Why is it that Taylor Swift is bigger than the Beatles? She’s probably the first really, really big internet rockstar. How is the internet changing the long tail?
The internet enables niches to exist, so there are way more artists that can make a living today, than if you think back to the 60s or something where the labels would pick the 10 bands of the year and that’s it.
Even in niche products like for Stratechery or Acquired, these niches are bigger than you could ever imagine. Now think about a mainstream pop star.
Way more distribution channels –> Disintermediation / reduction of power of the middle men of the labels. Much more of the value is now accruing directly to Taylor.
Because the Internet has several ways to reach a customer, the most popular artist in the world is going to have just way more distribution than the labels.
So much less friction. Poeple know when tickets are on sale and when to buy them.
Social media: you can’t really even get that same experience or understanding of “How would I know if stuff is taking off? How will I know what the general consensus is around something?” from any centralized publication.
The New York Times is not a place where you go to find out if people are talking about something. It’s a place where you get news, so you’d literally have to go to events and have a bunch of conversations to know what people are talking about.
Five separate business units, all of which did a double digit percentage of their revenue, so it’s super diverse, and all of which did a double digit percentage of their operating income.
Jensen bet the company three separate times and truly bet the company like if this initiative fails, it will go to zero, and it worked three separate times.
The first time is when they shipped the card in whatever it was, nine months instead of two years, and they designed the whole thing in emulation, never tested it and shipped it to customers, and it worked.
Programmable shaders
Seven year investment before the market was there in AI and CUDA and building their own developer ecosystem.