Articles
September 14, 2018
The Succession: Jack Ma Steps Back
The succession is the announcement, and the announcement is the plan: the executive chairman who will step down in a year, the chief executive who will take the chair, the founder who will return to the teaching and the foundation, the handover that was revealed on September 10. The succession is the September 2018 story: the Alibaba that Jack Ma co-founded in a Hangzhou apartment in 1999, the company that grew to 420 billion dollars of market value, the transition that was years in the making, the announcement that came on the founder's birthday, the plan that was celebrated rather than feared. The succession is the autumn story, and the story is the lesson: the founder who knows when to leave, the leadership that is planned, the legacy that is built to outlast the man.
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August 2, 2018
The First Trillion: Apple's Milestone
The milestone is the trillion, and the trillion is the number: the 1,000,000,000,000 dollars of market value that Apple crossed on August 2, the first American company to reach the mark, the round number that the market had chased for months. The milestone is the August 2018 story: the earnings that beat on July 31, the 53.3 billion dollars of revenue, the stock that rose past 207, the valuation that finally arrived. The first trillion is the summer story, and the story is the lesson: the ecosystem that compounds, the pricing power that protects the margin, the business model that the market now prices at a trillion, the line that was crossed in the middle of the trading day, the figure that no American company had ever reached before.
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July 19, 2018
The Record Fine: Google and Android
The fine is the record, and the record is the number: the 4.34 billion euros that the European Commission imposed on Google, the 5 billion dollars in round numbers, the penalty that was announced on July 18, the largest antitrust fine that the European Union has ever issued, the ruling that came after the three year investigation, the decision that was years in the writing. The fine is the July 2018 story: the Android system that runs on 80 percent of the world's smartphones, the practices that were investigated for three years, the ruling that found the abuse, the appeal that Google promised on the same day. The record fine is the summer story, and the story is the lesson: the platform that controls the distribution, the defaults that decide the winners, the power that the regulators are now measuring.
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June 21, 2018
The Tariff Opening: $50 Billion
The opening is the announcement, and the announcement is the tariffs: the 25 percent on 50 billion dollars of Chinese imports, the two lists that were published on June 15, the first tranche that takes effect on July 6, the escalation that the markets had feared. The opening is the June 2018 story: the trade war that began with the steel and the aluminum in March, the talks that stalled, the tariffs that were threatened and are now real, the retaliation that came from Beijing on the same day. The tariff opening is the summer story, and the story is the lesson: the supply chains that cross the Pacific, the costs that will be paid, the uncertainty that is now the operating environment, the Friday announcement that landed, the weekend that the importers spent on the fine print.
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May 25, 2018
GDPR: The Privacy Law That Changed Everything
The regulation is the change, and the change is the law: the General Data Protection Regulation that took effect on May 25, 2018, the rules that were years in the making, the privacy that became a legal right, the compliance that swept through every inbox in the world. The emails came in the weeks before: the updated privacy policies from the banks and the airlines and the apps, the notices that everyone skimmed, the terms that said we care about your data, the flood that marked the deadline. The GDPR is the May 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the law that reaches across borders and changes how the world handles personal data.
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April 6, 2018
The Direct Listing: Spotify Goes Public
There is a debut that happened on the New York Stock Exchange this week, and the debut was the listing: Spotify arriving on April 3 under the ticker SPOT, no IPO, no underwriters, no new shares, the first major technology company to go public the direct way. The reference price was $132, the open came at $165.90, the close landed near $149.60, the valuation around $26.5 billion, the founder Daniel Ek watching from the floor. The company brought the numbers: the 159 million monthly active users, the 71 million subscribers, the music business that changed the industry, the debut that the market had waited for. The Spotify story is the April 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the listing that broke the mold.
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March 20, 2018
Cambridge Analytica: 87 Million Profiles
There is a scandal that is spreading through the headlines this week, and the scandal is the data: the profiles that were harvested, the campaigns that used them, the platform that did not notice. The revelations came in the middle of March: The Guardian and The Observer publishing the story on the 17th, Channel 4 airing the undercover footage, the whistleblower Christopher Wylie naming the operation. Cambridge Analytica took the data of about fifty million Facebook users through the thisisyourdigitallife app, the number later reported closer to eighty-seven million, and used it for the political targeting, the Trump campaign of 2016, the Brexit vote. The Cambridge Analytica story is the March 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the trust that was broken.
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February 8, 2018
Falcon Heavy: The Big Rocket Flies
There is a launch that lit up the coast this week, and the launch was the rocket: the Falcon Heavy that lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on February 6, the pad 39A that once sent the Apollo missions, the most powerful operational rocket in the world. The numbers were the story: the twenty-seven Merlin engines, the five million pounds of thrust, the red Tesla Roadster in the payload fairing with the Starman mannequin in the driver's seat, the payload that Elon Musk chose for the first flight. The boosters came back, the two side cores landing together at the Cape, the center core missing the droneship, the live stream watched by the millions. The Falcon Heavy story is the February 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the big rockets that fly again.
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January 23, 2018
The Crypto Crash of January: Bitcoin's First Correction
There is a fall that is spreading through the markets this month, and the fall is in the coins: the Bitcoin that hit the peak in December, the altcoins that followed it down, the mania that met its correction. The numbers tell the story: Bitcoin near $19,783 on December 17, the all-time high, and roughly $11,000 by late January, the drop of about forty percent in a single month. The total market cap fell from around $800 billion to around $500 billion, Ethereum down more than fifty percent, the buyers at the top feeling the burn, the sellers counting the losses. The crypto crash is the January 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the bubbles that burst.
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January 5, 2018
Meltdown and Spectre: The Chips That Leak
There is a flaw that is spreading through the industry this week, and the flaw is in the chip: the processors that run the laptops and the servers and the phones, the design that nearly every modern computer shares, the secret that was found in the silicon. The disclosure came on January 3: Google Project Zero and the academic researchers publishing the details together, Intel and AMD and ARM confirming the exposure, Microsoft and Apple and the Linux distributions rushing the updates, the whole industry bracing, the patches arriving within days. The Meltdown and Spectre story is the January 2018 story, and the story is the lesson: the chips that leak.
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