Snowflake is an optimiser service within a sub-optimal complex system - cloud infrastructure. Snowflake represents an interim solution as the complex system evolves to solve the sub-optimal components of its ecosystem. Can Snowflake’s $12.4 billion valuation be justified beyond this interim phase?
Google is transforming the search engine from a mere navigational tool to a personal assistant. The clear distinction between Google as a personal assistant compared to competitors like Amazon or Facebook, rests in the fact that Google treats the entire web as its ecosystem.
Cryptocurrencies have a chicken and egg problem - adopting cryptocurrencies requires value tied to its use, but in the absence of a large valuation struggles to actualise those use cases. Instead it relies on a series of consolidating speculative bubbles to edge towards adoption.
Twitter participation tends toward headlines more than conversations. When users engage with or create headlines themselves, the conversation is less focal and less persistent, and instead, a barrage of transient headlines takes its place.
The EU Commission’s proposal to establish a ‘data trust marketplace’ for Europe’s 500 million citizens stands at odds with the EU’s staunch data privacy regulations. This shift signals the European urgency to compete with the tech economies of China and the US.
There is an immense amount of value in being the funnel to capture the underbanked economic potential of Southeast Asia. The power of Grab and Gojek fintech ventures then lies in the ability to create that funnel by building out the capacity to financially profile users.
Surface Duo has been deliberately designed for productive functionality - dual screens being the derivative ‘form’. The question is, whether the Surface Duo and its foldable function will succeed where its predecessors have failed, to provide Microsoft with reach into the consumer mobile market.
Current free and ubiquitous applications (search, social media etc.) function on convenience and prioritise a seamless experience. However, blockchain applications rely on the users’ motivation to forgo seamless convenience in the form of microtransactions for greater control and data ownership.
While YouTube’s aggregated, video only focus gives it an upper hand in discovery for music as opposed to the more sporadic nature of Facebook feeds, Facebook’s strength lies in distribution.
Despite the pervasive reach of the Windows OS into consumer lives, Microsoft has not as successfully created interdependencies across its consumer products to extract value. While TikTok’s acquisition is viewed as a potential remedy for this, it is not an immediate solution.
