Signs of More EV Trouble Appear
Earlier this week, I was in California to attend the Apple event. In what has now become a routine observation for me, the 15 to 20 Tesla vehicles seen in one city block in Silicon Valley (the Cupertino/Saratoga area to be specific) caught my attention. It’s still a sight to behold for me because in most parts of Connecticut it’s rare to see more than 10 Tesla vehicles on the road in a single week. After I mentioned this on X (Twitter), one response was that all of California is like Silicon Valley in terms of Tesla adoption. Another person said that people in the Northeast signal different virtues. True to form, as soon as I landed in NYC, the sea of huge gas-powered SUVs that rule the roads in the Northeast were in the arrival line at JFK.
My EV anecdotes end up being supported by data. Approximately 17% of Tesla’s 2022 vehicles sales materialized in California.
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Disney Needs a New Imaginer
Instead of the Bob Chapek to Bob Iger transition being a smooth one for Disney, a spotlight has been put on the many troubles and problems that ushered in the change. Yesterday, CNBC published a 12,000-word exposé into Disney’s CEO transition. One needed a cold shower after reading the story. While we can debate some parts of the story and question the motives of unnamed sources, it’s impossible to deny that Disney has a culture problem. Dysfunction at the top of an organization voids whatever good may be found elsewhere. Not surprisingly, calls for what Disney should fix or do next are on the rise. Many ideas miss the forest for the trees. Disney desperately needs to empower someone who can guide the company’s imagination in a new direction. Everything else, including ESPN, ABC, Disney+, and the theme parks, end up being secondary concerns.
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Instacart’s Sales Pitch
Last week, Instacart filed its Form S-1 for going public. Since IPOs are dependent more on narratives and timing than financials, the company and its bankers appear to have great timing. The brand has made significant inroads with the general public in the past few years and yet has plenty of growth potential for getting in front of new customers. Diving into the Form S-1, the narrative is in full effect as Instacart describes itself as a tech company striving to power “every grocery transaction.” The company certainly doesn’t suffer from a lack of ambition.
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Higher Video Streaming Pricing Is a Good Thing
In what has become something of a quarterly tradition, people are once again sounding the alarm about video streamers raising subscription prices. Disney was the latest company to announce higher prices with Disney+ (with no ads) seeing a 27% price increase and Hulu (with no ads) seeing a 20% increase. Despite drawing anger and frustration, continued price increases end up being one of the better developments for an industry that has been dealing with its fair share of issues and challenges.
A common refrain that has accompanied video streaming price increases is that the cost of streaming is getting close to what the big cable bundle costs. This is then said to indicate failure on the part of streamers to push the video industry forward. A major issue with this line of thinking is that it ignores why the cable bundle was problematic.
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ESPN Realism
After downplaying prospects of facilitating sports gambling in the late 2010s, Disney’s Bob Iger has had a change of heart. Earlier this week, ESPN announced a partnership with Penn Entertainment that boils down to ESPN getting paid to have its brand be used to promote sports gambling. The deal is wrapped in the reality of what live sports has become.
Set within the video streaming landscape, sports continues to be the most intriguing variable with many moving pieces and a lot of unknown. In early 2022, we talked about ESPN’s staying power in the current landscape. Despite a handful of sports media startups going after sports mindshare, ESPN was able to hold its own. With those startups opting for the exits (via M&A), and pieces of the big cable bundle successfully making the jump to streaming, reports of ESPN’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That’s not to say that ESPN has clear sailing ahead. A new kind of competitor is on the horizon in the form of Big Tech.
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The Uncomfortable Truth With Big Tech’s Expense Bloat
In the second half of the 2010s, Big Tech looked unstoppable from a financial perspective. Revenue growth rates were through the roof. The biggest problem found with hiring was finding enough office space. New headquarters were the rage. Under the hood, ambitions knew no limits with most of Big Tech looking well beyond their core competencies for future growth opportunities.
Then the pandemic hit. Instead of putting an end to the growth boon, the pandemic dialed everything up a few notches. With little to nothing to do outside the home, competition for our attention (and cash) plummeted, leading to even stronger revenue growth for Big Tech. The work from home movement then gave management teams a way around office space constraints, leading to even more hiring.
A trend that has begun to materialize over the past two to three earnings cycles in Big Tech is that expense bloat is a genuine problem.
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Musk’s X Rebranding Is On Brand
Out of all the changes Elon Musk has pushed through at Twitter, rebranding the company to X fits him best. It’s not a business model change, such as pushing paid subscriptions, or a new product feature like allowing longer tweets. Instead, it’s the most outward example of Musk putting his stamp on the company.
In coming up with rationale for the rebranding, Musk put forth an argument of Twitter evolving into something very different than what the name initially referred to (“short bursts of inconsequential information”). Of course, it wouldn’t be difficult for one to argue the opposite and stick with the Twitter brand despite product evolution. The more important message that Musk is going for with the rebranding is to denote where he wants to bring the platform in the future. It’s a move that had shades of familiarity with Mark Zuckerberg embracing the Meta rebranding to denote where he wanted to take Facebook (although he didn’t change Facebook/Instagram product branding).
Musk was clear to his 150 million X followers: the platform will evolve into a more general-purpose service. Details of such evolution aren’t available as they likely haven’t been determined yet. Based on Twitter’s continued struggles with advertising, we can assume Musk and company will put more features behind a paywall to further pull the paid subscriptions lever. Looking out further, it is natural to assume other paid services will be on the X table as well. Musk has talked about adding payment services, which isn’t surprising given his history.
We can debate the likelihood of success for such items. I tend to be more optimistic on video-related endeavors while pessimistic on payments and other features that resemble more of an all-in-one platform. The more interesting takeaway from the X rebranding is found with Musk’s lack of risk aversion.
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Hollywood Nostalgia
The fact that the Hollywood actor and writer strikes (the first time both have gone on strike at the same time in more than 60 years) have not led the online news cycle speaks volumes. Simply put, consumers now have viable video alternatives to Hollywood. In the past week, none of my video content consumption came from professional actors or writers. That isn’t meant to be a knock on such professions but rather a reflection on societal, technological, and behavioral changes. Instead of sitting down to watch a 30-minute TV show or 120-minute movie, my content consumption patterns are more likely to be measured in YouTube minutes or Twitter clips.
A common refrain in tech land has been to look at the Hollywood strikes as byproducts of video streaming, shoulder shrug at those in the weaker position, and then move on. Of course, the paid streamers depend on those striking for content. Some, like Netflix, have built-in diversification in terms of geography. Netflix can simply rely on production crews outside the U.S. to help buttress some of the impact. However, no paid streamer can truly escape the strikes.
The Hollywood strikes should be a wake-up call for distributors and studios about how their actions taken to navigate the ultra-competitive landscape have made things worse.
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The Text Social Wars Will Be Overrated
The video and audio wars have been unfolding for the past decade. In video, we have various battles being waged in paid, free, and algorithm-driven verticals. In audio, podcasts are being used as a way of improving music’s lack of attractive streaming economics for the distributor. These battles, including all the accompanying ups and downs, have been well-telegraphed and chronicled. Set within this content landscape, very little has been said about text-based platforms. That changed when Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Prior to Musk, Twitter was the perennial “how to fix” tech story. Pundits and analysts couldn’t resist sharing their ideas for how Twitter can grow its user base and generate more advertising revenue to better compete with its larger peers. The company’s ~225 million active users made it look niche compared to Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, each with 2 billion users. None of the ideas worked. Twitter spent years floundering. It was Wall Street’s lukewarm reception of Twitter relative to its peers, in addition to Twitter not having a dual class share structure, that allowed Musk to step in and buy the company.
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The Reddit / Apollo Fiasco
The all-out feud between Reddit and Apollo has offered onlookers a little bit of everything. We have independent developer versus Big Business tension. Reddit, a social news network with approximately 60 million daily users, is looking to IPO later this year. Apollo, a third-party Reddit client for iOS and iPadOS, has become a symbol of much larger themes that transcend a third-party client. Questions are swirling regarding just how important Reddit is to the broader web. Some users are adamant Reddit will decline while others think Reddit will see no long-term impact from recent developments. There are then allegations of blackmail, threats, and just overall nastiness coming from both sides.
Combining all of the moving pieces together, two broad storylines appear:
There is a reason why the similarities between Elon Musk going after third-party Twitter clients and Reddit doing the same appear uncanny. Musk inspired Reddit, giving leadership confidence to follow suit.
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TikTok vs. Pixar
Last weekend, Disney saw its second-weakest box office opening for a Pixar film. “Elemental” brought in just $30 million domestically during opening weekend. This has led to various accusations being thrown at Disney CEO Bob Iger, who just saw his CFO resign last week, as to what happened. Talk about a tough stretch.
In what have become perennial excuses, some are saying Disney’s issue is relying too much on established Pixar IP and wading too far into culture wars. Neither do a great job of explaining the situation. Disney is on the record saying they were disappointed in “Elemental’s” performance although they think the issue isn’t specific to Pixar but rather to all original stories and characters. That doesn’t exactly provide a sigh of relief.
With Pixar troubles seemingly hitting a new level of bad, new theories have been put forth as to what may be unfolding such as the Pixar brand being tarnished by having some films be released directly to Disney+.
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Smartphones Are Black Holes
Criticism facing Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro headset has centered around a consistent theme: Isolation. Wearing the headset has raised concerns for some that society is headed in the wrong direction as we are increasingly removed from our surroundings. This isolation concern is said to be found with those wearing the headset, as well as those wanting to share experiences with headset wearers. A scene of a dad wearing Vision Pro to capture a child’s birthday party has been called everything from inhumane to dystopian. As an offshoot of this isolation argument, some people aren’t sure how experiences can be shared anymore if only some people are wearing Vision Pro.
What’s fascinating is how these isolation fears don’t extend to all headset companies. In what can only be described as mental gymnastics, Meta is said to offer an alternative to Vision Pro’s isolation risk because of Mark Zuckerberg’s social mandate of connecting people in virtual worlds.
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The Spatial Battle for Our Home
Earlier this week, Apple unveiled Vision Pro, it’s first headset. After I spent 30 minutes using the headset at Apple Park, it was clear that the technology powering Vision Pro is going to change the world. Entire industries will implode while new ones will be born. Spatial computing headsets will not be a novelty toy only found in tech circles. Instead, we are going to see the headsets usher in new competitive battles in our homes, offices, and on the road.
Thinking of tech’s progress via battles for our spaces (home, office, car) is appropriate. Doing so reflects how companies are competing for our attention and workflows. Given a finite amount of time each day, there are only so many devices and services that can earn a place in our lives. While some devices may be swapped out over time with new services mixing in with old ones, the battle lines are formed around value propositions and the degree to which problems are addressed.
In the home, we have seen premature tech winners crowned.
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NVIDIA Is a Chameleon
Last Thursday, NVIDIA’s market capitalization rose by $183 billion. The post-earnings move represented the third-largest daily market cap shift to date. It was close to winning the title for the all-time largest daily move. It was very on point for such a remarkable occasion to be connected to the AI craze that has swept over Silicon Valley, and increasingly Wall Street, in 2023. The way ChatGPT came on the scene and got Big Tech, minus Apple, to seemingly change their entire product and PR strategies remains intriguing.
In what continues to be difficult to wrap one’s mind around, NVIDIA is at the center of its second tech craze in just the past two years.
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Disney vs. Florida
Disney finds itself in an awkward place. From a financial perspective, things are humming along. Disney Parks are busy printing cash. Linear networks are offsetting ongoing losses in streaming. From a PR perspective, the Disney train is off the rails. Bob Iger is embroiled in an all-out feud with Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida. Caught in the crosshairs: Disney Imagineering – one of the storied groups within the company, responsible for customer-facing experiences at its parks. The saga produces an interesting case study of the changing role being given to CEOs - and why Disney is making mistakes that a company like Apple has been careful to avoid.
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Goodbye Vice Media
The 2010s was a fascinating decade for the digital publishing space. As hundreds of millions of people embraced smartphones for the first time and social media giants found their footing, the way we consume media began to change. Vice Media was a key player in this shift. Put on the map by intriguing video reporting from Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, Vice rode the new media wave to the top, getting close to being acquired by Disney for $3.5 billion. At its peak, Vice Media was valued at nearly $6 billion. Six years later, Vice Media just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The filing will make way for Vice to be sold to a group of investment firms for a $225 million credit bid.
Vice had something that legacy media CEOs and founders craved:
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Musk’s “Unregretted User Minutes” Makes Sense
It’s been six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter. Given seemingly daily crises and shocking revelations, it feels much longer than six months. One thing is for sure: Musk is shaping Twitter to his liking. The number of Twitter employees has been reduced by a whopping 90%. The blue check mark era ended abruptly. A war on tweets with outward links has been waged.
Along with those user-facing changes, Musk has begun pushing a new metric for Twitter: “Unregretted user minutes.” Your initial interpretation of the phrase will probably be accurate.
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MLB’s Pitch Clock Is a Warning Sign
Ahead of this year’s MLB (Major League Baseball) season, there was genuine concern that a pitch clock would ruin the game. A month into the shortened-game era, and it’s tough to find much of a debate about the pitch clock. Fans love it. The change is a great example of how live sports are being impacted by other uses for our time, including social media and free streaming video. One can’t shake the feeling that changes like the pitch clock are just the beginning, not the ending. Live sports are on a collision course with much more addicting forms of media and software.
The pitch clock gives MLB pitchers 15 seconds to throw a pitch when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when there is a runner on base. Hitters need to be in the batter’s box before the pitch clock reaches 8 seconds. A similar pitch clock was instituted in the minor league last year. The primary reason for having a pitch clock is to shorten games. In 2022, the average nine-inning MLB game was 3 hours, 3 minutes.
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Tucker, Don, and Nate
The media universe was shaken to its core earlier this week as news of Tucker Carlson getting fired from Fox News was followed within minutes of CNN firing Don Lemon. Both were arguably their network’s most outspoken talking heads. Bad news is said to come in threes. One day later, Nate Silver was out at ABC News, torn away from his 538 blog that he started in 2008.
While there are stark differences between the three firings, they share a common string:
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A Fintech Bulldozer
Earlier this week, Apple unveiled a new high-yield savings account in partnership with Goldman Sachs. The arrangement’s underpinnings point to a development in fintech land that can’t be ignored: Tech giants leveraging legacy financial institutions to offer new age financial services to their existing users. In the process, customer acquisition costs are kept to a minimum. This dynamic creates a scenario that will make it that much harder for what has been a bonanza of fintech start-ups to flourish.
Their names became familiar in many households during the pandemic: Robinhood, Venmo, and Affirm. Zoom in a bit more and companies like Stripe and Plaid have become well known by millions of small business owners. According to estimates, fintech start-ups raised more than $130 billion in 2021 with 100 companies having attained a $1+ billion valuation. Those are shocking totals that have since taken a major beating.
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Receive Exclusive Essays. The cornerstone of an Inside Orchard subscription is access to Neil’s weekly essays on the latest developments in the technology industry. Weekly essays are 1,000 words and sent via email on Tuesdays. Essays revolve around the following topics: technology industry analysis, business model analysis, technology’s impact on societal and consumer trends. A sample essay can be viewed here.
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