Articles
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Apple and Nike
What kind of company is Apple, anyway? They certainly have great technology, but to call them a technology company doesn’t seem quite right. They have great marketing, but to call them a marketing company isn’t true either. They have an incredible retail chain, but to call them a retailer is clearly off base as well. […]
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Free Stratechery and the Daily Email
I hope you will forgive one more solipsistic post; I’m as eager as you to get back to the kind of writing that you are here for. First off, thanks for your support. I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with the number of signups so far; it’s a great affirmation of what I’m doing here. As expected, […]
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Welcome to Stratechery 2.0
A few weeks ago I wrote three pieces at Stratechery about the state of journalism in the age of the Internet. FiveThirtyEight and the End of Average The Stages of Newspapers’ Decline Newspapers are Dead; Long Live Journalism The main takeaway of these pieces was that the Internet, with its wide reach and low costs, […]
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The Heart of Dropbox
Last Thursday, after waking up to the news of Dropbox’s most recent announcements,1 I couldn’t have been less impressed. To quote myself from a chat I had with a friend: “Dropbox is an unfocused mess.” But then I actually watched the event. I’ve long been a believer in cloud storage; back in college I experimented […]
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Why the Web Still Matters
This post was originally posted on Matt Mullenweg’s blog This week Twitter was abuzz with the most recent report from Flurry that showed people spending most of their time on mobile using apps, not the browser: Many were quick to once again declare “The Web is Dead,” but I’m not sure that conclusion makes sense, […]
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Black Box Strategy
With the announcement of the Amazon Fire TV and the leak of the alleged Android TV, all of the major players have (or soon will have) a TV offering. There’s been a lot of talk about how similar the products are, but those similarities are for good reason; what is more interesting to me are […]
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When CEOs Matter
Sometime in 2012, during the runup to Windows 8, I was on a call with a Microsoft Developer & Platform Evangelist (DPE) strategizing how we would approach a particular partner.1 I asked his opinion of a specific feature in this partner’s iPad app, and was shocked at his response: “I don’t own an iPad, and […]
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Box, Microsoft, and the Next Enterprise Platform
Let’s get one thing out of the way: there is nothing about Box’s S-1 filing that suggests tech is in a bubble. Indeed, the fact Aaron Levie and company are not yet profitable is a good thing. To understand why, you must read Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not by VC Mark Suster: There […]
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Newspapers Are Dead; Long Live Journalism
The fundamental economic model of newspapers is broken; for journalism to survive, new business models must be found.