Dec 22, 2020 · 27m · another-podcast
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Benedict Evans and Toni Karen Brown analyze the post-smartphone technology landscape, examining historical computing cycles, the limitations of emerging hardware like VR and AR, and the transformative integration of cloud software and machine learning across enterprise industries.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 85.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 8.0 Guest teaching 1.8 Guest disagreement 1.3 The hosts pushing back 2.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:00 Toni dismisses regulatory forecasting
Toni bluntly dismisses her own initial thesis that regulator focus predicts future tech trends, calling the idea bullshit because regulators lag behind.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 22:58 Benedict challenges the tech label for NetflixBenedict firmly rejects classifying companies like Netflix as tech companies, asserting their core operational questions are purely television-oriented.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:55 Toni shares DG Connect policy experienceToni provides firsthand insight into EU regulatory bureaucracy from her time at DG Connect, explaining jurisdictional clashes between tech and legacy departments.
The host holds their own ▶ 16:26 Benedict explains aviation adoption economicsBenedict demonstrates deep historical domain knowledge by breaking down early Pan Am ticket prices and passenger aviation evolution to contextualize modern tech adoption.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Enduring Half-Life of Legacy Platforms | 8 | 1 | 1 | 3 | Benedict dominates the analysis, citing specific statistics like IBM mainframe computing capacity growth and detailing hardware constraints in AR/VR. Toni primarily acts as a conversational sounding board, offering brief prompts and affirmations. | |
| Enterprise Architecture, Machine Learning, and Corporate Modernization | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Benedict details enterprise architecture transitions from Oracle/SAP to cloud and ML, citing Vodafone's processing of millions of physical invoices. Toni concurs with observations on efficiency and pandemic acceleration. | |
| The Second Fifty Years: Mass Adoption Historical Parallels | 8 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Benedict illustrates the computing S-curve through historical analogies of automotive and commercial aviation adoption cycles. Toni contributes a thoughtful observation about technology dictating social structure rather than the reverse. | |
| Antitrust Scrutiny, Utility Regulation, and Industry Identity | 8 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Benedict breaks down why large tech firms face utility-style regulation and rejects the premise that Netflix is a software company. Toni draws on her European Commission experience regarding cross-sector digital policy. |
Statements from this episode (17)
4.5 Billion Adults Globally Now Own a Smartphone
“There's something like four, four and a half billion people on earth have a smartphone now, and there's only about four and a half billion adults. 90% of the developed world has got one.”
Tech Operates on 15-Year Paradigm Shift Cycles
“The tech industry has sort of had one of these central agendas sort of every 15 years or so for the last, you know, probably since the sixties. So mainframes are the center of the tech industry from the sixties through to the seventies, then the PC from the mi…”
Tech Can No Longer Rely on Expanding the Total User Base
“The trouble is, as I mentioned, we've kind of run out of people now. So there's not like another step change to come in that kind of process.”
Paradigm Shifts Disrupt Incumbents by Doing Something Entirely Different
“Each of those generations tended to change what companies mattered. So IBM dominates mainframes, and in fact, at the time, people used to talk about IBM and the Seven Dwarfs, because there were seven much smaller companies, like kind of Honeywell and Control D…”
Legacy Computing Platforms Never Disappear, They Just Fade Away
“The mainframes, the laptops, the internet or the computers, internet, smartphones, none of these go away. They just kind of fade into the background and become less prominent.”
IBM's Mainframe Computing Capacity Grew 10x Between 2000 and 2010
“In fact, I found out a while ago that IBM's install base of mainframes, which they measure in computing capacity, so they measure it in MIPS, went up about 10 X between 2002 1010.”
Connected IoT Sensors Will Not Be the Next Smartphone Platform
“So there'll be a huge number of connected sensors with neural networks and five G radios, but that's not like the next smartphone. That's just like sensors and like widgets.”
Virtual Reality Has Found No Consumer Use Cases Outside Gaming
“VR seems to be stuck as a subset of the games industry. And no one has managed to do anything on VR that anyone actually uses that isn't a game other than kind of niche, like medical and industrial applications.”
Machine Learning Will Dominate Enterprise Computing for Another Decade
“The big thing now is machine learning, and that will be the thing for another 10 years.”
Vodafone Still Processes 2.5 Million Paper Invoices Per Year
“Vodafone has two and a half million paper invoices a year.”
Corporate Digital Transformation Just Upgrades 1980s Tech to 2010 Standards
“Digital transformation actually means you go from eighties digital to 2010 digital, even though it's now 2020, but that's how big companies work.”
1994 PC Base Was 100M vs. 4.5B Smartphones Today
“Even when Netscape launched there in 94, there were like 75 to a hundred million PCs on earth, like on the whole planet. And now it's four and a half billion smartphones.”
The Next 50 Years of Tech Focuses on Universal Adoption Impact
“The first 50 years of the computing industry is everyone gets a computer. Second 50 years of the computing industry is what happens once everybody's got a computer. I'm like, yes, they'll carry on getting better, but they might look more or less the same.”
Google and Facebook Will Face Regulation Like Banks and Telcos
“You are going to get regulated like a telco or a bank. You know, if you work at Google or you work at Facebook, you are going to have the same kind of scrutiny that a telco or a bank have. And it doesn't really matter if you think you shouldn't. That's just wh…”
Netflix Is a TV Company, Not a Tech Company
“Is Netflix a tech company? No. Netflix is a TV company.”