I had a friend ask me this week about how I decide what to write on this blog. His comment was that I tend to write about a variety of different topics. He wondered: Isn’t it better to focus on one particular niche?
The simple answer is that I write about what interests me. And secondary to that is any concern around what will get the most clicks. In fact, I try not to fall into the trap of worrying about the latter. Sometimes it can be paralyzing to fixate on what will appeal most to the tens of thousands of people who read this blog on a regular basis.
The reality is that my interests are much broader than, say, just design and real estate; though these two topics are clearly central.
I learned a long time ago while studying architecture and art history that what we make as a society is generally a product of the cultural milieu at the time. In other words, the built environment doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the physical manifestation of what we believe to be true at a particular moment.
Today, it’s pretty hard to ignore the importance of tech. Think of some of the most valuable companies in the world right now: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and so on. Now, technology has always shaped our cities, but what makes this moment different is the decisive shift toward software.
It’s arguably no longer about who can build the best mousetrap. It’s about who can build the best software layer on top of that mousetrap.
In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (previously the co-founder of Netscape) published a widely shared essay called, “Why Software Is Eating the World.” And over the past 6 years he has been proven to be very right.
The 3 main points he aimed to make with that essay are as follows:
Every product or service that can become software will become software.
Every company will have to become a software company.
The winning companies will be the best software companies.
Depending on your industry, this may sound ludicrous to you. Certainly in 2011 it probably seemed that way.
But a perfect example of this phenomenon is the iPhone. The phone itself is manufactured in China, albeit where a lot of great hardware innovation is taking place.
But at this point, phones have become fairly commoditized. The profits that Apple makes from the iPhone disproportionately come from the software layer and the app ecosystem it has developed.
You could make a similar argument with Tesla. Autonomous navigation – which most of us can agree will have a profound impact on cities – is largely a software challenge.
And so if you believe that autonomous vehicles will be a fundamental part of the future of mobility, then it’s not that hard to believe in point number three: the winning car company will also have to be the best car software company.
Some industries have been less touched by tech and software – real estate being one of them. But if Andreessen is right and it’s not a question of if, but a question of when, then it behooves all of us to think about the potential impacts.
I love how Andreessen ends this podcast discussion with Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg and so I’m going to repeat it here to close out this post. He says: “There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas.”
And that’s why I write about tech on my city building blog.
Photo by Michal Pechardo on Unsplash
Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures recently gave a talk at the 2017 Blockstack Summit about “Decentralization and the Knowledge Age.”
He starts by talking about motivation and coordination.
The state, he argues, is good at coordination, but not so good at motivation. The market, on the other hand, is good at motivation, but not so good at coordination. Money and self-interest are powerful incentives.
He then talks about how networks have improved the market, the firm, and the state. When the cost of sharing information drops, everything gets better.
But there are downsides to networks. For one, they form monopolies. Consider Facebook in social. Google in search. Amazon in ecommerce.
They also create environments ripe for censorship and “algorithmic abuse.” Everything you see in your feeds is optimized to make you respond and/or feel a certain way. The line between delivering you relevant content and deliberate manipulation is perhaps a fine one.
So what’s the solution? Decentralized blockchain networks are one exciting possibility. But they also have their own limits and drawbacks. Albert touches on those in his talk.
The video is about 24 minutes. If you can’t see it below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQT874KHuw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Instagram has a company chart that shows: Days to Reach the Next 100 Million Users. It is only the chart where they want to see it decline. The first 100 million users took 28 months. And the last took only 4 months. Instagram now has 700 million active users.
Instagram is also saying that they have 200 million people using their Stories feature – you know, the feature they blatantly stole from Snapchat. This would mean that more people are using Instagram Stories than Snapchat has daily users (~158 million).
Anecdotally, I can tell you that I’ve almost completely stopped using Snapchat. (Snapchat battery usage over the last 7 days = <1%.) I still prefer Snapchat’s direct messaging functionality, but not enough to continue using the platform. Instagram now provides basically the same functionality – plus my photos – in a single app.
But more importantly, Instagram’s network and my network are bigger there. And network effects are clearly the most important thing. In fact, by directly copying Snapchat, Instagram (Facebook) made sure that this competition was only about network size and not about features. Monopoly power.
In real estate, if you own a property in a great location, your position is pretty defensible. (Though you may not be completely immune.) But in tech, that is clearly not the case. Someone might copy everything you’ve done and beat you at your own game.
As someone who used to be very bullish on Snapchat, I am now wondering if I need to remove my Snapchat handle from the header of my blog emails. I mean, I’m not there very often anymore. But maybe, just maybe, Snapchat will find a way to compete outside of network effects at a game that Instagram/Facebook can’t play.
How would you or are you placing your bets?
I had a friend ask me this week about how I decide what to write on this blog. His comment was that I tend to write about a variety of different topics. He wondered: Isn’t it better to focus on one particular niche?
The simple answer is that I write about what interests me. And secondary to that is any concern around what will get the most clicks. In fact, I try not to fall into the trap of worrying about the latter. Sometimes it can be paralyzing to fixate on what will appeal most to the tens of thousands of people who read this blog on a regular basis.
The reality is that my interests are much broader than, say, just design and real estate; though these two topics are clearly central.
I learned a long time ago while studying architecture and art history that what we make as a society is generally a product of the cultural milieu at the time. In other words, the built environment doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the physical manifestation of what we believe to be true at a particular moment.
Today, it’s pretty hard to ignore the importance of tech. Think of some of the most valuable companies in the world right now: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and so on. Now, technology has always shaped our cities, but what makes this moment different is the decisive shift toward software.
It’s arguably no longer about who can build the best mousetrap. It’s about who can build the best software layer on top of that mousetrap.
In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (previously the co-founder of Netscape) published a widely shared essay called, “Why Software Is Eating the World.” And over the past 6 years he has been proven to be very right.
The 3 main points he aimed to make with that essay are as follows:
Every product or service that can become software will become software.
Every company will have to become a software company.
The winning companies will be the best software companies.
Depending on your industry, this may sound ludicrous to you. Certainly in 2011 it probably seemed that way.
But a perfect example of this phenomenon is the iPhone. The phone itself is manufactured in China, albeit where a lot of great hardware innovation is taking place.
But at this point, phones have become fairly commoditized. The profits that Apple makes from the iPhone disproportionately come from the software layer and the app ecosystem it has developed.
You could make a similar argument with Tesla. Autonomous navigation – which most of us can agree will have a profound impact on cities – is largely a software challenge.
And so if you believe that autonomous vehicles will be a fundamental part of the future of mobility, then it’s not that hard to believe in point number three: the winning car company will also have to be the best car software company.
Some industries have been less touched by tech and software – real estate being one of them. But if Andreessen is right and it’s not a question of if, but a question of when, then it behooves all of us to think about the potential impacts.
I love how Andreessen ends this podcast discussion with Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg and so I’m going to repeat it here to close out this post. He says: “There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas.”
And that’s why I write about tech on my city building blog.
Photo by Michal Pechardo on Unsplash
Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures recently gave a talk at the 2017 Blockstack Summit about “Decentralization and the Knowledge Age.”
He starts by talking about motivation and coordination.
The state, he argues, is good at coordination, but not so good at motivation. The market, on the other hand, is good at motivation, but not so good at coordination. Money and self-interest are powerful incentives.
He then talks about how networks have improved the market, the firm, and the state. When the cost of sharing information drops, everything gets better.
But there are downsides to networks. For one, they form monopolies. Consider Facebook in social. Google in search. Amazon in ecommerce.
They also create environments ripe for censorship and “algorithmic abuse.” Everything you see in your feeds is optimized to make you respond and/or feel a certain way. The line between delivering you relevant content and deliberate manipulation is perhaps a fine one.
So what’s the solution? Decentralized blockchain networks are one exciting possibility. But they also have their own limits and drawbacks. Albert touches on those in his talk.
The video is about 24 minutes. If you can’t see it below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQT874KHuw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Instagram has a company chart that shows: Days to Reach the Next 100 Million Users. It is only the chart where they want to see it decline. The first 100 million users took 28 months. And the last took only 4 months. Instagram now has 700 million active users.
Instagram is also saying that they have 200 million people using their Stories feature – you know, the feature they blatantly stole from Snapchat. This would mean that more people are using Instagram Stories than Snapchat has daily users (~158 million).
Anecdotally, I can tell you that I’ve almost completely stopped using Snapchat. (Snapchat battery usage over the last 7 days = <1%.) I still prefer Snapchat’s direct messaging functionality, but not enough to continue using the platform. Instagram now provides basically the same functionality – plus my photos – in a single app.
But more importantly, Instagram’s network and my network are bigger there. And network effects are clearly the most important thing. In fact, by directly copying Snapchat, Instagram (Facebook) made sure that this competition was only about network size and not about features. Monopoly power.
In real estate, if you own a property in a great location, your position is pretty defensible. (Though you may not be completely immune.) But in tech, that is clearly not the case. Someone might copy everything you’ve done and beat you at your own game.
As someone who used to be very bullish on Snapchat, I am now wondering if I need to remove my Snapchat handle from the header of my blog emails. I mean, I’m not there very often anymore. But maybe, just maybe, Snapchat will find a way to compete outside of network effects at a game that Instagram/Facebook can’t play.
How would you or are you placing your bets?
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