Everybody Hates Facebook

I have mixed feelings about Facebook being the likely winner here. On the one hand, it’s the last founder-run of the big 5 tech companies, and I admire Zuck’s vision and aggression. On the other hand, Facebook has a history of creating closed systems that don’t interoperate, charge high take rates, arbitrarily change rules on developers, and other ... See more

Once upon a time, $FB was the 5th fastest growing social network, and yet it came out on top. Two things made it possible: User Generated Content (UGC), and Real Identities.

There is a clear pattern for all four companies [Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google]: each controls, to varying degrees, the entry point for customers to the category in which they compete. This control of the customer entry point, by extension, gives each company power over the companies actually supplying what each company “sells”, whether that be... See more

What makes Facebook’s gambit unique is its global scope, its corporate backing, and its deep faith in technology. Zuckerberg sounds convinced that the new Facebook AI can not only identify “meaningful communities” but also “strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together.” That is far more ambitious than using AI to drive a car or

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An aggregator like Facebook or Airbnb brings all the relevant goods, services, or information that a consumer might seek into one place, and it gathers all the consumers there, too. Netflix is a one-stop shop for film and television. YouTube is a one-stop shop for user-generated video. Uber is a one-stop shop for car rides. These aggregators amass ... See more