Base coined the term “blanding,” but the international branding agency is anything but boring. With clients ranging from AI startup Rival Theory to e-commerce company Kidbox, Base leverages its broad portfolio of clients and designers from all around the world to help startups develop their individual personas. As they celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, we talked to Base Partner Geoff Cook about how the agency continues to evolve.
“Base strives to have a profound cultural impact. Yes, we do strategy, and yes, we do identity, and all sorts of brand executions, but the end goal is to have a significant cultural impact for our clients. The end goal isn’t the product, it’s the result.”
“As one of our longest-standing mentors at Techstars in New York, Base partner Geoff Cook (with Base as back up) has helped to brand several of our portfolio companies and provided counsel to hundreds more.” Jenny Fielding, NYC, Managing Director, Techstars
“This may sound provocative, but I think the most common mistake is that there is a belief in the tech world that branding should be approached iteratively like their approach to product development. Having now been through that process of iteration with both startups and the largest tech companies, we’ve found that the results are often compromised. Oftentimes if you iterate or have different groups weighing in throughout the process, it can be detrimental to the end result. It’s a conversation we’re now having with founders to say, “We’ve tried both ways, we’ve seen these results, and we would ask that you go along for the ride and put your trust in us, and we’ll ensure that you will arrive someplace really compelling.”
Below, you’ll find the rest of the founder reviews, the full interview, and more details like pricing and fee structures. This profile is part of our ongoing series covering startup brand designers and agencies with whom founders love to work, based on this survey and our own research. The survey is open indefinitely, so please fill it out if you haven’t already.
Yvonne Leow: To kick things off, could you tell me about your backstory? How did you get into branding?
Geoff Cook: I actually came from DKNY, back in its heyday, and met Base’s Belgian partners through the world of fashion. I always joke that I wanted out of fashion and they wanted out of Brussels. So I invested in Base and brought it to New York City in 1999. My background is in marketing and strategy. When I was leading the International Menswear division at DKNY, I started realizing that I always had the most fun working with our internal branding group. So, when I left, I knew I wanted to pivot and go more in that direction. I think what appealed to me was the combination of creativity and the massive impact branding could have on the world. The intersection of those two things really drew me in.
Source: TechCrunch
The director congratulated Marvel on sinking his ‘Titanic’ at the box office.
Source: Wired
The letter calls on companies to do more to combat misinformation.
Source: CNET
The two are also working on prismatic cell development for EV batteries.
Source: CNET
Advocates want the FTC to investigate.
Source: CNET
Tired of tapping on buttons to navigate your Android phone? Help is on the way.
Source: CNET
The latest call to break up Facebook looks to be the most uncomfortably close to home yet for supreme leader, Mark Zuckerberg.
“Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American,” writes Chris Hughes, in an explosive op-ed published in the New York Times. “It is time to break up Facebook.”
It’s a long read but worth indulging for a well articulated argument against the market-denting power of monopolies, shot through with a smattering of personal anecdotes about Hughes’ experience of Zuckerberg — who he at one point almost paints as ‘only human’, before shoulder-dropping into a straight thumbs-down that “it’s his very humanity that makes his unchecked power so problematic.”
The tl;dr of Hughes’ argument against Facebook/Zuckerberg being allowed to continue its/his reign of the Internet knits together different strands of the techlash zeitgeist, linking Zuckerberg’s absolute influence over Facebook — and therefore over the unprecedented billions of people he can reach and behaviourally reprogram via content-sorting algorithms — to the crushing of innovation and startup competition; the crushing of consumer attention, choice and privacy, all hostage to relentless growth targets and an eyeball-demanding ad business model; to the crushing control of speech that Zuckerberg — as Facebook’s absolute monarch — personally commands, with Hughes worrying it’s a power too potent for any one human to wield.
“Mark may never have a boss, but he needs to have some check on his power,” he writes. “The American government needs to do two things: break up Facebook’s monopoly and regulate the company to make it more accountable to the American people.”
His proposed solution is not just a break up of Facebook’s monopoly of online attention by re-separating Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — to try to reinvigorate a social arena it now inescapably owns — he also calls for US policymakers to step up to the plate and regulate, suggesting an oversight agency is also essential to hold Internet companies to account, and pointing to Europe’s recently toughened privacy framework, GDPR, as a start.
“Just breaking up Facebook is not enough. We need a new agency, empowered by Congress to regulate tech companies. Its first mandate should be to protect privacy,” he writes. “A landmark privacy bill in the United States should specify exactly what control Americans have over their digital information, require clearer disclosure to users and provide enough flexibility to the agency to exercise effective oversight over time. The agency should also be charged with guaranteeing basic interoperability across platforms.”
Once an equally fresh faced co-founder of Facebook alongside his Harvard roommate, Hughes left Facebook in 2007, walking away with what would become eye-watering wealth — writing later that he made half a billion dollars for three years’ work, off of the back of Facebook’s 2012 IPO.
It’s harder to put a value on the relief Hughes must also feel, having exited the scandal-hit behemoth so early on — getting out before early missteps hardened into a cynical parade of privacy, security and trust failures that slowly, gradually yet inexorably snowballed into world-wide scandal — with the 2016 revelations about the extent of Kremlin-backed political disinformation lighting up the dark underbelly of Facebook ads.
Soon after, the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal shone an equally dim light into similarly murky goings on Facebook’s developer platform. Some of which appeared to hit even closer to home. (Facebook had its own staff helping to target those political ads, and hired the co-founder of the company that had silently sucked out user data in order to sell manipulative political propaganda services to Cambridge Analytica.)
It’s clear now that Facebook’s privacy, security and trust failures are no accident; but rather chain-linked to Zuckerberg’s leadership; to his strategy of neverending sprint for relentless, bottomless growth — via what was once literally a stated policy of “domination”.
Hughes, meanwhile, dropped out — coming away from Facebook a very rich man and, if not entirely guilt-free given his own founding role in the saga, certainly lacking Zuckerberg-levels of indelible taint.
Though we can still wonder where his well-articulated concern, about how Facebook’s monopoly grip on markets and attention is massively and horribly denting the human universe, has been channelled prior to publishing this NYT op-ed — i.e. before rising alarm over Facebook’s impact on societies, democracies, human rights and people’s mental health scaled so disfiguringly into mainstream view.
Does he, perhaps, regret not penning a critical op-ed before Roger McNamee, an early Zuckerberg advisor with a far less substantial role in the whole drama, got his twenty-cents in earlier this year — publishing a critical book, Zucked, which recounts his experience trying and failing to get Zuckerberg to turn the tanker and chart a less collaterally damaging course.
It’s certainly curious it’s taken Hughes so long to come out of the woodwork and join the big techlash.
The NYT review of Zucked headlined it as an “anti-Facebook manifesto” — a descriptor that could apply equally to Hughes’ op-ed. And in an interview with TC back in February, McNamee — whose more limited connection to Zuckerberg Facebook has sought to dismiss — said of speaking out: “I may be the wrong messenger, but I don’t see a lot of other volunteers at the moment.”
Facebook certainly won’t be able to be so dismissive of Hughes’ critique, as a fellow co-founder. This is one Zuckerberg gut-punch that will both hurt and be harder to dodge. (We’ve asked Facebook if it has a response and will update if so.)
At the same time, hating on Facebook and Zuckerberg is almost fashionable these days — as the company’s consumer- and market-bending power has flipped its fortunes from winning friends and influencing people to turning frenemies into out-and-out haters and politically charged enemies.
Whether it’s former mentors, former colleagues — and now of course politicians and policymakers leading the charge and calling for the company to be broken up.
Seen from that angle, it’s a shame Hughes waited so long to add his two cents. It does risk him being labelled an opportunist — or, dare we say it, a techlash populist. (Some of us have been banging on about Facebook’s intrusive influence for years, so, er, welcome to the club Chris!)
Though, equally, he may have been trying to protect his historical friendship with Zuckerberg. (The op-ed begins with Hughes talking about the last time he saw Zuckerberg, in summer 2017, which it’s hard not to read as him tacitly acknowledging there likely won’t be any more personal visits after this bombshell.)
Hughes is also not alone in feeling he needs to bide his time to come out against Zuckerberg.
The WhatsApp founders, who jumped the Facebook mothership last year, kept their heads down and their mouths shut for years, despite a product philosophy that boiled down to ‘fuck ads’ — only finally making their lack of love for their former employer’s ad-fuelled privacy incursions into WhatsApp clear post-exit from the belly of the beast — in their own subtle and not so subtle ways.
In their case they appear to have been mostly waiting for enough shares to vest. (Brian Acton did leave a bunch on the table.) But Hughes has been sitting on his money mountain for years.
Still, at least we finally have his critical — and rarer — account to add to the pile; A Facebook co-founder, who had remained close to Zuckerberg’s orbit, finally reaching for the unfriend button.
Source: TechCrunch
For now, T-Mobile is the sole US carrier that will sell the phone.
Source: CNET
The constant refrain in the tech world is that the world is about to be rocked by the combination of AI and robots. Therefore you’d think that startups that build either AI or robots would be onto a winner. However, there’s a serious misunderstanding going on.
What is becoming clear is that the closer companies are to actual robotics, the only way to compete will be in genuinely transformational hardware. The era where a robotic arm was considered innovative is long over.
Similarly, robotics as a sector won’t go anywhere without being married to powerful machine learning and visual systems.
Thus it is that startups that can do both AI and blend this with robotics, that might be either off the shelf robotic arms or tools, will position themselves far higher up the valuation stack.
So it’s signification that UK-based startup Karakuri has ‘opened the kimono’ on it’s plans to do just that.
Karakuri uses a combination of robotics, machine learning, optics, and sensors to deliver a robot which will make personalized, freshly prepared, high-quality meals. The advantage is that the robot can make something which matches exactly what the customer wants (no nuts and seed for instance, just this amount of dressing etc ) and the result can also minimize food waste.
The startup comes at the right time. Research shows that almost two-thirds of consumers globally now follow a diet that limits or prohibits the consumption of some foods or ingredients due to food intolerance, as well as following a specific weight loss diet.
Karakuri has now raised a £7 million seed investment, led by Ocado.
Karakuri’s technologies also allow restaurants to move away from mass pre-packaged meals and significantly reduce food waste.
The fundraise is includes investments from Hoxton Ventures, firstminute capital, and Taylor Brothers and will be used to further develop the company’s technology, strengthen its IP base and expand its team for global growth.
For Ocado, the investment means it can expand its value proposition in grocery, especially through Ocado Zoom, its new delivery arm.
Karakuri CEO and co-founder, Barney Wragg, says, “Consumer eating habits in and out of the home are changing rapidly as demand increases for healthier options that match specific dietary requirements. This growth in menu personalization is putting huge pressure on restaurants, cafes and other food retailers. These providers have historically relied on identically mass-produced meals to maintain their profit margins. By using robotics and machine learning, Karakuri’s systems provide localized micro-manufacturing within an existing restaurant, retail or commercial kitchen. Our systems prepare personalized meals onsite in real time to the exact requirements of each customer.”
Brent Hoberman, Karakuri’s founding chairman, co-founder of Founders Factory and General Partner at firstminute Capital says: “The time is now for robotics and AI to drive change in the restaurant and food services business. Barney and Simon have assembled a world-class team to go after one the next large markets to be enhanced by this technology. We are delighted that Ocado, a global leader in robotics and distribution, has chosen to invest in Karakuri to lead the innovation in this sector.”
Hoberman says startups like Karakuri are going to become more significant as we reach the tipping point where manual workers are becoming less and less available to do the kinds of work that used to be done in restaurants.
Karakuri emerged out of the Founders Factory incubator, but the back story to this startup is significant. It’s advisory board includes industry experts from ARM, Ocado, Imperial College, Bristol Robotics Lab and Edinburgh Centre for Robotic.
Bristol Robotics Lab, in particular, has generated a world-class reputation for it’s robotics accelerator.
Source: TechCrunch
Jumpin’ Jack Flash-sale, startup fans! If you love the idea of saving even more money on passes to the preeminent tech conference focused on early-stage startups (and hey, who wouldn’t?), this is your chance. We’re holding a 48-hour flash sale that shaves an extra $200 off the price of select passses to Disrupt San Francisco 2019.
The flash sale starts at the stroke of midnight (PT) on Thursday, May 9 and runs through 11:59 p.m. PT Friday, May 10. Imagine experiencing Disrupt SF for less than the super-early-bird price. Crikey, that’s a good deal (even if we do say so ourselves). Jump on this offer now and buy your pass before the clock runs out.
Disrupt events always feature the most fascinating, relevant speakers in tech and investment, and this year is no exception to the rule. Hear from experts like Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), who will join us for a fireside chat about — among other things — current societal views on cryptocurrency and what needs to happen for it to become commonplace. Learn from Rachel Haurwitz, employee number one at Caribou Biosciences, a company founded to commercialize the gene editing technology known as CRISPR. Plenty more extraordinary speakers will be announced in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned!
Maybe you’re ready to launch your startup to the world by taking on other exceptional startups in our epic pitch competition, Startup Battlefield. Go head-to-head with startups hand-selected by TechCrunch editors. Receive extensive, free pitch coaching, VIP treatment at Disrupt and a shot at the $100,000 grand prize.
If you’re not quite ready to compete but want to showcase your startup for free in the Startup Alley expo hall, apply to be a TC Top Pick. TechCrunch editors curate this cadre of outstanding startups and those selected will win a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, a videotaped interview and more at Disrupt.
One application enters you for consideration for both TC Top Picks and Startup Battlefield. It’s easy to apply, it won’t cost a thing and either one could take your early-stage startup to the next level. Apply right here.
There’s so much more to experience at Disrupt — like world-class networking in Startup Alley and beyond. CrunchMatch makes connecting with the right folks even easier, by helping you curate and connect with just the people you need to meet to succeed. Plus, there are the Q&A Sessions, panel discussions, workshops, and the Disrupt SF Hackathon.
Connect with community and opportunity at Disrupt San Francisco 2019, which takes place on October 2-4. And if you take advantage of this 48-hour flash sale, you’ll save an extra $200 off select passes including Startup Alley Exhibitor Packages. Whatcha waitin’ for? Jump!
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Source: TechCrunch