40% of new (straight) relationships in the USA started online.
Due to Covid this is likely higher today than in 2017 where the data ends.
“The intensity with which singles are swiping and chatting is visible across all Match Group dating apps, which include Tinder, OKCupid, Match.com, Hinge and Plenty of Fish. Amarnath Thombre, the chief executive of Match Group Americas, said that messages were up 30 to 40 percent on most of the company’s apps compared with the same time last year.”
“A great meeting has three key elements: the desired outcome of the meeting is clear ahead of time; the various options are clear, ideally ahead of time; and the roles of the participants are clear at the time.“
“I think that’s the single largest source of optimization for a company: the makeup of their meetings. To be clear, it’s not about fewer meetings because meetings serve a purpose. Rather, it’s key to improve the meetings, themselves. A lot of my efforts focus on teaching people this framework. Ironically, I find that most people are just challenged by that stuff.“
Very comprehensive post on the landscape of companies involved in financialising new asset classes or democratising access to existing ones and creating markets.
“Whether it’s the long tail of “alternative alternative” assets, venture-backed company shares, software contracts, or sport teams the financialization of everything is on its way.”
A really insightful and bearish essay on Nintendo.
“However, the “Nintendo is Disney” thesis is deeply flawed. It feels more like a desire to apply a pattern than to find a real analogue. Elements of Nintendo certainly represent Disney, but they represent Disney insofar as both companies are best in class creators of four-quadrant, multi-generational content. Otherwise the businesses are fundamentally different, their management styles fundamentally different, and their approaches to content itself are fundamentally different, too.”
Their rise had a lot to do with a huge advertising campaign in the US
This stat is staggering – for a period in 2018 “nearly 22% of all ads seen by U.S. Apple device users on Facebook ad network came from TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin”
As the article points out this actually provides more evidence of Facebooks dominance.
On culture – “part of daily life at Netflix with a daily Circle of Feedback and annual written and live 360 Assessments, in which you meet with the team to get ripped apart.“
Bessemer Venture Partners are famous for publishing their anti-portfolio.
Recently they took to learning from their success and published a series of memos from some of their most successful venture investments.
“One pattern that consistently emerges is that Bessemer’s best investment decisions centered on people. In retrospect, the early products themselves are barely recognizable today. Rather, passionate, analytical and relentless founders zigged and zagged their way to that elusive “product-market fit”, and these memos provide a glimpse of those winning entrepreneurs before they were famous.“
“It took nearly a century for the flush toilet to approach 80% household penetration. Electricity took 30 years to get to 80%; Refrigerators 20 years; cell phones 15 years; Social media 12 years.“
Brilliant article on the monopolistic power of food delivery businesses especially as they begin to vertically integrate and merge around the world.
“Losing money to acquire market power, or to steal from investors, is a form of counterfeiting, because it drives honest competitors that have to generate a profit out of the market“.
