Interconnected

Engineering Talent Distribution: Mexico and LATAM

Last week, I published a post on the US-Asia-Latin America (LATAM) tech nexus I witnessed during my visit to Mexico earlier this year. (The piece was first published on TechCrunch the week before.) Today’s post is a follow-up observation on the engineering talent

Topics: 5G• Open Source• Antitrust•

April 11, 2021: OpenRAN, Google vs Oracle, Mexican Unicorn, Alibaba Antitrust Fine

Hello Interconnected Readers: This weekly issue has a little bit of everything: possible US investment into OpenRAN, the monumental Google vs Oracle Supreme Court decision, Kavak the Mexican Unicorn getting bigger, Alibaba’s antitrust fine, Chinese engineers fleeing tech to work in civil service,

Topics: Mexico• LATAM• VC•

Tech in Mexico: A Confluence of Latin America, the US and Asia

This article was first published on TechCrunch on April 1, 2021. Mexico has been known as an up-and-coming tech hub and a gateway to the Latin American market. As an investor focused on developer-centered products, open source startups, and infrastructure technology companies with a

Topics: Audio• Meta•

Announcing: Interconnected Voices

Hello Interconnected Readers: I’m thrilled to launch our audio product: Interconnected Voices. All episodes are hosted on the Interconnected YouTube channel, so please subscribe to it! Each episode is the recording of a discussion I had with top analysts, investors, entrepreneurs, and senior

Topics: Developer• Open Source• Audio•

Discussion Transcript: Global Developer Growth

This is the transcript of a discussion I did with Rui Ma of Tech Buzz China and Monica Xie of Matrix Partners China on the trend of global developer growth, recorded on February 18, 2021. It is based off of a previous post: "Where

Topics: Agora• Developer• Audio•

Discussion Transcript: What Does Agora ($API) Do?

This is the transcript of a discussion I did with Rui Ma of Tech Buzz China on the company Agora (stock ticker: $API) on February 11, 2021. It is based off of my previous post on the company. The discussion transcript is organized into

Topics: Tesla• China•

Elon’s "Place" in US-China Relations

Elon Musk has become the focal point of US-China relations once again. The Wall Street Journal reported a couple of weeks ago that Tesla’s will be banned from military and some state government employees in China for fear of spying. Elon responded one

Topics: Xiaomi• Huawei• EVs•

March 28, 2021: Global Startups; Xiaomi > Huawei; Next Phase of China’s EVs Market; No-Code

Hello Interconnected Readers: This weekly issue has a nice balance of news commentary from the rise of international startups as evidenced by the most recent YC batch, to Xiaomi racing ahead of Huawei, to the next phase of China’s EVs market, to the

Topics: For Founders• Open Source• Developer•

Building A Global Company from Day 0 with Clint Smith

A few weeks ago, I hosted the 2nd session of a monthly Company Building webinar series for founders and operators of developer-focused and/or commercial open source startups. The goal of this series is to share tactical knowledge -- the nitty gritty know-hows that

Topics: Meta• Weekly•

March 21, 2021: Lived Experience Quotient

I debated all week whether to write about tech news and China today, per usual, or share something more personally and philosophical, given the violence against Asian Americans that reached a new height last week with what happened in Atlanta. I decided on the

Topics: For Founders• Open Source• Developer•

Developing Commercial Product from Open Source Technology

Taking a break from my recent spurt of writing on the semiconductor industry in China, today’s post discusses the difference between an open source technology and a commercial product that leverages said open source technology. It’s an important, but often not well

Topics: Semiconductor• Open Source• IPO•

March 14, 2021: State of the Cloud; More Semiconductor Investment; Open Source in China

Hello Interconnected Readers: This Interconnected Weekly issue covers more news on China’s semiconductor industry as it continues to balloon. I also shared some thoughts on Bessemer Ventures’ 2021 State of the Cloud report, the Apache Software Foundation, and yet another Chinese tech company

Topics: Semiconductor• RISC-V• Open Source•

Semiconductor Design Consolidation: MIPS -> RISC-V

Consolidation in the semiconductor industry continues. The latest event is MIPS Technologies embracing the open source instruction-set architecture (ISA), RISC-V, and no longer designing for the MIPS architecture that gave birth to the company more than three decades ago. While this news, reported in

Topics: Semiconductor• China• Xiaomi•

March 7, 2021: No American likes China; More semiconductor thoughts

Hello Interconnected Readers: I’m flying back to the US from Mexico this weekend, wrapping up my six-week trip. I will organize my learning and publish my thoughts on Mexico’s tech ecosystem (and to the extent applicable, LATAM’s) in the coming weeks.

Topics: Semiconductor• China•

China's “Semiconductor Theranos”: HSMC

China’s semiconductor ambition just had its first ponzi scheme fully exposed: Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (HSMC). The HSMC ponzi scheme was led by a trio of characters, who have zero expertise in semiconductor (or anything tech related), but are experts in manipulating local

Topics: Announcement• Japanese•

Announcing Interconnected Japanese (Alpha)

In lieu of our usual weekly news commentary from both the English and Chinese language worlds, I would like to make a product announcement: Interconnected Japanese ( Interconnected 日本語版)! When I wrote about Interconnected’s tech stack in “Open Source, Open Stats, Open Development,” I

Topics: Open Source• 5G•

USG Embraces Open Source 5G

While the world was on edge back in January, watching to see if the United States will have a peaceful transition of power or fall into chaos, an important announcement from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was released but swept under the

Topics: Didi• ByteDance• Baidu•

February 21, 2021: Didi in Mexico Part II; ByteDance’s Censorship Machine

Hello Interconnected Readers: Didi’s expansion plan in Mexico seems to follow me around (or perhaps I’m the one doing the following). I’ve been spending the last few days in a city north of Mexico City in the Bajio region, Queretaro, to

Topics: For Founders• Developer• Open Source•

Early Stage Sales with Matt Ekstrom

A few weeks ago, I launched the first session of a monthly Company Building webinar series for founders and operators of developer-focused and/or commercial open source startups. The goal of this series is to share tactical knowledge -- the nitty gritty know-hows that

Topics: Mexico• Didi• Rappi•

February 14, 2021: Didi in Mexico vs Rappi and Uber Eats

Hello Interconnected Readers: I’ve been battling a stomach infection this week (finally got antibiotics and trending in the right direction), so I will keep this issue brief but hopefully still interesting, with some on the ground observations about tech in Mexico. As my

Topics: Developer• GitHub• Global by Nature•

Where Will the Next 50 Million Developers Come From?

As the global economy becomes increasingly technology-driven and less trade-driven, the most important demographic to understand is developers. These are not just underground hackers or hoodie-wearing code monkeys; they are creative problem solvers who use digital technology to build things. In my last deep-dive,

Topics: AWS• Cloud Industry•

No New Deep-Dive Due to Sickness; AWS Archive

Dear Interconnected Subscribers, I've been really sick the last few days, so I've decided to not publish a new Thursday deep-dive post this week. I don't want to publish something sub-par while I feel sub-par. (I thought I had COVID, so rushed to the

Topics: 5G• Open Source• Agora•

January 31, 2021: r/wallstreetbets, Open Source 5G, Agora Acquisition

Hello Interconnected Readers: Last week, the world was enthralled by the battle between the subreddit, r/WallStreetBets, and Wall Street itself. I really do mean the world. I saw WeChat posts, tweets in different languages, and even bonded with my dad over it, who

Topics: Agora• Developer• Global by Nature•

What Does Agora ($API) Do?

Agora is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company for developers to build apps with real-time audio and video capabilities. As a high-growth developer-focused firm, it’s a company I’ve been tracking for quite some time and briefly wrote about before. Given its connection with Clubhouse

Topics: Alibaba• Tencent• Antitrust•

January 24, 2021: AliPay & WeChat Pay Breaking Up? AWS forks Elasticsearch

Hello Interconnected Readers: After arriving in Mexico City earlier this week, the four-hour time difference between Mexico and Hawaii is giving me a surprisingly bad jet lag, so I will spare you my usual personal letter. Let’s go straight to the news and

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