I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the 3 different parts of generative AI tools like ChatGPT: inputs, outputs, and training data. There are many new applications that will be built using 1, 2, or 3 of these parts.
It's important for us to understand what is possible. The whole internet is about to change...
– PC
Links
Disclaimers and Disclosures This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried have imploded, sending ripple effects through crypto and well beyond. But is this really an example of web3? Or is this just a classic case of fraud?
Technically, no, this is not web3. But do the semantics matter? The damage is done.
I usually edit my rants down to < 20 min but I couldn't do it this week. SBF has betrayed us.
Is it possible to create a system where we are truly no longer vulnerable to these sorts of con artists?
– PC
Links
Bankrupt FTX's new CEO outlines fund abuses, untrustworthy records
The Collapse of Crypto Exchange FTX More Like Enron Than Lehman
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
Wait 'til I get my money right
Then you can't tell me nothing, right?
– Kanye West
Links
Kanye West to Buy Parler, Joining the Right-Wing Social Media Crowd
My new online course
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
The metaverse will not built in a year.
But it has been one year since Facebook rebranded to Meta and stated its intention to build the next phase of the internet. Let's talk about where they are now, and why so many people keep hating on them.
– PC
Links
Tech News for MBAs: Meta - What you need to know and why it matters
Hypothetically Great: Facebook bought Oculus, now Oculus owns Facebook
TechCrunch: Meta announces legs
NY Times: Skepticism, Confusion, Frustration: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Struggles
My new online course
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
It turns out that creative tasks are *not* immune to the robot takeover. Meta AI researchers have created a new AI that can generate video content on the fly from a simple text prompt. Basically, you send a text of what you want, and it creates a video of that exact thing. Film students everywhere, beware.
– PC
Links
Meta AI: Make-A-Video
DALL-E
GPT-3
DreamFusion
My new online course
web3 for Business
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
Welcome to Season 4! It was a big week in the world of crypto with the success of The Merge, in which Ethereum transitioned to a proof-of-stake network. As if that wasn't enough, Helium Mobile was announced– the world's first decentralized cellular network.
Buckle up, web3 is upon us!
– PC
Links
The Ethereum Foundation: The Merge
Bloomberg: The Ethereum Merge Ups the Stakes—and Reshapes the Crypto Universe
For $5 A Month, Crypto Now Has Your Cell Plan Covered
My new online course
Disclaimers and Disclosures
I hold ETH. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
We end Season 3 in the same place we started: Meta's latest earnings report. Spoiler– it's not looking good.
Why is this happening? Is it general market conditions? The maturation of social? Apple's "bullying"? All of the above?!
Companion episode from a year ago: Apple and Facebook Battle for the Future
H.A.G.S.!
– PC
Links
Meta Reports First Quarter 2022 Results
Meta says its metaverse biz lost another $3B, but the 2030s will be "exciting"
Apple Podcasts: Apple and Facebook Battle for the Future
Spotify: Apple and Facebook Battle for the Future
Other links: Apple and Facebook Battle for the Future
Also - my new online course
Disclaimers and Disclosures
I hold $TWTR and $APPL. (but not $FB) This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
"Oh hi lol" <-- what Elon Musk tweeted Monday morning.
Why? Because he had just bought 9% of Twitter's stock. Is this good or bad for Twitter? For its users? For society??
We shall discuss.
– PC
Links
WSJ: Elon Musk Takes Surprise 9% Stake in Twitter, Sending Shares Higher
Forbes: The World's Real-Time Billionaires
Also - my new online course!
Disclaimers and Disclosures
I hold $TWTR and $TSLA. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
This week I talk about two seemingly unrelated stories: a paralyzed man who is able to communicate using only his thoughts and the first ever basketball game captured through a new technology called volumetric video.
What do they have in common? Both have to do with how we perceive and communicate our reality, and both represent a way to essentially bypass our normal five senses.
As I like to say, the future is gonna be weird.
– PC
Links
NYT - Brain Implant Allows Fully Paralyzed Patient to Communicate
Wait But Why - Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future
HG - The future of photos isn’t cameras
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
Substack announced its new iOS app that looks a lot like... every other news app. I thought this was a tool for writers to sell email newsletter subscriptions?
There are a lot of great business lessons embedded in their strategy, which is perhaps the hardest kind there is: B2B2C.
Also, I briefly touch on Apple's new product releases and the Biden administration's latest executive order on crypto.
– PC
Links
Apple unveils all-new Mac Studio and Studio Display
Biden Takes Step Toward Regulating Cryptocurrencies
Donate to Ukraine
A step-by-step guide for a new crypto user to donate to Ukraine
Flags of Freedom– My first NFT project, 100% of proceeds to Ukraine
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
The war in Ukraine is an atrocity, and it has been a long time since there was a military invasion in Europe. There are a lot of interesting ways that internet technology is playing an outsized role in this modern age. Live images and video on social media, propaganda campaigns, and as we will discuss in this episode– the benefits of decentralized tech are being put into practice in this conflict.
Ukraine is soliciting donations in cryptocurrency, SpaceX is delivering internet connectivity via a distributed satellite network. And it has only been a week.
I have also launched an NFT project to raise money for Ukraine and a guide for donating crypto. Please consider giving. Links below.
– PC
Links
A step-by-step guide for a new crypto user to donate to Ukraine
Flags of Freedom– My first NFT project, 100% of proceeds to Ukraine
Helium – Introducing The People's Network
Disclaimers and Disclosures
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
Super Bowl LVI was chock-full of ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, reaching over 100 million people who were all wondering the same thing: "Should I be buying crypto? And also, what is crypto?"
I thought this would be a good excuse to do a cryptocurrency 101 episode. What is a blockchain? What are cryptocurrencies? What is Bitcoin? What is Ethereum? Spoiler– I spend a lot of time on Ethereum. First, because it's awesome. But also, because it's a good example of how cryptocurrencies are often associated with a rich underlying project or business. (Bitcoin isn't, which actually seems to be the exception, not the rule.)
I recorded even more but ended up cutting out a bunch. It's just too much info for one ep! I am positive this will not be the last crypto/web3 related episode of this season, so hopefully this will give you enough of a baseline to have some deeper conversations as we go.
– PC
Links
YouTube: Coinbase Super Bowl Commercial
YouTube: Don't Miss Out on Crypto: Larry David FTX Commercial
YouTube: The Moment of Truth | Crypto.com
YouTube: eToro’s Big Game Ad: Flying Your Way
Disclaimers and Disclosures
I hold $BTC, $ETH, and other cryptocurrencies. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
To kick off Season 3 we did our first ever live recording, in front of the classroom of my Intro to Product Management class at Columbia Business School. We just set up a mic and went for it! Now everybody can have a taste of the classroom experience.
I have to say, it was way more fun to record with a live audience of 80 students, in a big beautiful room at our new Manhattanville campus, instead of by myself, in a small office.
We talked about Meta's record stock drop, Amazon's record gain, Apple's intense defending of its fully integrated stack, and how all three companies are trying to achieve verticalization, at scale.
Thank you to the students who helped to make this a successful experiment. Season 3 is off with a bang!
– PC
Links
Meta’s market value plunges by $230 billion in one day
Amazon surges with record $190 billion gain in value
Amazon has a $31 billion a year advertising business
Facebook Feels $10 Billion Sting From Apple’s Privacy Push
Disclaimer
I hold $AAPL and $AMZN. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
We review these last 12 insane months, drawing out a central theme: community. Again and again, we saw examples of collaboration via digital tools to accomplish things in the physical world.
A lot to think about as we head into 2022...
And also, thanks for listening to the first year of Tech News for MBAs!
– PC
Disclaimer
This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
Netflix, Venmo, and Roomba were all down for hours on Tuesday. Why? Because they all use Amazon Web Services. We are incredibly reliant on just a small handful of solutions to power our entire society. Is that a smart idea? What if the web3/decentralized crowd have a point...
+ Some thoughts on Instagram's Senate hearing.
– PC
Links
Lawmakers urge the head of Instagram to better protect children.
An Amazon server outage caused problems for Alexa, Ring, Disney Plus, and deliveries
Disclaimer
I hold $AMZN. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
We are going deep down the web3 rabbithole this week with a bizarre tale of anonymous strangers raising almost $50 million to buy a physical copy of the US Constitution, only to be outbid by an internet villain, and then in the end lots of people make a lot of money, completely accidentally.
I'll tell you the whole story through my own experience, where in the last few weeks I made a 50x return in crypto without even knowing I was investing in the first place. 🤔💸
– PC
Subscribe to my free newsletter Hypothetically Great
Links
Square, Inc. Changes Name to Block
NY Times: They Love Crypto. They’re Trying to Buy the Constitution.
Hypothetically Great: How I made $10,000 out of thin air a.k.a. incentives in web3
Disclaimers
I hold $TWTR, $SQ, and $PEOPLE. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
How the times have changed! It used to be you couldn't raise a seed round without some traction– now you can go public. Rivian, the company creating "electric adventure vehicles", just had one of the biggest public offerings in history. We will dive into how a company that doesn't even have a business yet could be valued at over $100 billion, electric vehicles generally, and the macro trends around speculative trading.
– PC
Links
Rivian announces pricing of upsized initial public offering
Disclaimers
I hold $TSLA and $LCID. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
This is a Hypothetically Great podcast.
Oh Twitter, my beloved Twitter. User growth has almost stalled, but revenue growth is still going strong– and now, for the first time, a major social network has a SaaS subscription product available to its users. Twitter Blue is $2.99/mo and represents not only a new revenue channel for Twitter, but perhaps a new model for social products altogether.
Also, we'll kick things off with a bunch of metaverse-related announcements from this week.
– PC
Links
Introducing Twitter Blue - Twitter’s first-ever subscription offering
Microsoft Teams enters the metaverse race with 3D avatars and immersive meetings
As Nvidia pushes for leadership in metaverse, here’s everything it announced at GTC 2021
Qualcomm launches new AR dev kit, acquires Clay AIR
Disclaimers
I hold $TWTR and $NVDA. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.
This is a Hypothetically Great podcast.
My favorite shoe brand IPOed this week to much fanfare, and its success says a lot about the state of enabling technology platforms like Shopify, which Allbirds is built upon.
We also breeze through a couple of other headlines about the new laser eyed major of NYC and Airbnb's blowout quarter. And, I couldn't help myself, so I had a couple more things to say about Meta.
– PC
Links:
Airbnb Announces Third Quarter 2021 Results
Yahoo Finance: Allbirds surges 90% on IPO day