Interconnected

A WeWork Future: Perpetual Hybrid Work

I published my very first post on Interconnected in late February 2020. Back then, the coronavirus in China was in full swing, but the rest of the world has yet to grasp the gravity of this pandemic. In that post, I talked about a

Topics: Alibaba• Charlie Munger• Open Source•

Charlie Munger’s New Favorite: Alibaba

It has been more than 440 days since Jack Ma’s infamous speech at the 2020 Bund Finance Summit. (We have the full speech translated in English, Chinese, and Japanese. It’s worth a read.) Since the speech, Alibaba’s stock tumbled by more

Topics: Open Source• Web3• Rest of World•

2022 Outlook: Rise of the "Rest"

As we enter 2022, one new, big theme we will be more focused on is what I call: Rise of the “Rest”. The “Rest” here refers to any country or market that is not the US or China. Admittedly, “Rest” is not the most

Topics: Meta•

2021 Interconnected Wrap-Up: Readership Stats and Breakdown

As we near the end of 2021, it’s time for a wrap-up post on Interconnected. We wrote a similar post last year in “Open Source, Open Stats, Open Development”, where we provided a rough breakdown of our audience. We also shared details and

Topics: Open Source• China• Alibaba•

Open Source in China: Next Four Years

Last May, I wrote a three-part series that surveyed the entire open source landscape in China: Part I: the PlayersPart II: the GamePart III: the TrendsSince then, the landscape has changed significantly as “open source” continues to receive top-down attention from the central government.

Topics: IPO• China• Regulation•

Let the “Great Delisting” Begin

Last week, the SEC dropped the final “regulatory shoe” by specifying the rules and procedures that will implement the accounting compliance requirements outlined in the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) on foreign companies listed on US stock exchanges. Right on cue, every Chinese

Topics: Developer• Open Source• Global by Nature•

Top 3 Takeaways from Octoverse 2021

Every year, GitHub publishes a “State of the Octoverse” report. Every year, the report yields fresh and important insights about where developers are, what they care about, how they work, and where the developer trends are going. This year’s report is no exception.

Topics: Regulation• Facebook• China•

Removing China’s “Startup Debt”

I’ve been struggling to come up with an elegant analogy to explain China’s regulatory crackdown on its tech industry. After observing this year’s Singles Day, I think I finally found it. Everything that’s been happening in China Tech this year

Topics: e-CNY• Blockchain•

e-CNY: Strategic Value and Implications

In Part I and II of our e-CNY series, we discussed the key players driving this digital currency’s development and the direction of its core technology, respectively. (The Interconnected research team compiled all of the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency

Topics: LinkedIn• Social Network• Compliance Cost•

Why LinkedIn (Mostly) Left China?

LinkedIn’s announcement to (mostly) exit China created a lot of headlines this past week. Why did LinkedIn leave? The one-sentence answer: it's a media company. In a market like China, where the media environment is tightly controlled, all advertisement-funded social networks are regulated

Topics: e-CNY• Blockchain• Digital Currency•

e-CNY: Technology

In Part I of our multi-part series on e-CNY, China’s digital currency, we presented an overview of the key players that are driving this project. One of those key players is the Digital Currency Research Institute, a dedicated R&D lab housed

Topics: e-CNY• Blockchain• Digital Currency•

e-CNY: The Players

China’s tech crack down has truly reached mainstream in the US; even the Daily Show is talking about it. With mainstream attention comes mainstream-level noise, confusion, and missing the forest for the tree. The biggest “forest” that people might miss is China’s

Topics: Ideology• Decoupling• Demographics•

Ideology, Demographics, Decoupling: Tomorrow’s News; 明日要闻 (September 2021)

Hello Interconnected Readers: Ideology, demographics, decoupling -- these are the three driving forces behind everything that’s been happening in China, as identified by Kevin Rudd. Thus, they are the common thread of this September 2021 issue of “Tomorrow’s News”, featuring the following

Topics: Hashicorp• Cloud Industry• Open Source•

HashiCorp: Past, Present, Future

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Shawn Xu (no relations). Shawn is one of the early engineers at Ascend.io, got his Masters in Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon, and writes an informative WeChat public account on SaaS called 硅谷成长攻略. He

Topics: Semiconductor• TSMC• Morris Chang•

Morris Chang's Last Speech

Today’s post is the translation of a speech Morris Chang delivered on the history and future of TSMC and the semiconductor industry at large in April. Chang is the founder and two-time CEO of TSMC, now 90-years-old and retired. The audience of the

Topics: ByteDance• Entrepreneurship• TikTok•

Zhang Yiming’s Last Speech

We rarely do translations on Interconnected, because this newsletter is focused on original work and thinking. Today’s post is an exception -- an English translation of a Zhang Yiming speech delivered at the ByteDance company annual all-hands meeting in March 2021, and his

Topics: 5G• Data Regulation• 996•

Data, 5G and Office Romance: Tomorrow’s News; 明日要闻 (August 2021)

Hello Interconnected Readers: Fresh off a two-weekend break, I’m excited to publish another issue of our new monthly product launched last month. It is now called “Tomorrow’s News”, not the original name “Articles That *Will* Matter”, because it is a better match

Topics: Big Data• Databricks• Cloud Industry•

What Does Databricks Do?

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Shawn Xu (no relations). Shawn is one of the early engineers at Ascend.io, got his Masters in Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon, and writes an informative WeChat public account on SaaS called 硅谷成长攻略. (The

Topics: Agora• Regulation• Developer•

Revisiting Agora ($API)

Agora (ticker: $API) is a public company I’ve been following for a long time. Back in January, I wrote “What Does Agora Do?” to explain its core technology, founding story, and API-based business model. The post went minorly viral, because Agora powers Clubhouse

Topics: Regulation• Huawei• IPO•

Chinese Government Turf Battle: Tomorrow's News; 明日要闻 (July 2021)

Hello Interconnected Readers: Today, I’m reconceptualizing a section of Interconnected. It used to be a weekly news summary of six stories from both English language and Chinese language sources. Now, it’s a new monthly product called, "Tomorrow's News". It will be published

Topics: Southeast Asia• SPAC• IPO•

SPAC-ing the Southeast Asia Story

The market frenzy around SPACs may have subsided somewhat, their effects on tech companies are far from over. In fact, their focus has simply shifted away from the US to other regions. Where? Apparently, Southeast Asia. I’ve been bullish on Southeast Asia as

Topics: Cloud Industry• ByteDance•

Is “ByteDance Cloud” A Good Idea?

When I first started writing Interconnected a little over a year ago, two of my favorite analyses that I wrote were why Facebook and Dropbox don’t offer their own cloud platforms. Given their scale and expertise in infrastructure operations, building a cloud seems

Topics: Meta• Geopolitics•

So What Is The American Dream?

Every July 4th, America’s Independence Day, always puts me in a reflective mood. I’ve sworn the oath to protect the US constitution three times in my life -- once to become a naturalized citizen, once to work at the Commerce Department, once

Topics: Developer• Open Source• For Founders•

Surfing the Wave of Developer Relations: Part 2

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Kevin Chen. He was the first Developer Advocate at the now-unicorn open source company Kong and currently works at smallstep, an early stage open source startup. In Part I of this two-part series, I discussed the

Topics: Low Code No Code• Developer• VC•

Low Code No Code, Part II: How to Ride This Wave

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Shawn Xu (no relations). Shawn is one of the early engineers at Ascend.io, got his Masters in Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon, and writes an informative WeChat public account on SaaS called 硅谷成长攻略. (The

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