(Cloud) Storage Wars, Direct Listings & My Digital Diet - Update #1
What I Learned at School this Week
Hey y’all,
What a week — err — day.
I spent a lot less time on things outside of work than I wanted to this week. But that’s likely just due to getting back into the groove of working 8+ hours a day. Are we built to do that? I’m not sure.
Here are a few things that came across my (digital) desk this week…
Election Debate aka Talking over Each Other
I enjoyed the commentary of The Daily on the first debate. Chaos and Contempt: The First Presidential Debate.
Thankfully, they’ve decided to put the other candidate on mute, when one candidate is answering a question. Though, maybe it will have to be via Zoom, given the POTUS just declared he and the FLOTUS both have tested positive for Covid.
{insert one of hundreds of relevant Tweets on the subject here}
If this year was a season of a show on Netflix, it would definitely be a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for all these genius twists and turns. I don’t know how “they” will one-up it “next season".
(Cloud) Storage Wars
Docker is a decentralized storage company that uses free space on people’s computers to power their business. Think: “Airbnb for AWS”. Spinning up cloud storage space (“AWS”) using other people’s storage (“Airbnb” aka the share economy).
I listened to a podcast with the founder and learned a couple things.
First, I loved this simple view he laid out:
BTC < Crypto < Blockchain < Decentralization
(I added Bitcoin in there.)
The cool thing here is that decentralization is the future. It leverages blockchain, but we’re at the tip of the iceberg on discovering all the advantages, and more importantly, finding all of the use cases.
The second major theme in the podcast is around the cloud computing space.
90% of the cloud computing market cap is owned by only three players (Amazon, Google and Microsoft). And they happen to be 3 of the 5 largest companies in the world, by market cap. See: Data Is The New Oil.
When Google got into the business of cloud storage, prices went down a little bit, but then prices bottomed out. In 5 years, the price of storing data has only gone down 10%.
When asked: “why is that?” Ben answered: “I think it’s an oligopoly.”
Sheesh.
Direct Listings!
Palantir and Asana went public via Direct Listings this week. More info on Direct Listings here.
Historically, the majority of companies going public have done so via an IPO. This means the company does a road show to pitch investors, understands the demand, prices the shares accordingly, and then, heads to New York to ring the bell.
Now, companies (Slack and Spotify are two who paved the way) are exploring direct listings. The third most common way that is catching steam, is going public via a SPAC.
The interesting part about doing a direct listing is that investors, like you and I, need to know about the companies. So a “boring, deep-tech” company may not be successful in finding enough retail investors. On the flip side, a company like Slack had/has no problem. One downside of going direct is a lack of knowing exact demand. So the day-1 pop may actually hurt the company. A road show talking to banks/investors helps mitigate this risk.
Food for thought when you take your next company public! 😉
Prioritization
I’ve been busy getting back into the swing of things at work this week, so less time “learning.” I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best prioritize tasks (deciding what is ‘urgent’ versus ‘important’ is counter-intuitive to human nature). More on that to come next week.
Digital Diet - Update #1
Okay, so I’m into my first week of My Digital Diet. And then, well, today happened. And I burned through my Twitter time by 9am this morning. But, thanks to some great friends, my text threads have kept me pretty up to date.
So far, so good. Some quick rambling thoughts.
I am the most stoked to be leaving my phone out of my bedroom, and not touching it for an hour when I wake up each morning.
Still figuring out notifications configurations, as I need to make sure important things aren’t slipping through the cracks.
But overall, I’m proud of me. Can I say that? Too late.
I’m going to do some more journaling and thinking on the topic once I have a bit more days under my belt. Thanks to those of you who have replied to this email or texted me that you’re joining — we’re in this together! 💪
Thank you for reading this week. I see you, and appreciate you. ❤️ Enjoy the weekend!
Cheers,
Brendan J Short