Making Money
Business models are the surest way to understand a company’s motivations.
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For Apple, hitting middle age means a strategy primarily focused on monetizing its existing customers. It makes sense, but one wonders what happens next.
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The impact of Facebook’s News Feed changes on the media is far less interesting than what the changes — and their stated purpose — say about Facebook itself.
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Google is at its best when its product focus follows its business model; for too long Android was a detour.
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iPhones 17 and the Sugar Water Trap
Apple’s iPhone announcement was impressive, but no one was impressed, because Apple is increasingly peripheral to what is changing the world.
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KPop Demon Hunters, Sony’s Risk, The Netflix Aggregator
KPop Demon Hunters is the hit of the year. Sony missed out, but they didn’t make a mistake; Netflix won the reward by being an Aggregator.
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U.S. Intel
The U.S. taking an equity stake in Intel is a terrible idea; it also happens to be the least bad idea to make Intel Foundry viable.
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ChatGPT 5, Product Trade-Offs, Personality and Model Upgrades
GPT-5 seems fine; the more interesting questions are about the ChatGPT product and OpenAI’s tradeoffs.
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ESPN + NFL, NFL Strategy, Additional Disney Notes
The NFL is taking equity in ESPN. It’s a great deal for Disney, driven by the NFL’s long-term concern about tech dominance.
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Figma S-1, The Figma OS, Figma’s AI Potential
Figma is well-placed to succeed in an AI world, because they are an operating system. However, they need to move quickly to capitalize, and that explains why they are going public.