Daily Update: Uber, Contract Workers, and Driver Power; Alibaba Raises $21.8 Billion; Larry Ellison Takes Care of Larry Ellison

Good morning, The iPhone goes on sell today, and there are lines all over. Many suspect the lines are longer due to resellers looking to take advantage of Apple’s China delay, but at least one of the licensing obstacles to the iPhone going on well was removed yesterday. Several folks have asked me if theSubscribe […]

Daily Update: Alibaba Opens Roadshow, Twitter Testing Purchases, Microsoft Rebrands Bing Apps to MSN

Good morning, Finally, no Apple items in today’s Daily Update. I think we’re all well and truly inundated, and you should probably brace yourself for today’s onslaught. On to the update: Alibaba Opens Roadshow The New York Times has an excellent profile of Alibaba founder Jack Ma: When the Alibaba Group goes public later thisSubscribe […]

Daily Update: The Twitter Enigma, Amazon Follow-up, Diapers.com CEO Raises $50 million

Good morning, A quick heads up re: meetups for Access members. The time and location of Friday’s New York meetup has been finalized and should be in your Inbox. If you didn’t get the email or wish to join, please follow up with me directly. Same with Chicago and Madison. As for the update, ISubscribe […]

Losing My Amazon Religion

Benedict Evans asks a good question: If you were running this business, why would you slow down to take profits? pic.twitter.com/mbMNfbyZT4 — Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 28, 2014 The growth curve is impressive enough, even before you notice that the scale is logarithmic. And to be sure, Amazon has had doubters from the beginning: few […]

Daily Update: Amazon Earnings, Xiaomi Releases Wearable, Facebook Messenger and Uber

Good morning, First off, I had a new post on Stratechery on Wednesday about the Apple-IBM deal called Big Blue and Apple’s Soul. Check it out if you missed it. Secondly, I am having meetups for Access members in New York (8/1), Chicago (7/31) and Madison (TBD) over the next couple of weeks. I haveSubscribe […]

Daily Update: Amazon’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities

Good morning, I am on vacation this week, so instead of Daily Updates based on the news of the past few days, I am doing Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis’ of five of the most important companies in tech: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. These analysis’ are not meant to be comprehensive – I’m going toSubscribe […]

Daily Update: Twitter Buys Tap Commerce, Launches App Install Ads; Rakuten Launches Venture Fund

Good morning, I’m writing from Seoul’s Incheon Airport where we spent the night. Tomorrow’s update will come from Madison. On to the updates: Twitter Buys Tap Commerce Recode broke the news of Twitter’s latest acquisition: Twitter is in the process of acquiring Tap Commerce, a New York-based mobile advertising technology firm, according to sources familiarSubscribe […]