Unpacked

Follow Unpacked on LinkedIn 🚀 Every week, Unpacked brings you one deep dive analysis on a current tech topic or product strategy. Link to new article shared here weekly. You can see all past articles on the Substack + subscribe if you'd like articles in your inbox.

Fun topic this week on Unpacked - YouTube's crack down on ad blockers might seem like big vs small tech but when you poke into how ad blocker companies operate and their “whitelisting” programs, you might be less sympathetic. tl;dr of their playbook - create ad blocking tools & get adoption, create a "whitelist" based on somewhat arbitrary ads criteria, turn on whitelist for all users by default, get publishers to pay to be part of the whitelist (and bypass the ad blocking that they created in the first place). https://lnkd.in/gu_WgZiY

This week in Unpacked. Thirty-eight years since the launch of e-filing, the IRS will pilot its own tax filing system in 2024, ending two decades of Intuit's regulatory capture of the tax software market. https://lnkd.in/gpMJBdif

This week in Unpacked - Several large enterprise SaaS companies have announced and / or launched their generative AI products - Slack, Salesforce, Dropbox, Microsoft, Google. This is a threat to generative AI startups that are building useful productivity applications for enterprise customers but have a limited sustainable, competitive advantage (i.e. moatless). Plus some ideas on how to build moats in this environment. https://lnkd.in/e2wkWqwi

Last one in Unpacked's Tech Policy September - dug into FTC's 150 page complaint against Amazon. It is a (surprisingly) well-crafted case but poorly understood because most people covering the topic either have superficial takes based on press releases, or have predetermined point of views. Here's a snippet from the article that lays out FTC's case. They argue that: - Amazon is a monopoly in two relevant markets - the “online superstore market” and the “market for online marketplace services” - Amazon engaged in anti-discounting tactics that prohibited sellers from offering lower prices outside of Amazon. This, in turn, increased prices for consumers on and off Amazon. - Amazon used Prime’s popularity to force sellers into using Amazon’s fulfillment services. This, in turn, made it more difficult for sellers to use a single fulfillment provider across multiple marketplaces (“multi-homing”), and therefore made the market less competitive for rivals. https://lnkd.in/g_zizzqD

Second of three articles in Unpacked's Tech Policy September - https://lnkd.in/gWc_fTuK Undoubtedly a loaded topic but I've attempted to be reasonably analytical about it. The article dives into AI risks, current approaches to managing these risks, and proposed regulation in the US. And then makes the case for a focused, mechanisms-based approach to AI regulation (instead of a brute force, stuff-everything-into-one-bill approach).

First of three articles as part of Unpacked's Tech Policy September. Slightly longer read given the topic complexity but it lays out the multiple layers of nuance around the case and is based on the analysis of DOJ's 58-page complaint filed as part of the lawsuit (one of the most impressive pieces of writing I've read lately). https://lnkd.in/gSxwU_2C

Last week, Klarna (one of the leaders in the Buy Now Pay Later market) had an impressive earnings announcement - first ever month of net profit while growing revenue 17%. Despite limited product differentiation, Klarna successfully cemented their first mover advantage by investing in brand awareness and retailer partnerships. Looking forward though, the company faces some competition and regulation risks which could change the trajectory of how much market share they end up owning in the long term. This week's deep dive - https://lnkd.in/g6-68a8Y

Instacart's journey to IPO is impressive and they have clearly created a market that’s here to stay. But long-term upside hinges on the company's ability to break out of the market saturation problem they are facing, and the success of their long-term bets like ads and the enterprise platform. https://lnkd.in/gdhrt79Q