The Tech Strategy Podcast

This week’s podcast is about core vs. adjacency growth. This is a good framework for thinking about growth in digital businesses. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . Most of this is a summary of work by Chris Zook at Bain's strategy practice. I am citing the books: Profit from the Core Beyond the Core Most all sustainable growth is based on 1-2 strong cores....

This week’s podcast is about how digital impacts society, business, news and politics. And how centralized planning might be the best solution in a digital world. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . ----— Related articles: Valuation Like Warren Buffett in 1 Slide (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Lesson / Update) An Intro to Digital Valuation (Asia Tech Strategy – Dail...

This week’s podcast is about growth and how it relates to value and valuation. ROIC vs. RONIC is an important part of separating past and continuing value. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts .   —---- Related articles: Valuation Like Warren Buffett in 1 Slide (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Lesson / Update) An Intro to Digital Valuation (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Les...

This week’s podcast is about how to apply DCF in valuations of digital companies. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . For the tennis ball story and DCF details, here are the slides. –---- Related articles: Valuation Like Warren Buffett in 1 Slide (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Lesson / Update) An Intro to Digital Valuation (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Lesson / Update...

This week’s podcast is about Hillhouse Capital and how they are buying and digitizing Chinese and increasingly Asian companies. I talk about their deals with Belle and Gree. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . Here is my summary of digital operating basics (Dr. Ram’s book combined with some of my own thinking): Scale and growth at small incremental cost. Continuo...

This week’s podcast is my second on Ram Charan’s new book “ Rethinking Competition Advantage “. I think it has a lot of great insights about the basics of digital operations. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . Here is my summary of digital operating basics (Dr. Ram’s book combined with some of my own thinking): Scale and growth at small incremental cost.  Contin...

This week’s podcast is about Ram Charan's new book " Rethinking Competition Advantage ". I think it has a lot of great insights about the basics of digital operations. But not much about competitive advantage. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . Here is my interpretation of the book's digital operating basics: A personalized consumer experienc...

This week’s podcast is about assessing specialty ecommerce companies (i.e,. the anteaters) vs. the ecommerce giants (i.e,. the lions). Which will survive? Which will thrive? You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . Here are my 5 questions (thus far) for assessing the viability of a specialty ecommerce company. Is the company sufficiently differentiated in the user exp...

This week’s podcast is about the recent political issues around China tech and Alibaba in particular. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . —— Related articles: Can Foodpanda / Delivery Hero Get to Profitable Scale in On-Demand Food? (Asia Tech Strategy – Daily Lesson / Update) Meituan vs. Ctrip vs. Alibaba: Who Will Win in China Services? (Jeff’s Asia Tech Class –...

This week’s podcast is about Ctrip, Didi and their current situation as subscale services marketplaces in China. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes and Google Podcasts . 4 Reasons Didi and Ctrip should merge: They are both subscale in B2C digital China Both are exposed. And industry barriers in services are shifting and falling. They are complementary in terms of users, usage, data a...

This week’s podcast is about how to profit from political involvement in China tech. But really it is about how to think systematically about the role of the State. And about how to benefit from the State as the mother-of-all catalysts. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . Here is the marketing material for OShares OGIGX. OGIGX Index Presentation 2021Q2...

This week’s podcast is about how to profit from political involvement in China tech. But really it is about how to think systematically about the role of the State. And about how to benefit from the State as the mother-of-all catalysts. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . Ways to profit from State involvement: Ride the big waves from top-down initiativ...

This week’s podcast is about political risk in China tech, but really it is about how to think systematically about the role of the State. And about making investment decisions on uncertain terrains. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . Here are five investment approaches to uncertain environments. Stay out. Buy and sell fast. Focus on quantitative cert...

This week’s podcast is about Warren Buffett and combining competitive advantage with compounding. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya .   Slides are on my webpage. —–— Related articles: I Took 20 Peking University Students to Lunch with Warren Buffett (Again). Here’s What Happened. (Pt 1 of 4) 3 Life Lessons from Lunch with Warren Buffett From the Concep...

This week’s podcast is about Dingdong, a specialty ecommerce player in China focused on fresh groceries. It has gone public while still operating profit negative - but brings to mind a similar situation with Meituan at IPO. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . —–--- Related articles: Should Vipshop Build a Logistics Network Like JD? (Jeff’s Asia Tech Cl...

This week’s podcast is about Full Truck Alliance, a B2B marketplace platform for freight and cargo. There are a lot of lessons on the difficulties and complexities of matching, pricing and network effects for more complicated services. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . Here are the pages from the F-1 filing I mentioned. Questions for simple network e...

This week’s podcast is about Skillz and Electronic Arts. There are some interesting and evolving strategy aspects to gaming - especially as it goes to multiplayer and tournaments. And as Skillz opens up tournament gaming based on cash rewards, the question is how far into gambling is this going to go? You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . Addiction by De...

This week’s podcast is about Didi's upcoming IPO. They have released their numbers and it shows market dominance but operating losses. This is my explanation for what is happening. And what their strategic plan means. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . How I breakdown: Market size and/or growth Competitive strength and defensibility Unit economic...

This week’s podcast is about separating networks (an asset) from platforms (a business model) from network effects (a phenomenon). And the three standard types of network effects. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . I put network effects into 3 types: Direct (One-Sided) Network Effects Indirect (Two-Sided) Network Effects Standardization and Interopera...

This week’s podcast is about "criticality" as a type of switching cost. And specifically about Wabco, one of Warren Buffett's companies that has fairly powerful B2B criticality. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . ——– Related articles: Waze, Google Maps and How Warren Buffett Made 50% on a Map Company (Jeff’s Asia Tech Class – Daily Upda...

This week’s podcast is about how traditionally great logistics businesses like DHL and JD Logistics are doing major digital upgrades. It's a big unknown but it all looks pretty attractive. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . —----- Related articles: JD Logistics and the Dream of Smart, Automated Logistics at Scale (1 of 2) (Asia Tech Strategy – Da...

This week's podcast is about the US-China DTC retailer Shein, which has rocketed upwards in the past months. Analysts are starting to pay close attention - but consumers have been noticing this company for a while. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . The mentioned article by Packy McCormick and Matthew Brennan is Shein: The TikTok of Ecommerce.  ...

This podcast is about Alibaba's 2020 earnings and the strategy implications. But it is really about how Alibaba is positioned as a "product / service + commerce infrastructure" business. And whether ByteDance can break into Chinese ecommerce with an "attention + mini programs strategy". It's really a cool and important question. You can listen to this podcast here or...

This podcast is about the super cool economics of Adobe Inc. And how they capture the economics of digital by also building strong competitive moats. In Adobe's case, it's mostly network effects and bundling. You can listen to this podcast here or at iTunes , Google Podcasts and Himalaya . The digital economics terms cited are: Zero marginal production costs. Low distribution costs. Non-...

Competitive advantages can be build on the demand and the supply side. And advantages on the demand (i.e., revenue) side are usually about customer capture in some form. One general category for this is when a company captures a "share of the consumer mind." In this talk, I go into how some companies do this for their own benefit. And against the interests of the consumer. I call these t...