Hi All,
Hope your week is going well! Another crazy week in tech! Disney+ launches (with glitches) but captures 10MM customers. While the numbers are good, I honestly think that may be extremely inflated. I do however think this will be part of an excellent bundle (win free tickets, merchandise) etc and will definitely improve Disney’s overall business (in the long run). The BAMTech acquisition, while not as lucrative as FB buying Insta, was definitely a good idea.
Speaking of good ideas, this article from the NYT on the impact of “grow at all costs mentality. There are serious impacts of this not only to partners but also employees who get lured into “get rich quick” schemes (and nevertheless some absolutely DO) but this leads to an effect where everyone is looking to “get rich quick” and no one is loyal anymore. This just points to an overall trend with the world, jobs are no longer local. Your next competitor (for your job or company) might come from a remote part of the world. I wonder if, someday, if only local jobs will remain in an area, companies won’t have offices but the office will be “online”.
Speaking of companies and sites, I am sure many of you have come across wikihow inadvertently. It is definitely an interesting site and this article speaks about the history of the company and this part stood out :) - Imagine that????
It had been one of the most popular sites on the internet in 1999, but it went bankrupt in 2003 for reasons that would shock anyone running an internet business now. (The owners blocked Google from pulling their site links into search results because they wanted direct traffic and not search traffic, for one. It was also paywalled content-farm garbage.)
This article discusses how Paypal actually found PMF. Yep it was exactly as you think. LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS. What is interesting though is that this could have been a support request that went ignored. Lost in an inbox. The real lesson here is to ensure that you do have CS and that they DO get a seat at the product table. Regular sync’s with CS can give you really good information.
Leaders that drive like madmen. Yep seen one just like this and it definitely was a crash and burn
This whole drama about Insta likes seems like this is “good for the consumer”. Yeah yeah sure we get it. But think about creators. Now they have no Insta signal. Instagram will probably come up with creator tools (Famebit anyone???) and put a gate there (services, payments, analytics, whatever). Additionally, there is another serious angle to this. We all know the 90-9-1 principle and this is not directly applicable here but the less a user creates, the less engaged they are and the less they will see ad’s. Also imagine this as a gating for “ads”. If an influence content creator becomes an ad unit ….
Speaking of creatives there are SO MANY creative deep tech companies that i as an avid reader didn’t know existed. Here you go
The below might sound funny but imagine that! Tracking illnesses to a specific animal!
You always hear that the Silicon Valley “kings” are engineers. That might not be so accurate ...
I personally am one of those people who grew up with the notion that asking questions may be too interfering but truly there is a power to questions that we all miss.
From ARKInvest’s newsletter:
The creation of bitcoin, a non-government backed money seemed neither feasible nor thinkable. Thanks to bitcoin and advancements in private/public key cryptography, however, a global battle between and among monetary systems, both sovereign and non-sovereign, is underway. We believe that political and central bank opposition to Facebook’s Libra, before it sees the light of day, is an early sign of how fierce this battle will be.
This article on giving was amazing. A negotiation should not be a win-lose situation
This article on the creation of physical nations is extremely interesting
What might these reverse diasporas be like? As a people whose primary bond is through the internet, many of their properties would not fit our pre-existing mental models. Unlike rugged individualists, these emigrants would be moving within or between nation states to become part of a community, not to strike out on their own. Unlike would-be revolutionaries, those migrating in this fashion would be doing so out of humility in their ability to change existing political systems. And unlike so-called secessionists, the specific site of physical concentration would be a matter of convenience, not passion; the geography incidental and not worth fighting over.
Transparency bias. I also think we care too much about what others *will* think. Likely no one will notice or care. How many times have you cared or for or noticed someone or been able to accurately judge someone? “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”