INNOVATION
Quantic’s Weekly Roundup – January 2021 (2)
Quantic’s Weekly Roundup is a satisfying mix of the latest breaking news, business, STEM and social science stories. Here are your headlines for this week:
Try your mother’s maiden name? Bitcoin owners are getting rich because the cryptocurrency’s value has soared. But what happens when you can’t tap that wealth because you forgot the password to your digital wallet? Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million.
When in doubt, Zoom it out: Companies have had to figure out remote work on the fly. Everything from outdated technology to a lack of in-person social time with colleagues has presented new challenges for employees used to an office environment. However, businesses are finding that with a little flexibility, the right technology, and more employee training, they can increase employee productivity well into 2021 and beyond.
Word of Advice: At 34 years old, Nikhil Kamath is one of India’s youngest billionaires after co-founding India’s largest trading brokerage, Zerodha. The company has seen its number of registered users double under the pandemic and reportedly has a daily turnover of an estimated $10 billion. Nikhil explains his best advice for other entrepreneurs’ success, including observing industry trends and tapping into growing industries.
Good genes: Gene-editing technology can tackle some of life’s most pressing problems, from disease to malnutrition. In the past decade or so, genetic engineering has undergone its own transformation, thanks to companies like CRISPR Therapeutics, which allows its users to snip a stretch of DNA and then either disable the affected sequence or replace it with a new one. Funding has risen from larger pharma companies, considering that the treatments could be lucrative and the broader technologies may be highly scalable. Because of this, gene-editing stocks have now returned about 230% over the past 2 years, compared to the broader S&P 500, which is up by about 52% over the same period.
