No Soup for You! Regulating tech M&A
Within and Activision, but also PA Semi and Android - how do we think about big tech buying stuff, and why is it hard for regulators?
Dec 11, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 26
Another Podcast
If you're looking for another over-scripted and edited podcast, this is not it. But if you want to listen to honest and unfiltered discussions about the latest in tech and its impact on society, welcome, you have come to the right place.
This is Another Podcast where two friends and colleagues discuss their overlapping experiences and perspectives on what happens in technology. We might know some of the same things, yet we also have different backgrounds and expertise, or at least, we ask different questions.
Benedict Evans has worked in equity research, strategy and venture capital and owns lots of old phones; Toni Cowan-Brown works at the intersection of tech, policy and politics.
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Episodes
ChatGPT and the Imagenet Moment
When machine learning started really working, back in 2012-13-14, the demos were amazing, but it wasn't immediately obvious how universal the applications would be. The same with Generative AI now - now - the demos are cool, but what will they mean? How will this generalise to change search or law firms?
Dec 05, 2022•41 min•Season 3Ep. 25
All the other things happening in tech part 1.
What does Anker have to do with Mr Beast, Amazon ads or Aesop? A chat about unbundling ecommerce and building brands in a world of infinite media.
Nov 29, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 24
The FTX face-palm
What can we say about a ‘crypto’ crash if we’re not crypto people, nor Wall Street people? How much does it matter?
Nov 18, 2022•31 min•Season 3Ep. 23
How many metaverses?
Every now and then, big company CEOs all read the same tech trends piece and send the same email - "what's our strategy for this?!" And in 2022, there were a lot of "metaverse?!" emails. But what does 'metaverse' mean, can you have a strategy for it, and do you even need to care? Probably not.
Oct 31, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Wondering about generative AI
Generative AI looks like second wave of ML hat might be as big a deal as the Imagenet wave from 2013 or so. What questions can we ask?
Oct 19, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 21
Figma, unbundling and $20bn of antitrust
What does Adobe's purchase of Figma tell us about the ways that software is changing, and the kinds of tools that people build and use? And, how long until the antitrust lawsuit arrives?
Sep 19, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 20
TV after software
‘Software eats the world’, and now it’s eating TV, but then what? Pretty soon software seems to stop mattering, and all the questions become TV questions, fashion questions, or music questions, while tech moves on to something else. Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Sep 05, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 19
A new wave of company creation
Adam Neumann's latest venture shines a light on some of the interesting questions that arise, such as: What is this, what could it be, and can it work? Can this person make it work? As well as, is this the kind of deal we should be doing? Do we understand this? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Aug 23, 2022•31 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Lighting and tech diffusion
What does a light on a restaurant table say about the failure of smart home startups? Or Shein? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Aug 15, 2022•26 min•Season 3Ep. 17
The FTC's antitrust thesis
The US is fundamentally rethinking its approach to competition, and M&A, and tech, and big tech buying startups. The FTC trying to block Meta from buying Within is the test case for all of those. How many interesting problems can we cover in 30 minutes? When big tech buys small tech Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter...
Aug 01, 2022•27 min•Season 3Ep. 16
When the point of leverage changes
What does 'focus' mean for a trillion dollar company? Amazon is buying doctors and Apple might be a bank - should we change our assumptions for what these kinds of companies would never do? How does the point of leverage change? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Jul 25, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Remember AI?
Five years ago AI was everything, but attention moved on (Metaverse! Crypto!) and ‘Applied AI’ became useful but boring. Now things like DALL-E look cool, but what are they useful for? What’s the second wave? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Jul 18, 2022•34 min•Season 3Ep. 14
What's next for advertising?
Advertising is $700bn - after IDFA and the cookie apocalypse, what else is breaking apart and where do things land? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Jun 06, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Three ways to say no
The more that governments, regulators, policy-makers and activists demand that tech works differently, the more argument there is, and the more that tech people and companies people say ‘no!’ But what does it mean when a tech company, or indeed any company in any industry, says ’no’? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
May 30, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Shein, TikTok and Netflix - thinking about limits
Shein added 60k new products in the last week - double Zara and H&M's total combined stock. Netflix made more shows last year than the entire US TV industry back when it start streaming. What happens when you remove physical limits? What's the feedback cycle? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
May 26, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Metaverse - how to be wrong in the right way
What do we mean when we say 'the metaverse'? And what do we mean by interoperability? It's far more useful to get specific about how we think about the future of the internet. What will it do and not do? How will it work and not work? If we are going to make predictions and be wrong, we might as well be wrong in specific ways. Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
May 16, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Stories in the noise
Elon made a lot of noise this week, but what else was going on? We chat about half a dozen things that happened in tech this week, all of them more interesting than the bird company. Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
May 02, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Netflix isn't a tech company
Netflix missed its numbers, but what's really going on in streaming? Is this a tech company, and does it have winner-takes-all effects? Or are all the questions to ask really about television? And whatever happened to the Apple TV? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Apr 25, 2022•40 min•Season 3Ep. 8
The future of Twitter
Elon is on manoeuvres, but what are the problems? Has he thought about this at all? Why has Twitter always been such a mess, and why is it such a tiny company?
Apr 18, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Are you a seal?
‘Big tech’ is big and scary, but do they care about your market? They could come in, yes, and make a mess, but would that make any sense for them? And, do you look like a seal? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Apr 11, 2022•31 min•Season 3Ep. 6
The Evolution of networks
Web3 will remake networks, content and online publishing - apparently. But how many cycles have we been through, how much do the forms, networks and intersections change, and what does it mean to own your data? Is that even possible? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Mar 14, 2022•41 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Ukraine
A chat about Ukraine without pretending we know about Russia, geopolitics and Ukraine. Rather we will focus on some of the things happening in and around tech with regards to this. And we are absolutely conscious these may not be the most important things happening right now. Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Mar 07, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Talking about crypto
Crypto is so big and yet so unclear that we can’t even agree what to call it. What does ‘web3’ mean, what might it mean, how do we ignore the noise, and what questions might matter? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Mar 01, 2022•40 min•Season 3Ep. 3
The retail reset
Everything comes out of Covid (we hope), especially retail. US ecommerce penetration jumped forward a little and the UK a lot, but what kinds of companies, brands and stories can be created now that everything and anything can be online? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Feb 21, 2022•34 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Asking the dumb questions
One thing is obvious in tech, there are so many questions worth exploring. In 2022, we are thinking about cars and infrastructure, crypto and web3, AR and VR, games and regulations. It's less about hat we focus on maybe, and more about how we think about these topics and what questions are worth paying attention to.
Feb 18, 2022•41 min•Season 3Ep. 1
What we know about web 3 so far
Another episode on our theme ‘how to talk about X if you’re not in the field’ - this time ‘Web3’, the new brand name for crypto. How do we ignore the noise (SO much noise) and think about where and how this will be useful? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter
Nov 15, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 13
How to think about tech
We can talk all day about crypto, or VR or Facebook, but how might we talk about *everything* in tech? What are the frameworks and tools to structure the noise?
Nov 08, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 12
The Meta reality
There are two strands to this story: the second phase of Facebook which is the Metaverse (which we previously spoke about on the podcast) and Facebook actually changing its name to Meta. If and when you decide to create a new brand because the existing brand comes with a lot of baggage, a marketing person would probably suggest you fix the problems first, and then decide how to communicate the rebrand. So why would Facebook move to ‘Meta’ today? Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter...
Nov 02, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Metaverse - beyond the buzzword
‘Metaverse’ is the buzzword of the moment, yet it doesn’t really exist as more than a label on a whiteboard, and many of the ideas it tries to combine might not happen, or not like that. This might be the new ‘information highway.’ But however it works, some kind of break-out of new devices, new experiences and new kinds of popular culture seems pretty easy to believe in. Follow Benedict on Twitter Follow Toni on Twitter...
Oct 18, 2021•40 min•Season 2Ep. 10
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