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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A deja vu kind of week: the EU’s gotta EU, IBM’s gotta IBM, private equity’s gotta private equity, Oracle’s gotta Oracle, and China’s gotta China. But we’re unclear what it means if OpenAI’s gotta OpenAI.
News
The European Union is STILL an Advanced Persistent Threat
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This is Europe’s future. GDPR cookie consents went to the EU’s head, making them think they can dictate global practices, no matter how insane, useless, or uninformed the regulations. But tech companies will increasingly just not ship the latest and greatest to the EU, even if it means a non-global product line. European versions of product should be referred to as the “wine and cheese” editions.
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EU Suffering From Premature Regulation, BREAKING: European Union Designated an Advanced Persistent Threat, EU Insanity: Regulatory Contortions, EU Insanity: Not Learning From Regulatory Failure, EU Announces DMA Struggle Sessions, EU Insanity: AI Regulatory Suicide, EU Insanity: AI Energy Suicide, EU Insanity: The Kafka Singularity, EU Insanity: AI Energy Suicide (Part Deux), 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
“Very Serious” Will be the Struggle Sessions
The EU’s “sweeping” and “landmark” rules are not an a priori set of regulations to comply with, but a fishing license for regulators to meddle in any aspect of (non-European) Big Tech business that catches their fancy. Rule of Law it isn’t.
These struggle sessions will continue until Europe has a tech industry (i.e. don’t hold your breath) even as the beleaguered continent ignores its existential economic, energy and geopolitical challenges.
Existential Corner: What is OpenAI This Week?
It remains unclear what OpenAI wants to be if/when it grows up. A technology provider (frontier models)? A consumer services company (but emphatically not one inspired by Her)? An enterprise company? That seems the most difficult, yet:
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IBM is Not a Technology Company: McDonald’s Edition
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This Week in Securities Fraud, IBM and the Art of Misleading Investors, Last IBM Strategic Imperative Bites the Dust, IBM’s “Cloud” Business (or Lack Thereof), Tweetstorm Digest: Reactions to Barron’s “IBM’s Reboot” Story, IBM’s Lost Decade, Follow the CAPEX: The Clown Car Race Checkered Flag, Introducing Platformonomics ClownWatch™,
Private Equity in Action: OtterTune
Whatever private equity is up to, customers always seem to suffer.
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Private Equity in Action: PluralSight,
Private Equity in Action: Not Every VMware Customer Was Screwed, Private Equity in Action: The VMware Saga May Never End, Software Migration Alerts, Private Equity in Action: VMware “Unease” Continues, Perfidious Private Equity, Private Equity in Action: VMware Yet Again, 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, Private Equity in Action: VMware Customer Complaints “Unwarranted”
Oracle Invents “Non-GAAP CAPEX”
Because they know their CAPEX is woefully insufficient, Oracle has claimed in earnings calls that their CAPEX spend was 25% bigger than the number they reported to the SEC in the last two quarters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
China Up to No Good: Prepare to Repel Boarders Edition
What is the “nothing to worry about here” explanation for China’s actions off the Second Thomas Shoal?
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One, Two, Three, Four: We Want a Meme War, Xi Jinping Thought on Wall Street Running Dogs, The Perils of Working for a Cult of Personality, Press Releases We’d Like to See, Best Nickname for Emmanuel Macron, Winnie-the-Pooh: Lover of Honey, Champion of Freedom, Missing the (Bamboo) Forest for the (Apple) Trees
China Up to No Good: Cyberwar Retaliation Edition
Rahm Emanual, US ambassador to Japan, is leading the charge in the meme war with the Chinese Communist Party.
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One, Two, Three, Four: We Want a Meme War, Xi Jinping Thought on Wall Street Running Dogs, The Perils of Working for a Cult of Personality, Press Releases We’d Like to See, Best Nickname for Emmanuel Macron, Winnie-the-Pooh: Lover of Honey, Champion of Freedom, Missing the (Bamboo) Forest for the (Apple) Trees
