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…

Last week, Netflix announced its latest round of subscription price increases. As usual, the hikes didn’t go over well on social media with the most common responses being either “I cancelled a few months ago” or something related to turning to piracy. I think both reactions underestimate what remains a legitimately impressive feat by Netflix: Getting more than 300 million people to pay for video content. Taking a step back, several Big…

Innovation is an intriguing word. Every tech company thinks of itself as an innovative leader while claiming innovation is in short supply at their competitors. Last week, frustrated at continuing to need to go through Apple to reach his users, Mark Zuckerberg made the outlandish claim that Apple hasn’t innovated in decades. It’s an especially bold claim as Meta’s claim to innovation has been excelling at copying and then monetizing features from…

When reviewing 2024 from a technology perspective, it’s tempting to assume something related to AI must have been the story of the year. After 18 months of talk, we began to see the first wave of consumer-facing AI features built in response to generative AI mania. However, such developments felt measured relative to a much larger event that took place in November. The U.S. presidential election, resulting in President Trump returning to…

As generative AI mania matures, we find ourselves in something of a Bitcoin bonanza. Partially due to expectations of a friendlier regulatory and political environment, Bitcoin pricing has been bid up by 40% since the U.S. presidential election. There is no shortage of grand prognostications as to where Bitcoin pricing goes from here. Look deeper, and although the story’s allure with the mass market is up for debate, the past few months…

The past few years have been a whirlwind in social media land. Our experiences online pre-pandemic feel like a generation ago. The rise of short-form video has not only transformed the social media giants (Instagram, YouTube), but also pushed video on what had been text-first platforms. Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase in 2022, which many predicted to not pan out, continues to be misjudged based on its subsequent influence. It is not an…

Apple’s Mac line has never been stronger. Thanks to Apple Silicon, Apple is pushing the Mac forward with industry-leading power efficiency and hardware redesigns that are resonating with tens of millions of customers. It’s a dramatic turn of events for a product category that seemed positioned to play second fiddle to mobile devices a decade ago. We are seeing Apple place a big bet that the Mac will remain a critical machine…

Earlier this week, President Trump won a second presidential term in a blowout election. The signs were there all along that such a result was likely. Big Tech sure seemed to anticipate such a result. 

 

The past four years have been alarming to Big Tech as the U.S. lost geopolitical and regulatory standing on the global stage. President Trump’s pro-America platform offers Big Tech a reset opportunity, and it should be…

The U.S. presidential election has put a spotlight on video podcasts. On both sides of the aisle, video podcasts are being leveraged to gain an edge by connecting with voters. The various implications arising from this change are significant and include everything from video podcasts breathing new momentum into the podcast medium to the role media is playing in our lives continuing to evolve.

 

This past Friday, Joe Rogan had former…

Last week, Tesla held its highly anticipated robotaxi event. From an analytical perspective, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. The event was geared more toward building aspirations and dreams than unveiling concrete product strategy.

The most interesting takeaways and observations weren’t from the event itself, but rather from what unfolded after the event. It was impossible to miss a vibe change within the Tesla community. The noticeable lack of enthusiasm…

Big Tech continues to have a very strong year on Wall Street. On a collective basis, Big Tech has seen about $4.5 trillion of market capitalization gains since January. While the move has led to some valuation diehards, usually those in academia, becoming louder in opposition to the move, the role passive investing is playing in Big Tech’s rise is flying under the radar. 

Thanks to passive investing, Big Tech is receiving…

Last week, Meta held its Connect 2024 developer conference. During the keynote, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Orion, Meta’s AR glasses prototype. Seeing that the device had no viable path to market, Zuckerberg decided to turn it into a prototype project. That decision was part of a broader Meta PR strategy aimed at one company: Apple. Zuckerberg has spent the past few years trying to start a new kind of tech holy war…

Amazon can’t seem to catch a break. Earlier this week, Amazon released an employee memo from CEO Andy Jassy regarding a series of noteworthy company changes that will be undertaken, including a full return to office (five days a week) mandate. The internet was not pleased. Consensus quickly went after Jassy, and calls for his resignation, which have been quietly bubbling for the past year, are getting louder. Amazon is in a…

Last week, I traveled to Apple Park to take in Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event. Apple unveiled a long list of HW and some SW updates across the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods lines. When considering the totality of the announcements and their implications, the event was the strongest September event Apple has put together in years. Among the top of the news items were Apple Watch and AirPods updates. The updates…

Paul Graham, of Y Combinator notoriety, made waves this week with his latest essay. In some ways, it felt like we were back in the early 2010s when blogging was still a thing. The short essay, “Founder Mode,” introduced Graham’s theory on what sets certain companies apart from others. The theory itself was bare bones, which Graham admitted was partially due to the lack of existing research on the topic…