HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS GEN Zers AND EARTH DAY

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

We Need to Give Gen Z a Little More Help   

Spending your days alone in front of a computer screen–even on Zoom–is a recipe for social disintegration. We need to get Zers more engaged.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

APR 22, 2025

We already know that for all the substantial benefits that various new digital tools and technologies have created and notwithstanding the many ways in which they have irrevocably altered our lives, these disruptive change agents have been accompanied by a host of problems, trade-offs, and downsides.

Facebook may have proposed to connect the whole world, but basically that global reach has facilitated the company’s ability to spread its social media poison worldwide and empower MAGAts and trolls everywhere. Targeting and tormenting vulnerable teenage girls for creeps and corrupt advertisers isn’t exactly an achievement that Sheryl Sandberg should be proud of leaning into. Zuck’s mindless and shameless promotion and amplification of Russian and right-wing rumors, lies and propaganda undoubtedly help to elect the Orange Monster who is now destroying both our democracy and our economy.

Unfortunately, even though we see more and more of these adverse consequences on our employees, families, and country, we’ve decided to largely feign ignorance and to spend as little time as possible admitting, addressing or attempting to remedy any of the ills we’ve brought upon ourselves and our children.

Now we face the likelihood that A.I. in all its incarnations will only exponentially accelerate these critical threats and societal concerns. As older adults, with the benefit of prior times and the attitudes of the good old days, we’re fairly safe and secure; theoretically, we can consciously assume the risk of these threats in part because we’ve had an appropriate and thoughtful foundation as we grew up. Also, because we won’t be around here too much longer anyway to be subject to the perils of the new world.01:49

But what about the problems we’re foisting on our younger employees and our kids, who have no choice in the matter? Can we give them a hand and a little help before we shove off?

So much of what we’re likely to see in the future will be simulated, synthetic, and soulless that it’s extra important now to try to share and sustain a few important traditions and rituals that were a part of our own youth. Mentors can work miracles if anyone’s willing to listen to them. This critical sharing, spreading, and transferring of knowledge and experience to future new business builders and leaders as well as to our own offspring is how we can try to create compelling cultures, preserve morals and values, and help sustain a solid societal foundation for our country. That’s especially true in turbulent and confusing times like these.

By simply targeting the technologies and platforms and blaming the tools, we don’t even fairly acknowledge our own roles in enabling some of the longer-term damage and lasting adverse emotional and psychological effects these developments are having, especially on Gen Zers. Surveys from Gallup and the Walton Foundation report that this generation basically doesn’t trust anything. Not politicians, not lawyers or courts, not academics, and not law enforcement.

Apart from the depressing list of consistent disappointment they grew with, including 9/11, the non-existent weapons of war offered as justifications for invasions, the Iraq war, the financial crisis, and the pandemic, it’s no wonder that they have no faith, no anchors, no fundamental values, and no patience. They’re all in a hurry, they think they’re making good time, but they’re going nowhere. Dopamine, constant consumption, and the desire for instant gratification drive their behaviors and it’s all facilitated by our manipulative technologies.

Pervasive and omnipresent technology has sped up every aspect of our lives (call it “hurry sickness”) with all of us as willing participants and beneficiaries who are pleased and grateful without really understanding or appreciating the accompanying costs. In addition, the new tools – especially the smart phone with its embedded camera – have done a great job of sterilizing our interactions, hiding our appearances and emotions, and separating us from actually and authentically experiencing so many important aspects of our day-to-day lives.

Do you think for a moment that anyone has actual friends on Facebook? I’ve asked dozens of these Gen Zers how many close friends they have from their childhood, which is where the most important connections begin or, for that matter, how many they have right at the moment and the responses are unbelievably depressing. Most men are lucky, if pressed, to recall a single good one that they’ve kept in regular touch with over the years and most also report that, apart from peers at work who they sometimes socialize with, they have no other close companions. Families these days are also widely dispersed and no longer provide the support, connection and stability they previously did, regardless of their economic level.

Sitting for untold hours in a closed room before a screen – regardless of its content – is no substitute for face-to-face interactions with parents, peers and prospective partners. It’s no way to form lasting memories, and it’s ultimately an emotionally sterile and unsatisfying experience. You don’t “play” a computer game – it plays you. You sit largely passively before a device designed to serially challenge, seduce and reward you for a bunch of useless accomplishments and valueless achievements. You never directly interact with another person and frankly you ultimately learn nothing from the process. Endless effort, empty calories and no gain.

We have kids hiding behind keyboards to bully and torment others, and creeps spending all day trying to seek out children for every kind of perverse purpose. Snapchat publicly admits to receiving 10,000 reports of sextortion per month. And with the explosion of mobile sports gambling hard on the heels of online gaming, things will only get worse and more perilous.

We’ve made the speed (of everything) the prime directive and objective in our lives. Time is scarce, attention is fleeting, and the technocrats have taught us to believe that we can have it all and have it right now as well. Our world spins faster and faster and we never really have the time any more to luxuriate in the moment or recall a storied past.

Everything, as President Barlett always asked in The West Wing, is about “what’s next?” and we quickly lose sight of and interest in virtually everything that is and was. Thinking about tomorrow is all well and good, but not if it immediately diminishes the value and importance of today.

This tendency is why Trump is such a successful and perpetual liar – no one cares or even remembers what he lied about yesterday. Driven by frenzied media, we’re always focused on the next crisis, outrage, or blunder.

Worse yet, our kids have lost all interest in the past, in reading virtually anything, in studying history, in our traditions and – most importantly – in the lessons we’ve learned and the painful experiences we’ve lived through and would love to share. It’s hard to imagine how a culture will persist and strengthen over time if we continue to teach the next several generations that everything is temporary; all material matters are readily disposable or replicable; and that there is nothing to be gained by looking backwards.  And that we can quickly and cheaply substitute artifice and artificial environments like amusement parks for the real, hands-on, and authentic activities and the crucial inter-personal communications and relationships that were so much an important part of our own youth and development.  

Watching concert attendees attempting to view and capture a performance through their phones rather than simply watching and listening is a sad sight. Seeing parents directing and ordering their kids around and ignoring guests at the kids’ own birthday parties in order to frantically pose all the participants for crappy videos which few, if any, will ever see again sucks all the joy and actual enjoyment out of the occasion. We seem to forget that as adults we’ve already made most of our memories – now it’s our kids’ turn – but we’re intent on enlisting our own offspring in painful and stressfully staged rituals that are no fun for anyone and certainly nothing to fondly remember.

Or worse yet, we drag them to Disney-like artificial environments where the entire family can substitute conspicuous consumption for any kind of substance, learning or truly memorable experiences. The Space Mountain in the Magic Kingdom will never replace the Matterhorn, or for that matter, even an evening in a make-shift tent under the stars in your own backyard.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

When the Lack of Memory Isn’t About Your PC 

Our devices are too good at remembering the things our brains used to handle. 

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

OCT 8, 2024

 

I honestly don’t know whether this is physiologically correct or not – or whether this whole situation is just a product of my advanced age – but I’m convinced that memory is a muscle.  And that, if you don’t make specific efforts to exercise it regularly, you will lose more and more of the capacity as you age. Call it a “use it or lose it” proposition and we’re all on the wrong side of the equation.

And, in the interests of full disclosure, this is also not a pitch for Prevagen or whatever other non-prescription remedies are being peddled non-stop on your tube these days. I have to admit that I find myself watching these particular ads more closely and that I’m relieved that whoever is writing these ads decided to give the jellyfish a break and stop claiming that the magical and curative ingredient has been extracted from these poor little creatures to further serve mankind. Feel free to Google “apoaequorin” if my reference is a little obtuse. Or maybe it’s just your poor memory.

Speaking of ad folk, does it seem that in any given hour of tube viewing, you are likely to see the exact same half dozen ads over and over – sometimes run back-to-back – in interruptive bursts that seem longer and longer all the time. Do they think that we won’t remember seeing the same ads before or – perish the thought – are they convinced that we’ll only remember the ad content if they consistently and repeatedly beat us over the head with the same junk?

As a longtime technologist, I also feel that we can’t really blame our computers and phones or the tech community for the fact that we no longer feel even the slightest obligation to remember phone numbers, addresses, directions or tons of other formerly essential information, which we used to carry around in our heads. We even used to brag about that capability. It’s a much more sensitive subject when the matter relates to birthdays and anniversaries – especially of family members and relatives.

But to be honest, most of those dates are also long gone and, but for Facebook reminders and email notifications, would be regularly forgotten. In a fit of poignant honesty, coupled with a devious wink or glance, the new Apple Intelligence ads offer repeated suggestions that when you are stuck for a memory or a name to go with an approaching face, your iPhone and Siri will quickly rise to the rescue. Whatever did we do before to fill these gaps?

Also allow me a moment to whine about the streaming strategy that sucks us in with an introductory free two-fer (two episodes of a new show or series made available, initially) and then asking us to patiently wait and then tune in once a week for the next month or two to see subsequent episodes. Apart from the complexity of trying to track what day the next installment of seven or eight different programs will be released, who honestly even remembers what happened “previously,” notwithstanding the 30-second recap that precedes each show?

Kudos to the Apple TV show, Bad Monkey, starring Vince Vaughn, where the opening weekly recap is offered grudgingly by a tongue-in-cheek narrator who admits that he hates doing it. And it’s still next to impossible to follow the multiple storylines. I find myself longing for the clarity and consistency of the hundreds of Law and Order episodes, where you could reliably count on the Dick Wolf formula with the firm knowledge and reassurance that virtually every show would be wrapped up in a nice bow by the end of the hour.

Lest you believe that these concerns are uncommon, I have a simple and familiar experiment you can use to see where you stand on this (possibly) age-related memory spectrum. Almost all of us have now been exposed to some mobile or desktop security system or two-factor authentication requirement that sends a numeric code to your phone and requires you to enter the code (ranging from six to eight digits) into some digital form in order to allow access to financial accounts and the like.

Typically, the texted code (which is time-bound) does you the “favor” of quickly disappearing so that you are required to remember it and then return to some other screen and enter it there. My own limit seems to be six digits and even then, I have to mentally break the number into two, three-digit parts to be sure I have it. There is zero chance without writing it down that I will ever again remember any eight-digit code the banks seem to increasingly favor. If you haven’t already experienced this phenomenon yourself, write down a few larger random number sequences and try it.  

The only good news is that the newer smart phones will automatically retain the texted code for you and autofill it into the appropriate place once you return to the prior location. Considering that this is their doing in the first place, it’s the very least they can do for us.

And please don’t get me started on the indecipherable buses and stoplights in Captcha quizzes or the very sad irony that we humans now regularly need to prove to the computers that we are real. It’s not something I’m likely to forget any time soon.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

You Need to Get Real With AI and LLMs

Trying to harness all the world's knowledge to create a sales lead or a new product will only send your company down a variety of rabbit holes. Industry-specific models are emerging that will help you narrow your focus. 

 

Expert Opinion By Howard Tullman, General managing partner, G2T3V and Chicago High Tech Investors @howardtullman1

Sep 10, 2024

Everyone is talking about ChatGPT, LLMs, and AI, and they all want to know about the opportunities and risks these new tools and technologies represent to makers, markets, and, of course, mankind. Most of the conversation seems to be quite high-level and mainly strategic. You don't hear much about the practical, operational, and tactical concerns that any entrepreneur who's thinking about building a new business based on these tools should be addressing. You can spend your time building castles in the air, but, as Thoreau said, the most essential task is to put solid and sustainable foundations under them. Otherwise, you've built nothing of substance or value.

There's an enormous wave of new AI-focused startups enabled by chat-derived interfaces, but they suffer from two debilitating deficiencies.

First, they are sitting on top of too much, rather than too little, information. Even if you employ the world's best prompt engineers, they aren't miracle workers, and will soon report back that there is little likely to be gained by attempting to broadly interrogate vast and largely irrelevant stores of information. You need to fish where the fish are, rather than in the entire ocean. The fact that access to the generalized Large Language Models (LLMs) has been commercialized and simplified isn't a reason to waste your time and effort, because it won't get you to where you need to be. It's exactly the same as the old story about the man looking for his lost keys next to a streetlamp--because the light was better there. 01:49

The somewhat encouraging news is that at least a portion of the latest entrants are now starting to offer, market, and fundraise based on variations of a single theme--the successful implementation of industry-specific inquiry systems designed to interrogate one or more of the LLMs that have been built by the four or five tech major players. The idea is that they will build inquiry tools that limit and focus their tasks only to those portions of the universal datasets that relate to a given industry, and use and incorporate distinct terms and particular language.

Building these "industry-specific" overlays is actually one of the first cases of a grudging recognition of the obvious fact that asking any general LLM a detailed question about your specific business is a fool's errand, very much akin to attempting to boil the ocean. You'll get back vague, broad, and useless pronouncements (with the occasional hallucination) and not much else. A proprietary LLM built upon an underlying dataset that relates to your specific area, interest, business, or industry is the only smart approach. This will save time, money, and your technical resources, and will be far less costly and much easier to develop in-house rather than through third-party vendors.

The second major concern for many of these new players is that they don't remotely have control of their own destinies because, at best, they're mere renters of the powerful LLMs that underlie the entire industry infrastructure. These, unfortunately, can be altered, limited, withdrawn, or priced in ways that effectively destroy the operation and the value of the businesses that depend upon them.

We have seen this movie many times in the past, perhaps most recently and glaringly in the various sectors of the digital ad economy. That's where startups and even well-established companies awoke one morning to discover that Facebook or Google or Amazon or Apple had abruptly shut off their oxygen, and their vital traffic, by shifting some criteria, algorithm, or other categorization, rendering them effectively invisible on the web.     

But a far more telling and direct example of the "platform" problem is the computer gaming industry, where what began with hundreds of startups aiming to build computer games ended up a few years later completely dominated by Xbox (Microsoft), Nintendo, and PlayStation (Sony). They became the only players in the space because they built and owned the gaming platforms on which every game (regardless of who built it) needed to be licensed, with fees and royalties paid to the platform owners.

Today we're seeing virtually the exact same thing happening with LLMs. The main LLMs are controlled by the four or five usual tech suspects, who have already become gatekeepers and toll takers for user access. There's really no way to avoid or escape them--but, as noted, there's some modest consolation in the fact that, for many years to come, most businesses won't need access to such enormous and unwieldy datasets.

The bottom line is pretty clear. Every new AI startup that is dependent on, and sits upon, one of these tech giants' platforms for its operations is a tenant at best, running a business subject to the whims, competitive considerations, extortions, and other demands. These startups can be cut off in an instant. It's never smart to build your business on someone else's real estate.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

                 TikTok Now Tops Twitter in Adult News

TikTok Has Tons of Lessons to Teach Entrepreneurs

The wildly popular app may be a target of a China-wary Congress. But what it has accomplished is something that we can't ignore. 

 

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

 

Leaving aside all the crazy MAGA conversations about whether TikTok is really another subversive scheme by the Chinese Communist Party (along with Covid-19 and Fentanyl) designed to poison the minds of young Americans, the fact is that there's an enormous amount that entrepreneurs and business builders can learn from the popular app.  How is it that, rapidly and remarkably, TikTok has taken over online entertainment media, peer-to-peer education, celebrity commerce, news, and even everyday political conversations?

TikTok has become the short-form, algo-driven, sugary sweet, bite-sized attention grabber that is here to stay whatever you hear or think about the Chinese boogeyman. And it's about a lot more than video recipes for baking drug-laced brownies, fixing your fantasy face, or parkour pranks and bungee jumps. TikTok is a powerful and valuable resource that is changing the daily behavior of tens of millions of people worldwide -- an emancipating revelation for young and old listeners and learners as well as a lightning-fast tool for distributing and democratizing news, content, and commerce. More than a third of the users say that TikTok is where they get their daily dose of news and, overall, they open the app on average eight times a day.

The core and critical TT lessons are less about the content (so much of which is admittedly useless crap) and far more about how TikTok emerged, quickly and continually morphed, and set about eating the lunch of the traditional entertainment and media in what I would call a textbook case of Clay Christensen's vision of disruptive innovation.  Except today it happens in triple time. Quick and dirty, simple to use, bottoms up entry, ignored and ridiculed by the big guys for too long, constant iteration based on user feedback and very smart technology. And then, all at once, TikTok is sitting on top of the heap. Creators and visitors today are on the app more than 95 minutes a day on average and about 26 hours a month. 00:00

01:53

 

Yet the TikTok takeover wasn't exactly an overnight success or even much of a surprise to the folks who were watching and living through the process. Anyone who thinks that the TikTok creators are just a bunch of kids rather than the next generation of entrepreneurs simply isn't paying attention --- attention being the critical currency of today and tomorrow. The TikTokers have absolutely mastered the triple talents of grabbing attention, leveraging virality and engineering authentic engagement. Half a dozen of the TT leaders each have more than 50 million engaged and active followers who are willing to share and spread the gospel daily.

Maybe what spooks the politicians is that TikTok is just getting started in building its economic engine. Already, more than five million U.S. businesses actively use TikTok, including Inc.  Sponsors, brands, and advertisers are welcome, and TikTok is building out management and agency support as well as a marketplace for creators to assist in the process of matching the proper parties with the best messengers. TikTok will be the lead sponsor of the 2024 Met Gala. (See https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-goes-to-the-met .)  Creators will soon be able to sell their merch directly. A billion-dollar TikTok Creator fund will provide direct financial payments to attract, support and compensate new creators. And, in a throwback to the old days of appointment TV, TikTok is launching nightly programming which -- just a guess -- may be the last nail in the coffin of the very old, stale, and tired late-night TV shows.

So, if you're trying to build your business and create buzz, here are four of the most important TikTok tactics to keep in mind.

1.     Build a Culture of Support, Cooperation, and Partnership with your Key Players.

Only two industries call their customers "users" -- tech businesses and drug dealers. TikTok decided early on that even "influencers" was too passive a description and not a strong enough identity. "Creators" meant power, agency, and talent as well as a desire to make something. They are happy to work together, collaboratively, and competitively, and alongside TikTok to make their dreams and desires real. Unlike Uber, which treated its drivers as disposable cogs, or other sites which initially served everyone but the talent, TikTok made creators the central focus of its attention from the outset and the creators returned the favor. More than 80% of TikTok's 1.1 billion monthly active users have posted a video. It's a two-way partnership and a mutual admiration society.

2.     Explain and Insist Upon a Fierce Work Ethic, Accountability, and Everyday Output.

Creators listen and learn from their peers, copy, and build upon the best work they see elsewhere. They quickly realize that it's a 24/7 undertaking if they want to keep up, build their base, and hold on to their followers. Everything is about speed and currency and, if you don't have something new and different to say today, your visitors will quickly go elsewhere. Interestingly enough, in this rapid-fire world, chunky clunky, unpolished video reads as authentic rather than amateurish. Another lesson the old-time makers never learned.  Nonetheless, for the serious creators, it's still a much higher bar than many beginners realize and a lifestyle that leads to exactly the same kind of rude awakening which many new employees in other startups and high-growth businesses experience as well as early burnout. Success in this space also requires that the company itself be attentive, responsive, and infused with the same sense of urgency as all of the other parties.

 3.     Keep Moving the Cheese and Stay Ahead of the Competition.

When the competition wakes up, we want them to find our smoldering campfires while we're already over the next hill. Iteration and constant improvement are the whole ballgame, and no one has moved faster than TikTok. While the traditional players continue to ask their users to fit within their systems, TikTok listens aggressively to its creators' needs and moves quickly to respond. A great example is the length of permitted videos which started at one minute, moved to three minutes, and is now at 10 minutes. That opened up new opportunities and changed the game entirely. This adjustment was largely creator and data driven. Engaged viewers are far more willing than anticipated to watch their favorite creators' work for longer periods of time.

4.     Make Sure Your Technology is Top Notch.

While the front ends of the various video players may look similar, it's what's under the hood in terms of technology and how the specific content is parsed, selected, and delivered to each follower that really differentiates the competitors. TikTok's development of the "For You" page algorithm represented a material departure from the way that the game had been played and a major growth accelerant as well as a powerful tool in securing and cementing engagement. Previous programs fed visitors content from sites that the given viewer followed - a somewhat closed loop and really limited discovery. TikTok's system listened and watched what you were actually selecting and viewing in full as well as what you skipped over and then - from a vastly larger universe - selected and sent you content that the algorithm thought you'd most enjoy. This was a page taken right out the Steve Jobs bible. His famous quote: "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." TikTok did just that.

TikTok has plenty of old and new competitors, but no equals on the near horizon. If politics and regulators don't get in the way, it's hard to imagine that TikTok won't overtake Facebook and Google in the next year or two and become the world leader in social media.

New INC. Magazine Blog Post by Howard Tullman

Which of the FAANG's Will Get Broken Up?

Not all of them. And not Amazon. And don't forget to include Microsoft in this bunch of dominant, powerful tech companies. But the idea that they're all going to get trustbusted is silly.

By Howard Tullman

General managing partner, G2T3V and Chicago High Tech Investors

@tullman

I'm surprised at how many smart people don't understand the very different long-term prospects of the members of the FAANG 5. As things begin to heat up and the FTC starts specifically looking at this cast of characters , it's too simplistic to paint them all with the same brush.  Because, while their predatory behaviors may be similar on the surface, there are substantive differences in their businesses and business models. This suggests that the government's likelihood of success in attacking their alleged anti-competitive actions will vary widely.

I spoke last week at a financial conference and one of the other presenters cautioned the audience about how quickly tech-centric businesses can vanish. He noted that only Intel remained today as a major player from a select group of the early semiconductor pioneers.  And he suggested that we'd see a similar turnover among some former tech leaders in the next few years. While he didn't name names, it was clear that his short list included IBM, GE, HP, Xerox, etc. That's astonishing, when you think about it. These companies were once the bluest of blue chips.

I'd say that he will be about half right (two out of five) regarding the FAANG 5.  But to even understand the proper landscape, we probably need to start by changing FAANG to FAAMG. That's because Microsoft will be a major player for a lot longer than Netflix, which is looking more and more like a first-moving, one-trick pony and under tremendous competitive cost, price and content pressures. Meanwhile, unfashionable Microsoft, which still owns the desktop, is just hitting its stride in multiple adjacent verticals, like the Azure cloud. In the end, highly diversified lines of business and multiple material revenue streams will actually aid Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in making their antitrust arguments.

Say what you will about the FTC's light and late responses, at least the agency figured out that taking another look at Microsoft is a lot more relevant than worrying about Netflix. That's especially true if the primary investigative focus is going to be around systemic acquisition patterns that target young, innovative startups before they get big enough to disrupt the industry status quo. Netflix is certainly acquiring and creating content as fast as humanly possible, but so are half a dozen other major media and entertainment players with equally deep pockets and other advantages.  In addition, I'd say that Microsoft's past antitrust traumas along with its new, hyper-low-key leadership, is going to be a pretty effective deterrent and largely inoculate it from much of the saber-rattling.

But unlike Apple and Amazon, you can bet that Facebook and Google are both going to come under repeated fire not simply from federal regulators, but also from every greedy and cash-poor states attorney general, every class action lawyer, and every country in Europe as well. Facebook's $500 million settlement in Illinois for misusing bio-metric data is just an early indicator of the flood of claims and litigation that are coming. These are rich firms, easy targets who haven't handled repeated PR blowups in any effective fashion, and are especially vulnerable around privacy, targeting and data security issues-- which are, of course, at the very heart of their business models.

On the other hand, Apple and Amazon have a much easier path to avoid prosecution and Microsoft also seems to have skirted the whole set of issues in these two areas. In the last year at least, no one I know has Binged anything. And it seems to me that no one ever fretted for a moment about Microsoft's super-sized acquisitions of Skype, LinkedIn and GitHub in terms of stifling young competitors. If anything, given how poor a job Microsoft has done in terms of integrating Skype into its product suite, the concern is almost the complete opposite - that Microsoft will end up ruining Skype and LinkedIn rather than building successfully on them. On the other hand, it's interesting to watch the Teams team from Redmond attack Slack, which feels a lot like Internet Explorer crushing Netscape in the old days. We'll have to see how that plays out; it's unlikely to end in an anti-competitive acquisition anyway.

Product-first businesses like Apple connect to consumers in far different and more personal/emotional ways. Moreover, Tim Cook has gone way out of his way to make privacy a very clear crusade for Apple as well as a sharp stick in the eyes of Apple's big tech competitors. We'll need to watch closely (no pun intended) as the Apple watch becomes more and more of a wearable medical device - although I'd have to say that's not much of a risk yet as the stupid thing keeps telling me I've fallen down and tries to call 911. Note to Apple: I'm still vertical.  

But, all kidding aside, this is another important and differentiating factor.  The Apple watch arguably--and with my express consent-- uses data to improve my life, my training and physical activities, and my health in relatively non-invasive and additive ways. This is miles away from Facebook and Google selling small slices of my mind-share and attention to every advertiser and marketer extant to serve up an unending flood of ads--product and political-- that do next to nothing except enrage me and waste what little time I have left in my life. It's hard to argue that the ad business has ever been a worthwhile enterprise --JUUL for kids, anyone? Every consumer and regulator knows that any claims by advertisers and marketers of doing any good for society are bogus. They are in it to make billions on their ad sales.

An interesting aside is Google's recent earnings report, which makes it very clear that search--the core and largely worthwhile business until corrupted by Google's strategy of selling the top search result spots to the highest bidders-- was slowing.  Only ad sales associated with YouTube are growing and keeping the ship moving forward. Just to show you how difficult it is to compete with the Big 4, remember that even Google couldn't make a successful social network out of Google+ and had to shut the thing down. Here again, you could argue that it would be a piece of cake for the government to simply slice off YouTube from the Googleplex and turn the video service into a free-standing and viable enterprise. Easy peasy.

If you do the same separation math and pull Instagram out of Facebook, you see a pretty clear indication that the Facebook core is stagnant while Instagram (and especially ad and commerce sales connected with it) continues to grow rapidly. Much like Microsoft needs to be careful around Slack, it's going to be fun to watch the claims and the ultimate litigation when Snap finally shuts the doors and points a nasty finger at Facebook for stealing every single thing that Snap ever did. Of course, the guys at Snap probably deserve every bit of bad news they get.

Amazon is equally well insulated for a couple of important reasons as long as Jeff B can control himself in terms of his private life, his politics, and doesn't get lost in space. First and foremost, a "forced" spin-off of Amazon Web Services (AWS) would be accretive to all the current shareholders and probably quickly add to their respective portfolio values once people learned just how lucrative the cloud business really is and how broadly distributed and entrenched Amazon's customer base is. This may end up resembling the old Uncle Remus story where Br'er Rabbit begged Br'er Fox not to fling him in the briar patch where he could promptly escape the fox's clutches. Let's just say that helping Amazon create a trillion-dollar AWS business wouldn't be the worst thing the government could do to them.

But even more to the point, Amazon actually does use our data to make products and services more relevant and attractive to us. One simple example is that, while Facebook and Google re-target the crap out of us based on our search and traffic activities, Amazon knows what we have actually bought and doesn't waste our time or advertisers' money offering us the same pair of shoes we just bought yesterday.

Another powerful and locked-in incentive - especially for seniors - is automated replenishment, in which refills and new supplies magically appear on time on your doorstep. More than 70% of what we buy every week at the supermarket is the same stuff. Why bother to make that trip and do all that heavy lifting if Amazon will deliver it free to your door?  Amazon Prime with more than 150 million members worldwide and growing is an unstoppable force and so attractive and compelling to people that any politician with a brain is going to steer as far away as possible from interfering with that love affair. And, whether President Trump knows this or not, AWS runs a huge amount of the government's own web services and that area of involvement is also rapidly expanding. Finally, there's no question that we all love a good deal and we're all convinced that Amazon really does offer us the best pricing, service, support and delivery system in the country. Hard to look a gift horse in the mouth.

If you thought the old "I want my MTV campaign" was effective, just imagine the heat and screaming that our super-sensitive politicians and regulators would face from an enraged public if they got in Amazon's way.

PUBLISHED ON: FEB 18, 2020

Dealbook - Part 5

1871 Hosts Facebook Workshop

ADL Cyberhate Panel at 1871 MODERATED BY 1871 CEO Howard Tullman

3 ways for Facebook users to handle offensive or abusive content

Facebook is a platform for communication but not necessarily for free speech.

So said Monika Bickert, global policy manager for Facebook, on Monday night at the 1871 tech hub.

“When you’re dealing with this global community where 85 percent of the people are using Facebook from outside the U.S. and Canada, talking about the First Amendment isn’t particularly useful,” Bickert said.

Bickert took questions about how the company handles hate speech and online abuse in a panel moderated by 1871 CEO Howard Tullman. Steve Freeman, director of legal affairs for event host the Anti-Defamation League, which fights bigotry with a focus on anti-Semitism, also appeared on the panel.

Freeman said Facebook is not bound by free speech laws the way government entities are. The social media platform has the right to control the types of speech it allows, he said.

“In our community standards, we are focused on promoting expression and sharing,” Bickert said, “and that necessarily means that if something is dangerous or attacking a person, we want to take that seriously because it’s going to chill speech and sharing.”

Facebook policy prohibits harmful or hateful speech, including that which glorifies violence or threatens others, Bickert said. She said the company relies on community members to report abuse, which staffers review and deal with accordingly.

“We want to give people a variety of weapons,” Bickert said.

She outlined the different ways Facebook users can handle offensive or abusive content:

• Social resolution tools: Facebook suggests that users who don’t like the posts they are tagged in privately message the poster and ask him or her to remove it. The company provides a polite, pre-written message to make the process easier and encourage use. “Our data shows that in 85 percent of cases, this sparks a dialog and in many cases leads to just a voluntary removal of the photo,” Bickert said. This kind of self-policing reduces strain on Facebook, for which addressing reported posts is an expensive and laborious process, Bickert said.

• Block users: Facebook users have the option of blocking harassers or those who post content they interpret as offensive or annoying. In the absence of threats, this can be a good way to shun inappropriate posts and prevent future content, Bickert said. But she warned that blocked users won’t know that they’ve been blocked. “If you just blocked the photo that I posted of you, you said, ‘Whatever, I’ll just defriend Monika and I won’t deal with her anymore,’” and the poster won’t learn anything from that action, Bickert said.

• Report to Facebook: When a user notices intentional hate speech, glorification of violence, evidence of child abuse, bullying or other threats, Bickert recommended reporting that post to Facebook. She said the team responds to reports within 48 hours, unless it needs special attention from a foreign-language or category expert. Bickert said Facebook responds to posts or users depending on the severity of the content. “I think the vast majority of people using Facebook are well-intentioned,” Bickert said, suggesting that sometimes offensive posts come from teenagers who aren’t being thoughtful. In such a case, Facebook would send the person a warning and remove the content from the site. “However, if we see repeated patterns of violations, the consequences go up.” She said penalties range from warnings, to feature blocking — which prevents posting for 24 hours — to being banned from the site.