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Rivian Is Early


In the electric vehicle (EV) space, some of the most interesting observations aren’t found with Tesla or legacy auto. Instead, we need to turn to an EV startup called Rivian.

With a lineup consisting of the $73,000 R1T pickup (accepting reservations with deliveries expected later this year) and the $78,000 R1S SUV (accepting reservations with deliveries expected in 2024), Rivian learned from those who came before it by skipping smaller sedans and…

The Future of Search


The recent chatbot craze fueled by ChatGPT, which needs a good dose of cold water thrown on it, has led to renewed talk of search’s future. Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI led some to conclude that Google should be nervous. The thinking goes that the combination of Bing and massive language models will impact Google’s search dominance. I find such thinking rudimentary at best.

Much of the chatbot craze will fizzle out…

Movie Theater Shenanigans Continue


Movie theater operators can’t get out of their own way. Last week, AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the world with 950 theaters, unveiled variable seat pricing in the U.S. Customers will be charged based on where they sit in the theater. Seating will be split into tiers:
  • Value Sightline: Seats that few people want, like the front row. AMC would charge $1 to $2 less for these seats although there…

Mark Zuckerberg’s Bet

Meta is the latest company to take a ride on the Wall Street roller coaster. After a horrendous year in 2022 with shares trading down 65%, Meta turned heads last week with the stock popping 24% after reporting earnings. The wild swings left observers scratching their heads as to what may have changed. How could a company considered by some to be fatally wounded see its shares more than double in just…

The EV Price War Has Arrived


The auto industry is in a weird place right now. Automakers have benefited from software’s inevitable march into their space. However, the auto space is nowhere near where the tech industry thought it would be by now. In the mid-2010s, autonomy was considered by many to be a problem that would be solved by 2020. Elon Musk positioned full autonomy as a “next year” goal for years although he interestingly stopped making…

Don’t Overthink Big Tech Layoffs

Last week, Microsoft and Google joined Amazon and Meta in announcing layoffs. In total, 51,000 jobs will have been eliminated among the four companies in just the past two months.
  • Amazon: 18,000 layoffs
  • Google: 12,000
  • Meta: 11,000
  • Microsoft: 10,000
  • Total 51,000 
This development has led pundits to run with various theories explaining the layoffs, ranging from Big Tech being in a recession to the pandemic contributing to something of a tech bubble…

Throwing Cold Water on ChatGPT


The late 2010s was witness to one the largest head fakes in consumer technology: voice-first or voice only interfaces. Tech pundits and analysts fumbled over themselves with projections that we would converse with speakers positioned around the house instead of looking at screens. Such an idea even permeated through several tech giants including Amazon and Google.

Scott Galloway, who gained a following in tech circles for his bold predictions, said in 2018…

CES Lost Its Meaning

Last week, the largest tech trade show in the world was held in Las Vegas. At least based on my tech-oriented Twitter timeline, you wouldn’t have even known CES took place. For the past few years, CES was increasingly at the receiving end of jokes and mockery for what it has turned into. In what is a worrying sign for CES, this year was different as there weren’t even that many jokes…

Elon Musk Isn’t Twitter’s Problem

Elon Musk continues to make unforced errors as he molds Twitter into his liking. Unnecessary controversies and illogical strategy moves are not only increasing stress and anxiety among some Twitter users, but also clouding what Musk has done correctly. Yes, there actually have been a few positive changes such as the “What’s happening” editorial trends coming to an end.

In finding the top tech story in 2022, the Musk/Twitter saga makes the…

Bob Iger’s Mandate at Disney


It would be an understatement to say the past month has been an interesting one at Disney. At the request of Disney’s board, Bob Iger, who led Disney for 15 years during the 2000s and 2010s, made a dramatic return as CEO.

Iger’s return was met with sighs of relief and hope from various Disney stakeholders. Something of a Disney wish list materialized overnight. Iger would “fix” Disney parks, reinvigorate Disney animation…

FTX and Crypto’s Buzz Drain



The media loves its villains. While Elon Musk’s Twitter escapades took over much of November’s news flow, Musk is something of a known entity at this point. Sam Bankman-Fried now wins the award for fastest up-and-coming villain. Just a few weeks ago, his name (or SBF initials) only meant something to those in crypto circles. Today, fallout from FTX’s collapse, the crypto exchange that he founded in 2019, continues to grow and…

Valuing Meta


As Mark Zuckerberg contemplates some of his toughest business strategy decisions to date, Wall Street has already weighed in with its verdict on Meta: The company has about a decade left. While that dire prediction will likely morph with Wall Street’s always-changing mood, a closer examination of Meta’s valuation reveals several intriguing questions applicable to valuing Big Tech in general.

A quick check of stock prices would show that Big Tech has…

The Year of Paid Video Streaming Price Hikes

Paid video streaming has provided analysts and pundits plenty to talk about in 2022. Competition has intensified as Disney goes after Netflix for the subscriber crown (Disney has already won). Wall Street also turned sour on most streamers, driven by the higher competition and concerns with business model sustainability.

Set within this change and chaos, there is one theme that ended up being quite reliable: Subscription price hikes. In retrospect, higher subscription…

Elon’s Twitter


If there were still questions as to how Elon Musk was going to run Twitter, his tweeting a video of himself walking into an empty Twitter HQ carrying a bathroom sink to denote the change of ownership told us that this was going to be an unconventional transition. We were about to see the Musk show, and the first 12 days have certainly lived up to that description.

Unfortunately, much of the…

Wall Street Was Caught Sleeping on Digital Advertising


Judging by stock price moves, Wall Street experienced quite a few surprises last week. Consider the following price moves registered the day after reporting CY3Q22 earnings:  
  • Meta: -25%
  • Alphabet: -10%
  • Microsoft: -8%
  • Amazon: -7%
  • Apple: 8%
The odd thing about these moves is that 3Q22 earnings contained very few surprises in Big Tech land. All of the major themes found in the numbers and on management conference calls have been on…

Snap Is a Feature, Not a Company


Snap positions itself as “a camera company.” It’s the first thing that a visitor to their website will likely see. On its Investor Relations page, the slogan can’t be missed. The aspirational messaging has served two functions for the company:
  1. Attract talent intrigued by new opportunities that smartphone camera ubiquity has fueled.
  2. Convince Wall Street investors that there is something deeper at play with Snap than just a communication platform (Snapchat) unable…

Google’s Hardware Bet Isn’t Working

One of the major tech themes from the past ten years has been the giants increasing their bets on hardware. The moves, clearly aimed at catching up to industry-leader Apple, have been met with very few pockets of success.

Some companies, like Amazon, were able to get customers to bite out of the gate even though longer-term engagement trends have disappointed. Other companies, like Meta, have discovered just how expensive hardware is…

Google’s Strategy for Coexisting With TikTok

We are at the point where discussions taking place among the giants regarding TikTok need to be about how to survive against the company. It is too late to try to stop or slow TikTok’s momentum. Attempts at outflanking TikTok are also off the table.

YouTube Shorts has been Google’s response to TikTok and the overall rise of short-form video. Two weeks ago, Google unveiled its strategy for coexisting alongside TikTok: Appeal…

Selling the Disney Experience

Having spent close to a decade covering the tech industry, I have always seen Disney occupy an interesting competitive position. The company isn’t in the same league as the giants from a software perspective. However, lumping Disney in with its content peers feels wrong. Netflix is no Disney although Netflix executives think otherwise.

Last month, the WSJ reported that Bob Chapek and company are exploring Disney memberships. Disney confirmed the reporting. Amazon…

Peloton’s Ride Is Ending


We are at the point where we can begin writing Peloton’s eulogy. Last week, Peloton co-founder and former CEO John Foley stepped away from the company by resigning from the board. He had moved into the executive chairman role this past February after bringing in Barry McCarthy to fix his errors and miscalculations.

Peloton’s user trends continue to worsen. More importantly, the one thing that was always going to represent the core…

A Live Sports Saga




Last month, the sports and digital media worlds collided as the Big Ten chose the winners for its seven-year sports rights deal. Depending on your perspective, the $7 billion announcement was either a surprise or business as usual. The auction did a good job of highlighting where the media space is right now and the challenges / opportunities facing the tech giants when it comes to live sports programming.

The Big Ten’s…

Waiting for Mixed Reality



September in tech land marks the start of the very busy new product unveiling season. The giants will show their hands for the upcoming holiday shopping season. In a few days, Apple will host its annual September event. Amazon, Google, and Meta are expected to follow in the coming weeks.

For the third year in a row, companies are unveiling new products into a very challenging environment. It’s a stretch to say…

Roku’s Bad Bet


In just the past few months, a lot has taken place in the paid video streaming market. Netflix, prematurely crowned by consensus as the streaming winner, is now having something akin to an identity crisis while being surpassed by a more capable competitor in Disney. Consumers have plenty of choice in the market and are beginning to show signs of hitting some kind of subscription stacking plateau. Increased churn is likely not…

Scooter Mania Fizzles


Scooter Mania Fizzles

It’s tough to find good news in the scooter industry. Publicly-traded Bird is trying to survive. Uber-backed Lime is trying to find a way to IPO. All the while, the way scooters were quickly embraced in the late 2010s feels like a distant memory.

Bird describes themselves as “developing mobility solutions that put people and communities first.” These solutions revolve around “lightweight electric vehicles readily available to rent or…

Amazon’s iRobot Deal Isn’t About Vacuums



This past Friday, Amazon announced its intention to buy iRobot, best known for its Roomba vacuum cleaner, for $1.7 billion. In describing the deal, Amazon’s hardware chief applauded iRobot’s “ability to reinvent how people clean with products that are incredibly practical and inventive…” This may make some people think that Amazon wants to go after Dyson for having the best vacuum cleaner on the market. There’s much more to the story. The…

Movie Theater Cracks Grow


Disney is in a weird position when it comes to the box office: Its strategy is being questioned. For years, Disney was considered to have mastered the evolving box office to maximize profit while protecting future interests. Although “Thor: Love and Thunder” got off to a good box office start last month, the subsequent 68% drop in ticket sales during its second weekend was alarming. The steep drop follows another recent Marvel…

Snap Is the Canary in the Ad Coal Mine


Snap Is the Canary in the Ad Coal Mine

Last week, Snap reported a disaster of an 2Q22 earnings report and conference call. Snap went from having 50% revenue growth to pretty much no growth in a year. Even though the company had previously warned results would be bad, things were even worse than expected. Snap’s problems, which are long and varied, serve as a warning for nearly all ad-based business models…

A Luxury Safe Haven



With recession and inflation concerns continuing to build in the tech space, attention has shifted to where pockets of strength will be found. One such pocket may come as a surprise: luxury. At first, the idea of high-priced gadgets and services selling well in a high inflation and slow growth period may seem like a stretch. However, continued supply chain issues and software’s ongoing invasion of new industries bode well for companies…

The Musk Ride Continues for Twitter

Twitter is on a roller coaster named Elon Musk. There hasn’t been a shortage of surprise dips and turns. The initial courtship and even befriending that took place between Twitter leadership and Musk now seems like a distant memory. It’s hard to believe Twitter had initially tried to offer Musk a board seat in order to curb his Twitter stock purchases. Passive aggressiveness then set in once Musk’s intentions became known. This…

A VR Head Fake

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…

Social Media’s Days Are Numbered


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’s Impact on Tech Is Complicated

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…

An Advertising Pivot Is Beginning


In just the last week, there were two high-level and noteworthy departures at the giants:
  • Meta’s advertising head (who served as COO)
  • Amazon’s consumer retail chief
Earlier in the year, two noteworthy departures were found among smaller companies striving to one day become giants:
  • Spotify’s chief architect of its podcasting strategy
  • Roku’s head of platform business
At first, the four departures may seem unrelated to each other. They each have their own…

Ridesharing’s Ongoing Search for Sustainability

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…

Funding the Next Big Thing in Tech

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…
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