European Cloud (update)

  • Two years ago we posted about Europe’s attempt to challenge US tech dominance in cloud computing.
  • Predictably it has struggled.
  • In conversations with POLITICO, more than a dozen industry and government officials involved with the work of Gaia-X said the project was struggling to get off the ground amid infighting between corporate members, disagreement over its overall aims and a bloated bureaucratic structure that is delaying decisions. One industry official closely involved in the work of Gaia-X called it a “mess.”

Peter Thiel

  • Intriguing review of latest book on the Silicon Valley legend.
  • The book “does an excellent job of unpicking the disparate elements of the Thiel mythology”
  • From trying to get out of his early Facebook investment as fast as he could, including trying to convince Zuckerberg to sell to Yahoo for $1bn.
  • To his failed anti-college scholarships.
  • Absolutely worth a read.

Disney World

  • Collection Disney World maps through the years.
  • This enormous land parcel is also unique in that it’s a kind of self-governing municipality, with its own fire department and emergency services. The district—officially known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District—is governed by a five-person Board of Supervisors elected by the landowners in the district. As a result, high-level Disney employees essentially run the entire region encompassing WDW.
  • The area is so vast that “The Magic Kingdom parking lot, for example, is actually larger than the theme park itself.

Creator Economy

  • The creator economy is booming.
  • New platforms are largely to thank – they have transformed the economics of creating.
  • This is seen in the table from The Independent Creator Manifesto.
  • In aggregating monetization across these 50 platforms, we’ve found that creators will soon pass more than $10 billion in aggregate earnings. While 2020 saw a jump in new creators, it wasn’t a one-time spike. A year later, creators are still coming online at a record clip: the number of creators is up a whopping 48% year-over-year. In total, these platforms have onboarded 668,000 creators.
  • Substack just announced they have hit 1 million paid subscribers.
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