With Clubhouse becoming the hottest social app in SV since probably Snapchat, and it being built on Agora, more ppl may want to know what $API actually does.
1/ Started in 2014, founder/CEO Tony Zhao is a tech veteran in the audio/video space, was founding engineer at Webex w/ Eric Yuan of Zoom.
Instead of building a Zoom, built a PaaS to enable devs to build their own Zoom, virtual classroom/doc visits/even places of worship.
2/ Side note: last year when WeChat might be banned in the US, I spent half a day spinning up an Agora instance for video chatting w/ family in China. Didn’t end up needing to use it, but learning how to use Agora via its docs was easy.
Ok...back to the analysis
3/ Zhao's inspiration for Agora came from his time as CTO of YY.
Rec you watch documentary "People's Republic of Desire" by @beijingloafer to get a taste of YY's cultural impact.
Its scale also has huge tech impact. Zhao want to solve for devs everywhere what he solved for YY.
4/ Agora's tech is a Software-Defined Networking (SDN) solution, optimized for transmitting audio/video data.
Why?
Cuz Internet is a "best effort" network--it'll try but can't guarantee deliver or quality. Agora improves upon "just gonna try my best" w/ software & algos
5/ Agora's SDN is distributed in over 200 DCs across the world to enable global reach/growth/availability.
Seems to be holding up b/c Clubhouse has seen massive growth not just in 🇺🇸but also Nigeria, Germany, India, and Australia.
Beauty of APIs, any dev any where can use it.
6/ Agora' biz model is a classic API model similar to Twilio: self-service and pay-as-you-use.
All devs get free 10,000 minutes per month to start. It only wins if developers' ideas win.
It’s kind of like angel investing, except with APIs.
Clubhouse is clearly a winner so far.
7/ Clubhouse+Agora is a classic "Global by Nature" story.
A battle-tested, well-designed API product from 1 market giving birth to the next 🚀 in a totally diff market. Will see more of this in the future.
Agora still a young company tho -- many execution challenges ahead.
8/ Agora’s core tech, model & problem space all promising, so I do own shares.
Funny: the word "Agora" is ancient Greek meaning "gathering places". $API is trying to be the “gathering place” to build many “gathering places.”
1/ China Unicom/Mobile/Unicom HK are the only 3 co's on DoD's “Communist Chinese military companies” list trading on Wall Street, so using delisting to comply w/ Trump's EO is a one-time thing. defense.gov/Newsroom/Relea…
2/ Damage to the telcos minimal: only ~2% of combined float traded on NYSE & almost all biz activities are inside China.
They've been trading in NYSE for many years, so used to need access to US capital to grow as companies, not any more, esp given growth of HK/SH/SZ exchanges.
First of a 4-part series that's been in my head for probably 4 years, on what Globalization 2.0 looks like and what kind of people, products, paradigms & opportunities will be “global by nature.”
"China’s Semiconductor Future: What Can $1.4 Trillion Buy?"
Enjoyed writing my 1st column on @thewirechina + working w/ @DavidBarboza2 to help simplify/demystify semiconductors & China's proposed 1.4T investment in that sector.
A semiconductor chip's life cycle is complex, though can be roughly broken down to 4 big stages:
- acquire raw material
- design chips
- marry the design to manufacturing capabilities
- produce at scale
Some stages can be accelerated w/ more 💰💰, i.e. raw material (China produce the most silicon of any country) & building huge chip fabs for mass production.
Others (e.g. chip design) require brain power, R&D, IP & long-term patience — things that money can’t buy.
1/ Product synergy exists w/ either Azure or Oracle Cloud. Running TikTok during hypergrowth w/o issues is legit accomplishment for a cloud, will help differentiate in a heated global cloud race.
E-commerce w/ Walmart is more longterm, could help differentiate Walmart+ later.
2/ User+data valuable #obvi. Data Density determines a lot of the value in a tech biz, *more* valuable IMHO than core AI tech in TikTok.
Easier to build AI engine if you have the data than the other way around. (Buyer may not get the tech anyways due to China's new regulation.)