Company strategy, competitive dynamics and the broader technology economy.
5 articles
Oura’s S-1 makes a strong case that wearables are becoming much more than hardware businesses. The ring gets customers in the door, but the value is really in subscriptions, years of health data, and the software that turns that data into something useful. Four months after our Fitbit piece, Oura looks like a much stronger counterexample to the idea that standalone wearable companies cannot compete with Apple and Google.
Airtable’s acquisition by Bending Spoons looks like a major step down from its 2021 valuation, but that misses much of the story. The company still built a product used by hundreds of thousands of organizations, reached nearly half a billion dollars in recurring revenue and generated exceptional returns for early investors. The bigger lesson is what happens when a great company is priced as if it needs to become a generational one.
Spend enough time in tech and it's easy to believe everyone is using AI. The reality is more nuanced. While some industries have embraced it as a daily necessity, many others are only just beginning their journey.
The massive AWS outage on October 20, 2025 affected thousands of companies and millions of users, highlighting how much of the internet depends on a few cloud providers. Outages like this are a reminder that single-cloud setups carry real risks, especially as AI workloads and digital services scale.
A well-structured ESOP motivates employees and helps startups attract top talent, but it must be balanced to manage dilution for founders and investors. As your company grows, so should your option pool—aligning team incentives with long-term success is key to building a high-performing startup.
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