Winner Take All

The episode opens with Alex discussing the Chinese government's recent antitrust crackdown on tech and the massive hit to valuation Ant Financial has taken as result. Next, a look at the plethora of Clubhouse copycats from big tech and a lesson to be learn from what Clubhouse got right and the 2015 viral app Meerkat got wrong. The show closes with discussion of Univision's new ill-advised partnership with Google.   

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Originally Aired: 04/27/21

General Robert Spalding 2021 Interview: Alex sits down with Brigadier General Robert S. Spalding III, whose  impressive resume includes serving as Chief China Strategist for the  chairman of the Joint Chiefs, senior Defense Official and Defense Attache to China in Bejing, and Senior Director for Strategic Planning  at the National Security Council. Moazed and Spalding discuss the  current tech landscape between the U.S. and China, taking a look at Elon  Musk's relationship with Beijing, the General's role in limiting  Huawei's participation in 5G infrastructure roll out, and the Great  Firewall being exported outside of China.  

General Spalding has served in senior positions of strategy and  diplomacy within the Defense and State Departments for more than 26  years, retiring as a brigadier general. He was the chief architect for the Trump Administration’s widely  praised National Security Strategy (NSS), and the Senior Director for  Strategy to the President at the National Security Council.  

Originally Aired: 05/04/21 

#Geopolitics #Huawei #ForeignPolicy

The episode gets started with a look at Netflix's poor Q1, 2021 earnings report. Alex digs into why he thinks the stock has taken a huge hit and Netflix's failure to continue innovating and emabrace platform dynamics. After quickly touching on Zoom, we dig into Discord ending acquisition talks with Microsoft and electing to peruse an IPO in the mid to near future. Also covered, possible antitrust issues with Apples new product, Airtags, Walmart Marketplace's expansion into China, and whether or not inflation is on the way.  

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Originally Aired: 04/22/21

We kick off this short episode with a look at Jeff Bezos' last  shareholder letter before he steps down as CEO of Amazon. Alex goes over  the various points Bezos makes in the letter while offering some of his  own insights and analysis on the marketplace statistics refereed to in  the final letter before Andy Jassy takes over the platform behemoth.  This episode also contains a note on our new WTA text line and coverage  of Alibaba being fined $2.8 billion as a result of the Beijing's  anti-monopoly probe.

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Originally Aired: 04/21/21

Tell the SEC that cryptocurrency must remain legal and free by signing this petition: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-securities-and-exchange-commission-cryptocurrency-is-not-a-crime

Jeremy Kauffman, founder and CEO of the decentralized content sharing  and publishing protocol LBRY,  joins the show to discuss the ongoing SEC  complaint against LBRY that threatens to stifle the entire  cryptocurrency and blockchain industry in the U.S.. As Kauffman and  Moazed touch on various details of the SEC complaint, they also discuss  censorship on content platforms, launching and running a disruptive  startup business, and the ongoing battle against the overreaching  policies of big tech.  

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Originally Aired: 04/13/21

The show starts off with a look at a new non-binding legal opinion  penned by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the principal legal  difficulty that surrounds digital platforms. Justice Thomas highlights  some of the challenges with invoking old doctrines in regulation of  social media companies and other platforms. Alex discusses the  non-binding concurring opinion and the possibility that content  platforms could become classified as common carriers, subjecting these  companies to special regulations, including a general requirement to  serve all comers. The second half of the show takes a look at two recently released  marketplace rankings, Andreessen Horowitz's 2021 Marketplace 100, and  Applico's new B2B Marketplaces Top 50 Ranking.

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Download Applico's B2B Marketplaces Top 50: Coming Soon!  

Andreessen Horowitz's 2021 Marketplace 100:  https://a16z.com/marketplace-100/  

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Opinion:  https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf  

Originally Aired: 04/06/21

The show kicks off with a quick look at the Icon altcoin, recommended to  us by Peter Saddington during his February 18th WTA guest appearance.  Next, an in depth look at details leaked by a dev who helped develop  censorship tools and algorithms for ByteDance's Content Quality Center.  Alex reads excerpts from the interview highlighting the intense  oversight domestic content platforms are subjected to via the Cyberspace  Administration of China. Also covered, reports that the EU is  struggling to build an antitrust case against Amazon and a look at NFTs,  the newest craze in the world of crypto.

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Originally Aired: 04/02/21 

#Podcast #Tech #ByteDance  

I helped build ByteDance's vast censorship machine: https://www.protocol.com/china/i-built-bytedance-censorship-machine

Alex opens the episode with a look at two stories from Walmart, one  detailing the company's new expansions of U.S. manufacturing, and  another that the Walmart Marketplace is relaxing restrictions on foreign  sellers. Next, the latest stories of Amazon unfairly treating  third-party sellers and some commentary on corruption in the government.  The show closes with a discussion on how Starlink may be able to break  through China's Great Firewall and a quick check-in on Viacom's stock  price (spoiler alert: it's come down a lot since we called out that it  was inflated for no good reason).  

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Originally Aired: 03/30/21 

#Walmart #Starlink #Amazon —  

📚 Grab a copy of the Amazon Best Seller Modern Monopolies: https://amzn.com/B017RC8CBC  

❓ Are you part of a large enterprise interested in spinning out a platform business? Connect with us here: https://resources.applicoinc.com/wta-contact/  

At Applico, we identify untapped, intrinsic assets that give existing  enterprises an enormous advantage to spin-out new tech companies.  WisdomTree licensed Applico's Platform Insights Data Product to aid in  the creation of the PLAT ETF.

Alex starts the show with a quick look at Poshmark, a fashion  marketplace whose stock has sharply fallen since touching the $100+ mark  on IPO day. After breaking down if $POSH is more fairly valued in the  ~$40 range, a quick ranking of the tech giants in FAMGA (Facebook,  Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple) is given before diving into the  current regulatory environment for tech. Also covered, what regulatory  capture is, the Chinese government restricting government workers from  driving Tesla vehicles, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp's commentary on U.S.  tech companies lack of willingness to work with the U.S. government. The  show closes with a short breakdown of how take rates work in platform  businesses.

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Originally Aired: 03/26/21

#RegulatoryCapture #PalantirCEO #FAANG

Modern Monopolies Co-Author and Applico Prinicpal Nick Johnson joins the  show with Alex to look at the history of Platform M&A deals,  breaking down whether or not we see tech monopolies still taking the  build from scratch approach. Additionally, Johnson and Moazed dig into  how they characterize platform business model revenue, a key metric for  determining inclusion in WisdomTree's platform business focused ETF, the  WisdomTree Growth Leaders Fund ($PLAT).  

Originally Aired: 03/12/21