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…

Last week, Procreate, a popular art studio app for iPad, made waves by declaring it was not going to introduce any generative AI into its products. According to James Cuda, Procreate’s CEO and co-founder, the decision amounted to being “on the right path supporting human creativity.” The stance stood in stark contrast to what we have seen from Big Tech. We are witnessing a broader conflict surrounding the positioning of technology against…

For the second time in eight months, Google lost an antitrust case in the U.S. Following the December 2023 loss to Epic Games, which was more embarrassing than anything for Google, the search giant gave the U.S. government its first antitrust win as part of its anti-Big Tech crusade. 

Google had a thin line to walk in going up against the U.S. government. The company needed to talk up its search acumen…

At least based on the most recent quarterly earnings report, Amazon appears to be doing fine. People are buying more goods through Prime, the company’s digital advertising business contains plenty of promise, and AWS has no obvious flaws. However, a few things about Amazon have turned unsettling to me. Amazon’s retail customer service has become downright atrocious while its Alexa ecosystem of devices is proving to be more of a hindrance than…

As I am one of the more outspoken critics of generative AI mania, the following statement may come as a surprise: It is OK that Big Tech is pouring huge amounts of cash into AI-focused capex. I would go so far as to say that Big Tech is doing the right thing. While Wall Street and Silicon Valley are still grappling with how generative AI will be used by the masses, the…

The writing is on Magic Leap’s wall. The company that captured the hearts and minds of journalists and VCs in the 2010s is on its last legs. If the company is not able to become a components supplier for more capable companies dabbling in spatial computing, we are likely seeing Magic Leap’s final chapter being written.

Magic Leap’s slow but steady slide into irrelevance is on one level predictable. A company void…

For those with an interest in business and branding, Nike is one of the more intriguing stories to follow in 2024. It’s an iconic brand with decades of experience left reeling by a marketplace penalizing complacency. Two weeks ago, Nike experienced its worst day on Wall Street with shares falling 20% and now trading at the same level as they were in 2018. Looking under the hood, Nike has become a show-me…

While Wall Street remains fully engrossed by NVIDIA, there is a story to be told that is flying under the radar. With several key macro headwinds now in the rearview mirror, Wall Street has turned decidedly more optimistic on Big Tech (a bucket that I have long defined as including Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft). Big Tech as a group is up 28% in 2024 while the S&P 500 is up 15%.