In this Daily Update Interview Eugene Wei and I explore the idea of the half-life of information, and what that means for the value of Netflix, YouTube, Disney, and more.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin Step Down, Why Now?, Google Going Forward
Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s impact on Silicon Valley is incomparable; now, though, they are formalizing a departure that arguably happened years ago. Why now, and what should Alphabet and Google do next?
Slack Earnings, Slack’s Sales Cycle, The FTC Fines YouTube
Slack’s earnings were fine, but lacked the explosive growth their valuation needed. Understanding Slack’s past and future product-market fit explains why. Then, the real problem with the FTC’s fine of YouTube is a lack of transparency.
Why Cloudflare Matters, The Absence of Gatekeepers, Promotion Versus Moderation
More on moderation, including why Cloudflare is important systematically, a reminder that there are no more gatekeepers, which means moderation is always reactive, and why Facebook and YouTube still deserve the most scrutiny.
Google Earnings, Amazon Earnings
Google’s earnings came with the usual dearth of information, although it appears that Google Cloud is growing more than expected. AWS growth, meanwhile, is definitely slowing as Amazon’s business broadly is running out of low-hanging fruit.
Delrahim’s Speech on Tech and Antitrust; Tech and Antitrust, Updated; YouTube and Instagram’s Scale Defense
The Department of Justice antitrust chief gave a speech yesterday that should make tech nervous, particularly Google and Facebook. Then, why Google and Facebook’s scale defense is not sufficient.
Tech and Antitrust
A review of the potential antitrust cases against Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon suggests that only Google is vulnerable.
Google Fights Back
At Google I/O, Google was the opposite of defensive: the company set out to make the case that its approach made for better products that makes people’s lives better
Disney and the Future of TV
TV is moving from a world where distribution dictates business models to one where business models need to fit the jobs consumers want done. That is the best way to understand Disney’s latest announcement.
A Framework for Regulating Content on the Internet
Regulators need to stop blindly regulating “the Internet” and instead understand that every part of the Internet stack is different, and only one part is suffering from market failure.