#arnaud bertrand

[twitterexile]

[smokeymcbandit]

WOW, this might be THE most important piece of journalism on the war on Gaza since it began, by Israeli newspaper @972mag : 972mag.com/mass-assassina… Essentially they confirm, with unimpeachable sourcing, that the killing of civilians was all calculated and intentional. Their investigation is "based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions." What the investigation reveals is that "the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed." One source told them: "Nothing happens by accident. When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home." Even more dystopian - and this might be a first in the history of warfare - a lot of the targets are identified by AI: for instance they "use of a system called 'Habsora' ('The Gospel'), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can 'generate' targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a 'mass assassination factory.' According to the sources, the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsora allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, even those who are junior Hamas operatives." I'm not going to copy the whole article here, you have to read this for yourself. IT IS INSANE. They've essentially been running, as the sources say, a "mass assassination factory" at a terrifying scale with massive and intended "collateral damage" (often the targets' entire families, or even sometimes much of their neighborhood), alongside an objective to destroy much of Gaza to “create a shock”, all on a population that had nowhere to escape. It'll likely remain in history books as one of the most depraved massacres in modern history.

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

[arcticdementor]

Anti Russia Sanctions Have Backfired on America

America has grossly underestimated the significance of Russia's economy, and implementing anti Russia sanctions has backfired on America.

Remember the claims that Russia’s economy was more or less irrelevant, merely the equivalent of a small, not very impressive European country? “Putin, who has an economy the size of Italy,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in 2014 after the invasion of Crimea, “[is] playing a poker game with a pair of twos and winning.” Of increasing Russian diplomatic and geopolitical influence in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, The Economist asked in 2019, “How did a country with an economy the size of Spain … achieve all this?”

Seldom has the West so grossly misjudged an economy’s global significance. French economist Jacques Sapir, a renowned specialist of the Russian economy who teaches at the Moscow and Paris schools of economics, explained recently that the war in Ukraine has “made us realize that the Russian economy is considerably more important than what we thought.” For Sapir, one big reason for this miscalculation is exchange rates. If you compare Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by simply converting it from rubles into U.S. dollars, you indeed get an economy the size of Spain’s. But such a comparison makes no sense without adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP), which accounts for productivity and standards of living, and thus per capita welfare and resource use. Indeed, PPP is the measure favored by most international institutions, from the IMF to the OECD. And when you measure Russia’s GDP based on PPP, it’s clear that Russia’s economy is actually more like the size of Germany’s, about $4.4 trillion for Russia versus $4.6 trillion for Germany. From the size of a small and somewhat ailing European economy to the biggest economy in Europe and one of the largest in the world—not a negligible difference.

Sapir also encourages us to ask, “What is the share of the service sector versus the share of the commodities and industrial sector?” To him, the service sector today is grossly overvalued compared with the industrial sector and commodities like oil, gas, copper, and agricultural products. If we reduce the proportional importance of services in the global economy, Sapir says that “Russia’s economy is vastly larger than that of Germany and represents probably 5% or 6% of the world economy,” more like Japan than Spain.

This makes intuitive sense. When push comes to shove, we know there is more value in providing people with the things they really need to survive like food and energy than there is in intangible things like entertainment or financial services. When a company like Netflix has a price-earnings ratio three times higher than that of Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, it’s more likely than not a reflection of market froth than of physical reality. Netflix is a great service, but as long as an estimated 800 million people in the world remain undernourished, Nestlé is still going to provide more value.

All of which is to say that the current crisis in Ukraine has helpfully clarified how much we’ve taken for granted the “antiquated” side of modern economies like industry and commodities—prices for which have surged this year—and perhaps overvalued services and “tech,” whose value has recently crashed.

The size and importance of Russia’s economy is further distorted by ignoring global trade flows, in which Sapir estimates that Russia “may account for maybe as much as 15%.” While Russia is not the largest producer of oil in the world, for example, it has been the largest exporter of it, ahead even of Saudi Arabia. The same is true for many other essential products such as wheat—the world’s most important food crop, with Russia controlling about 19.5% of global exports—nickel (20.4%), semi-finished iron (18.8%), platinum (16.6%), and frozen fishes (11.2%).

Such commanding importance in the production of so many essential commodities means that Russia, like few other countries on the planet, is in many respects a linchpin of the globalized production chain. Unlike “maximum sanctions” on a country like Iran or Venezuela, attempting to cut the Russian link has meant and will likely continue to mean a dramatic reorganization of the global economy.

…

But if we adjust for PPP, we see that the Chinese economy reached almost $27.21 trillion in 2021, compared with $20.5 trillion for the EU and $23 trillion for the United States. In terms of PPP, in fact, China’s economy overtook America’s back as much as six years ago.

And what if we reduce the proportional importance of the service sector relative to industry and commodities? Services account for approximately 53.3% of China’s GDP, even less than in Russia (56.7%). If we roughly apply Sapir’s ratio of doubling the valuation of the nonservice sector to China, we may have to consider that in a very real and relevant way, the Chinese economy accounts for something like 25%-30% of the global economy on a PPP basis, rather than the current estimates of 18%-19%. That would put the combined Chinese and Russian economies at about 30%-35% of the global economy (again, adjusting for PPP and the overvaluation of the service sector)—a behemoth and likely unsustainable challenge for a trans-Atlantic community that looks increasingly focused on using maximalist economic sanctions to punish bad actors and achieve desired policy outcomes. That challenge becomes even more daunting when we consider that the service sector accounts for roughly 77% of the U.S. economy and 70% of the EU’s—suggesting a potentially significant degree of overvaluation in Western economic heft, and far more parity in relative economic power with China and Russia.

…

Before we enthusiastically embrace a new Iron Curtain, therefore, it’s worth pausing to consider how many countries in the world will voluntarily place themselves on our side. The countries of what we consider “the West” will—for ideological and historical reasons, in addition to economic and military enmeshment—undoubtedly remain relatively united. But the West only accounts for about 13% of the world’s population, with China and Russia together making up about 20%. That leaves about two-thirds of humanity “nonaligned,” a position that most of them would like to maintain. If we force them to choose a side, we may be surprised by many of the results.

A tally of the countries participating in current sanctions on Russia, in fact, makes it hard to say whether a new Iron Curtain is being drawn around our adversaries or around the West itself. Countries and nominal U.S. allies as significant as India and Saudi Arabia have been particularly vocal in their refusal to take sides in the conflict in Ukraine.

…

None of this is to say that the brutal invasion of Ukraine has been anything less than an atrocity, and that extraordinary measures may indeed be called for in order to counter Russian expansionism and its implications for global peace and stability. But it’s possible that the West, in a fit of self-righteousness and a need to satisfy various domestic demands, may be diving headlong into a future in which the global South and many others besides feel increasingly pressured to make a choice they don’t want to have to make, and which may leave the West more isolated than ever before in modern times.

[arcticdementor]

(link)

[arcticdementor]

Thread by @RnaudBertrand on Thread Reader App

@RnaudBertrand: We used to think that Russia's economy was the equivalent of a small European country. Maybe never before has an economy's importance been so grossly misjudged. French economist Jacques Sapir explain...…

We used to think that Russia's economy was the equivalent of a small European country.

Maybe never before has an economy's importance been so grossly misjudged.

French economist Jacques Sapir explains what happened (at 44:13):

…

To him "the war made us realize that the Russian economy is considerably more important than we thought"

He says that a big reason for this misjudgment is exchange rates.

If you compare Russia's GDP by converting from rubles to $, you indeed get an economy the size of Spain's.

However this is the worst possible way of comparing the size of economies.

A slightly more accurate way is to adjust for PPP (purchasing power parity: investopedia.com/updates/purcha…)

When you do so, you already realize that Russia's economy is actually more like the size of Germany's.

…

BUT you also need to take something else into account: "What is the share of the service sector versus the share of the commodities & industrial sector?"

To Sapir the service sector is today vastly overvalued in the world compared with the industrial sector and commodities.

He says that when you adjust for this Russia's economy is vastly bigger than Germany's.

His estimate is that Russia represents in fact maybe "5% or 6% of the world's economy", almost double the size it's normally estimated at on a PPP basis (statista.com/statistics/271…)

…

This crisis is making us realize that we used to take manufacturing, the industry and commodities for granted, i.e. an antiquated side of the economy compared to shiny new "services".

What we're going through is leading us to a huge rethink. This will undoubtedly make us conclude that what we used to view as antiquated is much more valuable than we thought.

Ironically this will force a revaluation of the Russian economy that's very much in their favor.

It's also very interesting to revalue China's economy through that lens.

If we look at the Chinese economy simply based on exchange rates, it is a $17.7 trillion economy to the U.S.'s $23 trillion.

However, if we just look at it on a PPP basis we realize it is already an almost $27 trillion economy. This means China's economy is already close to 20% larger than the U.S.'s:

…

Let's also revalue it by assuming that the service sector holds much less value than previously thought.

The service sector is about 54.5% of China's GDP (investopedia.com/articles/inves…) which is even less than in Russia (at 56.27%: statista.com/statistics/271…).

…

This means that if we roughly apply Sapir's ratio for Russia to China, we're in fact looking at the Chinese economy being probably about 30% of the world's economy on a PPP basis instead of the 18% it's currently estimated at (statista.com/statistics/270…)!

…

The service sector accounts for roughly 77% of the U.S. economy (statista.com/statistics/270…) and 70% of the EU's economy (ec.europa.eu/growth/single-…)

This means that conversely, the U.S. and EU's economies are probably overvalued today.

…

To conclude all this might end up making us realize that the Chinese + Russian economies combined are in fact far larger than those of the West.

Maybe as much as 40% larger if we assume US + EU is in fact maybe just 25% of the world's economy vs 35% for China + Russia 😮

[niteshkumarbis-blog]

Atos Unveils Atos Codex AI Suite, the Most Comprehensive AI Software Suite

Atos' Codex AI Suite supports businesses and research institutes in the development, deployment and management of AI applications.

[sebastienflury]

NEXT top 100 digital influencers - time to vote!

Last year, I had the chance to be invited to NEXT Berlin 2012 (I've posted about it). I'll attend again in 2013... What a lucky guy I am! Berlin is one of the top startup hub in Europe (the only real rival is London I think) and beeing there is an opportunity to meet prominent actors of the European startup scene. 

As you maybe remember, Next Berlin is looking for the NEXT 100 top influencers of the digital industry in 2013. As not many Swiss people were nominated (you can nominate who ever you want: the crowd decides! If you happen to suggest a Swiss entrepreneur or investor, please add him in the comments below!), Marina asked me to suggest people who are major actors of the Swiss (and European) tech scene.

Here are the entrepreneurs I've nominated:

Mehdi Aminian, founder of SublimeVideo

Arnaud Bertrand, founder of HouseTrip

Adrian Locher, founder of DeinDeal

Dominik Grolimund, founder of Silp (and previously Wuala)

Samuel Mueller, founder of Scandit

And I also wanted to nominate one investor who deserve it:

Alexandre Peyraud, entrepreneur and Investment Manager at Debio Management

Some Swiss entrepreneurs and investors were already nominated:

Marc P. Bernegger, serial entrepreneur and Managing Partner at Next Generation Finance

Xavier Bertschy, founder of Skeeble

Christophe Maire, serial entrepreneur in Berlin (currently txtr), business angel 

Myke Näf, founder of Doodle and Partner at Zeeder

And a German investor based in Switzerland: Klaus Hommels, entrepreneur and Managing Partner of Lakestar.

What I ask YOU: go on NEXT 100 website and vote for who you'd like to see nominated! Or vote for ALL of the guys mentioned before! 

Ah... by the way, I'm also nominated... please vote for me;-)!

And please hurry up (and spread the message!), voting ends around 20th of February!

Update: if you'd like to attend this wonderful event (so good vibes there!), I have special 10% discount for you... register to NEXT Berlin 2013 now!

[suryaray-blog]

Holiday rental firm HouseTrip rakes in $40m as big backers multiply

#SuryaRay #Surya HouseTrip, the holiday rental site that _really_ doesn’t like being lumped in with Airbnb, has just raised a fresh round that takes in Accel Partners, as well as existing investors Balderton Capital and Index Ventures. The $40m Series C round will apparently be used to help London-based HouseTrip grow market share, partly by expanding into new territories. The company’s competitors in this space include the aforementioned Airbnb, as well as more Europe-centric rivals such as Wimdu and 9flats. “We don’t really look at our competitors,” HouseTrip CEO Arnaud Bertrand insisted to me. “We are pretty convinced about our own vision.” That vision is pretty simple: make it as simple to book a rental property as it is to book a hotel room. As Bertrand notes, HouseTrip is “not very social” – unlike some of its competitors, the site eschews the setting-up of user profiles and the like. Bertrand also notes the company’s relative focus on the high end. No guest rooms here; these are all proper rental properties. And, in a way, that makes up for the security boon that can come from forcing users to set up or link to social profiles. “We have a pretty massive quality control team based in Lisbon,” Bertrand said. “They’re in charge of making sure that all new properties go through a pretty strict vetting process. We don’t go after primary residences because we think it’s simply too dangerous.” HouseTrip also used the announcement to reveal some numbers – apart from the big ‘$60m’ number that now represents its total funding to date. The site now has more than 130,000 properties listed in over 15,00 destinations, and it reckons it’s on track for more than three million nights’ bookings between its 2010 launch and the end of this year. Based on recent figures, and with local rival Wimdu having cut back its operations recently, that probably puts HouseTrip in second place behind Airbnb. It may well be the case that the holiday rental market is not a winner-takes-all game, but that doesn’t stop it being fiercely competitive. With its growing collection of big-league backers, HouseTrip is certainly placing itself well for the next phase of the fight. http://dlvr.it/2HbGrM @suryaray