How Should We Measure Progress?
A few years ago, the American economist Robert Gordon wrote a must-read book called The Rise and Fall of American Growth.
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Writing on businesses, technology, industries, and long-term investing.
Could Miami Become a World-Class Tech Hub?
The Twittersphere exploded in recent weeks with the back-and-forth between recently relocated San Francisco venture capitalist Keith Rabois
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Models, Good and Bad
Imagine having a DCF model of Amazon’s retail business in 2005 as one’s sole decision-making tool, unaware of the incredible revolution it w
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Wix: Calling All Creators
If da Vinci were alive today, he would likely have his own website to help disseminate his ideas—very likely, on Wix.
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The Bernoulli Economy
One big confounder during this COVID-19 pandemic is why some businesses are doing so well while tens of millions of people are unemployed.
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It's Platforms All the Way Down
A platform—as defined by Bill Gates—is something you can stand on and build greater value than the value captured by the platform itself.
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Celebrating 10 Years of Heller House
Today we are celebrating ten years since our partnership launched. During these ten years it feels the world has changed many times over.
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Software's Infinite Leverage
Archimedes, one of the greatest scientific minds in antiquity (c.287-212 BC), was the first to describe the mathematics of levers. Given a fulcrum point, a small mass can balance a much heavier one at the opposite end of a lever:Given a long enough lever, anything is possible. “Give me a place to…
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Twilio's Master Plan
You’ve probably used Twilio many times without ever knowing it. When a website sends you a text message with a code for two-factor authentic
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GEICOs of the 21st Century
The big picture is that software is eating the world—that is, many of the products and services developed over the past 150 years are transf
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The Big TV Ad Shift
Roku was founded by Anthony Wood in 2002. Recall that in 2002, the internet was in its infancy, and streaming wasn’t yet a thing (Netflix didn’t start streaming until 2007). In the early days, Roku was focused on building internet radios, high-definition media players and digital signage. Over th…
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We ❤ Slack
Slack Technologies is another recent investment we made. I’ve been following the company for a few years, and this year I had the opportunity to attend Slack Frontiers, the company’s two-day user conference in San Francisco, held in late April. I’ve been spending most of my research efforts makin…
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Shopify's Ambition
Shopify’s goal is to build a global operating system for retail. To understand what this means, think of Shopify as a website anyone can visit to sign up for a store—prices start at $29 per month for a full online store experience including unlimited product listings—and get up and running in a f…
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Ecosystems Squared
You have probably heard of Square’s first product, launched in 2010. It was a credit card reader that plugged into the headphone jack of your phone: That little square dongle is simple. The magnetic stripe on the credit card can be read much like an old cassette tape, and that’s what this little…
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What Good is Facebook Libra?
Payments are an interesting space undergoing a lot of innovation. Last month, our partnership became part owner of what could become the world’s largest cryptocurrency-based payments network. This happened on June 18th when Facebook made two important announcements.First, it published technical p…
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The World in Ten Years
“Maintaining a firm grasp of the obvious is more difficult than one would think it should be. But it’s useful to try.” – Jeff BezosThe surest way of looking like a fool is to make predictions. What I’ve tried to do here instead is to compile a short list of trends that have legs; things that appe…
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Amazon’s Fulfillment Upside
Today I had the opportunity of touring an Amazon fulfillment center (FC). This was my local MIA1 robotic FC in Opa Locka, FL.Our group assembled at 9am and was led to a classroom-style room, where we were given water and a headset and radio, so that we could follow along the tour.Our team leader,…
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It’s Not Time to Break Up Facebook
I finally read the Chris Hughes piece on breaking up Facebook. While he makes some excellent points, he also repeats mistakes that others have made in proposing a solution to Facebook’s power.Hughes asserts that WhatsApp and Instagram would be profitable if spun off. This is far from certain; Ins…
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