It's fascinating to watch the process of business models exploding. What apple did yesterday in announcing free OSX and free iWork apps is a great example of that. MS has traded on license fees for Windows and Office forever, and for a long time, Apple has followed suit, charging reasonably high (although continuously declining) prices for each. Now, with outrageous revenues from hardware and the app store, they don't need to do that anymore. In fact, free distribution of OSX and iWork will just expand the ecosystem and grow those revenues. In most cases, it takes some kind of end-run and a lot of scale to make this kind of thing possible. Apple can do it now because they created a brand new channel & model with the app store, and built a monster hardware business. If they had tried, before doing that, to "reinvent" the OS business, they wouldn't have had the leverage. It's interesting to look at other sectors where this is happening: * Music: Soundcloud is letting artists distribute direct-to-fans, end-running the labels and the traditional pricing and distribution model. At some point, they will reach a tipping point that will force the old model to change. * Education: textbook publishing and open source. I don't have examples on the tip of my tongue but I can't wait for this one to happen. * Law: lexis nexis & westlaw vs new platforms like Casetext. Now that I look at these examples, they're all cases where distribution has been expensive, and intermediaries monetized the IP directly. What we're seeing more and more of are models where distribution is cheap/free and IP is monetized indirectly.
Last week, I traveled to SF, and ended up on a flight with no internet (aaaaaaagh!). And, of course, I forgot to bring the book I'm currently reading. So, I went old school and bought a book at the airport bookstore. I honestly can't remember the last time I did that. Actually, I bought two books: Gladwell's new David and Goliath, and the Steve Jobs biography, which I still haven't read. Side note: ever since I saw this Louis CK clip about people not being able to be away from their phone for 30 seconds, I think about it all the time. Every time I get on a plane and find myself fidgeting and making phantom phone grabs whie trying to get through that awful time between "the cabin door is closed" and "you may now use your portable electronic devices" I think about it. Anyway, so I was on this flight, with no internet, and I started reading David and Goliath. Which, in typical Gladwell fashion, draws a bunch of seemingly counterintuitive connections around the idea of "advantages as disadvantages" and "disadvantages as advantages". Showing us the limits of power, and in particular, the strength of creativity in face of power. I must admit, I am kind of a sucker for pop social science (think:
I've been thinking a lot about this idea of being organized vs. being disciplined. It's easy to want to "get organized" -- or worse, to spend a lot of time and effort getting organized -- but then not actually have the discipline to see it through (this is also known as "systems to cover up symptoms"). Framing the question this way has lead me to ask myself, when trying to improve on something, if I'm being disciplined here, and if the answer is no, then why not. Inevitably that leads to a more profound answer than "well, I just need to get more organized here", which often results in yak shaving, procrastination, and a false sense of accomplishment. I am thinking about this -- if it's not obvious already -- because my natural tendency is to do the opposite. And it seems clear to me that this is not usually the best way to be. For example: * "ooh, I really need to get in and set up mint / check / etc to help me manage spending and bills (vs. spend carefully and simply keep track of what's due / paid and/or set up a regular time to do it) * "if only I had a better way to find important emails I haven't responded to yet" (vs. set aside a regular time every day to catch up on important emails) * "gosh, there are so many issues to keep track of at work; let me
It's fascinating to watch the process of business models exploding. What apple did yesterday in announcing free OSX and free iWork apps is a great example of that. MS has traded on license fees for Windows and Office forever, and for a long time, Apple has followed suit, charging reasonably high (although continuously declining) prices for each. Now, with outrageous revenues from hardware and the app store, they don't need to do that anymore. In fact, free distribution of OSX and iWork will just expand the ecosystem and grow those revenues. In most cases, it takes some kind of end-run and a lot of scale to make this kind of thing possible. Apple can do it now because they created a brand new channel & model with the app store, and built a monster hardware business. If they had tried, before doing that, to "reinvent" the OS business, they wouldn't have had the leverage. It's interesting to look at other sectors where this is happening: * Music: Soundcloud is letting artists distribute direct-to-fans, end-running the labels and the traditional pricing and distribution model. At some point, they will reach a tipping point that will force the old model to change. * Education: textbook publishing and open source. I don't have examples on the tip of my tongue but I can't wait for this one to happen. * Law: lexis nexis & westlaw vs new platforms like Casetext. Now that I look at these examples, they're all cases where distribution has been expensive, and intermediaries monetized the IP directly. What we're seeing more and more of are models where distribution is cheap/free and IP is monetized indirectly.
Last week, I traveled to SF, and ended up on a flight with no internet (aaaaaaagh!). And, of course, I forgot to bring the book I'm currently reading. So, I went old school and bought a book at the airport bookstore. I honestly can't remember the last time I did that. Actually, I bought two books: Gladwell's new David and Goliath, and the Steve Jobs biography, which I still haven't read. Side note: ever since I saw this Louis CK clip about people not being able to be away from their phone for 30 seconds, I think about it all the time. Every time I get on a plane and find myself fidgeting and making phantom phone grabs whie trying to get through that awful time between "the cabin door is closed" and "you may now use your portable electronic devices" I think about it. Anyway, so I was on this flight, with no internet, and I started reading David and Goliath. Which, in typical Gladwell fashion, draws a bunch of seemingly counterintuitive connections around the idea of "advantages as disadvantages" and "disadvantages as advantages". Showing us the limits of power, and in particular, the strength of creativity in face of power. I must admit, I am kind of a sucker for pop social science (think:
I've been thinking a lot about this idea of being organized vs. being disciplined. It's easy to want to "get organized" -- or worse, to spend a lot of time and effort getting organized -- but then not actually have the discipline to see it through (this is also known as "systems to cover up symptoms"). Framing the question this way has lead me to ask myself, when trying to improve on something, if I'm being disciplined here, and if the answer is no, then why not. Inevitably that leads to a more profound answer than "well, I just need to get more organized here", which often results in yak shaving, procrastination, and a false sense of accomplishment. I am thinking about this -- if it's not obvious already -- because my natural tendency is to do the opposite. And it seems clear to me that this is not usually the best way to be. For example: * "ooh, I really need to get in and set up mint / check / etc to help me manage spending and bills (vs. spend carefully and simply keep track of what's due / paid and/or set up a regular time to do it) * "if only I had a better way to find important emails I haven't responded to yet" (vs. set aside a regular time every day to catch up on important emails) * "gosh, there are so many issues to keep track of at work; let me
The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
Investing @ USV. Student of cities and the internet.
, you'd think I'd have a basic handle on this idea, as you could argue that it's the single strand that runs through everything I've worked on for the past 15 years. But still, I find it to be a really useful frame. I can't tell you how many times in the past week the idea of "competing on a vector they can't compete on" has come up. That is all about David and Goliath. If your competition is a super well-financed startup player, or an industry giant like Google, you can't expect to take them head on, play them at their game, and win. You have to think about what you can do, that they can't (or won't) and press on that angle. And, from more of a personal perspective: it's easy to get hung up on present-day challenges (financial, family, social, safety, etc.). For instance, I've written before about
, and how that defined an era for me and left a big scar, but ultimately (I think) helped shape my perspective in a positive way. And there are plenty of other things I can think of that have been, and continue to be, hard. So overall, I find the "disadvantages as advantages" frame to be super useful (critical, possibly), and will no doubt keep it in the back of my head for some time.
to keep track of them all" (vs. stay more on top of my email!) * boy, it sure would help to have a better way to share our to do list at home (vs., say, pulling my head out of my phone when I'm at home). * and on and on and on In my own defense -- I do think part of what makes me effective as a technologist is that I like thinking about and building products and systems. I try lots and lots of products (often out of this quest to be more organized), and I think that's helpful in terms of understanding what's out there, how things work, etc. And I love hacking on stuff. That's fun, and useful (I hope!), and I don't want to stop doing that. But a healthy dose of discipline can't hurt. As I look at these examples, it strikes me that establishing a routine would help with a lot of them. Now, if I could only find a way to help me track all the areas where I want to build a routine...
, you'd think I'd have a basic handle on this idea, as you could argue that it's the single strand that runs through everything I've worked on for the past 15 years. But still, I find it to be a really useful frame. I can't tell you how many times in the past week the idea of "competing on a vector they can't compete on" has come up. That is all about David and Goliath. If your competition is a super well-financed startup player, or an industry giant like Google, you can't expect to take them head on, play them at their game, and win. You have to think about what you can do, that they can't (or won't) and press on that angle. And, from more of a personal perspective: it's easy to get hung up on present-day challenges (financial, family, social, safety, etc.). For instance, I've written before about
, and how that defined an era for me and left a big scar, but ultimately (I think) helped shape my perspective in a positive way. And there are plenty of other things I can think of that have been, and continue to be, hard. So overall, I find the "disadvantages as advantages" frame to be super useful (critical, possibly), and will no doubt keep it in the back of my head for some time.
to keep track of them all" (vs. stay more on top of my email!) * boy, it sure would help to have a better way to share our to do list at home (vs., say, pulling my head out of my phone when I'm at home). * and on and on and on In my own defense -- I do think part of what makes me effective as a technologist is that I like thinking about and building products and systems. I try lots and lots of products (often out of this quest to be more organized), and I think that's helpful in terms of understanding what's out there, how things work, etc. And I love hacking on stuff. That's fun, and useful (I hope!), and I don't want to stop doing that. But a healthy dose of discipline can't hurt. As I look at these examples, it strikes me that establishing a routine would help with a lot of them. Now, if I could only find a way to help me track all the areas where I want to build a routine...
