Platformonomics TGIF is a weekly roll-up of links, comments on those links, and perhaps a little too much tugging on my favorite threads.
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The last two weeks have been eventful, so we have a lot to cover after my absence. Buckle up!
News
Amazon CAPEX Plans
Bloomberg looks at cloud CAPEX and the accompanying “mad scramble” for electricity to power those data centers.
A $150 billion number over the next 15 years is unimpressive and inadequate ($10 billion a year). AWS spent $133 billion on CAPEX over the last nine years and averaged $22 billion a year over the last four years. That’s way too low to be competitive (GPUs are expensive!). But after their first ever decline in CAPEX spending in 2023, who knows what is going on at AWS.
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Microsoft/OpenAI CAPEX Plans
It isn’t $7 trillion but still a good start. Presumably nuclear-powered. And perhaps off-world? Orbital computing is on my list of topics to chronicle.
Antitrust Incoherence: Apple Edition
Hipster antitrust remains intellectually incoherent and provides no clear lines for anyone on the playing field. The Apple case deserves more than a few one-liners, but I have learned the audience for musings on antitrust is quite limited. But I may have to write a follow-up to my last treatise on the current state of antitrust. Or at least dig into the many ridiculous connections being made around this case between Apple and Microsoft.
EU Announces DMA Struggle Sessions
The struggle sessions will continue until Europe has a tech industry (i.e. indefinitely).
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EU Insanity: AI Regulatory Suicide, EU Insanity: AI Energy Suicide, EU Insanity: The Kafka Singularity, EU Insanity: Mistral Edition, Move Fast and Regulate Things (You Don’t Understand), The EU Will Continue to Fiddle While Rome Burns, When “Move Fast and Regulate Things” Breaks Down, AI Regulation: Move Fast and Regulate Things
The Most Important Issue in AI
The topic everyone is talking about is how the AI market landscape is unfair to venture capitalists. High capital requirements? Unfair! The importance of distribution and customer feedback? Unfair! Incumbents paying attention? Unfair! We all need to focus on how to make life easier for our most important class: VCs.
Thought Leadership (in Mascots)
Shot:
Chaser:
Know your strengths! Don’t pretend to be a software company if you’re not one!
Most Greatest AI Company in Entire Universe Makes Major Strategy Pivot
“Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers’ experiences, and look forward to what’s next,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and AI at AWS cloud provider.
Amazon spends $2.75 billion on AI startup Anthropic in its largest venture investment yet
Amazon finally starts talking about their impact on the generative AI market in the future, not present tense. Progress! And I’ve completely lost track of how many steps we are into the AI marathon!
Cloud Repatriation is Going Just Great: Equinix
Prime cloud repatriation beneficiary Equinix has had to resort to the WorldCom playbook in order to put up their mediocre growth numbers? I still need to make fun of the AI data center bubble.
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Related:
Web3 is Going Just Great (a recurring look at cloud repatriation’s sibling VC thought leadership scheme)
Product Market Fit for Google Gemini?
As clichéd as “Orwellian” has become, Orwell remains underappreciated.
Victory Lap: Instability AI
Software Migration Alert: Jama Software
As we all now find ourselves chanting, when private equity comes amalgamating, it is time to start migrating.
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Perfidious Private Equity, Software Migration Alert: Everbridge, Private Equity in Action: VMware (Continued), Private Equity in Action: VMware, Private Equity Will Buy and Ruin More Software Companies, Software Migration Alert: VMware (Continued), Software Migration Alert: VMware, Software Migration Alert: Rover, Software Migration Alert: Avid Technology, Software Migration Alert: EngageSmart, This Week’s Software Migration Alerts
MariaDB Saved from Clutches of Private Equity
Software Migration Alert averted!
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Private Equity in Action: VMware “Unease” Continues
Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware is going just great! Unless you’re a customer and apparently “confused”.
VMware has quickly become the poster child for why you must start migrating when private equity comes amalgamating. You were warned.
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Tik Tok Traitors: Maria Cantwell
Maria Cantwell (D-Washington D-West Taiwan?) seems to be key resistance to the Tik Tok bill in the Senate. Contact her office. Maybe they’ll respond to you — I didn’t warrant a response.
The Meme War with China is Going Just Great
(For the record, this is my first non-sarcastic use of “going just great”)
This is the war with West Taiwan we want to have:
