Hey, Can here. Today, we talk about Twitter’s endless trepidations. There are certain things reasonable people can disagree on. Should you douse your fries in ketchup or mayo? Which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars? Does god exist, and if so could we tell? There was a time, back … | Continue reading
In 2002, when I started working on a trading floor, I would get lunch for everyone on the desk. It’s like you might imagine: About 10 guys would bark really specific orders at you, and yell if you got something wrong. I would walk over to 56th street, where there were a number of … | Continue reading
Can here. Hope you Americans had a great memorial day! Let’s talk about spam. Tasty, Tasty Spam Bill Gates probably never said “640K ought to be enough for anybody” but he definitely did say email spam will be solved in two years, back in 2004. “Two years from now, spam will be s … | Continue reading
Ranjan here. Today I'm going to talk about The Next Great Insight. A disclaimer: While I have professional experience with currencies and debt, and personal investing experience with public equities, I have no real experience in private market investing. My entire knowledge of pr … | Continue reading
Can here. Let’s talk encryption. Intrinsic motivation is hard to muster, but it is powerful. Back when I worked at a cloud storage company, our CTO really wanted us to be excited about our End-to-End Encrypted (E2E) offering. He believed, rightly so, that without E2E, any rogue e … | Continue reading
Ranjan here. Today I'll be talking about the California Consumer Privacy Act. It's a consumer data privacy law that's being called "America's GDPR" and will go into effect on January 1st, 2020. The connection to GDPR feels right. People are freaking out about being compliant, whi … | Continue reading
Can here. Today we talk stocks. And, yes, Uber. Taking Stock of Stocks What determines the price of a given stock? If you want to be academic about it, you’d expect it to be net present value of all future expected cash flows to the stockholders. In reality, though, it’s set by s … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, and today I'll be talking TikTok. Or more accurately, TikTok's owner, ByteDance. I worked on a personalized news app startup from 2014-17 (Informerly, RIP). We didn't pull it off, but this newsletter isn’t going to be some Medium.com soliloquy on startup failure. | Continue reading
Hi! This is Can, the Turkish one. If you asked a ton of people “Which country controls the internet?”, what would the answer be? Most people, I am guessing, would first balk at the question but then probably say United States. 🇺🇸!🇺🇸!🇺DZ … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, and today I'm talking Taboola and Outbrain. Most of my work in media has been on subscriptions and branded content, so I've never played in the depths of ad-tech darkness. But, I spent seven years trading currency derivatives so am well versed in the art of arbitrage … | Continue reading
Welcome back, friends and foes. This is your host, Can, speaking. Two weeks ago my co-host wrote about the digital exhaust, and mentioned how a surreptitious Nest thermostat can keep tabs on the new owners of a house. I’ve experienced something similar myself. My previous partner … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, talking about datasets stuck in time, Rotten Tomatoes, and internet reviews. My co-host Can is heading to Beirut this weekend. I brought up how when I visited, I was shocked at how good Foursquare was for recommendations. We agreed it can still deliver better than a … | Continue reading
Hi folks. It’s me, Can, as your host today. Ever heard of the cloud? I talked last week here about the arbitrary, if not blurry, line between the server and the app. Products are products, features are features. It is probably good that you don’t care whether it is the supercompu … | Continue reading
Ranjan here. The other day I happened upon some long-hidden channels in our company Slack. They were all feeding in various posts from Reddit and Twitter via IFTTT. Triggers like " New hot post in /r/todayilearned " or " If new tweet by specific user @techmeme | Continue reading
This is your host Can . Today, we talk software. People commonly ask me what I did at Uber. I wrote code, is one approximation. In many people’s mind, many “companies” exist as some app on their phones. Most people realize there’s a “backend” or “datacenter” or “servers” somewher … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, talking about identity and marketing. With no offense to my co-host Can, who was a Senior Software Engineer at Uber, I deleted the app a while back during the peak of #deleteuber. I then installed it again when visiting a city that didn't have Lyft. Hey, I tried. | Continue reading
Hey. This is your host Can Duruk . Today, we talk startup options. Suppose you are joining an early stage startup and you are faced with choosing an offer that is either heavy on the options or cash. Which one do you pick? Do you lean more decisively on the stock side, or prefer … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, and I want to talk to you about financial indexes . We’ve all have heard about the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Index, but are you familiar with the companies that manage and sell these products? Financial index providers are quietly becoming powerful thanks to the rise … | Continue reading
Hi. This is your host Can Duruk speaking. Earlier, this week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a surprise charm offensive, literally asking to be regulated. He first published an opinion piece on The Post, and now is rubbing elbows in Europe with the Eurocracts. What a turn of … | Continue reading
Ranjan here. Can's newsletter earlier this week got me thinking about the idea of data as a liability, especially in the context of Apple's big event this week and the launch of the Apple Credit Card. But first, a quick story about the time I was Venmo-robbed. | Continue reading
Hi! This is your host, Can Duruk . Today, we talk data. I love stretching analogies to the point they break. Take the tired cliche that data is the new oil . It makes some sense, considering the biggest data hoarders seem to be doing great, like the oil companies once were and st … | Continue reading
Ranjan here, and I’d like to talk to you about Theranos. I’ve long been obsessed with this story, to the point of a borderline creepy fascination with Sunny Balwani back in 2016 . John Carreyrou's Bad Blood was one of the best books from last year, and I just started listening to … | Continue reading
Hi! This is your host, Can Duruk , taking the reins back from Ranjan. Let’s go. Is my profit margin your tax? If you have to pay to me to merely exist in the marketplace, it can feel the same. Yet, taxes are unique, because generally you have to pay them to not do business, but a … | Continue reading
This post is from Ranjan (the other half of The Margins). When we think of the impact of giant tech platforms on journalism, Facebook and Google are the usual suspects. Amazon is certainly making its mark on the entertainment industry, but we normally don't think about how it's c … | Continue reading
Hey. Can Duruk here. Let’s begin. Imagine you are a business analyst for a public company, and one day the CEO of your favorite company says they are shifting the business to an entirely new business model. Think big here; suppose the company shifted to focusing entirely on what … | Continue reading
Hi there. Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk here. Welcome to The Margins. This is where Ranjan and Can ramble endlessly about technology of business, and business of technology. We come from different backgrounds; Ranjan is a former currency trader and Can is a former software engineer. | Continue reading