Summary
What happened in tech that mattered, and what did it mean? Once a week, I send an email newsletter to close to 200,000 people – I pick out the changes and ideas you don’t want to miss in all the noise, and give them context and analysis.
What matters in tech? What’s going on, what might it mean, and what will happen next?
I’ve spent 20 years analysing mobile, media and technology, and worked in equity research, strategy, consulting and venture capital. I’m now an independent analyst. Mostly, that means trying to work out what questions to ask.
I write essays about things I’m trying to understand, and a weekly newsletter with 175,000 subscribers, and give presentations pulling together these ideas.
What happened in tech that mattered, and what did it mean? Once a week, I send an email newsletter to close to 200,000 people – I pick out the changes and ideas you don’t want to miss in all the noise, and give them context and analysis.
Source: Website
SuperAI – 14/06/2024 (31:32)
OnAir Post: Benedict Evans
News
Software ate the world. Uber and Airbnb didn’t sell software – they disrupted and redefined markets. But what kind of disruption are we talking about ?
Everyone knows about ‘disruption’, and it’s pretty common also to talk about redefining markets and ‘software eating the world’, and Airbnb and Uber are the perfect examples. Where previous generations of tech companies sold software to hotels and taxi companies, Airbnb and Uber used software to create new businesses and to redefine markets. Uber changed what we mean when we say ‘taxi’ and Airbnb changed hotels.
It matters that Apple’s new Siri will be late, and it matters more that Apple didn’t realise. Is it more than that?
People have been claiming that Apple has forgotten how to innovate since the early 1980s, or longer – it’s a standing joke in talking about the company. But it’s also a question. Apple changed the world with the Mac and the iPhone, but the iPhone will be old enough to vote this summer, and, as the saying goes, ‘what have you done for us lately?’ The shareholder version of this is ‘where’s the growth?’ As the company stands today, the iPhone has been flat for years, the iPad, Watch and AirPods that came after are flat as well, and the only growth comes from services – which is great for cash but mostly consists of milking the existing customer base, not creating something new.
About
Short Bio
Benedict Evans is an internationally renowned technology analyst based in London.
He has spent 20 years analysing mobile, digital media and technology, in investment banking, at Orange and at NBC Universal, in strategy consulting, and most recently in venture capital at Andreessen Horowitz in Silicon Valley.
He first entered the industry as a sell-side equity analyst for investment banks, before moving on to strategy and business development roles. Benedict is now an independent analyst and based in London. He writes about and discusses strategic and operating issues around consumer technology, ecosystems and mobile platforms.
Source: Chartwell
Contact
Email: Newsletter
Web Links
Videos
The End of the Beginning
November 16, 2018 (24:00)
By: a16z
In his now annual state-of-innovation talk at the a16z Summit in November 2018, Andreessen Horowitz’ Benedict Evans walks through where we are now in software eating the world… and how things may continue to change over the next 10 years.
What’s the state of not just “the world of tech”, but tech in the world? The access story is now coming to an end, observes Evans, but the use story is just beginning: Most of the people are now online, but most of the money is still not. If we think we’re in a period of disruption right now, how will the next big platform shifts — like machine learning — impact huge swathes of retail, manufacturing, marketing, fintech, healthcare, entertainment, and more? Especially as technology begins to tackle bigger problems, in harder markets, at deeper (and more structural) levels?
Benedict Evans and Protocol’s David Pierce discuss what’s next for tech in 2020
January 28, 2020 (20:25)
By: protocol
Technology analyst Benedict Evans sat down with Protocol Editor-at-Large David Pierce in Davos. Evans discussed major trends and predictions coming for the tech industry in 2020. Watch the exclusive presentation here: http://bit.ly/30WI8ev
Essays
The Deep Research problem
Source: Website
OpenAI’s Deep Research is built for me, and I can’t use it. It’s another amazing demo, until it breaks. But it breaks in really interesting ways.
Most what I do for a living is research and analysis. I think of data I’d like to see and go looking for it; I compile and collate it, make charts, decide they’re boring and try again, find new ways and new data to understand and explain the issue, and produce text and charts that try to express what I’m thinking. Then I go and talk to people about it.
This often involves a huge amount of manual labour – there’s an iceberg beneath each chart – and OpenAI’s Deep Research looks like it should be tailor-made for me. So, does it fit?
Are better models better?
Source: Website
Every week there’s a better AI model that gives better answers. But a lot of questions don’t have better answers, only ‘right’ answers, and these models can’t do that. So what does ‘better’ mean, how do we manage these things, and should we change what we expect from computers?
Every week, there’s a new model, a new approach, and something new to play with. And every week, people ask me ‘have you tried o1 Pro? Phi 4? Midjourney 6.1?’ I keep wondering, well, how would I tell?
One answer, of course, is to look at the benchmarks, but setting aside the debate about how meaningful these are, that doesn’t tell me what I can do that I couldn’t do before, or couldn’t do as well. You can also keep a text file full of carefully crafted logic puzzles to try, which is really just doing your own benchmark, but again, what does that tell you?
