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Latest Podcast

Concepts

Product-Market Fit

  • Clubhouse’s Inevitability

    Clubhouse will do for audio what Twitter, Instagram Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video.

  • Playing on Hard Mode

    Airbnb and DoorDash both created new markets where ones did not previously exist; they are startups played on “hard” mode.

  • TikTok and Quibi, TikTok and Shopify, TikTok Complications

    Quibi — and Shopify! — explain why TikTok is so successful. As always, though, the TikTok story is complicated by the Chinese connection.

  • The Tragic iPad

    The iPad is 10, and while it remains a useful device, it is ultimately a disappointment. Apple lost the vision for what the iPad could be, and never gave space for developers to figure it out for them.

  • Beachheads and Obstacles

    Facebook and Amazon had events on the same day for Oculus and Alexa. Both are driven by lessons from the mobile era, but Amazon seems to have learned more than Facebook.

  • 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.

  • Apple, Design, and Operations; So It Goes; The Role of Jeff Williams

    More on Jony Ive’s exit, and why blaming Tim Cook misses the broader changes that are an inevitable by-product of success. Than, clarifying Jeff Williams role as CEO-in-waiting.

  • Google Cloud Changes CEOs, Layers of Surprise (or Not), The VMWare Analogy

    Google Cloud has a new CEO: the news is a surprise at first glance, but may make more sense than it seems. To understand why, look at VMWare, outgoing Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene’s most famous startup.

  • Instagram’s CEO

    The surprising resignation of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger should not, in fact, be surprising: this became inevitable the moment they sold Instagram to Facebook.

  • iPhone Classes; iPhone Growth Drivers, and Limiters; The Apple Watch

    Will the iPhone XS slump like the iPhone 6S? Probably not, because theories about the iPhone 6S slump are probably wrong. Plus, the Apple Watch.