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Hello, and welcome to your weekly dose of Big Tech news and insights. I'm your host, Alistair Barr. My dog Maisie came through her surgery. That cost thousands of dollars. How much would you pay to keep your furry friend alive?
Agenda
- We reveal a radical overhaul of Amazon's online marketplace that's been hotly debated inside the tech giant.
- An exclusive look at one of Microsoft's top cloud customers, sharing big numbers you've never seen before.
- New data suggests Big Tech stock-based compensation could be under pressure.
Central story unit
In 2013, my old boss Brad Stone published "The Everything Store." It's the defining book about Amazon's giant e-commerce business. The key idea in the book was infinite product selection. This strategy propelled the company to become the Western world's largest retailer. Based on quarterly sales, it overtook Walmart earlier this year.
Having endless inventory means shoppers are more likely to find what they're looking for on Amazon, increasing the chances they buy something, and return again. That's been a powerful advantage over physical retail stores, which can only stock so much.
However, in recent years, some of Amazon's digital aisles have become cluttered and outdated, which could confuse or frustrate shoppers. So, under CEO Andy Jassy, the company has been purging billions of product listings via a secret project known as "Bend the Curve."
Business Insider's star tech reporter Eugene Kim has the scoop with all the juicy details.
Does this spell the end of The Everything Store? Nope. There's no way Amazon would give up this hard-won advantage.
Instead, it's mostly about cleaning up this giant online marketplace. Product listings get old. Sellers can chuck thousands of listings on there, and some are inaccurate or worse. There are also millions of dollars in cloud savings from not having to host billions of unproductive listings.
Still, this big move has been debated inside Amazon, according to Kim's report. And surveys by Evercore ISI found that fewer shoppers think Amazon's product selection is the best.
News++
Other BI tech stories that caught my eye lately:
- Exclusive: New numbers show just how big a customer Walmart is for Microsoft's cloud business.
- This venture capital firm bought a hospital chain. Why?
- Exclusive: Meta's big bet on virtual reality isn't stopping it from opening retail stores.
- I thought everyone knew not to speak their minds in work surveys? Apparently not.
- The life of the digital nomad is getting harder.
Eval time
My take on who's up and down in the tech industry right now, including updates on Big Tech employee pay.
UP: Tesla surged this week after Elon Musk said he's getting back to work.
DOWN: In late February, investor Ross Gerber predicted a 50% drop in Tesla's share price. The stock is up roughly 20% since then. Ouch!
COMP UPDATE: Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald looked at restricted stock units issued recently by tech companies including Meta, Google, and Uber. RSUs are the main way tech employees get paid. The latest numbers show these equity awards are slowing down or even falling at some companies. The chart below shows changes in RSU grant value per employee.
From the group chat
Other Big Tech stories I found on the interwebs:
- Making a video with fancy new AI tools is harder than you might think. (WSJ)
- Satellite smackdown: Apple versus SpaceX. (The Information)
- A self-driving truck startup siphoned trade secrets to Chinese companies. (WSJ)
- You can't develop chips without software from Cadence and Synopsys. The US is trying to limit China's access to this tech. (FT)
AI playground
This week, I'm telling you about an AI tool that may not be immediately obvious as AI. But it most certainly is.
Tesla uses thousands of chips in massive data centers to train AI models that understand video collected from millions of the company's vehicles. This is used to develop FSD software for near-autonomous driving.
I've been using FSD a lot this year in my Tesla Model 3 Performance. Here are the highs and lows.
Is this a fair assessment? Tesla plans to roll out a full robotaxi service in Austin in June. This will be fully autonomous, with no human supervision. It's a huge leap. My FSD software still requires me to be responsible and alert. But this FSD diary gives some pretty solid clues to how capable Tesla's current software is.
What AI tool should I use next week? Let me know.
User feedback
I would love to hear from anyone who reads this newsletter. What am I doing wrong? What do you want to see more of?
Specifically, though: I want to know about your recent experiences with Amazon's online marketplace. Have you noticed an improvement in the quality of listings lately? Or have you sensed any change in product selection? Let Eugene Kim know at [email protected].
