Five Things Tech: Amazon, Big Tech, Battery, China, Excel
Saturday is a great day to read up on all the tech stuff around us.
Thanks for reading Five Things Tech! If you haven’t subscribed, please click the button below:
Well, hello again!
This week we’ll digg into why Alexa is still pretty much useless, unless of course you want to know the answer to math problems, need to skip a song or want to know what the weather is like outside. We’ll also take a look at how Big Tech is effectively hurting the startup ecosystem by killing innovation. Batteries are everywhere these days and they are getting better and better. Talking about better - President Biden is making sure China falls behind in the chip race, which is a smart move and shows that he is better at tactics and strategy. Finally, you’ll find out about people who do really weird stuff with excel. In Las Vegas. Yes, I know. It’s crazy.
Please enjoy Five Things Tech!
How Amazon blew Alexa’s shot to dominate AI, according to more than a dozen employees who worked on it
I had been wondering for a while why Amazon has been rather quiet on everything AI, except for its investment in Anthropic and obviously, its huge cloud business. Now I know why Alexa still hasn’t changed and remains rather useless.
How Big Tech Is Killing Innovation
“Today’s tech giants were once small start-ups themselves. They built businesses by figuring out how to commercialize new technologies — Apple’s personal computer, Microsoft’s operating system, Amazon’s online marketplace, Google’s search engine and Facebook’s social network. These new technologies didn’t so much compete with incumbents as route around them, offering new ways of doing things that upended the expectations of the market. But that pattern of start-ups innovating, growing and leapfrogging incumbents seems to have stopped.”
Decade of the Battery
China is losing the Chip War
“Amid intensifying competition, Biden exploited American dominance in semiconductors to gain an advantage and hold back China’s technological and economic progress. The chip tells us a lot about the true balance of power between the U.S. and China, and the difficulties Xi faces in his efforts to tip that balance his way.” - Biden is doing plenty of smart moves.
The Excel superstars throw down in Vegas
I was never a big fan of Excel, but this is really special.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
— Nico
I will not say that I don't love the Excel championship piece! But I'm someone who drafts his weekly meal plan in a spreadsheet 🥴🫣