Business

Topic

• Horace Dediu on how the iPhone might be solving the innovator dilemma
  It delivers things that nobody asks for but then everybody wants; avoids things that a few demand but most won’t use
• Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger on how long it takes to dig an economic moat
  In fast-changing industries, quickly developing a moat might be possible. But what comes quickly, may go just as quickly
• Patrick McKenzie on crafting a narrative for decisionmakers then solving backwards to the artifacts that would create it
  “Write about things you would have found surprising 5 years ago in a way that you would have found maximally compelling”
• The back story of PUBG, Fornite, and battle royale video games
  Brendan Greene, modder and fan of “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games”, first brought “batte royale” to gaming
• Charlie Munger explains what made the success of Coca-Cola possible
  How Coke exploits the human biochemistry and psychology, and have successfully blocked competitors from doing the same
• Patrick McKenzie on how he “discovered” his online brand
  Stats and what people were telling him pointed to a comparative advantage on the joining of marketing and engineering
• Patrick McKenzie’s anecdotes about finding and joining online communities
  @patio11 tells examples of finding where “your audience” meets online and gradually injecting yourself in there
• John Collison reading recommendations about the history of successful B2B companies
  He likes the book “Softwar” and, in general, recommends searching for less “sugarcoated” history than the “official” one
• John Collison on the similarities of Uber and cable companies
  Collison draws parallels between cable companies in the 1980-1990s and Uber in the 2010s
• Horace Dediu thinking out aloud about the Apple Glasses
  “Don’t force people into new behaviors, nor new aesthetics. Give users many options. Make a quantum leap in usability”
• Horace Dediu on how Apple is usually not a first mover
  “Apple doesn’t actually firmly launch something until +2% of the market has been already explored through products sold”
• Horace Dediu on how Apple does beta testing
  “Short-distance LiDAR might become a core technology for AR. So they’re putting it into an iPad almost as a beta test”
• Horace Dediu on Apple Silicon as a source of competitive advantages for Apple
  How hard it’d be for Microsoft or Google or Huawei to, without custom silicon, to develop new ideas in wearables or AR?
• Steve Jobs pitching the App Store
  In 2008 Steve Jobs explained, in a eerily prescient way, how big of a deal the App Store was