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Narratives [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
November 14, 2022
226 views
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  • Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried’s recent actions show how narratives can lead people astray.
  • Musk’s attempt to take Twitter private was rooted in his personal grievances, and his letter to advertisers was mostly wrong.
  • Bankman-Fried’s political activism was seen as a way to hide his fraud, and his ambition to change the world was a distraction from his business.
  • Changpeng Zhao of Binance is an example of an entrepreneur who focused on his business, rather than on political activism.
  • The article discusses the importance of product-based narratives over theory-based narratives when it comes to understanding the implications of new technologies such as crypto and AI.
  • It argues that the narrative of crypto being a decentralizing force has been challenged by its product manifestation, which tends towards centralization.
  • Similarly, the narrative of AI being a centralizing force has been challenged by the emergence of decentralized and open source AI projects.
  • The article concludes that the best way of knowing is starting by consciously not-knowing, and that narratives that are right follow from products.

Click HERE for original. Published November 14, 2022

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Elon only trusts Elon [Casey Newton & Zoë Schiffer, Platformer]

By Spencer Chen
In [Platformer]
November 14, 2022
279 views
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  • Elon Musk’s Twitter halted new enrollment into its $8-a-month Blue subscription offering after it led to widespread impersonation of government officials, corporations, and celebrities.
  • Days before the launch, the company’s trust and safety team had prepared a seven-page list of recommendations intended to help Musk avoid the most obvious and damaging consequences of his plans for Blue.
  • On Saturday afternoon, a week after an initial round of layoffs had cut Twitter in half, a second massive wave of cuts hit the company, targeting contractors.
  • On Monday morning, at around 1:45 AM, Twitter engineers were called into an emergency meeting and told they couldn’t even write any code — “until further notice.”
  • Eli Lilly, Volkswagen, Pfizer, IPG’s Mediabrands, and Omnicom Media Group have all paused their ad campaigns on Twitter, potentially costing the company millions of dollars in revenue.
  • GroupM has told its clients that Twitter is a high-risk media buy, and mid-afternoon on Monday, after Musk announced he would begin disconnecting up to 80 percent of unspecified microservices, two-factor authentication temporarily stopped working via SMS.

Published November 14, 2022

Visit Platformer to read Casey Newton’s original post

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Inside the Twitter meltdown [Casey Newton & Zoë Schiffer, Platformer]

By Spencer Chen
In [Platformer]
November 10, 2022
276 views
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  • Elon Musk held an hour-long Spaces call to reassure advertisers, but VPs Yoel Roth, Robin Wheeler, Damien Kieran, Lea Kissner, and Marianne Fogarty all resigned the next day.
  • Musk sent an email to the team demanding they return to the office and prioritize finding and suspending verified bots/trolls/spam.
  • A lawyer on Twitter’s privacy team posted a rebuttal to Musk on the company’s Slack, warning of potential legal risks and violations of the FTC consent decree.
  • Musk held an unannounced all-hands meeting with staff, where he said bankruptcy was not out of the question and threatened to accept resignations from those who did not return to the office.
  • Musk’s plan to make verification checkmarks available to anyone willing to pay $8 for a subscription to Twitter Blue was abused, and he is also working to make Twitter a payments company.
  • There is a real sense of doom that Twitter could become a shadow of its former self, and Musk and his team were unable to access the @twitter account until Wednesday.

Published November 10, 2022

Visit Platformer to read Casey Newton’s original post

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Meta Myths [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery], Science/Technology
October 31, 2022
275 views
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  • The market was panicking about Facebook’s slowing revenue and growing expenses in 2018, but the reaction was overblown.
  • Facebook’s stock price increased by 118% between 2018 and 2021, but has since decreased by 42%.
  • Despite speculation, users are not deserting Facebook, Instagram engagement is not plummeting, and TikTok is not dominating.
  • Facebook is still adding users, Instagram has more than 2 billion monthly actives, and Reels usage is growing quickly.
  • TikTok usage is depressing growth, but is growing the overall pie for user-generated content, and is not infringing on Meta’s business.
  • Myth 1: Meta’s Stock Price is a Reflection of its Business Performance – While Meta’s stock price has dropped significantly, it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the company’s performance.
  • Myth 2: Meta is Losing Money – While Meta’s revenue has decreased, it is still making money.
  • Myth 3: Meta is Becoming Less Relevant – While Meta’s advertising model has been impacted by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy, digital advertising is still growing strongly and Meta is adapting to the new reality.
  • Myth 4: Advertising is Dying – Advertising is not dying, but Apple’s ATT policy has had a significant impact on Meta’s revenue.
  • Myth 5: Meta’s Spending is a Waste – Meta’s capital expenditures are directly focused on the challenges posed by TikTok and ATT, and should pay off in the long run.
  • Maybe True: The Metaverse is a Waste of Time and Money – While the Metaverse may be a bad business for Meta, its costs are relatively small compared to the company’s overall spending.

Click HERE for original. Published October 31, 2022

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Chips and China [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery], Science/Technology
October 25, 2022
265 views
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  • Intel’s integrated model of designing and manufacturing its own chips enabled it to have high margins, but it was disrupted by the rise of modular chip companies like TSMC.
  • TSMC created a new market for chip designers by enabling them to start their own companies without needing to build their own fabs.
  • ASML’s 300-nanometer process and extreme ultraviolet lithography machines enabled TSMC and Samsung to increase their output and margins, and eventually forced Intel to become a customer.
  • ASML’s EUV machines are made of over 100,000 parts, cost approximately $120 million, and require over 800 suppliers, including Zeiss and TRUMPF.
  • In 2012, TSMC, Intel, and Samsung all invested in ASML to help the company finish the EUV project.
  • TSMC had three reasons to commit to EUV: a multi-decade relationship with ASML, the need to manufacture smaller lots of greater variety, and Apple’s willingness to pay for the fastest chips.
  • China has the challenge of re-creating the foundry supply chain from the ground up, but has three advantages: it is easier to follow a path than to forge a new one, it has benefited from technological sharing, and it has unlimited money and motivation.
  • China is also building up its trailing edge fabs, which are still using U.S. equipment, and is likely to become the largest supplier of these chips.
  • The Biden administration’s sanctions are designed to not touch this part of the industry, but this creates a new liability for the U.S. and more danger for Taiwan.
  • In the long run, the U.S. may have given up a permanent economic advantage, and in the short run, the chip ban has raised the risk of conflict between the U.S. and China.

Click HERE for original. Published October 25, 2022

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Microsoft Full Circle [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery], Science/Technology
October 18, 2022
189 views
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  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s first major announcement was Office for iPad in 2014, a move that signaled a shift away from Windows-centricity.
  • Microsoft’s strategy has always been about integration and bundling, and Nadella’s willingness to embrace reality opened up an opportunity for Teams to become the new hub around which Office orbited.
  • Microsoft 365 is the new branding for the company’s collection of productivity apps, and it marks a return to Microsoft’s traditional strategy of integration and bundling.
  • Microsoft 365 is attached to the customer, not a device, making it more resilient and durable than the old Microsoft republic.

Click HERE for original. Published October 18, 2022

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Meta Meets Microsoft [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery], Science/Technology
October 12, 2022
248 views
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  • Meta’s Connect Keynote was underwhelming and lacked compelling demos of virtual reality.
  • Microsoft’s partnership with Meta is a massive win for the company, as it will have a privileged position on the most advanced headset with the most resources behind it.
  • VR has real utility, but it will take time for it to be accessible on a cost-effective basis for enterprises and individual users.
  • Microsoft is well-placed to deliver that utility on top of Meta hardware.
  • Meta is likely to be the catalyst for VR becoming a widely used technology, but it is uncertain as to whether the company will capture sufficient value to justify its massive investment.

Click HERE for original. Published October 12, 2022

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The Scoop: Inside the Longest Atlassian Outage of All Time [Gergely Orosz, The Pragmatic Engineer]

By Spencer Chen
In Gergely Orosz [The Pragmatic Engineer]
April 13, 2022
199 views
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  • The longest Atlassian outage of all time has left hundreds of companies without access to JIRA, Confluence, and OpsGenie.
  • Atlassian stayed silent for most of the outage, and only acknowledged it on the 9th day.
  • Customers received templated emails and no answers to their questions.
  • The cause of the outage was a script that was supposed to delete customer data from a plugin, but accidentally deleted all customer data for anyone using the plugin.
  • Atlassian can restore all data to a checkpoint in a matter of hours, but this would mean everyone else would lose all data committed since that point.
  • Atlassian is now restoring customers in batches of up to 60 tenants at a time, which takes between 4 and 5 elapsed days.
  • Atlassian customers experienced a major outage, with zero access to their products and data.
  • Customers had difficulty reporting the issue to Atlassian, due to the domain being deleted.
  • The biggest complaint from customers was the poor communication from Atlassian.
  • The impact of the outage was large, with many companies not having backups of critical documents on Confluence or JIRA.
  • Customers are eligible for a 50% discount for their next, monthly bill.
  • The biggest impact of this outage is not in lost revenue, but reputational damage.
  • Competitors are sure to win from this fumble, and will reference this Atlassian outage in their sales pitches for years to come.
  • Incident handling learnings include having a runbook for disaster recovery, communicating directly and transparently, speaking the customer’s language, and avoiding radio silence.
  • Avoiding the incident includes having a rollback plan for all migrations and deprecations, and doing dry-runs of migrations and deprecations.
  • Atlassian failed to follow their own guidelines for incident handling, and executives took no public ownership of the outage until day 9.

Published April 13, 2022

Visit The Pragmatic Engineer to read Gergely Orosz’s original post

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