In Part 1 and Part 2, I laid out my approach to web 3.0 business models. These are sometimes called “decentralized platforms”. Or “protocols”. I don’t really buy either of these as I think they overemphasize the decentralized aspect. And that is rarely enough to win as a competitive service. I think most of the […]
“New retail”, coined by Alibaba, was probably the least creative business term ever. But it was a big idea. You combine online and physical retail into a seamless, data-driven consumer experience. It is giving rise to new business models, from transformed supermarkets and cashier-less convenience stores to automated package pickup centers and re-imaged department stores. […]
Right now, the venture capital types are all talking about “web 3.0”. Very big names are arguing that this is the big new tech paradigm. But really this is about blockchain, which is a much bigger and more important technology than I had appreciated. When I look at the digital world, I now put things […]
In Part 1, I went through the basics of Nubank, which is building a digital bank in Latin America. And you can make an analogy between the first digital bank and the first online travel sites. In both cases: A digital business model was taking on long-established physical business models. Digital economics enabled a far […]
A few months ago, I wrote about Stone Co, which is one of the new digital natives rising in Latin America. My thinking on Stone Co is that the company is mostly serving SMEs with a split focus on financial services and enterprise software and services. That is a bit confusing. And their operations reflect […]
In Part 1, I detailed some of the basics of SenseTime, China’s leading computer vision company. I argued it was basically a linear business model, not a platform. It mostly reminds me of Adobe and traditional software companies. But the economics of AI software companies at large scale are still largely unknown. Especially when it […]
Chinese computer vision company SenseTime is now public. This was after years of setback after setback, including being placed on the US Treasury Department’s list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies.” But it is now public in Hong Kong and it gives a fantastic look at the frontier of AI in China, especially computer vision. Why […]
Last week, I went to the Huawei headquarters in Bangkok and interviewed Thailand CEO Abel Deng. It was a fascinating discussion and it really got me thinking about two questions: What is the next generation of digital infrastructure going to look like in SE Asia? What new digital businesses will this make possible? I’ve written […]
Logistics in China / Asia has been on my short list for a long time. There is a lot to like about this space. Logistics has a long-term secular growth trend. As countries and regions develop and grow, they generally ship more and more things around. It’s a slow but steady trend. We see that […]
In Part 2, I laid out the story of Stone Company, a Brazilian digital native that is building out payment, financial and enterprise services for SMEs. My basic take was: I like the company’s basic value proposition (payment plus working capital services) for smaller merchants, especially compared to what they get from local banks. I […]