Horace Dediu of Asymco returns for a 3rd time to the pod to discuss what makes a business idea "disruptive," why eBikes are likely to be adopted en masse in the years ahead, whether cryptocurrencies will be disruptive and why, whether Apple's move into producing content will be disruptive or "me too," and where Apple's next wave of growth for the iPhone will come from. Thanks to Onecast.fm for helping record the pod. (Also check out Episode 18 for a discussion with VC Andrew Parker who also spoke about the potential for eBikes a while ago.)

Eric welcomes Rich Greenfield back to the podcast to have a knock-down drag-out debate about Disney and ESPN. Rich strongly believes that that cable bundle is dying and ESPN has massively overpaid for sports rights. He thinks a big digital player is about to scoop up future sports rights and ESPN will end up blowing a hole in Disney’s future earnings. Eric strongly believes Disney is the premier media company in the world and the fears about ESPN are overblown. Eric argues that ESPN and Disney will be a growth story again. We debate. You decide. Thanks to Onecast.fm for hosting the podcast.

Bill Simmons recently hosted a roundtable podcast with Jim Miller and Bryan Curtis where he critiqued several "mistakes" made by ESPN management over the past two years. Eric lays out some flaws in those major critiques and why ESPN is still well-positioned to succeed from here.

Fox Sports announced the day before July 4th that Jamie Horowitz was leaving the company after only 2 years on the job. His bravado and colorful personality masked some of the big challenges that are facing them for meaningfully improving their ratings. Eric argues that there are no silver bullets for turning it around.

Eric chats with Jeff Macke of Macke Asset Management about what makes a great retailer today and how they’re incorporating CRM, data analytics and location to serve customers in the best way. We cover Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, why Wal-Mart is well-positioned, why many retailers are stuck performing for Wall Street instead of the customer, and what to watch for when the next great American retailer emerges as a public company.

Eric caught up with Cycle Media's Jason Stein about a busy week in tech, media and advertising including: what happened at Cannes Lions, Instagram Stories blowing away Snap, why Vice is worth so much more than Buzzfeed or Vox, what he would do if in charge of Bill Simmons Media Group, new changes to the board of Spotify, and how he makes viral video content at Cycle

Critics conclude that investors must be placing too much hope in these growth stocks. Some wonder if this hope will all come crashing down as it did following the '90s dot-com bust. There's a good case to be made that it's not a bubble of the biggest tech stocks; it's that the biggest tech stocks have grown to another level in the last few years.

In 1995, Disney "bet the company" on acquiring Capital Cities/ABC which owned 80% of ESPN. It worked out, but not for the reasons Michael Eisner thought going into it. Eric discusses this in relation to Rich Greenfield's recent blog post on what he'd do to turn around ESPN if he was Bob Iger.

It's common today to hear critics say that Disney and ESPN management should have moved quicker to launch an over-the-top offering or that they overpaid to recent sports rights deals. Eric explains why ESPN and Disney are in a really strong position to reboot themselves and what kinds of new services they might launch in the future.

Instagram has turbocharged Facebook's growth in the past 5 years. It's now up to 700 million users. When it bought Instagram, Facebook was worth $58 billion. Today it's worth $435 billion. How much would it be worth without Instagram? A lot less, Eric argues.