Overwhelmed by an underwhelming existence

This piece is negative, dark, demotivating and has been scripted in a loathsome moment of existential angst.

Well, you've been warned.

Whenever I read articles that appeal to the conscience of an average citizen on various issues such as terrorism, jingoism, war-on-terror, environment, livelihoods, ethics etc. & exhort them to find their voice, I do feel like picking up the baton & jump in headlong yelling 'yes absolutely'. But alas, my motivation to do so takes a nose-dive when I try and count on my fingers where at all my voice matters, forget macro, within my microcosm representing my country, my province, my city, my company, my neighborhood - the fist remains closed & limp.

Most average Joes' (& Jennis') as me are so overwhelmed by their underwhelming existence that they don't really care or bother about changing the world & merely survive by taking things as they are served.

I really hope this changes for good for me & all else, but as of now my utopia is all make believe & I shudder at the prospect of a damning expose’

Uberration

Don't worry folks, this isn't yet another Uber bashing or defending article. Since so many are already on that job, I'd rather pass the blame up & rile the investor universe a little instead :-)

First a disclaimer:

Conceptually I admire Uber - I dig the fact that something as mundane as local commute can have such disruptive business potential. As a user I loved the sheer convenience & practicality of an app based cab service that eliminates the fuss of 'booking' a chauffeured cab & thrilled that I'd always know how far my ride is & jus' how many more are creeping around near where I am. I liked it that this company made it possible for quite a few folks in the recession hit USA to make a decent living without looking too bad doing that.

Okay the real poser now

Among all the financial greats such as Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, Black Rock Inc, Summit Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures et al who poured in a whopping $1.2 billion into Uber merely a few months ago, is there one that had raised/ browsed over the possibility that Uber with it's now famous thumbing-its-nose-at-rules approach is potentially waltzing each day into a new & huge regulatory risk?

Is it possible at all that there were absolutely no indicators of this looming risk in July 2014 considering that by December 2014 Uber managed to get into trouble in 15 different countries ranging from USA (California, Nevada, Portland); Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan and India?

Are the PE, VC organizations in their quest to go after high potential start-ups not sufficiently factoring in any ethical, livelihood & regulatory aspects, that could turn into risks, before unloading truck loads of money? If indeed these aspects were overlooked by them, is it that in their over-enthusiastic support of Uber & it's disruptive enterprise model, the investing universe did a major disservice to them by not letting them get aware of a potential risk they're aggregating (pun intended) with each city they are expanding into?

I really hope Uber cleans-up & pursues its definitive potential so I could hail my fav' cab again soon within my city and elsewhere too - I could be dead-wrong but I feel though that the investor organizations need to do some soul-searching into what exactly their due-diligence is all about or not & if their multibillion valuations are indeed less market regulatory risk.

Post Thought - 11th December

The banning of Uber in India is akin to a parent banishing the teenager from home just because she/ he is caught smoking for the very first-time. The normal approach would be to tell em' 'you are grounded' & proceed to put some sense in the kid which in case of Uber would be asking them to suspend their operations till all aspects are cleared out - I hope Mr. PM will raise above petty politicking and be the stern nurturer of progress people expect him to be.

The eleventh commandment: Share thy health data

You know you've got one compelling business plan when your investor starts promoting your wares even before you hit production. Like I've said here earlier, at the base of Google's healthcare ambitions is the health data of its users & now one of their earliest believers is bearing the torch to its data quest & how!

Beth Seidenberg, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (@KPCB) that famously invested 25mio USD (along with Sequoia) for a 20% stake in Google way back in 1999, in a recent blog piece of her's exhorts the users saying "You Should Share Your Health Data: Its Value Outweighs the Privacy Risk". Beth of course invests in digital health start-ups and hence could be speaking for those too, but it's anybody's guess which of KPCB's investments this would help the most.

Not that people need to be pressurized much these days to voluntarily part with their data, health or otherwise, but this dictat by the good doctor will surely makes 'em feel good about the 'why' part of it.

Sweet.

Update: 15th Nov 2014

allrighty...... now Accel's Rich Wong is going bullish on Android platform over IOS for investments in mobile health technologies. From making appeals of voluntary data disclosure to enabling automated data recovery through internet of things, the (investing) universe is truly conspiring to give it all to Larry & Sergei :-))