One of the main drivers behind starting Inside Orchard was analyzing how the lines that have traditionally defined technology are being erased. The “tech industry” is a term with a finite lifespan. We are heading to a point where tech will be so diffused in industry that it will be indistinguishable from society as a whole.

A question that has been raised is how to measure such diffusion. The answer can serve…

One topic that has fascinated me for the past 18 months has been societal changes arising from the pandemic. Most of the so called movements or shifts are showing signs of petering out. The Peloton movement, which pushed an anti-gym ideology, does not appear to be gaining much momentum. Meanwhile, the Work From Home movement, which took over tech-oriented blogs and news sites for the better part of the past year, is…

The economy is in a strange place right now. One can confidently and accurately point to data suggesting the economy is in a good position in terms of customer demand, unemployment, wage gains, and household saving rates. At the same time, however, problems such as unfilled jobs and inflation suggest a perilous state.

When it comes to the good news, people have disposable income and are willing to spend it on goods…

Facebook is no more, at least as it pertains to the $900 billon market cap company. Mark Zuckerberg’s company is now called Meta. Reactions to the rebranding have not been positive with most convinced the name change is a not-so-clever way to distract from ongoing fallout from the Facebook whistleblower. Others think Zuckerberg is trying to distance both himself and his other brands (Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus being the big three) from…

Last week, a number of publications reported that PayPal was in “late-stage talks” to acquire Pinterest for $39 billion. Such action would mean the digital payments company had finally acted on its long-held interest to get back in the e-commerce game. (PayPal was spun out of eBay in 2015.)

Pinterest is an intriguing company playing at the outskirts of the Amazon / Facebook / Google kingdoms. The company doesn’t view itself as…

The Facebook Files saga took an unexpected turn last week as Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager responsible for providing the WSJ a treasure trove of leaked internal documents, made her public unveiling as the Facebook whistleblower.

In what is still difficult to wrap my mind around, in the span of just two days, Haugen went from having her first public interview on 60 Minutes to sitting down for a three-hour…

Ozy Media had seemingly everything going for itself. The digital media company had raised $83 million from investors including Ron Conway, Axel Springer, and Laurene Powell Jobs. It’s charismatic co-founder and CEO was able to score big name after big name for his namesake video interview show. The company claimed to have big audiences in all of the digital content buzz words - video, newsletters, podcasts. It even had real-world festivals to…

In the mid-2010s, the tech industry thought it was onto something. The maturing supply chain from the smartphone revolution had made it easier (and cheaper) than ever to produce small, stand-alone speakers that could be placed in the home. Instead of playing music or talk radio, these speakers would be transformational due to their delivery of digital voice assistants that was made possible by years of cloud and machine learning investments.

The…

Over the past week, the Wall Street Journal has published a series of articles that reveal Facebook is aware that “its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands.” The articles rely on a trove of internal Facebook documents, correspondence, and presentations. While the WSJ is right to position these articles as a big deal, unfortunately the revelations are not going to lead to…

Last week, Microsoft changed its return to the office timeline to officially put off employees coming into the office indefinitely. COVID, and in the particular the Delta variant, was the stated reason for the change. I don’t think Microsoft, or any other company delaying return to the office indefinitely, is being entirely up front about all of the forces driving such announcements.

The work from home movement, which feels like the right…

The warning flags have begun to wave for Peloton. As one of the most high-profile beneficiaries from the pandemic, it should probably come as no surprise that the reopening of gyms has resulted in concerning business trends for the company. The average number of monthly workouts per user fell by nearly 25% last quarter. Google Trends data for Peloton is equally concerning with a steady decline in search interest for Peloton since…

The shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce has been one of the more pronounced tech developments to impact society. After years of on-again and off-again rumors, it increasingly looks like Amazon will expand its move into brick and mortar in a big way. It’s a move that traditional retailers need to monitor closely.

Amazon’s strategy for retail dominance hasn’t exactly been a secret. By not having a chain of physical stores…

One of the defining ideas behind starting Inside Orchard was chronicling how the technology industry would become hard to delineate as its influence on society expands nearly unchecked. Ten years ago, tech was a defined sector. Ten years from now, most of society including industry, education, and healthcare will fall under the “tech” umbrella.

In his essay, It’s Time To Build, published in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, VC…

We were supposed to be in the electric car era right about now. Actually, we were supposed to be in the self-driving electric car era. Instead, we find ourselves in the era of car companies announcing electric car aspirations for the upcoming decade.

While there are pockets of electric car success and adoption, lofty adoption predictions circulating for years have failed to materialize. Tesla is the best example of consumers actively seeking…

When we look back at the early 2020s, many will describe the period as transitory in nature. Wearables are increasingly grabbing the spotlight from mobile while new technologies such as mixed reality are still a little bit off in the distance. We are starting to see glimpses of what mixed reality, more commonly referred to as VR, will be about, including activities that stand to benefit from mixed reality. A great example…

For at least an hour or so last week, cable news channels were bearable to watch. Instead of pushing political agendas and playing in COVID fear mongering, attention was given to Jeff Bezos flying into “space” on board his Blue Origin rocket. Some U.S. news networks even sent anchors to Texas to cover the event. The ordeal offered a brief sense of levity to what has become a downright toxic news environment.

Ongoing issues related to the pandemic involving variants and vaccination rates are now leading to what seems like some kind of turning point for today’s digital town squares (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.)

Last week, the White House lit a firestorm of reaction when it disclosed that it was “working” with Facebook on flagging misinformation on its platform related to COVID vaccines. This came after President Biden went after Facebook and peers saying…

Two months ago, “A Work from Home Head Fake” went over my position that most companies are not built to succeed with work-from-home structures. Team communication and idea exchange have not evolved enough for work from home to replace traditional office settings without negative consequences.

Since that Inside Orchard essay was published, work from home has turned into a polarizing topic online. Tribalism has now entered the discussion as some…

As the anti-tech bills from the U.S. house antitrust subcommittee made their way through the judiciary committee last week, the tone in press coverage and tech circles continued to evolve. An increasing number of people have become convinced that Washington is going to come down hard on the “tech” giants. This feeling has manifested itself in different ways. Those who view the giants as too powerful are jumping in jubilation while others…

There continues to be something that I call the “iPhone mentality” in tech. A singular product or service is positioned as quickly transforming a market or industry. A byproduct of this thinking is the tendency for consensus to prematurely declare that first movers are winners.