This week saw several big news stories: the final, final repeal of Net Neutrality, the Time Warner-AT&T merger, the Kim-Trump summit, and the continued ups and downs of President Trump’s trade tariffs and ZTE penalties.
Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
This article went hyper-viral this week. It’s essential argument is that now that ISPs like AT&T and potentially Comcast have bought large content libraries, content companies like Netflix and YouTube (i.e. Alphabet) are going to have to get into the distribution business in order to compete effectively. That doesn’t mean they need to blanket the U.S., but a careful strategy of targeting the most lucrative markets for the biggest carriers could allow them to mitigate the effects of vertical mergers in the industry. Even better, they could work together to break those monopolies. Extensive comments on TechCrunch as well as on HackerNews.
3,000 journalists covering Kim-Trump this week is WTF is wrong with media
This was an argument regarding the complete redundancy of the modern media. There are literally thousands of journalists who holed up in Singapore in a warehouse this week where they watched the proceedings on television. How many millions of dollars were spent ferrying these folks, and where could that money have been better spent to create differentiated and unique content? Editors still have a lot to learn about the future of media businesses.
ZTE has few cards left to play to avoid “death penalty”
This article was a deeper analysis into the current state of the Trump tariffs, NXP-Qualcomm, and ZTE’s fine. This situation has called for a dexterous level of strategy by all players, but ultimately, ZTE has few cards left to play. Congress may yet vote to kill one of China’s crown jewels, which may well go down as one of the most foolish decisions in Sino-U.S. trade relations.
With strategic investment, Insilico Medicine is using deep learning to defeat aging
I am something of a deep learning realist — the heady claims of some artificial intelligence boosters drives me up a wall. That said, entrepreneurs like Alex at Insilico Medicine do give me hope that these theories can be used for massive human benefit. Be inspired at the audacity for once — this isn’t another smart luggage startup.
Other Articles
- NXP-Qualcomm $44b deal to clear China as Trump authorizes $50b tariffs
- Automated dev platform CircleCI expands to Japan, first office outside U.S.
Photo by go_nils used under Creative Commons