Benedict Evans, tech analyst at Andreessen Horowitz, discusses Microsoft's Surface launch and the maturation of PC hardware.
Opinion
Evans: Zuckerberg's plan to resell excess AI capacity is flawed
“I saw a slightly strange quote from Mark Zuckerberg saying, well, if it turns out that we've over invested, we can just resell the capacity. And I thought, let me just like stop you there, Mark, because if it turns out that you can't use your capacity, everybo…”
Opinion
Evans: OpenAI's huge user base is fragile without network effects
“You've got these eight or nine hundred million weekly active users, but you don't have, but that feels very fragile because all you've really got is the power of the default and the brand. You don't have a network effect. You don't really have feature lock-in.…”
Insight
Evans: For Google, Android is a tactic; for Apple, device is strategy
“For Google, Android is a tactic, and cloud is a strategy, whereas for Apple, the device is a strategy, and the cloud is a tactic. The cloud is a feature of the core strategy, whereas for Google, the device is a feature of the core strategy.”
Opinion
Evans: Facebook Has Not Created New User Behavior Since News Feed
“Well, they haven't actually created any new behavior since the newsfeed. What they'done is they bought Instagram, and they bought it very early at what at the time everyone said was a ludicrously high price. At the time, it was, actually, it was a very good pr…”
Opinion
Evans: The Mac is irrelevant amid the global mobile transformation
“In the great wide world of the enormous transformation of the technology industry, and the media industry, and the whole, of industry in general, by mobile, the Mac is kind of irrelevant.”
Opinion
Evans: China's internet ecosystem is more innovative than US tech
“They've kind of got their own internet, and it's just as good as ours, and actually, it's much more innovative in some ways.”