Regulation - Interconnected

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: IPO• Regulation•

Lame Duck Delisting

Sneaking in big announcements on the eve of major holidays seems to be en vogue with regulators these days. China’s State Administration for Market Regulations announced its antitrust investigation into Alibaba on Christmas Eve, so I spent Christmas Day writing “Alibaba and Antitrust

Topics: IPO• SPAC• Regulation•

November 22, 2020: Birthday or Birthplace

Hello Interconnected Readers: Next week is both Thanksgiving week in the US and my birthday week. (Programming note: I will not publish my usual Thursday deep dive analysis due to the holiday.) [If you’d like to skip ahead to the six news stories

Topics: Alibaba• Jack Ma• Regulation•

Jack Ma, P2P Lending, Responsibility, Legacy

When I was in my 20s, I dreamed of becoming a presidential speech writer. I’d stay up reading books, like Ted Sorensen’s memoir “Counselor” (he was JFK’s speechwriter) and “White House Ghosts” (chronicles all the speechwriters from FDR’s). I idolized

Topics: Oracle• ByteDance• Regulation•

Era of Regulatory Grift: TikTok-Oracle, NXP-Qualcomm, Arm-Nvidia

The dictionary definition of the word “grift” is as follows: “to acquire money or property illicitly”. It may be a strong word, but also more or less encapsulates the regulatory ethos that’s governing cross-border technology businesses these days. The TikTok-Oracle deal flaunts this

Topics: ByteDance• Regulation• Open Source•

A Framework to (Dis)trust and Verify TikTok

Last week, the New York Times tech columnist, Kevin Roose, wrote a well-reasoned piece arguing that the U.S. government should not ban TikTok, but use it as an example and opportunity to build a stronger regulatory framework around tech products. (To my surprise,

Topics: Huawei• China• Regulation•

Why Huawei Should IPO in America

Huawei should IPO in America. Not London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Frankfurt, or Toronto, but New York -- the heart of America’s capital market. In fact, Huawei should file its S1 paperwork as soon as the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) passes Congress

Topics: Cloud Industry• Regulation•

How To Tax Cloud Computing?

Taxing cloud computing is not my idea. It’s billionaire Mark Cuban’s idea. I first learned about it during his interview on the Pomp Podcast, then again in another interview with POLITICO. It’s a potentially profound idea that’s worth a deeper

Topics: Ridesharing• Regulation•

Why We Should Regulate Ridesharing Like Buses and Restaurants

In my last post, I shared my thoughts on why large ridesharing services around the world will recover and thrive after the global COVID-19 pandemic is over, and meaningfully replace public transportation everywhere. When will the virus be under control is unclear, and we

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