Clearview AI is billed as a story about facial recognition, but the most important questions it raises is about scraping. And, by doing so, it reveals how many trade-offs we have yet to confront.
2020
Exponent Podcast: The Water We Swim In
On Exponent, the weekly podcast I host with James Allworth, we discuss The End of the Beginning. Listen to it here.
Lime Leaves 12 Cities; Scarcity Amongst Abundance; An Update on Apple, Trump, and Encryption
Scooter companies appear to be struggling, which is not a surprise; still, it is an excuse to re-visit assumptions around ride-sharing in comparison, and an generalizable principle about Aggregation Theory. Plus, an update on Apple versus the FBI.
Visa/Plaid Follow-Up; Apple v FBI, Round 2; 2020 Differences
More on Visa/Plaid, including why payments in the U.S. and China are so different. Then, Apple is facing off against the FBI again, but its position is both stronger technologically and weaker politically.
Visa, Plaid, Networks, and Jobs
The history of credit cards helps explain why Plaid is valuable to Visa, and how Visa can make it significantly better.
Casper Files for IPO, Casper’s Business, Spotify Ad Targeting
Casper is a tech-enabled company, but so are its many competitors. Trying to win with brand is difficult in a market defined by infrequent purchases. Spotify, meanwhile, is seeking to expand the podcasting market beyond companies like Casper.
CES Concepts, Verizon Drops Bundles, Technology and TV
CES is boring, because no one knows what is next. Then, Verizon is dropping Internet and TV bundles, which is a rational response to the changing nature of pay-TV. It also shows how much tech disruption is still to come.
The End of the Beginning Follow-Up, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Venture versus Productive Capital
Examining The End of the Beginning through the lens of Carlota Perez’s Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, and what that means for venture capital.
The End of the Beginning
The beginning of technology was about the shift from batched computing in one place to continuous computing everywhere. That era of paradigm changes may be over, which means the real changes are only beginning.
Bubble Talk, Revisited; It [Wasn’t] 1999; The Big Tech Basket
While 2015 Unicorns did not meet expectations, that doesn’t mean 2015 was a bubble. Indeed, the most surprising reality is how well established big tech companies did.