🔙 Throwback Thursday for 2025-10-16
Lidar, unicorns, and apps
5 Years Ago: October 16, 2020
On this day five years ago, iPhone democratized lidar and 5G connectivity. Social media platforms scrutiny intensified leading up to the U.S. presidential election. The pandemic’s influence had shifted remote knowledge work and boosted the fortunes of streaming and collaboration software while some knowledge work companies experimented with return to office.
10 Years Ago: October 16, 2015
A decade back, the industry was still processing the “unicorn” era that was in full swing, with private tech companies achieving sky-high valuations via funding feats that defied economic gravity (reality?). On the consumer front, enthusiasts of drone technology learned they would be required to register their drone with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
15 Years Ago: October 16, 2010
Fifteen years ago, the “app economy” was just beginning to explode with Apple’s App Store crossing 300,000 apps (today that number is +2M!). One of those apps launched a few weeks prior as “Burbn Beta” as a simple photo-sharing app that received around 25,000 downloads… now called Instagram (today that number is ~4B downloads).
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