Articles
December 4, 2012
Half the Reward: Bitcoin's First Halving
On Wednesday, Bitcoin crossed a line that had been drawn in its code from the first day. Block 210,000 was mined, and the reward for mining a block dropped from fifty bitcoins to twenty five, the first scheduled reduction in the history of digital money. The halving had been written into the software years earlier, a promise that the supply would shrink on schedule, and the promise had now been kept. The price barely moved, the mining continued, and the drama was in the meaning. This is the December 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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November 27, 2012
Record Monday: Cyber Monday Tops a Billion
On Monday, the United States spent one point four six five billion dollars online, and the number made history. Cyber Monday had become the heaviest online spending day in American history and the first Cyber Monday ever to pass the billion dollar mark, according to the comScore research firm. The total was up about seventeen percent from the same day a year earlier, and it followed a Black Friday that had already crossed the billion dollar line online. The two days together had made the holiday season a record, and the record was the milestone. This is the November 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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October 29, 2012
Touch on Every Screen: Windows 8 Ships
There is a launch this week, and the launch is the operating system: Windows 8, on sale worldwide on Friday, the most radical redesign since Windows 95. The launch is the bet, and the bet is the interface: the touch first design with the live tiles, the Start screen that replaced the Start menu. The launch is the answer to the iPad, the belief that touch will come to every screen, the bridge between two worlds. The launch is the week: the Surface, the worried partners, the cautious enterprises, the shrinking PC market. The launch is the October 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: the redesign that bet everything on touch, the lesson that every platform will learn.
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September 28, 2012
We're Sorry: Apple Maps
There is a letter this week, and the letter is the apology: the open letter from Tim Cook on Apple's website, the words the company never speaks. The apology is the admission: the maps that shipped with iOS 6, the missing towns, the misplaced cities, the frustration that filled the web. The admission is the reversal: the company built on perfection, falling short of its own commitment. The reversal is the question: what went wrong with Apple Maps, and what the failure says about the hardest problems. The question is the September 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: the maps built from nothing, the data that defeated the best, the engineering every platform must master.
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August 1, 2012
45 Minutes: Knight Capital's Lost Morning
There is a story this week, and the story is the morning: Wednesday, August 1, when Knight Capital Group, one of the largest market makers in the United States, lost control of its machines. The machines are the market, and the market is the flood: millions of erroneous orders fired into roughly 150 stocks in 45 minutes, buying high and selling low, spiking prices and collapsing them. The firm stopped its trading, the shares fell about a third, and the cause was a software update deployed incorrectly. The lost morning is the August 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: the code that runs the market, the kill switch that was not triggered in time, the machines that no one fully controls.
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July 17, 2012
Product First: Marissa Mayer Takes Yahoo
On Tuesday, Yahoo announced that Marissa Mayer would be its new chief executive, and the news landed like a shock in an industry that had stopped expecting shocks. Mayer was Google's twentieth employee, its first female engineer, and the executive behind the famously clean Google homepage. She was thirty seven, and she was taking over a company that had lost the search war, missed social, and fumbled mobile. The appointment broke every expectation: the board had been expected to pick a media executive or an outsider, and it had picked a product person from the company that had destroyed Yahoo's search business. This is the July 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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June 25, 2012
Simple by Design: Coinbase Opens Its Doors
This week, a new company opened its doors with a simple promise: buying bitcoins should not be an act of bravery. Coinbase was founded by Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, and Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader, and the company's pitch was the easiest way to buy, sell, and store bitcoins, built for ordinary people in the United States. The first version of the product was a simple web wallet with a clean interface, and the company was just getting started. The ambition was bigger than the product: to be the on-ramp that the whole industry lacked. This is the June 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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May 22, 2012
Sixteen Billion: Facebook Goes Public
On Friday, Facebook went public, and the largest technology initial public offering in history produced the flattest debut of the social wave. The shares priced at thirty eight dollars, the top of the range, and the company raised sixteen billion dollars at a valuation near one hundred four billion. The stock opened at forty two dollars and five cents, spent the day drifting near the offering price, and closed at thirty eight twenty three, up less than one percent. The Nasdaq's systems failed around the debut, and the underwriters were said to have supported the price. This is the May 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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April 13, 2012
Thirteen People, One Billion: Facebook Buys Instagram
On Monday, Facebook announced that it would buy Instagram for approximately one billion dollars in cash and stock, and the technology world spent the rest of the week trying to process the number. The photo-sharing app had thirteen employees, no revenue, and about thirty million users, and it had just launched on Android days earlier. The price dwarfed every comparable deal in the history of venture-backed startups, and the press called the app the most expensive in history. The announcement came from Mark Zuckerberg on his own timeline, and the message was short: Instagram would keep building independently. This is the April 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: ...
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March 12, 2012
Four Times the Pixels: Apple's New iPad
There is a screen this week, and the screen is the announcement: the new iPad that Apple unveiled on Wednesday at the Yerba Buena Center. The screen is the promise, and the promise is the pixels: 3.1 million of them, four times the pixels of the iPad 2, the highest resolution display ever shipped in a mobile device. The screen is the moment: Tim Cook's first major launch as chief executive. Four Times the Pixels is the March 2012 story, and the story is the lesson: the display that changes the device, the device that changes the category, the category that changes the industry.
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