Open Source - Interconnected

Is Meta Becoming a Trustworthy AI Company?

Among all the Big Tech companies who are planting flags in the red hot generative AI arms race, I think the most trustworthy one may actually be Meta. Yep, Zuck’s Meta. I say this because its recently released large language model (LLM), LLaMA

Topics: Developer• Open Source•

Are the Next 50 Million Developers Already Here?

Every year GitHub publishes a “State of the Octoverse [https://octoverse.github.com/]” report to share insights on the state of open source software and developer ecosystem at large. Every year for the last two years, I’ve written a post to share my

Topics: Twitter• Elon Musk• Open Source•

Elon's Twitter and Open Source Algorithm

By now, the entire world knows that Elon Musk owns Twitter. The ongoing frenzy surrounding this deal has reached peak “silly season [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silly%20season]” – a term political campaign operatives use to describe ridiculous and frivolous media stories near the

Topics: Web3• Open Source•

Polygon: Web3's MongoDB and More

I first heard of Polygon in mid-2021. Friends of mine who were web3 entrepreneurs and NFT artists mentioned it as a promising project, providing a solid scaling solution for Ethereum. After some initial research, I learned that the founding team members were mostly from

Topics: Twitter• Open Source• Elon Musk•

Why Open Sourcing Twitter is Good for Humanity and Business

By now, the entire world knows that Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. During his first interview [https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM?t=781] after making his intention known, Elon made it clear that he wants to open source Twitter’s algorithm. This announcement was

Topics: RISC-V• Intel• Arm•

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Semiconductor Edition

Three months after Softbank announced its acquisition of Arm in 2016, Masa Son (founder and CEO of Softbank) invited Jensen Huang (founder and CEO of Nvidia) for dinner at his California mansion. Just the two of them. Among the many things they talked about

Topics: Alibaba• Charlie Munger• Open Source•

[Premium] Charlie Munger’s New Favorite: Alibaba

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: 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 Players [https://interconnected.blog/open-source-in-china-the-players/] * Part II: the Game [https://interconnected.blog/open-source-in-china-the-game/] * Part III: the Trends [https://interconnected.blog/open-source-in-china-the-trends/] Since then, the landscape

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: Hashicorp• Cloud Industry• Open Source•

HashiCorp: Past, Present, Future

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Shawn Xu [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shengyangxu/] (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

Topics: Developer• Open Source• For Founders•

Surfing the Wave of Developer Relations: Part 2

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Kevin Chen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kc657/]. He was the first Developer Advocate at the now-unicorn open source company Kong [https://konghq.com/] and currently works at smallstep [https://smallstep.com/], an early stage open

Topics: Developer• Open Source• For Founders•

Surfing the Wave of Developer Relations: Part I

Today’s post is a guest contribution from Kevin Chen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kc657/]. He was the first Developer Advocate at the now-unicorn open source company Kong [https://konghq.com/] and currently works at smallstep [https://smallstep.com/], an early stage open

Topics: Alibaba• Cloud Industry• Open Source•

May 16, 2021: AliCloud, JEDI, HarmonyOS, Hillhouse Capital, Tencent Cloud

Hello Interconnected Readers: I have not written a bilingual news source summary and commentary in a while -- my apologies. Interconnected, as a newsletter and product, will be going through some changes, which we will announce later this week. I’m also going through

Topics: For Founders• Developer• Open Source•

Distributed Engineering Management Best Practices with Justin Cormack

On April 6, I hosted the 3rd 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 can

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: 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: 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: For Founders• Open Source• Developer•

Developing Commercial Product from Open Source Technology

Taking a break from my recent spurt of writing [https://interconnected.blog/tag/semiconductor/] 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

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: 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: 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: 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: Meta• Open Source•

Open Source, Open Stats, Open Development

This is a shorter post than my customary Thursday articles, but hopefully no less interesting. My last four posts articulated a “Global by Nature” framework, looking at the forces that will shape a technology-driven (instead of a trade-driven) Globalization 2.0, and where investment