There is something about the way the tech industry continues to prop up and push VR that doesn’t sit right with me. Too many companies are using VR to distract from a genuine rise in competitive pressure and unattractive business performance. As a result, we are getting warped expectations of what may materialize over the next three to five years.

It’s easy to understand why so many people are quick to compare…

One of the largest shifts in the tech landscape is underway. The way we share and consume information on platforms ranging from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube is changing. Social media is starting to mean something entirely different to both content creators and consumers.

Beginning in the mid-2000s and really taking off in the 2010s, social media served as a way to both connect with friends and family and…

Inflation fears continue to grow. What had flown under the radar for far too long is now unavoidable. With inflation at 40-year highs, entire industries are needing to learn how to deal with a macro scenario that had been nothing more than a risk factor talked about in financial filings. While the tech industry won’t be able to avoid inflation, many software-driven companies are in a much stronger position than is being…

In just the last week, there were two high-level and noteworthy departures at the giants:

Earlier in the year, two noteworthy departures were found among smaller companies striving to one day become giants:

At first, the four departures may seem unrelated to each other. They each have their own…

Ridesharing remains an industry in search of a business model. With gas prices soaring, inflation at 40-year highs, and Wall Street volatility returning with a vengeance, companies like Uber and Lyft have been left with no choice but to raise prices. Industry estimates peg ridesharing pricing as being up by as much as 30% on a per mile basis between 2019 and 2022. This has led to the ridesharing business model receiving…

One takeaway from the just concluded earnings season in tech land is that the giants are not alike. Each is facing its own set of business and financial challenges – both macro and micro. Despite the challenges, each of the giants is determined to fund the next big thing. What had been periodic jitters about ballooning costs and expenses has turned into full-fledged anxiety and concerns on Wall Street.

In terms of…

After two years of pandemic-induced demand and supply shocks to the system, we are getting our first good look at the new normal. At the same time, the stock market’s bout of turbulence has impacted wide swaths of the tech sector. Many are now connecting the two developments and declaring the start of some kind of pandemic-induced tech recession. History is being rewritten, and current developments are being misdiagnosed.

The pandemic was…

Based on regulators’ and lawmakers’ comments, the tech giants are unstoppable because they don’t have to worry about competition. Meanwhile, a long list of smaller competitors are said to face major growth hurdles due to built-in advantages that the giants have given themselves.

The past few months have shown such narratives about competition are crumbling apart. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like those tasked with ensuring proper competition is present in markets are…

Elon Musk Buys Twitter

It’s been quite the April for Elon Musk. Within just three weeks, Musk went from disclosing that he had spent months quietly amassing a 9% stake in Twitter, to accepting and then turning down a Twitter board seat, to finally having Twitter’s board accept his hostile takeover bid for $44 billion.

Musk buying Twitter is a big deal for a few reasons:

Twitter finds itself between a rock and a hard place. With Elon Musk now as its largest shareholder, Twitter’s CEO and its board are wholly unprepared for handling the accompanying unknown. This became visible this past week as Twitter made one questionable move after another. The uncomfortable truth now needs to be discussed: Twitter has a leadership problem.

In last week’s Inside Orchard essay, we discussed the two issues that Musk…

Earlier today, Elon Musk revealed that he had quietly amassed a 9% stake in Twitter valued at nearly $4 billion. The news kicked off a whirlwind of speculation as to Musk’s plans. While the investment was deemed passive, that distinction has already proved meaningless given some of Musk’s recent tweets.

It’s not likely that Musk bought a nearly 10% stake in Twitter because he thought it was a good investment. It is…

For the past two years, the European Commission has been formulating a series of regulations aimed at curtailing the tech giants in its 27 member states. Last week, the Digital Markets Act reached a finalized draft stage. While additional steps are needed before the end is reached, we are at a point where the major points of contention have been determined with implementation set to begin later this year. We are seeing…

While much of Silicon Valley remains infatuated with crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse, Wall Street has been lusting over electric vehicles (EVs). In an industry that has experienced a major sales contraction due to supply issues, EV growth of nearly 90% in 2021 has been positioned as nirvana. Legacy auto makers look at EV as an answer to finding relevancy while EV startups are finding it easier than ever to raise new…

In the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two wars have been waged:

The economic war against Russia is being conducted solely because of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. We have seen an unprecedented response from the corporate world in pausing / halting operations in Russia indefinitely. While most of the announcements have been publicly tied…

One of the clearest trends unfolding in tech has been the gradual shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce. However, there is one question associated with the shift that Amazon appears to be struggling to answer. What happens to brick and mortar in an e-commerce world? Some of the world’s largest retailers (Target, Walmart, and Costco) consider their web of physical stores to be an asset when competing with Amazon. Given its…

Ten years ago, the Arab Spring showed us the power found with digital town squares. Social media could be leveraged to organize both people and information like never before. A few years later, the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal opened society’s eyes to how our data can be weaponized to alter how we interact and engage with digital town squares.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we are seeing the start of a…

The Super Bowl serves as an annual reminder of what live sports used to be. While approximately 100 million people still tune into the Super Bowl, the motivation behind watching has changed. A declining number of watchers are even aware of which teams are playing each year. The Super Bowl is instead still able to grab interest by reminding people what it was like to have everyone watch the same live event…

Last week, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg sounded the alarm. TikTok was successfully taking engagement share away from his most-prized pieces of digital real estate: Facebook and Instagram. What had been theorized about for some time is now being discussed out in the open, and we may see others follow Zuckerberg in sending out SOS signals. Companies ranging from Spotify and Netflix to Roku are likely feeling TikTok pressure to some extent. Management teams…

For the first time, Spotify may be discovering the limits of all press is good press. Some look at the current Spotify vs. Neil Young vs. Joe Rogan saga as a battle involving freedom of speech. Others think it’s more of a censorship dilemma. With Spotify choosing to platform Rogan despite Young’s ultimatum, a move that everyone saw coming, the company finds itself taking on a new kind of pushback - one…

It may be tempting for an outsider to dismiss gaming as a hobby for Microsoft. Doing so would make it difficult to understand the company’s multi-decade bet on gaming. Reported within the same business segment as Windows and Surface, gaming is about twice as large of a business as Surface when looking at revenue. One can argue from a mindshare perspective that the difference is much larger. Prior to Microsoft correctly pulling…