How to Avoid a Life of Misery

Few who knew Epictetus would have considered him lucky.
He was born a slave 2,000 years ago. He lived and died in poverty. He was permanently crippled from a broken leg given to him by his master.


They’re not necessarily a list of circumstances that you would wish on anyone you cared about even slightly. The reason his name has lived on for so long, however, isn’t for the misfortunes that he suffered.


He’s remembered as a philosopher. Along with Seneca and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his work has done more to spread the wisdom of Stoic philosophy than perhaps anyone else. Even today, the principles he stood for are used by people of all cultures and nationalities.


Without getting into the details, the core idea of Stoicism is to be aware of what you can and can’t control. Once you have that awareness, you can avoid misery by changing what you can control and letting go of what you can’t.


It’s an incredibly simple and powerful concept, and that’s why it’s often referred to as the most practical of the ancient and modern philosophies.


What’s admirable about Epictetus is that he showed the extent of its effectiveness through example. In spite of his circumstances, by all records, it appears that he lived a happy and fulfilled life.
In fact, his epitaph for himself was the following statement,


“Here lies Epictetus, a slave maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.”
Have An Inner Locus of Control


Change what you can control. Let go of what you can’t control.
It’s so elegant that it almost sounds too good to be true. In a way, it is. It’s easy for me to say that, and even understand it, but in practice, it gets messy.


I don’t pretend that I always stand by it. In fact, I may know that I can’t control anything about the random interruptions that disrupt me when I’m deeply focused on work or when a person cuts me off in traffic, but that doesn’t mean that I always respond in a way that doesn’t add annoyance to my day.
I automatically get nudged into a mode of frustration which stops me from continuing on with what I was doing in a positive way. It’s not productive to my life, and by the time I realize my frustration, I’m already too deep into it.


It’s not an unfamiliar situation. How would Epictetus respond to that?
It’s simple. Everything in your life is your responsibility, and every negative occurrence is bad because of how you dealt with it, not what happened. You should expect to be treated unfairly, you should know that things will be hard, and you should be ready for stress and pain.
With this state of mind, there is no excuse, even if it is valid, because you accept full responsibility, and you begin to associate the annoyances of life with your own inability to deal with them.
Naturally, it’s important not to be too hard on yourself, but such an association goes a long way in establishing a proactive link of action to how you interpret the events that occur in your life.
Psychologists call this an inner locus of control, and it inspires people to see that internal, rather than external, factors shape how their life plays out.


For better or worse, the responsibility is yours.

Diversify Your Sources of Joy
The first thing that anyone with formal instruction in entrepreneurship or investing learns is that it’s critically important to diversify.


As an investor, you should never put all your eggs in the same basket, and as an entrepreneur, it’s generally not wise to rely on just a single income stream. The risk of loss becomes too high if you do.
In life, we all have a limited amount of time and energy to direct to things that bring us joy. Most things don’t really matter all that much, and as such, it’s a good idea to be ruthless in eliminating those things.


That said, like an investor or an entrepreneur, it’s worth spreading your scare resources — time and energy, in this case — across more than one source.


While a lack of focus is never going to help you establish a sense of mastery in any single domain, it’s important to balance the meaning you derive from your work with other things in your life, like hobbies and personal projects.


Having too many intimate relationships tends to detach a level of depth from each of them, but still, it’s important to have more than just one or two people who you can trust and who you can rely on if you’re ever in need.


The same applies to your identity. Associating it with a single thing poses too great of a risk on the occasion that you get detached from that thing.


Things will always go wrong. Over a long enough timeline, that’s inevitable.
Epictetus’ wisdom on expecting that and accepting responsibility for it will take you far, but having diverse sources of joy and meaning will protect you from falling too far into the depths of misery when something unforeseeable disrupts your life in a way that’s intimately challenging.
You should never rely on a single thing to bring you fulfillment.


Is It Really That Easy?
Misery doesn’t arise from external events. It grows from within.
This means that although it can be influenced and inspired by your circumstances, it is largely agnostic to whether or not you’re lucky or unlucky, rich or poor, loved or unloved. It treats everyone the same.


Beyond basic needs like food and shelter, most of us have everything that we need to avoid it. The thing that really matters is our ability to see challenges and difficulties as something other than challenges and difficulties.


As Epictetus himself said,
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”
This is all logical enough to grasp, and in a way, it really is that easy. That said, it requires consistent effort and application. It demands that you not only understand it, but that you internalize it into day to day conduct.


In the grand scheme of things, we’re all here temporarily for a brief and fleeting moment of passing time. That moment may have been imposed on us without our say, but it doesn’t shape how we experience it.


Life isn’t concerned with what you want. It will, however, give you what you need to enjoy it. All you have to do is adjust to it.


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Capital-as-a-Service: A New Operating System for Early Stage Investing

At Social Capital, we’re most excited about entrepreneurs that challenge assumptions, that take a non-consensus view of the world, and then validate that view with experiments and data. It’s only natural that we’d apply that same lens to our own discipline. In that process it’s become clear that some of the assumptions upon which early-stage venture investing was founded don’t hold to be true. With this insight, we’ve been working on something with the potential to disrupt the status-quo and accelerate our mission: capital-as-a-service, a new operating system for early-stage investing.


Before I talk too much about the solution, let me offer some background on how I first came to understand the problem. I’ve only been a professional investor for two years, but I started picking startups long before I added “investor” to my LinkedIn profile. I’ve spent most of my career in product management, building B2B SaaS products such as SurveyMonkey, Optimizely, and DocuSign. In the making of these unicorns I was part of several traditional venture fundraising rounds. As an operator, I found the process deeply frustrating, inefficient, opaque, arbitrary, and most bewildering of all: distracting! Energy that should have been focused on moving the business forward was spent instead on pretty PowerPoints and superficial pitch meetings.



Two-and-a-half years ago, as I was looking for the next opportunity to get excited about, I joined Social Capital as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence still saying I would NEVER become an investor. But, as I met the team and found a set of compatriots ready to question the same assumptions that I had questioned and lean into the same non-consensus views that I had been forming, I realized that becoming an investor didn’t have to mean I was part of the problem. In fact, it could be an opportunity to be part of the solution. Since joining Social Capital I’ve immersed myself in the world of venture investing and have realized that the consensus view of the industry today is flawed.
It is not true that there are too many dollars in venture.


Today it seems fashionable to say that there’s too much money in venture. You can look left and right and see companies solving one-percenter problems raising new rounds of funding when they should be failing fast and cheap. Or companies incinerating heaps of venture dollars in spectacular fashion that would have been better served by less funding and more focus. But, it’s not because there’s too much money, it’s because that money is chasing too few opportunities.


At the same time, the world abounds with big, weighty, unsolved problems and among the 7.5 billion people on the planet there is no shortage of talented people who aspire to solve them. So, it’s not that there are too many dollars in venture, we’d argue in fact that there are too few. This was the belief that Social Capital was founded on, and we’ve sought out the most challenging problems from the start. However, across the industry at large, the allocation of dollars is highly inefficient. While this dynamic persists, we all lose: founders, employees, investors, and most of all the society that stands to benefit from novel solutions to the world’s hardest problems.


It is not true that great ideas come only from Silicon Valley.
Many of the world’s hardest problems are felt unevenly across the globe, and often the entrepreneurs with the most context, the most authenticity, the most expertise, and the most drive to solve them sit closest to the problems themselves. From connectivity to labor market efficiency to healthcare access, many of these problems aren’t acutely experienced in the small number of financial hubs around the world. And, the entrepreneurs best positioned to solve these problems don’t always look or sound a certain way, don’t always mingle with the right people, don’t always know the secret handshake. So, many of these ideas, many of these entrepreneurs, many of these teams struggle to raise meaningful amounts of capital. I’ve met with founders and teams on six continents, and I can tell you from personal experience that they don’t struggle to raise capital for lack of talent or drive or ingenuity, they struggle because they don’t match the traditional mental model of a Silicon Valley VC deal.
It is not true that data can’t be applied to venture.


The reason that too many dollars are chasing too few opportunities is because the anatomy of traditional venture capital hasn’t changed in the past 30 years. Face-to-face interactions and human judgement, followed by (at best) a few thin Excel models and relationship-driven diligence creates a high propensity for bias and a low propensity for scale. This is a classic example of a sector ripe for disruption. Today, every industry is being revolutionized by the application of data: from healthcare to logistics to media and beyond. If the operative question is whether early-stage investment decisions can be better made with data than intuition, using virtually every other discipline as a guide the answer is almost certainly yes.


This is not a new idea for Social Capital. Data has been in our DNA from the start. Our Partners have previously been operators, applying data to build both unicorn startups and multi-hundred-billion dollar public tech companies. We’ve built Social Capital on the belief that this data-oriented approach would yield not only the best investment decisions, but also offer the most actionable insights to the entrepreneurs we partner with to make their companies best-in-class. And we’ve proven the model time and again, many of our most storied investments were not based on intuition or gut or affinity or bias, but on data, benchmarks, and empirical evidence. To date, the application of this data-based discipline within our decision making framework has been fairly manual. We’ve shared our methodology for assessing product-market fit, and each time our Venture and Platform teams collaborate to apply it by hand we learn something new about what makes a successful business model, but to truly achieve global scale we must augment this solution with software. That’s why we started experimenting with an approach we call “capital-as-a-service”, a new operating system for early stage investing, built on the principles of data-based decisions and architected for global reach and scale.


What we’re working on…
We will continue to grow our investment practice focused on the core sectors and geographies we already address, and continue to apply and refine our data-driven methodologies in a high-touch model. Capital-as-a-service will run over-the-top and allow us to scale to new geographies and sectors. We’ve modeled our approach to capital-as-a-service much the same as the startups we admire. Six months ago we kicked off a stealth experiment to develop an MVP, both assembling the underpinnings of an infrastructure platform and developing the basic customer experience for the entrepreneur. In our pilot, we evaluated nearly 3,000 companies and committed to funding several dozen of those, across 12 countries and many sectors, without a single traditional venture pitch. In fact, in most cases the data-driven approach allowed us to reach conviction around an investment opportunity before we ever even spoke to the founders. Worth noting that when we recently looked at CEO demographics, we found that 42% were female and the majority nonwhite.


The true measure of this experiment, however, isn’t in volume, but in the positive feedback from entrepreneurs. It has been, in a word, overwhelming. The scale limits and scope of our platform is being seriously tested by the level of demand we’re seeing, and the qualitative feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with entrepreneurs appreciating the speed, ease, and transparency of the process. No hoops, no $7 artisanal coffee chats, no designer pitch decks, no bias, no politics, no bullshit. Just the best teams with the best ideas, the best execution, and the best metrics funded on the merits of their achievements, not the status characteristics of their founders or the exclusivity of their professional networks.


We’re now dedicated to taking this from MVP to a scale where it can truly democratize access to capital. We’ve assembled a team of technical talent to build the platform, a coalition of like-minded global investors to help identify the best opportunities wherever they sit around the world, and we continue to seek out entrepreneurs aiming to solve the world’s hardest problems. If any of these sound like you, please drop us a line here. If you’re just intrigued by this idea, watch this space - there’s much more on the way…

Our Consumption Model Is Broken. Here’s How To Build A New One.

August 2, 2017, we started using more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year. Every natural resource we used from that day onward resulted in “ecological overspending.” Think of it as your bank account. For the first 7 months of the year, you lived on your regular salary. After that, you started using your savings and increasing your credit card debt. Currently, humanity lives at credit and consumes resources equal to that of 1.7 planets a year. That’s compared to 1.4 a decade ago and 0.8 in 1963. If population and consumption trends continue, this figure will rise to 2 planets by 2030. This puts us — and our children — on an unsustainable path.


The Climate Crisis Is Embedded in Our Consumerist Culture
This ecological overspending contributes to the warming of our planet. It accelerated in the past 35 years — 2016 was the hottest year since record-keeping began. Most scientists agree that the leading cause of the warming is human pollution. The burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests are the main contributors. Clean energy and protecting our forests are critical parts of the solution. But we must look at the challenge in a more holistic manner. The climate crisis is rooted in our modern lifestyle, and in the economic model that supports it.


A recent study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology looked at the impact of consumption. It calculated that, in 2007, consumers contributed to more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. They also contributed between 50 and 80 percent of total land, material, and water use. US households alone contributed to a quarter of global emissions. Only 20 percent were direct emissions from the use of public transport and household fuel. The bigger part was indirect emissions from consumption of products and services. These included housing, transportation, food, manufactured products, and clothing.


To appreciate how much this relates to lifestyle, take food, for example. As income rises, people consume more dairy and meat products. These are the food categories with the highest environmental footprint. In fact, the global livestock industry produces more emissions than all cars, planes, trains, and ships combined. A study by Oxford University calculated that a global shift to a vegan diet would reduce food-related emission by 70 percent by 2050. The picture is similar for our use of resources like water. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages. Beef is the second most popular meat in the US. It is also one of the most water-intensive foods (to produce one pound of beef requires 1,800 gallons of water).


Clothing is another case of our lifestyle destroying our environment. In recent decades, the fashion industry nurtured our appetite for cheap clothes and kept increasing production. The world now consumes 400 percent more clothes than two decades ago. According to the World Bank, textile processing causes 20 percent of water pollution globally. Cotton, the “thirsty crop,” makes up about half of our clothes and requires 5,300 gallons of water to produce 1kg of cotton. This can have devastating effects as seen with the drying up of the Aral Sea.


As we consume we also generate a lot of waste. Especially plastic waste, which accounts for about half of all human waste. Only 9 percent of all plastic waste produced since the 1950s has been recycled. The rest ends up in landfills or polluting our environment. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation projects that, by 2050, oceans will contain more plastic than fish.


The point is: A big part of the problem is ingrained in the fabric of our lifestyle, our daily choices and habits. It is not only the car we drive, the food we eat, or the clothes we wear. The changes needed, from adopting new diets to breaking buying and throwaway habits, go beyond what products we choose. We need to redesign our behaviors: why and how we consume.


We Need Things Consumed, Burned Up, Worn Out
We are all consumers. In a sense, we always have been, satisfying our human needs and cravings. But consumption took a different turn at the offset of the second industrial revolution. Since then, consumerism moved to the center stage of our modern lifestyle. Today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of US GDP. The average American household holds more than $8,000 in credit card debt.
The rise of consumerism started early in the 20th century, in a particular context. Energy from fossil fuels became abundant and cheap. The assembly line production model, first adopted in the automotive industry, began to spread. The production and use of petrochemicals, in turn, expanded. Combined, these developments resulted in a massive increase in our manufacturing capacity. This led to an overproduction problem with too many goods chasing too few buyers. Corporations needed a larger market of consumers. As depicted by historian Stuart Ewen in Captains of Consciousness (1976):


“Consumerism, the mass participation in the values of the mass-industrial market . . . emerged in the 1920s not as a smooth progression from earlier and less ‘developed’ patterns of consumption, but rather as an aggressive device of corporate survival.”


Advertising and consumer lending then developed as very effective tools to create new consumers. By the 1950s, consumerism was a core part of the American way of life. In 1955, economist Victor Lebow wrote in the Journal of Retailing:


“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns (…) We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing pace.”

Excess, clutter, and waste are now everywhere. The average American home has tripled in size since 1950. It contains 300,000 items and over $3,100 worth of unused goods. And still, 1 out of every 10 Americans rent offsite storage, one of the fastest growing segments of the commercial real estate industry. Sixty percent of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year. Only 3.1 percent of the world’s children live in America, but they own 40 percent of the toys consumed globally. Nearly 40 percent of food in America goes to waste. Each year, Americans throw away 70 pounds of clothing per person (equal to more than 200 men’s T-shirt).


Something Has To Give: The Ethics of Consumerism
Companies need to maintain a supply of new and cheap products. They look for ways to increase the volume and speed of production while decreasing costs. This often means using cheap material and labor. The Global Slavery Index estimates that 46 million people are in some form of slavery. Many earn very low wages to produce consumer goods for Western markets.


Large fashion retailers have adopted this model aggressively in the last three decades. In 1900, a US household spent 15 percent of its income on clothing. In 1950, it was still 12 percent but, by 2010, it was less than 3 percent. This happened as brands kept pushing prices and costs down. To do that, they moved production to countries with the lowest wages, the least regulation and the least protections for workers. While in 1960 almost all clothes purchased in the US were also made in the US, today it’s less than 2 percent.


For decades, clothing collections were produced twice a year. Now, fast fashion brands launch new collections every week or two. This ultra-fast schedule governs vast, opaque and fragmented supply chains. It creates the context for human rights violation, precarious and unsafe working conditions. A tragic example happened on 24 April 2013. Over 1,130 people were killed and 2,500 injured when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


The Same Excess That Hurts Our Planet Hurts Us
Chronic diseases — such as heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s — are the leading cause of disability and death in the US. They have been increasing at an alarming rate and claim 90 percent of the US healthcare spending. As of 2012, about half of all adult Americans had one or more chronic health conditions. We can prevent, treat or reverse these conditions with lifestyle and dietary changes like eating less meat and junk foods.


In recent years, scientists found toxic chemicals in most of our consumer products. More than 80,000 chemicals are used in commerce in the US, but the vast majority is not tested for health effects. They are used everywhere, including in our food, clothes, furniture, electronics, and cosmetics. Chemicals used in our clothes, for example, can be absorbed by the skin, our largest organ. Half of our clothes are made of cotton, a crop that accounts for 24 percent and 11 percent of the global use of insecticide and pesticides. The other half is mainly made of polyester and other petroleum-derived fibers. About a quarter of the chemicals produced globally are reportedly used in textile. Wrinkle-free clothes, for example, are often treated with formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. Studies found widespread use of phthalates—linked to asthma, diabetes, and autism—in children clothing.


A report for the European Parliament reviewed the latest science on organic food and human health. It highlighted the impact of pesticide exposure during pregnancy on children’s brain development:
“Three long-term birth cohort studies in the U.S. suggest that pesticides are harming children’s brains. In these studies, researchers found that women’s exposure to pesticides during pregnancy ( . . . ) was associated with negative impacts on their children’s IQ and neurobehavioral development, as well as with ADHD diagnoses.”


The impact is greater on children because the brain develops during pregnancy and in the first two years. Exposure during this phase can cause brain injury at low levels that would have little or no effect in an adult. Parents report that 1 in 6 children in the US, 17 percent more than a decade ago, have a developmental disability. In 2015, a group of leading scientists, medical experts, and children’s health advocates formed Project TENDR. They published a scientific statement to warn against chemicals that can harm children.


“The science is in. The science is clear and sufficient and substantial, and what it shows is that toxic chemicals are increasing American children risks for neurodevelopmental disorder including autism, ADHD and intellectual impairment ( . . . ) These include chemicals that are used extensively in consumer products and that have become widespread in the environment.”


Waste, too, comes around. Plastic waste finds its way into the human food chain through contaminated seafood. Recent studies showed it also contaminates air and tap water. A recent investigation found microplastic particles in 94 percent of tap water samples from the US. It was the highest rate of any country in the study.


Your Latest Trick
As consumption patterns accelerated, the act of buying itself took a cultural dimension. Around the world, shopping has become a frequent pastime accessible to all. This has contributed to a rise in materialistic values in our societies. As fields like psychology and neurosciences progressed, researchers started re-visiting the happiness question. What makes us happy? And what happens to our mental health when we live a big part of our life as a consumer?


The answers confirm ancient wisdom and common sense. Once we have enough to cover our essential needs, further material gains have little to do with our well-being. They even tend to come in the way of true happiness. In The High Price of Materialism (2002), Tim Kasser offers this conclusion:


“What stands out across the studies is a simple fact: people who strongly value the pursuit of wealth and possessions report lower psychological well-being than those who are less concerned with such aims ( . . . ) The American dream has a dark side, and the pursuit of wealth and possessions might actually be undermining our well-being”.

Other studies found that, above a certain income, material gains or possessions do not increase happiness. An ongoing 75-years long adult development study led by Harvard tracked the well-being of 724 men and their families. Generations of researchers analyzed brain scans, blood samples, surveys and direct interactions. They recently started to share their findings:


“The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period”


This sounds obvious. Yet, we spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources on activities that do not increase well-being or undermine it. If common sense and science both show it, then why are we still so consumed with consumption?


Part of the response relates to how our brain works. Neuroscientists have revealed many biases that trick our brain into making short-term decisions. These biases strongly influence our consumption behaviors. They include survival instinct, forming habits, setting goals, and chasing rewards. Often, they make us choose instant gratification over long-term rewards. Brands are experts at stimulating these instincts through advertising and commercial tactics. Sales, discounts, and coupons trick us into seeking temporary satisfaction from the pursuit of a new desired object. This disconnect between the act of shopping and its outcome (owning a product) results in overspending, clutter, and waste.


Do The Evolution


The word “consumption” first appeared in the 14th century to describe any potentially fatal disease that “consumed” the body.
We know we need to transition to sustainable modes of consumption. Our challenge goes beyond fixing the current model, it is one of imagining a new one. Approaches that focus on fixing the current model exist in reaction to it and don’t offer a new way of doing things. Alternatives such as ethical consumerism or minimalism are unlikely to impact enough people. They often underestimate how deep consumption behaviors are embedded into our culture and habits. Choosing sustainable options requires an investment in time and money that only a small minority of people can afford.
We can imagine a new, higher form of consumption where we are not just sorting through the good and the bad but rediscovering why and how we consume. When we do that, we create endless opportunities to re-imagine and improve our lives. We can start with a few principles:


Start with people, not product. The last century of mass consumption was first driven by the ability to produce at large scale. Once we became able to produce so much, we had to make people consume so much. A more evolved system starts with what people need and want, focusing on when and how we use a product (from pay-to-own to pay-to-use).


Design for efficiency and low/no waste. On a planet with finite resources, it does not make sense to produce and consume things in a linear way, from extracting new resources to waste. We need to move to a circular system where we design products to last and be recovered. That way, we also limit the need for new materials (from planned obsolescence to lifetime value).


Design for impact. We need solutions that everyone can afford and enjoy, beyond a happy few. We should design services that solve for joy, convenience, sustainability, and affordability. New business and distribution models can unlock this impact (from single users to multi-user networks).
Design for trust. Digital tools allow us to re-invent almost any user experience. But this has been dominated by advertising-driven models that monetize people’s attention. Often, they serve brands more than users. We need companies with the courage and creativity to build trust by serving the user first.


We should ask ourselves: What societies do we want for us and for future generations? How do we want to spend our time? How much do we want to spend on activities that fulfill us and contribute to our well-being? How do we reconcile with nature and with ourselves?


As we answer these questions, we should rise to the challenge of health and sustainability, and start building pathways to the future we want.
Ali is the Founder and CEO of UpChoose PBC, a startup on a mission to activate consumers’ role in transitioning to a sustainable future.

Don’t Build a Startup, Build a Movement

As a startup marketer, spending my lunch break arguing with developers is not my favorite part of the job.
“That’s bullshit,” our CTO replies. “MailChimp’s product isn’t any better than the rest; it’s just another tool to send your newsletters. Why spend $200/month when their competitors offer the same thing for a few bucks?”
I want to convince him that MailChimp ensures our email campaigns hit customers’ inboxes, not their spam folders.
But he keeps beating me back with technical explanations I don’t fully get.

“Look, we can even build our own email bot that does the exact same thing,” he adds. “You’re just sold on their brand.”
Well, he’s partly right.
Over the last years, MailChimp has built an iconic brand with its design-centric approach and unconventional marketing campaigns.
Monkey mascot billboards with no mention of their name … “MailKimp” and other name-teasing campaigns that reached 334 million people … design-centric annual reports that came with style …
MailChimp’s giveaways were unconventional, too. Free monkey hats for cats were delighting their superfans like me who were ready to pay more.



In a world where anyone can copy your product overnight, instead of knitting monkey hats for cats, MailChimp could very well have chosen to get into an arms race on building more features.
After all, the company was even receiving open letters and warnings from some big customers threatening to shift to the competition if they didn’t build more advanced features.
MailChimp’s answer?


Focus on building a brand customers love.
As we near the end of 2017, the email startup that never took a single dime in outside funding is preparing to close the year with a mind-blowing 15 million customers.
But enough with the monkey business.


Let’s look at the big picture to understand what this means for startups trying to succeed in today’s cluttered world:


You don’t have to disrupt an entire industry: While many entrepreneurs are busy trying to build the next Uber or Facebook, this is a myth we need to dispel. MailChimp didn’t disrupt any industry, yet it managed to build its monkey empire in a market that was becoming increasingly crowded.
If you aren’t disrupting or creating an entirely new market, you can still build an empire in a highly competitive space: And it involves growing superfans who religiously follow your movement and spread the word about you even if you charge premium prices or refuse to get into an arms race on building more features.


What is the secret, though?
How do you reach the masses and grow your fan club that enables you to play the game by your own rules, without worrying about the competition?


The options vary, but some of the world’s most successful startups use two powerful strategies:
First is obviously the “MailChimp way”, i.e., marketing your product like a high-quality brand. As their founder Ben Chestnut explains:


“We make apps for business customers, using low-priced parts, then we market the apps like a high-quality, design-centric, lovable B2C brand.”
But a growing breed of thriving startups uses an alternative strategy — one that doesn’t necessarily require a design-centric approach.


It requires influencing people’s thinking instead:
Don’t disrupt an industry, disrupt the thinking
As Mark Bonchek highlights in his widely popular Harvard essay:
“Companies that successfully market and sell innovation are able to shift how people think not only about their product, but about themselves, the market, and the world.
Don’t sell a product, sell a whole new way of thinking.”
Take Drift, one of the rising stars in the tech scene today.

Instead of forcing their product down people’s throats, the “movers” like Drift sell the underlying shift in thinking, the original insight that led to their innovation.
In Drift’s case, the original insight that led to their product was the old, broken way of marketing and sales that still relied on website forms and annoying sales follow-ups.
Thats why, instead of hard selling or flooding their blog with product info, they talk about how today’s marketing and sales techniques are so yesterday, or why marketing automation and email marketing are broken.
“This is different than your value proposition. It’s an assumption (usually unconscious) about how the world works,” adds Bonchek.
The logic is easy to apply to any startup when you think of it as a template:
We champion [insert], and shift the way people think about [insert] to [insert].
For instance, Drift champions the new way of marketing and sales, and shifts the way people think about marketing and sales to be more conversation-driven, personalized, and human.

Two other iconic companies — Basecamp and Salesforce — are also leading the way in rethinking existing mental models.
Basecamp’s founders grow their superfans by championing the “Un-Silicon Valley way” and shifting how people think about management, productivity, time, growth, or the way startups work.
Salesforce champions the “no software” mantra and shifts the thinking from packaged, installed software to cloud computing and software-as-a-service.
Building an engine that shifts how people think
Changing people’s current mental model doesn’t happen overnight.

Rather, you will need a sustainable engine that shows people the new mental model in different contexts and situations, over and over again.
For example, even though Drift’s blog already reaches over +100K people per month, they unlock new channels that reach the audiences they wouldn’t reach otherwise via:
Their annual “Hypergrowth” conference, dedicated entirely to discussing the future of marketing and sales;
Their “Seeking Wisdom” podcast, where they spread their message through audio conversations.
Like Drift, Basecamp’s founders build a multi-channel engine that helps them reach new pockets of people through their best-selling books like ‘Rework’, their popular blog, and podcasts.
Building an engine to educate people on the new way of thinking isn’t reserved for startups, though.
Giant corporations like GE have already recognized the importance of what they call “mindshare before market share.”


GE’s CMO Beth Comstock explains why they heavily invest in their content engine:
“The really good innovations need to be explained before they’re accepted… It has meant becoming a content factory — telling stories across media and methods from data to videos to social media.”
The MailChimp way, the Drift way, or your way
From bloggers to startup founders, today’s makers share a growing concern:
“So much noise, so much competition.”
Spaces like SaaS are becoming increasingly competitive, where companies feel they are almost selling a commodity or that their product could be copied overnight.
That’s why, in today’s most cluttered marketplace in history, building a movement is more important than ever.
Build it the MailChimp way, the Drift way, or your way. No matter what route you take, there is one element that is consistent across businesses that distinguish themselves: being true to yourself.
As Basecamp’s founders note, pouring yourself into your product is a powerful way to stand out from the crowd:
“If you’re successful, people will try to copy what you do. But there’s a great way to protect yourself from copycats:
Make you part of your product or service. Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell.
Pour yourself into your product and everything around your product too: how you sell it, how you support it, how you explain it, and how you deliver it.
Competitors can never copy the you in your product.”
For MailChimp, it means launching unconventional marketing campaigns that intentionally mispronounce their name:
“We believe the best way to build relationships with customers is to be yourself.
For us, that means having some fun with our name.”
For Drift, it means hosting an honest chat between their CMO and CEO. While the world is full of podcasts that pretend to look professional, Drift’s informal podcast style is one of the reasons that “Seeking Wisdom” has legions of loyal fans.
Being true to yourself is good for business.

Google rakes it in, even amid woes over Pixel 2 XL, fake news

Google and its parent company Alphabet have a lot on their plate right now.

Lawmakers in Washington are examining the world's largest search engine, along with its rivals Facebook and Twitter, over practices critics say undermined democracy. Google plans to testify at congressional hearings next week on how Russian agents used tech platforms to spread misinformation and interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.

Meanwhile, one of Google's new flagship phones, the Pixel 2 XL, has problems with its screen. Reports have mentioned washed-out colors, a bluish tint and a burn-in issue -- which means remnants of images remain on the screen, despite not being actively displayed. Google says it's investigating. CNET updated its review of the phone to reflect the concerns.

Those are big issues for Google, the largest and only profitable division of Alphabet, accounting for 99 percent of its sales. And yet, when it comes to the business side of things, life is still good.

In the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, Alphabet racked up $27.7 billion in sales, beating analyst estimates of $27.2 billion. Earnings per share were $9.57. Analysts expected profit would be $8.33 per share.

Alphabet's share price topped $1,000 in after-hours trading.

Still, during a conference call with analysts Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai alluded to the problem of fake news on his company's platforms. "We care deeply about the quality of information we provide, and constantly work to get this right," he said. "As technology evolves, we have to evolve with it."

Fake news, real problems
Google, like the rest of Silicon Valley, is grappling with its outsize influence on the world and how people might misuse its products. Seven of its products have more than a billion users per month, including YouTube, Gmail, the Chrome web browser and its iconic search engine.

Pichai is conducting an internal investigation into how Russians might have interfered with last year's election using Google platforms, including the search engine, which is a key part of the world's largest advertising business, and YouTube, the world's largest video site. And after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which 59 people died and more than 500 were injured, Google's algorithms prominently displayed false information about the shooter in the search engine's "Top news" section.

Earlier this year, YouTube faced a high-profile boycott from advertisers after it was reported that ads were appearing next to extremist and hate content, due to YouTube's automated advertising technology. Major brands including AT&T and Johnson and Johnson ditched advertising on the platform. On Thursday, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said the company had worked to fix those problems.

"We've been doing a lot to protect the ecosystems and do the right things for advertisers and users," Porat said. "The overwhelming majority of advertisers never left. And those who did -- many are already back on the platform."

But while those controversies tend to grab headlines, Google is running a booming business. Part of the reason for the strong quarter -- Alphabet's revenue jumped 24 percent from the same period last year -- was an uptick in mobile advertising. "We have a very healthy mobile business, search business" Porat said, in what could be the understatement of the year.

The search giant also touted its growing cloud business, which provides computing power to other companies. On the call, Pichai announced new corporate customers, including Paypal.

Outside of its ads business, Alphabet's other high-profile projects are its moonshots -- audacious initiatives like self-driving cars and high-altitude balloons that beam Wi-Fi down to remote regions of the world. On Thursday, Alphabet said those projects, which it calls "Other Bets," are losing less money than they used to. They lost $812 million in the third quarter, versus $861 million over the same period last year.

Google extends Pixel 2 warranty to ease burn-in fears

The tech giant is trying to alleviate concerns that its new smartphone's screen has a problem with image remnants.

If you're thinking of buying Google's new Pixel 2 XL smartphone, the tech giant wants you to know you won't get burned by possible display burn-in issues.

Google, reacting to reports that some Pixel 2 XL phones are suffering from screen burn-in, said Thursday it would double the length of the warranty on the new smartphone to two years. The move comes just days after reports emerged of image remnants lingering on Pixel 2 XL screens despite not being actively displayed. (Meanwhile, no reports about this issue have emerged about the smaller Pixel 2).

Google said its investigation into the reports found the Pixel's burn-in rate to be in line with other premium smartphones and that any issue "should not affect the normal, day-to-day user experience" of the Pixel 2 XL.

"Regardless, we use software to safeguard the user experience and maximize the life of the OLED display, and we'll make ongoing software updates to optimize further," the company said in a statement.

Just after Google's Pixel 2 phones started to ship, earlier this month, reports surfaced that some 2 XL models suffered from screen burn-in. Though such burn-in does happen on different types of displays, OLED screens (which the Pixel 2 XL has) are more prone to it. However, when CNET investigated the issue, our editors did not find burn-in issues with the Galaxy S8 and the LG V30, the latter of which uses the same POLED screen technology to the Pixel 2 XL. 

But the issue typically occurs only after the unit has been in operation for some time. Some early plasma television screens were notorious for screen burn-in.

The burn-in reports were just the second blow to the new smartphone's screen. The Pixel 2 XL's screen also got grief for its muted colors and the bluish hue that was viewable when tilting the phone at different angles -- an occurrence known as blue shift.

Batteries Not Included:The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool.

CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition.

Samsung trolls Google after Pixel 2 XL screen woes

Samsung must have felt a touch of glee when reports surfaced that Google's new phones might be running into problem or two.

When it comes to finer Android phones, Samsung has largely been dominant. Now, here comes Google, which owns the Android operating system, with a pair of highfalutin phones itself.

Google's new Pixel 2 and 2 XL phones have certainly generated admiration, particularly for their cameras. Now, it turns out, Google has cause for perspiration.

The devices seem to have visual issues.

First, some noticed the colors on the phone's screen seemed muted. The screen had a bluish hue and blotchiness. Others began to observe screen burn-in.

The Pixels may well have great cameras. But the high-end excellence only goes so far if their screens make photos look like old Polaroids. That's when the public starts moaning and groaning.

Here, for example, is a Reddit megathread on the subject.

It can't be a coincidence, then, that Samsung has come out with a new ad touting the quality of the screens on all its Galaxy phones

Please don't get too excited. There are no jokes about Google, which the more combative might find a pity.

Instead, this hastily put-together -- to my eyes, at least -- bit of salesmanship features clips of online reviews that offer untrammeled enthusiasm for the face of Samsung Galaxy phones.

MORE TECHNICALLY INCORRECT
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I went to buy a Pixel 2. Verizon tried to sell me a Galaxy S8
It ends with two reviewers saying, "It's a beautiful thing" and "I'm pretty impressed." Voluntarily. These are genuine reviews.

The fact that Samsung has co-opted them can only mean it sees its phones as superior. As it gently snickers behind a cupped hand, of course.

Neither Google nor Samsung responded immediately to a request for comment.

My own experience, at least in one Verizon store, is in harmony with Samsung's confidence. A salesman steered me away from a Pixel 2 and towards a Galaxy S8.

This may have been his honest personal judgment. Or it may have had something to do with commission.

Samsung can't, though, laugh too loud. It's not as if the company hasn't endured its own quality issues. After all, the debacle of the Note 7 caused even President Barack Obama to joke about its explosive qualities.

Samsung seems to have decided to attack Pixel 2 while it can.

The mischievous might wonder what it would choose to do if, say, Apple began to have issues with its iPhone X screen or its much-hyped and slightly controversial Face ID feature, which reports suggest -- and Apple has denied -- won't be quite as accurate as Cupertino first envisioned.

Oh, that might be entertaining.

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iPhone 8 off to bumpy start with iPhone X in the wings

For Apple, the iPhone excitement just isn't there.

At least, not yet.

The tech giant's iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, both of which went on sale on Sept. 22, have done little to excite consumers, results from the big four US carriers indicate. Over the last week, the carriers have hinted at weaker interest for the phones, but expressed optimism for stronger demand for the iPhone X, which is available for preorder on Friday and arrives in stores on Nov. 3.


The iPhone 8 Plus looks a lot like the the iPhone 7 Plus.
César Salza / CNET
T-Mobile, in explaining the lower customer growth from a year ago, partly blamed "the split and shift in iPhone launch timing."

Verizon, likewise, saw lower upgrades in the period. "Obviously, Apple is part of that, with the splitting of the new devices," the company's Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis said on a conference call last week.

The early muted results mark continued new territory in a highly unorthodox iPhone season for Apple. This is the first time Apple had staggered the release of its newest phones into two waves, with its true flagship iPhone X coming later. If the carrier results are any indication, it's the first time the reaction to a new iPhone can be summed up with a "meh."

Sales of the latest iPhones "seem moderately weaker," said Will Power, an analyst at Robert W. Baird, who said it was premature to call the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus a flop.


Watch this: Can iPhone X pick up the slack from iPhone 8?
1:06
While the US carriers make up the second-largest iPhone market in the world, they illustrate just part of the global picture for Apple. It's still unclear whether these early indicators are the start of a bigger trend, or whether the US weakness is an exception.

Apple declined to comment. The company reports earnings on Nov. 2.

Which iPhone to buy?

Ever since their debut, the staggered release of new iPhones prompted the question of which model to get.

Casual consumers and those needing an upgrade were expected to buy the less expensive iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus, since it was available sooner, and presumably more readily available.

Apple suggested as much, offering financial sales guidance that indicated it believed people would readily scoop up a new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus at a level that was comparable to a year ago, when the iPhone 7 launched. The weaker numbers from the US carriers suggest that may not be the case.

For instance, T-Mobile added 595,000 phone customers in the third quarter, down from 851,000 a year ago. AT&T on Tuesday said it lost 97,000 post-paid phone customers, while Sprint reported stronger customer growth Wednesday morning -- albeit on promotional activity rather than iPhone interest.


The iPhone X is the real flagship phone for Apple this year.
CNET
But the iPhone 8 and its larger sibling were always going to be a tough sell. The look of the phone is essentially the same as the previous three years' models. The biggest changes are a glass back and the addition of wireless charging. CNET editor Scott Stein called it the "status quo upgrade" in his review.

In a research note, Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Flannery called the current period, "The calm before the (iPhone) SuperStorm."

iPhone X interest still high

More customers than even Apple expected may be holding off for the iPhone X, which offers a wholly new design with a slimmer frame and a bigger display on a smaller body, and the inclusion of a facial recognition system.

All indications are that iPhone X supply will be low. It's likely why Apple was reportedly willing to ease off on the accuracy of its facial recognition system, which it calls Face ID, to boost production of the phone.


20
iPhone 8 Plus vs. Pixel 2 photos: Is one better than the other?
A consumer survey taken by Raymond James in September found that there was surprising demand for the iPhone X over the iPhone 8, despite the large price gap. Still, Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt said in a note that he doesn't see a huge wave of sales, and he expects Apple to miss Wall Street expectations for the critical holiday quarter.

Fortunately, we don't have to wait long to get some indication of iPhone sales. Preorders for iPhone X begin on Friday, and the company will get a chance to share details about iPhone demand when it holds its earnings conference call next week.

We're all ears.

Rebooting the Reef: CNET dives deep into how tech can help save Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter.

Are we headed for a silent spring?

Habitat is crucial to the survival of South Australia’s woodland birds. To save these species, though, which are at risk, we must act now, writes DAVID PATON.

BIRD week is a time to celebrate our feathered friends. But the cacophony of diverse calls that makes a dawn chorus special is diminishing. Woodland birds are disappearing from our landscapes. We are heading towards a “Silent Spring”.

Rachel Carson in the 1960s used these emotive words to draw attention to losses of birds to pesticides.

And the world acted. Now, if we are to save our woodland birds, we must act.

Adelaide’s Mount Lofty region is a biodiversity hotspot, one of just 15 recognised in Australia.

Biodiversity hotpots should be the last place where species are disappearing – but disappearing they are. They are heading towards extinction.

Surveys of the distributions of woodland birds in 2012-14 showed most species had declined since 1984-85, many by 30-50 per cent.

Two species shown here, the diamond firetail and restless flycatcher, were often seen in the foothills when I was young, and restless flycatchers frequented the Botanic Garden in the 1950s.

These species have long since gone from these areas and they continue to disappear further afield.

Vegetation clearance is often proffered as the cause of woodland bird declines. Before the 1980s, there was extensive vegetation clearance, but it has been negligible since.

In the early 1980s, South Australia led the country by introducing legislation that protected native vegetation. Vegetation clearance was stopped before 1984, but the birds continued to decline.

However, the declines are a legacy of vegetation clearance before the 1980s. There is a simple relationship: the less habitat that remains, the fewer species that can be supported. When vegetation is first cleared, most birds do not immediately disappear.

But as time passes, species do disappear, as they are unable to survive in the fragments of woodland that remain. This ongoing loss of species is known as an extinction debt.

Based on the area of remaining woodland, more than 50 species of woodland birds are predicted to eventually disappear from the Mount Lofty region.

The extinction debt is large and still being paid. All of the conservation reserves that I visited in the 1970s have lost species.

There is still hope and it is not “doom and gloom” yet, because the populations of most species have not yet disappeared.

The time lag provides a brief window of opportunity, but we have to act now. The solution is simple. Reestablish substantial amounts of woodland habitat and give homes back to the birds.

The environmental debate of today is merely a squabble between governments over energy and water for human consumption. Governments have all but given up on biodiversity.

For example, earlier this year, the South Australian Parliament released findings of an inquiry into the state’s biodiversity.

Their report acknowledges that biodiversity is declining and proclaims that biodiversity is everyone’s business. But perhaps not theirs, given funding for biodiversity has declined (in concert with the birds).

Biodiversity protection should be a core government activity. Perhaps our politicians, having released their report, believe their job is done.

Suggestions to expand naturebased tourism to help the state’s economy seem ludicrous.

What international and interstate tourists would be drawn to this state, a state that continues to ignore the demise of our wildlife? Nature-based tourism needs the wildlife to be credible and sustainable.

The time to invest in biodiversity is now. Tomorrow will be too late. I ask the major political parties to stand up and take control by announcing longterm environmental policies that aim to halt, and then reverse, the loss of woodland birds.

I only hope my plea does not fall on deaf ears.

For if it does, the “Silent Spring” will have already begun. DAVID PATON IS AN ECOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE

Crumble and fall

The glut of autumn fruit is a good chance to audition contenders for the Christmas menu. Start now with a pear crumble and a fig cake, says Tamal Ray

With our mornings now transformed by darkness, grey skies and damp, many of us will fall into a slump, pining for the occasional sunshine of a British summer. But for me, it means one thing: Christmas. The big day might be two months away but for those of us who have cottoned on to the fact that the run-up is the best bit, now is the time to be excited. Christmas cakes are being made, menus debated among family cooks. Our own Christmas dessert list, a work in progress, is already up to nine different items.

It’s the spirit of pre-christmas, along with the abundance of autumn fruit, that has inspired both of these recipes.

A good crumble is one of the first things I learned to make. Simple and almost infinitely customisable, it’s the perfect comforting treat on a cold evening. This particular version, with pears poached in sweetened, spiced wine, would work well with some freezing ice-cream, cool cream or piping-hot custard. Or perhaps all three.

Though they’re not native to our shores, black figs are one of my favourite fruits. Fat, dark and juicy, they caramelise perfectly when roasted with a little honey and spooned over natural yoghurt. They also make a versatile addition to cakes and tarts, bringing refreshing colour and flavour to a simple honey and almond loaf cake.

Poached pear & raspberry crumble

Choose the firmest, most unripe pears that you can find for this crumble. They’ll take longer to poach, which means they’ll absorb plenty of flavour from the wine and spices. Makes 6-8 portions of crumble 6 200ml 200ml firm conference red apple wine juice pears 80g sugar 1 stick cinnamon 2 star anise 4 cloves 150g fresh or frozen raspberries For the crumble 125g unsalted butter (cold) 100g soft brown sugar 100g plain flour ¼ tsp table salt 90g whole rolled oats 50g seeds (pumpkin or sunflower)

Preheat the oven to 180C/350f/gas mark 4. Start by poaching the pears: peel them, remove the tops and tails, and slice in half.

Pour the wine, juice, sugar and spices into a saucepan, with the pears. Cover and bring to a gentle simmer. Leave for as long as possible, ideally 3040 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when you’re able to stick in a fork easily but they still have some firmness.

While the pears poach, prepare the crumble biscuit. Start by cutting the cold butter into cubes, then rub it into the sugar, flour and salt by hand until it resembles bread crumbs. Mix in the oats and seeds so that they are evenly distributed.

Spread the crumble mixture out over a large baking tray, lined with baking parchment. Pop it into the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up, then into the oven for eight minutes until it has baked to a hazel brown. Set aside

‘Crumble is the perfect comforting treat on a cold evening’

to cool and turn the oven down to 160C/320f/gas mark 3.

Once the pears are cooked, remove from the liquid and discard the spices. Turn up the heat until the liquid is substantially reduced in volume and has become thick and syrupy.

Assemble the crumble by placing the pears into a roasting dish about 20cm x 30cm. Scatter over the raspberries and pour over the sauce. Finally, break up the crumble biscuit and scatter over the fruit. Warm for five to 10 minutes in the oven and serve with ice-cream or custard.

Honey, almond and fig cake

We’re at the end of fig season so feel free to use any other fruit you wish. Frozen blackberries, or sharp granny smith apples would work well. Makes 1 loaf cake 220g unsalted butter 2 oranges, zest and juice 150g honey, plus 2tbsp for the glaze 2 large eggs ¼ tsp almond extract 100g plain flour 200g ground almonds ¼ tsp table salt ¼ tsp baking soda 1 fig, finely sliced

Preheat the oven to 160C/320f/gas mark 3. Melt the butter in a saucepan on a medium heat and cook until the water boils off and the fat bubbles up. Remove from the heat and you should see that the butter has turned a hazelnut colour and has a nutty aroma. If it still looks pale yellow, return it to the heat for one or two more minutes. Stir in the juice of one orange, 150g honey and zest of both oranges, followed by the two eggs and almond extract.

Sieve together the flour, ground almonds, salt and baking soda. Stir in the liquids to form a smooth batter. Pour it into a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper. Finally, arrange the thin slices of fig over the surface of the batter.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 3540 minutes. When ready, it should be a deep golden brown on top – check that a skewer comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, add the juice of the remaining orange to a small saucepan with two tablespoons of honey. Simmer for a few minutes until the mixture has reduced in volume and started to thicken. When the cake is ready, remove from the oven. Brush the top with the glaze.

Amazon to create 750 jobs in Calgary area

As Calgary pursues the second corporate headquarters of Amazon, it’s about to nab some regional jobs from the e-commerce giant in another form — hosting a new distribution centre.

The Seattle-based firm is expected to announce Thursday that it will be opening up a “fulfilment centre” in the Calgary area, creating about 750 full-time positions, sources said.

The facility will be located outside city limits in Balzac, with the company packing and shipping orders received from online customers.

“Having 750 jobs is a significant opportunity,” said a source close to the announcement. “We’re just pleased that they are coming to the region.”

Amazon has more than 4,000 fulltime employees in the country, but does not have any major operations in Alberta.

It runs six distribution centres across Canada, with four located in the Greater Toronto Area and two in the Vancouver area. It also has corporate offices in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

Thursday’s announcement is expected to be attended by local and company officials, as well as Premier Rachel Notley.

“We’re very pleased that Amazon chose Alberta as place to invest,” said one government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The new facility will be located in Rocky View County, which has become a growing logistics and distribution hub. It has attracted companies like Walmart, which opened a $115-million food distribution warehouse in the area in 2010.

It also comes as municipal and provincial governments have been pursuing out-of-province companies to enter the local market, in an effort to help diversify Alberta’s economy following two years of recession and high unemployment.

“Certainly landing a company like Amazon will help us attract others,” said one source.

Provincial and Calgary Economic Development (CED) officials have been talking with Amazon for months about bringing the company to Alberta.

In recent weeks, CED has also spearheaded local efforts to become home to the U.S. company’s second corporate headquarters, a bidding process known as HQ2.

The U.S. company announced this week it has received 238 proposals from 54 cities and regions across North America interested in hosting the project.

Once the location is selected next year, Amazon expects to spend US$5 billion and create up to 50,000 new jobs for HQ2.

Thursday’s announcement in Balzac isn’t related to that project.

The company is the largest ecommerce retailer in the world, posting net sales of US$37.9 billion for the three months ending June 30, 2017.

THE KEYS TO SUCCESS

From fully wireless models to keyboards geared towards ergonomic comfort, Aatif Sulleyman explores the options to get the most out of your desktop, laptop or device set-up

Keyboards don’t attract a great deal of attention. We tend to take them for granted, focusing instead on the more glamorous devices they’re often connected to.

That’s unsurprising, of course, but it’s worth remembering that a bad keyboard can significantly affect your entire computing experience, even if you’ve shelled out on a fantastic device. That’s why it’s worth taking a little time to make sure you pick the right keyboard for your needs.

There are lots of things to consider before you part with your cash, and it’s easy to lose yourself in the many hundreds of different options that are on the market. Some keyboards are compatible with multiple operating systems, but many only work with Windows or MacOS. The first thing you need to ensure is

that your keyboard actually plays nice with your device or devices.

We’ve included both membrane and mechanical keyboards in this round-up. Membrane keyboards tend to be the cheaper option. They’re lighter too, which is great if you frequently compute away from your desk, and are much quieter than mechanical keyboards. Mechanical keyboards, meanwhile, tend to be more durable and, though they can be quite loud, for many fans the clicking sound they make adds to the user experience. Mechanical keyboards are also better for typing quickly and gaming, as you don’t need to push keys all the way down to activate them. They’re heavy too, which isn’t great for portability, but a major plus point for gamers, as they don’t slide around a desk very easily.

Standard keyboards can cause repetitive strain injury if they’re uncomfortable or you use them for too long. We’ve therefore included an ergonomic keyboard too, which looks highly irregular, but is designed to support your wrists and make the entire typing experience a lot more comfortable.

It’s also important to consider whether you should buy a wired keyboard or a (potentially more expensive) wireless Bluetooth keyboard. Bluetooth models require batteries, but they offer much more flexibility. You can use them pretty much anywhere, and can hook them up to phones and tablets, as well as desktops and laptops.

1. Logitech K400 Plus Wireless Keyboard: £29.99, Argos

The K400 Plus is wireless, which is a huge positive if you care about keeping things tidy and if you tend to compute on multiple devices. It has a 10m range, and is compatible with Windows, Android and Chrome devices. It’s nice to use on your lap too, looks slick, comes with a touchpad, has an 18-month battery life – unfortunately it’s not rechargeable – and comes with shortcuts for Windows and Android. Having to hit the Fn button in order to use the Home and End keys is a slightly annoying shortcoming though.

2. Advent K112 Keyboard: £5.99, Currys

At £5.99, you can’t really go wrong with the K112. It’s a basic, no-frills Windows keyboard that does what it says on the tin. Just plug it into your computer and type away. It isn’t the sleekest bit of kit out there, but won’t look out of place on most desktops. If you already have a good keyboard, this is a handy back-up option.

3. Logitech K120: £14.99, Amazon

Logitech’s K120 is slightly pricier, but offers a number of extra features. It works with Linux and Windows machines and is spill-resistant, draining small amounts of liquid if you have a little accident. Once again, it isn’t particularly eye-catching, but it feels very solid, with Logitech saying each button can withstand up to 10 million keystrokes. For the price, it’s a tempting choice.

4. Cherry MX 3.0 Keyboard: £47.94, Amazon

The Cherry MX 3.0 looks simple and neat, thanks to its compact build, straight lines and sharp edges. It’s a mechanical keyboard, meaning it’s solid, durable and ideal for fast typers, as you don’t need to push keys all the way down to activate them. It’s also quite loud though, which can take some getting used to.The cable is completely detachable, which is great if you fancy moving away from your desk, but there aren’t any customisation options here.

5. Apple Magic Keyboard: £79, Currys

Apple’s Magic keyboard is sleek, and designed to work with Mac and iOS devices. It’s compact and wireless, making it easily portable, and the battery inside is rechargeable, lasting around a month at a time. Keys are shallow and geared towards fast typers, though this doesn’t make for the most satisfying typing experience. It’s a slick piece of kit though, and will fit right in with any other Apple products you own.

6. Logitech K780: £79.99, Logitech

The K780 is a compact, pleasantly modern-looking keyboard that’s designed for minimalist desktops. Alternatively, you can also use in your lap, as it’s wireless, with a 10m range. It’s compatible with Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, iOS and Android machines, and you can be connected to several devices at once, switching between them easily with the touch of a button. There’s an integrated stand for smartphones and tablets too. It’s quiet to type on, and the circular keys are easy to get used to, well-spaced and large enough to accurately hit. For this price though, the lack of backlighting is disappointing.

7. Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic: £85, Microsoft

The Sculpt’s hefty, curved, bizarre-looking build serves a purpose. It’s an ergonomic keyboard, and is designed to both provide wrist support and lift your forearms into a relaxed position so you don’t hurt yourself from typing for lengthy periods of time. It feels weird, but it seems to do the trick. The keys have a good amount of travel and are raised into more natural positions, making for a far more comfortable typing experience, and the cushioned rest is very supportive. This one is only compatible with Windows machines.

8. Microsoft Universal Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard: £99, Amazon

Microsoft’s Bluetooth keyboard is about as portable as a keyboard can get. You can fold it in half and carry it around in your jacket pocket or bag, with it feeling a little like a large wallet. It has generously sized keys for easy typing, and though the keyboard is thin, the buttons offer a surprisingly good amount of travel. The two-piece spacebar takes some getting used to, though. It works with Windows, Android and iOS machines, and you can connect to two devices at once. Off a single charge, you can get up to three months of use and you don’t need to worry about accidental spillages either, thanks to its water-repellent keys.

9. Corsair Strafe RGB Silent Mechanical Gaming Keyboard: £159.99, Corsair

Corsair’s keyboard is expensive, flashy and extremely impressive. All of its keys are programmable, there’s eye-catching backlighting and the buttons are textured for improved grip.The bells and whistles are there because it’s designed for gamers. However, despite being mechanical, it’s silent, meaning you can use it for everyday computing too. It also comes with a detachable wrist-rest, though it isn’t wireless and compatibility is limited to Windows devices.

The verdict

For sheer value for money, it’s hard to look past Logitech’s K400 Plus wireless keyboard. It’s feature-rich, compatible with a wide range of devices and costs less than £30. If comfort’s what you’re after though, there’s no beating the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard.