Category: personal_noteS

AWS 的半壁江山

11/28，Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy 在 re:Invent 大会上引用了 Gartner 的数据，说 AWS 全球市场份额超过一半为 51.8%

诚然，AWS 的神话和统治地位毋庸置疑。Amazon 从 2015 年开始将 AWS 作为独立的 segment 汇报财务数据。通过 2014 年的增长率可以倒推出 2013 年以来每个季度的 AWS 收入。

不过，Gartner 那份今年 8 月的报告局限于 2017 年的数据。其它各家如 Azure 和 Alibaba Cloud 的增长率有目共睹。CY18Q3，Azure 增长放缓至 76%，依旧接近 AWS 最快的时候 (2015 Q2, 81%)。

微软一直没有把 Azure 的收入单独列出，仅作为 Intelligent Cloud Division 的一部分汇报。这个 division 包括了 Windows Server, Azure 和其它企业服务。今年第二季度，整个 division 的收入首次超过 AWS。

虽然这样不算直接的 apple-to-apple 比较，但侧面正好提醒我们微软在企业市场的底蕴，也是 Azure 超高速增长和未来发展潜力的保障。相比之下，AWS 于 Amazon 其它业务的协同效应一般，远不比微软有其它企业服务以及 office 365、Github 等。

Amazon 要保住市场份额，还有很多工作要做。

再来做一个对于 Azure 收入的直接估算：

  • 第三季度 Intelligent Cloud Division 整体增长 24% 至 8.6 billion
  • 假设除 Azure 外这个 division 其它收入增长 10%，则 Azure% * 76% + (1 – Azure%) * 10% = 24%
  • Azure% = 21%，Azure 第三季度收入约 1.8 billion，大约在 AWS 2015 年 Q2 – Q3 水平
  • 考虑到其它业务增长可能没有 10%，实际 Azure 数字可能更大

For Being Written In History? First Gene-edited Babies

Twin girls (Lulu and Nana) were born this month in China and they might be making a history. Applying CRISPR-cas9 to disable the CCR5 gene, which plays a key role in HIV infection, Jiankui He revealed details about the “surgery” in an exclusive interview with AP released on Monday.

At Shenzhen

According to AP, He studied at Rice and Stanford before going back to China. He opened a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST) of in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.

He has been on leave from teaching since early this year, but he remains on the faculty and has a lab at SUST.

Partner

The U.S. scientist who worked with him on this project after He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston. Deem also holds what he called “a small stake” in — and is on the scientific advisory boards of — He’s two companies.

All about making a headline and a history?

The motivation to prevent HIV is good, and justifiable according to George Church. But for many stakeholders in this case, other things come into play. It is political.

“Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing” was to held in Hong Kong from Nov.27 to Nov.29 (Beijing time). The He Lab uploaded videos on YouTube on Nov.26. No coincident.

Things like this could have been discussed thoroughly beforehand. Why is that related parties are “shocked” now?

The plan could have been reported months ago and open to comments/discussions. Why is that no industry associations are aware of anything?

Even the news and YouTube videos could have been written and released the day after the twin was born. Why waiting?

I believe in the future of gene editing; and it will eventually be used in humans, babies and embryos someday. But how this particular news unfolds makes me kinda uncomfortable.

It is understandable that someone (not only about He) wants to make a history, wants to be the “first”.

It is as well understandable that some others are not happy that the “first” title has been stolen.

…

But I would rather see science & technology less political and less about fame, making history or setting standards/principles.

When science & technology are being pursued largely for showing off, it is pathetic.

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Beyond Meat Go IPO and Non-animal Food Trend

From Vegetarians to non-animal meat-like food, we are entering an age of synthetic foods going mainstream.

Beyond Meat – story and IPO

Beyond Meat (BYNd), a start-up who made the first 100% plant-based burger, filed IPO with SEC recently and will become the first of its kind to trade on Nasdaq.

The founder grew up in Maryland with a family farm business. The company was founded in 2009, with initial operation, and manufacturing in Maryland. The foundational technology was licensed from two researchers in nearby universities. And initially, the company built its presence with Whole Foods Market in mid-Atlantic.

Beyond Meat was funded by venture capitals, including Kleiner Perkins (16.1% pre-IPO stake), Obvious Ventures, among others, totaling $140+ million before IPO. The latest round valued the company at $550 million last year.

The IPO filing indicates a $100 million raise. Currently, the most important product is the Beyond Burger, selling through various grocery chains and other channels, representing 71% of 2017 sales.

Beyond Beyond Meat

Within this space, the most famous startup might be Impossible Foods, sold in many restaurants including The Counter. It raised $114 million this year from investors including Temasek.

Other initiatives include the new plant-protein-based drink by Starbucks, although not a popular offering.

I think for sure in the future food market, the overall percentage of plant-based food will increase and animal-killing will be decreased by a lot. Whether eventually most of the food will be entirely synthesized remains a question for now.

At least in 30-50 years, I think the benefits of non-plant-based food are non-obvious. But the non-animal trend will be more influential and be part of everyone’s life, not just for vegetarians.

A Glimpse into Instagram’s Commercial Efforts

  • I will keep this updated
  • Based on personal ins screenshots

Effort One – Bis/Org official page and promotion

E.g.

Similar to FB’s news feed ads; similar to ads in Wechat Moments, etc.

Effort Two – Ads in Instagram Stories, in three forms: Learn More, Shop Now, Subscribe

E.g.

Currently Instagram hasn’t provide direct shopping/subscription function; it is linking to third-party websites.

But I could see it is possible to bypass Amazon or Apple ID subscriptions.

Effort Three – cosponsored

E.g. (from a public account through search)

This is more like a platform and pairing influencers with businesses. Provide a way for influencer to monetize and change the way businesses used in promotion.

Effort Four – cross suggestion/reference

It is not formally introduced to users. But it is enabled by Instagram’s ecosystem.

E.g., after I followed an independent hotel in Palm Spring, I got three likes from JW Marriott Desert Springs (a nearby hotel).

Also, I got followed by collegehousephilly after following DailyPennsylvania (student-run newspaper at Penn, mostly seen by Penn students); Philly is short for Philadelphia, where Penn is located.

Will keep updating this post.

A Great Symmetry?

A random thought here…

San Francisco = New York City (Manhattan)| in terms of the central hub in west/east, financial and corporate presence, high rise apartments

San Jose (South Bay) = Philadelphia | in terms of specialized industries, lead in Information Age (semiconductor) & lead in Industrial Age

Los Angeles + San Diego = Orlando + Miami + Key west | In terms of weather, travel and entertainment industries, life styles

So California is a semi-country.

In the Age of Services Bundling

The recent departure of Google Cloud’s CEO leads to many discussions on the business models. Specifically, Google Cloud service is usually co-marketed with other enterprise services provided by Google. For businesses that rely heavily on Google’s internet advertising, it feels a combination of a natural need of using its Cloud and an external soft-pressure from Alphabet.

US enterprise cloud business is mainly comprised by 3 companies – Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Amazon is famous for its 7-year head start. However, Microsoft Azure has surpassed AWS in revenue for the first time in Q2 this year.

[Some thoughts on cloud business: with its dominating position in enterprise market, and its Office suite going online with subscription model, Microsoft is definitely capitalizing a lot on the bundling with Azure cloud services. Google definitely wanted to replicate the business model, but found itself lack of comparable presence in the enterprise market – e.g. direct relationships, sales reps. That was probably the reason Alphabet brought in Diane Greene, co-founder of VMWare, in Nov. 2015 with all the enterprise connections and experiences behind her.]

The bundling + subscription is everywhere. Amazon Prime is a bundling, with original unlimited free two-day shipping to Amazon Music/Video/Fresh/Now, etc.; Netflix is essentially a bundling – with some core contents plus other programs; AT&A Direct TV is another example; Square is bundling terminals (POS), employee management…

It is so prevalent that I would like to say that instead of “software eating X”, it is “bundling X and just subscribe together”.

Capitalizing on Fear for Anti-Competition

Following up on the previous post of WSJ buying ads on Twitter, I found an underlying trend to explain it and other similar situations – companies are afraid of the accusations that they are preventing or reducing competitions, especially in the tech industry where network effects is extremely strong and “winners take all”.

Just another example here – Amazon Music putting ads on YouTube.

Fundamentally, there are similar laws around the globe focusing on competition, anti-monopoly and antitrust. Twitter doesn’t want to make the case that it is discouraging other medias’ ads; YouTube doesn’t want to make the case that it is discouraging other music apps’ ads.

It has more profound meanings other than ads. Google was fined in Europe for bundling Android in June with its other services, reducing competitions in services such as search. Going way back, Microsoft’s antitrust case in 2001 is probably the most famous one – a settlement was reached for its bundling of Windows and IE (may discourage other web browsers).

This concept can be expanded into many fields. And the fear of being seen as anti-competition is deeply rooted in every tech company.

We should see that Apple should welcome YouTube and Amazon Music so that it won’t be charged as anti-competition in music distribution. Apple Music is born with a market share limit.

Other examples – Apple should keep Fitbit with its Apple Watch, Chrome should keep other search engines with Google Search, Amazon should keep those third-party items with its AmazonBasic lines, etc… Uber should keep Lyft, Intel should keep AMD. Disney should be careful for its contents and distribution channels, so does AT&T…

There are many more examples. And this will last in the foreseeable future, maybe until ordinary antitrust law can’t handle new norms. Or, it may lead to excessive capitalization on the law. Basically, the other side will use antitrust as an very effective weapon. It won’t be a commonly used weapon among small companies due to high legal costs and lack of resources to maintain big market share. But it may be used more often by relatively big companies to expand into new fields with meaningful presence, building into conglomerates in the new era.

Stretched Valuation in Ride-Hailing – Uber’s financials and others

Uber reported some 2018 Q3 quarterly financial numbers on Wednesday.

As similar ride-hailing companies across the globe may go public in the coming 2019-2020, here I compiled some publicly available numbers together.

While Uber’s  revenue growth is slowing down, at least it can target a 2019 full year revenue over $15 billion with 25%+ growth rate (an implied valuation multiple of 8x revenue).

Similar for Lyft – at least it needs an annualized revenue of $3 billion (an implied valuation multiple of 10x revenue), which means ~$750 million per quarter. It seems easier to achieve to me in Lyft’s case.

And Didi… its take rate from GMV is said to be much lower than Uber’s (~23%). Assuming a GMV of ¥120 billion in 2019 and a take rate of 10%, Didi will achieve an annual run rate of ~$1,700 million. Then it will be valued at 50x revenue multiple for a $85 billion valuation…

No comments on specific company. But overall, this space seems to have stretched valuation.

However, some other factors need to be counted in, such as low risk of competition (the market structure is mature or foreseeable I would say), the definite future of transportation-as-a-service (with growing market share in overall transportation), upcoming initiatives (e.g. autonomous car services, autonomous on-demand truck, etc.)

It seems that certain future is coming for sure in many investors’ eyes. Or they are just made to believe in it.

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