Napkin Math

Profit and power in technology.

May 4, 2023

7 Reasons Media Is a No-Good, Horrible, Rotten Business That I Love Anyways

Plus a few things that bring me hope

Apr 28, 2022

Cash—Kingmaker or Killer?

A examination of when cash can anoint a market winner

Jul 18, 2024

A New Book of the Startup Bible

It’s the rare business book that you should actually read

Aug 24, 2023

A TikTok Competitor Is About to IPO—And It’s Deeply Suspicious

Triller's S1 raises questions about its numbers

Nov 12, 2020

Cash Conversion Cycle: Bridging the Gap Between Profitability & Cash Flow

What is the Cash Conversion Cycle and why is it useful? In this post, we discuss the Cash Conversion Cycle formula, an example calculation, and a comparison of public retailer IPOs.

Sep 30, 2021

NFT Projects are just MLMs for Tech Elites

A somewhat impartial review of current NFT business models

Jul 11, 2024

Searching for Signal

When building a startup gets hard, where should we turn?

Mar 7, 2024

Ads in the Age of AI

Weirder, different, and new

Apr 16, 2024

Distribution Is King

What video games can teach us about building billion-dollar companies

Sep 19, 2024

Live Fuller, Not Bigger

You must escape the shallow joy of more

Jul 20, 2023

Of Course You Can Beat the Market

Free your mind from the Efficient Market Hypothesis

Dec 1, 2022

The House of the Bloody Mouse

Where does Disney go from here?

Oct 6, 2022

The Face That AI Built

My explorations in image generation

Mar 21, 2024

Why Polarity Pays

The complicated social and financial incentives at the heart of online publishing

Dec 1, 2021

Investing on Instinct

Why the best deals are done with no data at all

Nov 24, 2021

How Do You Compete with Free?

Notion: The Embattled Artist

Aug 13, 2021

Is Facebook Fixable

A Review of An Ugly Truth

Jul 22, 2021

Snowflake: How a Revenue Retention Behemoth was Built

TL;DRThis is the second post on a deep dive in GTM metrics with a focus today on Revenue RetentionSnowflake is a software Dracula. It latche

Jun 24, 2020

Why Software is More Profitable Than Content

Written by... a content company

Feb 25, 2022

Joe Rogan: The Platform-Proof Creator

Spotify’s No-Win Predicament

Jun 27, 2023

Shopping for AI Shovels: The MosaicML Acquisition

Why would Databricks spend $1.3B?

Jan 6, 2022

What the hell is going on with Lambda School?

The complicated business of selling social good

Jul 9, 2024

Paramount’s Dilemma: Content Isn’t King—Distribution Is

Half a century removed from its glory days, the Hollywood giant has a new rescue plan

Aug 13, 2024

The Addiction Economy

Addicted, overwhelmed, oversubscribed: How technology hooked the world