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Warren’s plan to break up tech companies

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Everyone and their mom have written about Senator Warren’s plan to break-up tech. She certainly hit the right button to get attention. I do feel that the whole thing is one-sided and presents a very limited view of the world around us. It reminded me a little of the stop BEZOS Act of Senator Sanders.

Both Warren and Sanders point at tech companies but – looking at Warren’s proposals – there are plenty of other companies where are monopolies or operate in oligopolies.

What about Walmart? Walmart has been killing local businesses for decades.

What about wireless carriers? They operate in an oligopoly.

How about cable operators? Large cable operators operate a monopolistic business in most areas and have no significant competition in their markets. Nationwide they operate in an oligopoly.

Another favorite topic right now is the cost of medicine. Medicines are a monopolistic business since there is often no or limited options for treating a particular illness. Are we going to break them up too?

Monopoly and oligopoly markets are not capitalistic markets. They are not open to other entrants. These markets do not function efficiently. Without intervention, it ultimately hurts the consumer in some way – either by high prices, poor products or no innovation.

It bothers me that tech is now singled out while every old established business is ignored. How can you not mention the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile in this context?

It is also weird that she singles out acquisitions as Wholefoods and Waze. I do not think Amazon nor Google have a monopoly or oligopoly in those markets. We can’t stop these companies from innovating and pursuing new markets – that would be condemning them to a slow death.

It is also interesting she mentions Bing as an inferior alternative to Google and that is a good thing in her mind. I am not sure, but Bing was started by Microsoft as an answer to Google Search since Google Search was on its way to owning 100% of the market.

I think her singling out of tech companies is just lazy and one-sided. At the same time, we should act when markets become monopolies or oligopolies. When I think about those markets, I do not think a single solution is going to cut it. I think each case is different and needs a different approach. I think we should just start by defining when a market is not working anymore. For instance, when 50% of a market is dominated by a single player or a particular market in the US is dominated by 5 players or less.

Remember that Microsoft invested $1B in Apple and made their office software available on its platform to avoid further regulatory scrutiny? Look how that turned out. It was not a bad deal for anyone involved.

Also, read the excellent analysis by Ben Thompon “Where Warren’s Wrong”.

But cashless is better than cash

Philly mandates acceptance of cash. NJ / NY are next. MA already mandates it.

Philly mandates acceptance of cash. NJ / NY are next. MA already mandates it.
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Philadelphia passed a bill to force stores to accept cash. The states of New York and New Jersey are contemplating similar bills and the state of Massachusetts already mandates acceptance of cash.

The reason is that not everyone has access to electronic payments methods. That is a fair point.

But there are many good reasons to go cashless. Cash is inefficient and comes with risks. If you ever – like me – deposited store cash at a bank in the evening, you surely know what I am talking about.

Instead of regulating access to electronic payment methods, they opt for mandating acceptance of cash.

I truly have a hard time following the logic of these lawmakers.

Sensitive ears

Curse of being a part-time audiophile

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I call myself a part-time audiophile. An audiophile’s mission is the pursuit of pure sound reproduction and it is never done nor perfect. I am far from like that hence I call myself a part-time audiophile. My motivation stems from a completely different place. My ears are super-sensitive to anomalies. This is how I got into it. I did not get it from my dad or a friend. It is something I fell into by accident. It all started with cassette tapes. They sounded awful to me. There was white hiss in the background and take jank ruining the music. I was around 14 when I started on a mission to fix that problem. I sold my sailboat (true story, no joke) and got a fancy audio system, but I was not pleased with the sound and I brought it back. Instead, I researched and researched for months and dumped all the money into a single cassette recorder. I had hand-me-down speakers and amplifier. I can remember that when I connected the deck, I was blown away by the sound. It made me so happy. I could still hear some jank and some tape hiss, but it was “acceptable” to me. I can even remember that I always bought TDK SA-X tapes because they sounded better. The SA-X was the expensive version of the popular SA. The difference (according to TDK) was that SA-X tapes were selected based on lower manufacturing tolerances than SA. You might take that with a grain of salt, but I was able to hear the difference.

Today, I still have a relatively expensive audio system and I still listen to vinyl and CDs. CDs just sound better than Spotify to me. Before you shout Tidal, I tried Tidal’s HIFI service but I am 100% convinced not all music is available in CD-quality – even if the stream is labeled CD-quality.

So yea here I am. I still have giant speakers in my living room and stereo separates with too many buttons. I still spend money on CDs and records while the rest of the world moved on to smart speakers and streaming services. That is the curse of being an audiophile.

It does make me happy to see there is a renewed interest in proper audio equipment in the (computer) desktop market where people spend good money on headphones, headphone amps, and bookshelf speakers. At least, I am not the only one who thinks that Apple’s Airpods are terrible (sorry, Vlad) for listening to music.

Hidden WW2 treasure

Quarry filled with old-timers

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It has been a while since I posted on some fascinating urbex topic. For this one, we go to a quarry in central France. It contains a collection of rusting cars dating back to the early 20th century. Nobody knows how they got there and why. Nobody even knew it existed before someone stumbled upon it.

The working theory is that they were hidden when France got invaded by Germany in WW2.

The guys from “Exploring the Unbeaten Path” went for a visit:

 

Saving Pauline

Retro gaming: Donkey Kong

Retro gaming: Donkey Kong
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Back in the 80s, the game & watch consoles were a big hit. They were simple mobile devices with a segmented LCD screen. The game elements were basically segments on the LCD screen which could lite up. It was highly addictive game play, but the major advantage was you could bring it with you since it ran on batteries.

The one I got was Donkey Kong (pictured above). I could play it for hours on long car trips. The most annoying thing was the button cell battery. They lasted for a while but they were expensive. Not that I ever paid for them, but the parental units were always balking about it.

This is how it looked like:

You play Mario and your girlfriend Pauline is abducted by Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong throws barrels at you which roll down the platform to keep you away. The goal is to get to Pauline and rescue her.

Here is a long play of the game:

There are definite some King Kong elements in there. It also interesting that characters like Mario and Donkey Kong are still major characters in Nintendo games today.

You can play the original arcade version from 1981 online. Have fun!

Play Donkey Kong

Notes

  • SHIFT = insert coin
  • ENTER = start
  • S = jump
  • ARROWs = move

Gender equality

International Women’s Day

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Today is international women’s day celebrating the achievements of women and promoting gender equality.

When I think about gender equality, I have been fortunate enough that my first three bosses were female. I am fortunate because it became normal for me that women have leadership positions.

It made me realize that we often focus on gender diversity in the context of board diversity and top management jobs. Even though those are important indicators and need to improve, I think that change starts at the bottom. To so to speak break the glass ceiling, we need to offer the opportunity for women to get through the ranks to get to the top. It all starts at the bottom.

Is it even possible?

Facebook and privacy

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You can say whatever you want about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, if you read his last memo “a privacy-focused vision for social networking” you could deduce he got the message.

I found it particularly interesting that he links privacy not only with keeping information private but also with reducing the reach and breadth of the interactions on the platform. He mentions the trend of creating small groups to interact and share within that group. He compares Facebook today as a town square whereas it used to be a living room. Now nothing he writes is new or revolutionary. This is just what Mark Zuckerberg thinks he needs to communicate to the world. It is not a leaked memo, but a public post by him. But beneath the surface he does understand where Facebook’s problems are.

I think it is good leadership to be able to look critically at your own company and decide things need to change. By doing it in public, he also makes himself and the company accountable. You bet that an army of analysts and journalists will be referencing this post for years to come when Facebook is not making enough progress to make this happen.

What is here today might not be there tomorrow

Checks and balances on new products

Checks and balances on new products
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Yesterday, the Jibo robot shut down permanently. It was marketed as a social robot, I never owned one, but it kind of looked like a more engaging version of Alexa.

It reminded me of my Pebble watch and Electric Objects digital art display which are also defunct products (but still in some working order).

Now all of these products have one thing in common and I can live without them. It makes me wary though for products which are essential. My Nest thermostat comes to mind. I know it is owned by Google, but I also know that does not mean anything. Google can still decide to get out the smart home business. Google discontinues products all the time.

It happens with software all the time. I loved Mailbox and then it got bought by Dropbox and then Dropbox dropped it. Again, it was not essential, but it also shows that big corporations change their mind on their priorities all the time.

It is all about trust and investment (time or money). I notice that I started to do a mental check and balances on those things when I am evaluating new products or services. How hard is it move away from this product? How much trust do I have they will continue investing in this product? Will it be around in X years?

Even large corporations with big flagship products can let their products go stale. I have tried using Keynote by Apple, but it crashes on me all the time and I am now staying away. I will not touch their other office products either. It even makes me wary of their other products. That is just a simple example.

Trust and commitment are important. Sometimes it cannot be guaranteed. Either company is young and still need to prove itself or it is a large corporation with conflicting priorities. As technology products become more integral to our life’s, it is good to remind yourself that they might go away.

At some point, you might find that you cannot enter your house because the smart lock company has gone out of business.

Sign of the times

Lack of nuance

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In today’s world, there’s a serious lack of nuance. And I wonder where it came from? There’s no nuance in politics, religion, work, or anything really. The problem is that lack of nuance kills debate and sharing of ideas. Lack of nuance makes it impossible to change your mind or leave the door open to counter-arguments. Lack of nuance isolates you with your own arguments and you stop learning.

Maybe it’s because the tone of media changed, with the internet they’ve to create “click-baity” headlines to attract attention or take a firm stance to be taken seriously. Or maybe the media changed because of it.

The world is reduced to black and white blurbs, much like how president Trump likes to communicate. They’re just blurbs concatenated together.

Lack of nuance is definitely a trait of the young. It used to be a sign of lack of maturity, but now it is the new normal.

Fault-tolerant while high-achieving company culture

High standards but forgiving

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A culture of a company consists of a few fundamental values which the staff of a company holds dear. Fast-growing companies like startups are very conscious of this aspect of running the company. One of my favorite values I have been championing in the last few years is high standards while forgiving.

With high standards while forgiving I mean that the work ethic should be to get to the absolute best possible result in each circumstance. It is a careful balance between resources and time, but when the outcome is not great you sacrifice time and resources. But at the same time avoid being competition between people and teams.

In my experience, competitive attitudes as part of the culture typically lead to a toxic atmosphere where only competitive types feel somewhat at home. Granted a competitive culture can lead to great results and super high standards, but it doesn’t end up being a very inclusive culture. The non-inclusiveness leads to missed opportunities because these companies tend to be more inward focused than outward. The culture drives people to be more concerned about their position and standing than moving the company forward as a team. In the worst possible scenario, it leads to a super political environment – especially when there is a very authoritarian leader with insecurity issues.

The forgiving part is super important. It fosters inclusiveness towards people and the team. It makes it ok to reject work because it does not meet the high standard without putting the blame on the work. In the end, every person in the company needs to be working as a team to get to the best possible result. Sometimes this means sacrifices because of lack of resources or time. But more importantly, it breeds creative thinking about overcoming shortcomings in resources and time while aiming for that ultimate goal.

I’ve seen this at work at one company and it worked really well. It makes it easy to attract and retain talent, fosters a happy atmosphere in the company and the ultimate team spirit in bringing the very best work. I cannot champion this enough.