Infographics

This cognitive bias infographic shows you all the different mental mistakes you are prone to making in your daily work and personal life.- that’s a lot!

A cognitive bias is an error in our thinking that affects the decisions and judgments we make. Some of these biases are related to memory, others to what we perceive and others to how and what we pay attention to in the world around us. Needless to say, subtle biases creep in and influence the way we see and think about the world. These biases then affect our decisions including how we assess risk and uncertainty – two key elements when thinking about an idea for a startup.

List of Cognitive Bias Infographic

View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.

The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.

Science has produced a lot of research to show that we all make mistakes, called “cognitive biases”, that affect both our thinking and subsequent actions. Presented with a set of information, biases can affect what pieces of information we use as well as taking information from wrong sources. In essence, our cognitive biases reinforce our existing beliefs and fail to then learn contradictory new information.

Cognitive biases can also have a huge impact effect on entrepreneurial endeavours, investments, as well as our personal life. For this reason, this infographic from DesignHacks.co is particularly useful. It shows and groups each of the 188 known biases in existence.

The types of cognitive bias infographic

You can see from the cognitive bias infographic that humans think in certain ways that lead to systematically making rational judgments.

These tendencies usually arise from:

• Information processing shortcuts
• The limited processing ability of the brain
• Emotional and moral motivations
• Distortions in storing and retrieving memories
• Social influence

Cognitive biases have been studied for decades by academics in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioural economics. However, they are especially relevant in today’s information-packed world where we are information rich but time poor.

They influence the way we think and act, and such irrational mental shortcuts lead to all kinds of problems in entrepreneurship, investing and of course management.

A full list of cognitive biases

The cognitive bias infographic doesn’t give you much detail. If you’re like me and you want to look into things in more detail then the best place is Wikipedia. I’ve spent many years referencing Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases whenever I intuitively hit upon a certain way of thinking is a bias, but I can’t recall the name or details. It’s an invaluable reference for helping me identify the hidden flaws in my own thinking. It’s the best and probably the most comprehensive list of cognitive biases.

THe AI revolution is underway and already there are many hot debates as to what the future for this technology will hold. Science fiction has painted many different pictures of how Artificial Intelligence will play out in our society.

Most people connect AI with robots (aka the Terminator film franchise or other films) where AI is in the form of a sentient robot that can talk, move around, and experience feelings.

Although that still may become a future reality, the current AI capabilities are far from attaining that level of independent thought. However, it’s still incredibly impressive what AI can achieve already.

Thanks to huge processing capacities in data centres (cloud computing).

The modern version of AI works silently in the background without a face, and it’s starting to impact everything it touches. Indeed it is also getting a voice and being integrated into call centres.

Understanding The AI Revolution

Today’s infographic from TechJury helps you understand the context around this emerging technological force.

Entitled “The AI Revolution, it covers the brief history of AI, the industries that will be affected, as well as some key AI statistics that are likely to catch your eye.

The key point is that Artificial intelligence is here and it’s transforming our economy.

Estimates by PwC place the global impact of AI at $15.7 trillion by 2030, while Accenture states that AI could double the rate of economic growth in developed countries by 2035.

If either of these two predictions come true, it will mean big change for almost every industry.

The AI Revolution: By the Numbers

What does it look like when the AI revolution picks up pace?

The following stats will give you an indication on the potential impact of the AI revolution, and how it’s already shaping the future of business thinking:

• The number of AI startups has increased 14x since the year 2000
• The amount of investment in AI startups has increased 6x since 2000
• 15% of enterprises in 2018 already use AI, but 31% more will come on board in the next 12 months
• 72% of executives see AI as being the most significant future business advantage
• 84% of global businesses see AI as providing a competitive advantage
• 41% of consumers believe AI will improve their lives in some way
• By 2020, businesses using AI to drive consumer insights will see $1.2 trillion more per year than their less-informed competitors

So while the AI revolution is not led by the identifiable face of a friendly (or antagonistic) robot in a physical form, experts agree that impact of AI on business will be profound.

For more information about AI see the post on 8 Myths About AI In the WorkPlace.

Initially, you might think that the world is being dominated by technology giants. Indeed, it may seem like the world’s biggest technology companies have a lot in common, well not all is as you would think.

The Big Five Tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet) have become established as some of the most valuable publicly-traded companies in the world, with founders such as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates hitting the top spot on the global billionaire list.

Most of the tech giants have millions if not billions of people using their platforms globally. These companies have created the scale and size of businesses that make it hard for others to compete. There are few if any companies now that could scale to the same size and offer the same breadth of products as Amazon.

Each of the big tech companies has one thing in common though. They all leverage user data to create personalised and tailored services. In fact, many handle our most sensitive data on a daily basis. At the same time, this data is a double-edged sword, as these same companies often find themselves in the crosshairs for mishandling personal information.

Finally, all of these companies have a similar origin story: they were founded or incubated on the fertile digital grounds of the West Coast of the USA. The company that has the weakest claim to such origins would be Facebook, but even it has been based in Silicon Valley since June 2004.

The Size Of The Tech Giants

For all of their commonalities, it seems that there is less of a mold for how these tech giants end up generating cashflow.

To start with let’s do a roundup of their financials. The following data comes from the 2018 10-K reports filed last year.

Together, the Big Five tech giants together account for a staggering turnover of over $800 billion of revenue in 2018. This would put them among the world’s 20 largest countries in terms of GDP. More precisely, they would just be ahead of Saudi Arabia ($684 billion GDP) in terms of size.

Meanwhile, they generated a total of $139 billion of net income for their shareholders, at a 17.3% profit margin.

How Big Tech Makes Money

Let’s dig deeper, and see the differences in how these companies generate their revenue.

You are the Customer and You Are The Data

In the broadest sense, three of the tech giants make money in the same way: you pay them money, and they give you a product or service.

Apple (Revenue in 2018: $265.6 billion)

• Apple generates a staggering 62.8% of its revenue from the iPhone
• The iPad and Mac are good for 7.1% and 9.6% of revenues, respectively
• All other products and services – including Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, Apple Pay, AppleCare, etc. – combine to just 20.6% of revenues

Amazon (Revenue in 2018: $232.9 billion)

• Amazon gets the most from its online stores (52.8%) as well as third-party seller services (18.4%)
• Amazon’s fastest-growing segment is offline sales in physical stores
• Offline sales generate $17.2 billion in current revenue, growing 197% year-over-year
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) is well-known for being Amazon’s most profitable segment, and it counts for 11.0% of revenue
• Amazon’s “Other” segment is also rising fast – it mainly includes ad sales

Microsoft (Revenue in 2018: $110.4 billion)

• Microsoft has the most diversified revenue of any of the tech giants
• This is part of the reason it currently has the largest market capitalization ($901 billion) of the Big Five
• Microsoft has eight different segments that generate ~5% or more of revenue
• The biggest three are “Office products and cloud services” (25.7%), “Server products and cloud services” (23.7%), and Windows (17.7%)

The remaining tech giants charge you nothing as a consumer, so how are they worth so much?

You are the Product – It’s Your Data

Both Alphabet and Facebook generate billions of dollars of revenue, but they make this money from advertising. Each time you update your profile on Facebook or search on Google, they use this information to target ads. These platforms allow advertisers to target you at scale with incredible precision, which is why they now dominate the online ad industry.

Here’s how their revenues break down:

Alphabet (Revenue in 2018: $136.8 billion)

• Despite having a wider umbrella name, ad revenue (via Google, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Ads, etc.) still drives 85% of revenue for the company
• Other Google products and services, like Google Play or the Google Pixel phone, help to generate 14.5% of total revenue
• Other Bets count to 0.4% of revenue – these are Alphabet’s moonshot attempts to find the “next Google” for its shareholders

Facebook (Revenue in 2018: $55.8 billion)

• Facebook generates almost all revenue (98.5%) from ads
• Meanwhile, 1.5% comes from payments and other fees
• Despite Facebook being a free service for users, the company generated more revenue per user than Netflix, which charges for its service
• In 2018 Q4, for example, Facebook made $35 per user. Netflix made $30.

So while the tech giants may have many similarities, how they generate their billions can vary considerably.

Some are marketing products to you, while others are marketing you as the product.

Many of the myths about AI stem from our fascination with technology.

Artificial Intelligence, and how it will affect the workplace, has become a hot topic — undoubtedly sparked by our love of science fiction and the deep history of films that portray how AI might change society.

While historically technology has typically created more jobs than it has destroyed, it remains a topic where people speculate that this time, this technology is“different”.

The potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is being hotly debated by the media and many expert commentators.

Although there is no doubt that AI will be a transformative force in business, the recent attention on the subject has also led to many common misconceptions about the technology and its anticipated effects.

Disproving Common Myths About AI

This infographic is by Raconteur and it helps to paint a clearer picture of the nature of AI while attempting to debunk various myths about AI.

AI is going to be a transform and probably far quicker than we realise. Early predictions are that it’s expected to create a $15.7 trillion economic impact globally by 2030.

But understandably, many people feel nervous about how it will affect the workplace – jobs in general, roles, skills… This has led to some scary media headlines and many misconceptions about the technology and what it will do in the workplace.

Demystifying Myths About AI

Here are the eight myths about AI debunked:

1. Automation will completely displace employees
Truth: 70% of employers see AI as supporting humans in the workplace not replacing them. Currently, only 11% of employers believe that automation will take over their work to a “great extent”.

2. Companies are primarily interested in cutting costs with AI
Truth: 84% of employers see AI as obtaining or sustaining a competitive advantage, and 75% see AI as a way to create new business models. 63% see pressure to reduce costs as a reason to use AI.

3. AI, machine learning, and deep learning are the same thing 
Truth: AI is a broader term, while machine learning is a subset of AI that enables “intelligence” by using training algorithms and data. Deep learning is an even narrower subset of machine learning inspired by the interconnected neurons of the brain.

4. Automation will eradicate more jobs than it creates 
Truth: At least according to one recent study by Gartner, there will be 1.8 million jobs lost to AI by 2020 and 2.3 million jobs created. How this shakes out in the longer term is much more debatable.

5. Robots and AI are the same thing
Truth: Even though there is a tendency to link AI and robots, most AI actually works in the background and is unseen (think Amazon product recommendations). Robots, meanwhile, can be “dumb” and just automate simple physical processes.

6. AI won’t affect my industry 
Truth: AI is expected to have a significant impact on almost every industry in the next five years.

7. Companies implementing AI don’t care about workers
Truth: 65% of companies pursuing AI are also investing in the reskilling of current employees.

8. High productivity equals higher profits and less employment
Truth: AI and automation will increase productivity, but this could also translate to lower prices, higher wages, higher demand, and employment growth.

For more information about AI see the post on The AI Revolution.

A minute during your working week passes by without you noticing.

What can you achieve in a minute? As a moment of time, a minute may seem to be small. You may be lucky enough in a minute to grab a drink of coffee, scan your inbox or send a quick text.

However, in other situations, a minute can be an extraordinary amount of time, one in which life’s change. Imagine being a quarterback in the Superbowl in overtime, or finding yourself in a life-and-death situation in which every second count towards the outcome.

Visualizing an Internet Minute 2019

When it comes to appreciating the monumental scale of the internet, each minute presents a picture of the scale of our digital humanity and the extraordinary transformation of our world.

Today’s infographic from @LoriLewis and @OfficiallyChadd aggregates the online activity of billions of people globally, to visualise what an internet minute looks like.

How does Google process over 3.8 million search queries in such a short span of time?

Simply put, the number of actions packed into just 60 seconds is extraordinary.

Year on Year The Changes – A Comparison 2018 to 2019

The internet is incredibly dynamic, which is shown in the infographic by the new segments that are appearing.

To get a sense of how and what is changing, compare last year’s version of this graphic with the more recent entry: