Square / PayPal: Part 2

If you haven’t already, could you please take this survey?  Thank you!https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/MY6XRPRDigital wallets beg to break free from the commerce platforms that nurture them. In 2002, a $20bn eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5bn.  Nearly 20 years later, a $200bn+ PayPal commands 5x eBay’s market cap.  The core value prop hasn’t changed much over this time.  […]

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quick Everbridge (EVBG) update

I will post Part 2 of my PayPal/Square series either later this week or early next. Before then, I want to talk about Everbridge.Please read my last 2 posts on Everbridge (here and here) to get up to speed.There are 4 relevant pieces of information from a statement that management released after the close last […]

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Square / PayPal: Part 1

If you found yourself in 2009 with the vision of one day dominating payments, where would you start?  For most, I suspect it would be P2P payments or point-of-sale software or some other bits-based service with the conventional trappings of network effects, virality and scale.  Square instead launched with what must have seemed the most […]

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[SHW] Sherwin-Williams

In some industries you will find one player that uniquely and above all peers excels at something that is foundational to excess returns, whether that be customer service, cost discipline, scale economies or product innovation.  At times, you may find yourself thinking “I get it, X is a much better company than Y.  But Y […]

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Data, Observability and Monitoring ($SPLK, $ESTC, $NEWR, $DT, $DDOG)

Compared to the monolithic architectures of the on-premise world, cloud computing and the microservices paradigm accompanying it have given rise to more flexible and scalable applications. But those applications often run on complex distributed environments.  A large company like Uber might be running thousands of microservices written in different languages, making it tough to track […]

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[TDOC] Teladoc

You can think of Teladoc as a router for clinical care, receiving patients and connecting them to the right physicians.  The doctors on Teladoc’s platform work as independent contractors and interact with members through: 1/ Teladoc’s app/website; 2/ CVS’ Pharmacy App, which white labels Teladoc’s technology; and 3/ hospitals/clinics, whose providers interact with patients remotely […]

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quick thoughts on the IAC/MDP acquisition rumor

I have a writeup on Teladoc (TDOC) coming next week but felt like throwing out some first impressions on the possibility of IAC acquiring Meredith. I don’t normally comment on rumors but I typed up some thoughts yesterday for my personal file and figured why not share.This past May, Meredith Corp. agreed sell its 17 […]

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[TWLO] Twilio

From its origins as on-premise installations sold to CTOs, enterprise software has expanded to include to SaaS applications sold to business users and now to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) sold to developers.  As I explained in my Okta post:Twenty years ago, it probably wouldn’t have made sense to fashion a whole company around, say, a […]

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