Picnic uses a camera to make sure that the ingredients are distributed evenly across the pizza. Restaurant owners can rent the device. Technology changes quickly, so many people don't want to buy a whole device only for it to be obsolete within a few years. While the machine has the potential to take over fast-food workers' jobs, restaurants have been having trouble filling in these positions anyway. More than 80 percent of workers in fast-food positions change jobs each year, requiring employers to constantly train new recruits.

UPS has received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate a full drone air delivery service. It will now start rolling out its drone delivery service to specific hospital campuses within the US and then to other industries outside of healthcare. The certification by the FAA allows UPS to fly an unlimited number of drones, which means that UPS can scale its operations to meet customer demand. It can also carry heavier cargo at night time. There is still a lot more infrastructure that needs to be built before UPS drones will become commonplace and available for everyday deliveries.

Streamlit allows developers to create apps for machine learning projects using simple Python scripts. Apps will update live as they are edited and saved. All that is required is an editor and a browser. Examples of apps written with Streamlit are available.

This site contains a general list of current economically important human activities that can be used as ideas for startups. There are just over 18,000 ideas on the list.

Finding a good co-founder or partner when starting a new company can be like dating. A testing and evaluation period is required before you can decide that the person is the right partner to enter into a business with. Gloria Lin created a playbook for how to approach this different type of courting process, including a questionnaire designed to probe for compatibility. Finding the right business partner requires time. Hiring a business executive usually takes a few months, so it makes sense to take the same amount of care to find a co-founder. It's important to find someone who complements your strengths and weaknesses. Building a pipeline for finding and qualifying potential co-founders will streamline the process and make it easier to sort through potential candidates. Defining specific boundaries will help you quickly determine who is not suitable as a partner. Once you have found a good partner, it's important to continue building on the relationship, as a co-founding relationship can potentially last years.