Inside Orchard

We will try something a little bit different this week: Ten uncomfortable truths that are currently found in tech. Each one of these can be turned into their own Inside…

A short vacation last month showed me first-hand the limitations found with today’s digital mapping solutions. While things have come a long way over the past decade, we are now…

We are a full two-and-a-half years into current AI mania, and signs point to us entering a new stage. There is a greater focus on product and competition as the…

We are in a weird phase of consumer gadgetry as the more Silicon Valley tries to move us beyond our smartphones, the less promising such prospects look. This subject was…

Last month, the auto start-up Slate came on the scene in grand fashion with an unveiling that took social media by storm. It was the biggest one-day shock in the…

The rise of algorithm-driven short-form video has ushered in a concerning trend. Billions of adults are being fed a never-ending stream of stimulation via 15-second video snippets consumed on smartphones…

Earlier this month, we talked about DeepSeek breaking AI mania fever on Wall Street. In thinking through that essay further, it’s possible that we underestimated one key question found…

When kicking off the brainstorming session for this essay, my intention was to talk about tariffs. Wall Street had one of its worst two-day performances in history this past Thursday and Friday. The level of fear and unknown in the market rivals the early days of the pandemic. However, something else had been nagging me. Big Tech stocks had been acting strangely prior to the significant market cap losses experienced last week…

Earlier this month, the WSJ announced significant changes to its tech newsroom. A dozen tech reporters and long-serving editors were fired in a restructuring that amounted to a rethink of how it covers the tech industry. Those let go included beat reporters for Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, AI, semiconductors, and video games. The new team, based in New York and overseen by Sarah Krouse who was most recently in charge of WSJ’s entertainment…

As we move into the second half of the 2020s and what still feels like AI mania, we seem to be on the inevitable path of relitigating the voice computing debate from the late 2010s. The thinking is that the proliferation of LLMs has in some way addressed friction points that previously hamstringed digital voice assistants. This not only is a misreading of what occurred in the 2010s, but also lacks visionary…

A few weeks ago, my local newspaper sold its operations to Hearst. The transaction was widely viewed by the community as a death sentence for the family-run operation with a 120-year history. As a sign of the times, the transaction meant my local paper would now be available in Apple News+ given Hearst’s existing arrangement with Apple. While it may feel like there aren’t many surprises left to uncover in the news…

In the seven months since I last wrote about Nike, the company has undergone some changes. Elliot Hill, a long-time Nike executive, came out of retirement to replace John Donahoe as CEO. After a 60-day observation period, which involved talking with Nike’s various stakeholders, Hill’s diagnosis was that Nike had lost its “obsession with sport.” In addition to revised marketing, more sales-focused endeavors will include reinvesting in its existing brands to create…