Key concepts for this article: The Brutal Economics of Digital / Information Audience-Builder Platforms *** ChatGPT and large language models (LLM) have everyone talking. The ChatGPT prototype launched on November 30 is stunning. ChatGPT, which stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is basically a superpowered chatbot built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 suite of large language […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses why he doesn’t like Netflix, Singapore Press, and most digital content businesses. He argues that these businesses lack a moat, which is a sustainable competitive advantage. He also argues that these businesses are too focused on quantity over quality.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses the return of Ant Group after 2 years in restructuring. He talks about Ant’s new international payment initiative, Alipay+, and how it could disrupt the global payments market. He also discusses the challenges that Ant faces in its new incarnation, such as regulatory scrutiny and competition from other tech giants.
This week’s podcast is about Nike in China. But it really about how you win as a participant in large platform businesses in ecommerce and social media. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts. Here is my new book: Moats and Marathons (Part 1): How to Build and Measure Competitive Advantage in […]
Digital economics are just very strange. As soon as a service or business becomes infused with software and data technology, the economics start to change and strange things happen. Reproduction costs drop to zero. Stuff starts becoming free. Scalability increases dramatically and can be surprisingly cheap. And some old, obscure ideas in economics start to […]
This week’s podcast is about SenseTime, which is a leader in computer vision in China / Asia. It’s a fascinating company for looking at the evolving business models of AI software. The two big questions are: What are the unit economics of large AI companies? What types of scale advantages and network effects do large […]
I was mulling over investing in Expedia during the beginning of the pandemic. It made sense that travel would take a hit for a couple of years. And then it would likely come back. Plus, digital marketplaces are good at scaling up and down. But I didn’t buy as I feel more comfortable with Asia […]
This podcast is about the super cool economics of Adobe Inc. And how they capture the economics of digital by also building strong competitive moats. In Adobe’s case, it’s mostly network effects and bundling. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes, Google Podcasts and Himalaya. The digital economics terms cited are: Zero marginal production costs. […]
Take-Away 1: Adobe Inc. is a good example of many of the strengths of traditional software economics. It has evolved and expanded over decades to become a full suite of creative tools. It is now trying to expand from creative tools to operating tools. Take-Away 2: However, purely digital companies need to protect their attractive […]
This week’s podcast is on Airbnb and what I think people are getting wrong about its business model and future in Asia. Which has some effect on how you would value it going forward. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes, Google Podcasts and Himalaya. The valuation presentation by NYU Professor Damodaran […]