I’m fascinated that services like Instacart can command multi-billion dollar valuations. Sure, the sharing economy is in full swing, and making your pitch ‘the Uber of grocery deliveries’ is nice, but I’m intrigued how they are going to make much profit long term. Revenues might have increased 10X over the past year, but I’d love to know how much (if any) is profit...
Another excellent post (long, but worth the read) from Aaron Wall, discussing the ever-growing impact of Google on businesses – no matter how big or small – that markets themselves online (ie just about every business). Scary times.
Not that this is new of course.
Twitter’s ‘strategy statement’ update last week really got the twitterverse going apeshit. But I suspect it was all a cleverly concocted distraction to divert journalists away from the much more obvious message: ie Twitter has no idea how they are ever going to make a profit. Here’s the internal discussion that probably transpired: “We need to craft a message so...
Really cool to see that the Microsoft Office team are essentially making Office free for everyone to use on iOS (and soon Android). I really like this approach (as I’ve mentioned previously). And this on the back of the earlier announcement this week about adding Dropbox integration. Exciting times for any Microsoft watcher and user. My personal user experience so far is very positive...
Frank Arrigo. At last.
When it comes to understanding innovation, it’s easy to fixate on the idea, and neglect the execution. It’s why for example when Apple announced that their new iPhone 6 devices had NFC chips to facilitate their Apple Pay offering they were criticised for not being innovative, and instead just copying something many Android devices have had for years. “That’s not innovation...
Reply from Malcolm Gladwell when asked about a child’s birth month being an advantage (emphasis mine): Question: In Outliers, you discuss why a hugely disproportionate number of professional hockey and soccer players are born in January, February and March. I can’t begin to imagine how many to-be parents you influenced to try and have their offspring be born in those months! MG:...
I’m thinking of starting a new tech blog called Startup Reviews*, where I review every single new startup that I hear about. Without exception I’ll predict they will fail, and I’ll further predict they will fail within 2 years. Regardless of how good their product idea, what their business model is, or previous success. I’ll just blanket predict they will fail. After a...
I’d love that as a new tagline. I’ve really enjoyed reading some of the analysis of Satya’s memo. In addition to the ones I mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve found these to be particularly interesting: this, this and this. There seems to be three main areas people are focussing on: It’s wordy and bloated There’s going to be job cuts Oh, and we’re not...
The always awesome Aaron Wall lets loose with another blistering rebuke of Google’s regular business practices. When Google complains about censorship, they are not really complaining about what may be, but what already is. Their only problem is the idea that someone other than themselves should have any input in the process. Definitely worth a read. It’s a tricky area for me...