The takeaways from this potential acquisition for me:
- The splinternet is real - as a foreign business with US interests be aware which side of the splinternet you are positioned. (Stratechery wrote a good piece of the four way split of the internet between US, China, India and EU https://stratechery.com/2020/india-jio-and-the-four-internet...)
- While this may appear as a weird adjacency for Microsoft to go into they have successfully run Xbox a consumer business for many years
- The consumption ecosystem from user data and behaviour from TikTok acquisition can only bolster Microsoft
- Social capital is a lucrative currency for any tech company especially one such as MS who has a lot of catching up to do to other Big Tech
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This is not really the next phase - retail has been on a downward trajectory since the first online sale was made. The spiral down just buffered by a global economy that was growing.
Working with Westfield back in 2008 there was talks already of redesigning mall footprints to have smaller stores that can act as pop-up shops/ collection points etc. However there was an overall equilibrium achieved as malls started playing into the idea that their differentiation was on "experience".
Shopping and going to the mall remains a highly social activity. And I believe will survive well past the pandemic. And perhaps stores will be smaller individually and act as both in-store sales, collection points for online purchases and pop-up stores to market new products.
I think it has a lot to do with how TikTok manages the balance between consumption and creation. Only a fraction of viewers on YouTube for example create content where a significant portion (55%) on TikTok both create AND Consume.
This was an analysis on TikTok vs YouTube and focuses on how TikTok leverages mimcry to overcome the initial burden of ideation and yields significant content creation for its platform.
Agreed, its baffling, and I guess the latest results on their coversion rate (8% of those who participated in free trial) reflects exactly how little traction the idea actually found.
While the transient audio conversation format is novel - Clubhouse lacks the key ingredient that makes social networks so powerful at scaling - the ability to generate sticky social capital and signal that capital effectively. They could perhaps succeed if there was some way to port the kudos a user receives from contributing to a rousing conversation into some marker attached to a profile signaling that this persons contribution warrants recognition.
This is incredibly disheartening, I will miss the weekly reads - journalists position themselves as fighting the good fight for the truth. But increasingly just seems that in a world where there relevance is dropping fast they are willing to do anything for clicks. If you want to be the arbiters of truth perhaps start with a solid base of ethics.
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds.
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds.
Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu
It is hard to explain how deep my love for this series is. My all time favorite science fiction but what it is is just page after page of ideas that get more and more fantastical. Can't recommend this enough
The Three Body Problem (PartI)
The Dark Forest (Part II)
Death's End (Part III)
There is a way to develop internal motivation - in my opinion it is one part the realisation that you want to be motivated and the other part putting in the hard yards to build habits.
For the first part I always refer to the concept of the elephant driver as a reminder.
"NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses a lovely analogy to explain both: the emotional side is the elephant, the rational side is the rider. The rider of the elephant looks like he or she is in charge, but when there’s a disagreement between the elephant and the rider, the elephant usually wins.
Chip and Dan Heath's superb book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, builds on this analogy and talks about directing the rider (rational brain: responsible for planning and direction, but can get paralyzed overthinking things) and motivating the elephant (emotional brain: prefers quick gratification over long term, but gets things done). Numerous experiments show that the rider can get exhausted trying to motivate the elephant and needs time to recover. This is why, if you’re trying to eat healthily while on the road, you tend to make bad choices at the end of a long day and opt for that extra glass of beer."
For the second part use mobile apps/smart watch to help you build habits. Being an unashamed apple user I rely on streaks to be my habit builder but there are many similar applicatons out there. Gamify your own life. Because at the end of the day life is a game. And if you want to get to the next level you have to play it.
It's worth commiting the time to. I think you can objectively view content and enjoy the character depiction of selfish Scarlett without drowning in the pseudo-glorification of plantation life that was rife for the story's timeline.
The complexities arise from handling multiple standards, costing requirements, depreciation treatments, taxation, cost centers, profit centers, endless libraries of relationships between invoices and amortization, recurring payments ... I could go on for another two pages without even touching on consolidation and ownership rules.
The double ledger system visualised as a simple T is accounting’s irreducible component. But the system necessary to maintain not just a ledger of record, but to do it with accuracy, ease and maintain the ability to extrapolate necessary reporting for management and decision making is a far more complex and often needs custom design. Multiple overlapping requirement from compliance, audit and m&d also add complexities.
Edited to answer your question: unfortunately I am not aware of an open source solution. Depending on the size of your organization, you may need to look at designing a custom solution that integrates consolidation, ledger entry and reporting. Most small to medium enterprises can however get by with out of the box solutions from SAP or Oracle. Microstrategy is also useful.
Interesting, so Big Tech effectively moving chip manufacturing (ergo compute power) in-house.
It makes sense - margins are narrowing and having a general provider like Intel and being beholden to their R&D and contracts does not make as much sense - especially if that provider is also servicing your competitors.
Silicon Valley was not an accident - it was the crossroads of academia, enterprise and innovation. And the power of being part of communities with the free flow of ideas, where every peer pushes you to go further - that’s hard to replicate without physical proximity. So short answer is yes - the world will still need Silicon Valley like communities. At least until there is more meaningful online collaboration of communities beyond static forums, transient slack interactions and tiring zoom calls.
“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite. ”
And a childhood spent with the most gorgeously illustrated children's book on a clock maker that lived in Atlantis - a book I've never been able to find since :/
Hey - just my two cents. You seem like someone of means (intellectual and financial). Volunteering and charity can be personally fulfilling but systemised charity is ineffective. Use your skillset and networks to resolve something from the root. Financial inequality is the root of most social ills - is there something you can do in micro-financing? Something in upskilling/education or employment?
Good luck! I feel you will hit upon something worth while.