https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonfortt/detail/recent-activity/ https://www.youtube.com/c/forttknox I should have posted this way earlier, but I've been getting questions. Here's the skinny: Fortt Knox is not dead. It's just been reborn. Instead of living in your favorite podcast app, Fortt Knox now lives on LinkedIn and YouTube.   Now you can see video of my interviews, and engage with a broader community of Fortt Knox viewers. I stream my interviews live, and the recordings are there for...

In the late 1990s, Andy Jassy pitched a wild idea to his boss and mentor, Jeff Bezos: What if Amazon developed another business, delivering computing power and storage .  Two decades later, it stands as Amazon’s most profitable division – one that Jassy continues to lead as CEO of Amazon Web Services. I sat down with Jassy in a broadcast exclusive at the company’s annual AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas to talk about Amazon’s lead in the cloud today, the controversy surrounding the...

A walk to remember. Apple CEO Tim Cook and President Donald Trump in Texas this week, and it’s a high stakes photo op. They’re at the factory in Austin Texas where Apple’s Mac Pro computer is assembled.   Cook no doubt wants to make it hard for the president to put tariffs on Mac Pro components. Cook has said unless they continue to be exempt from tariffs, he’ll have to move manufacturing completely to China.  The president wants to push Apple and U.S. CEOs more broadly to manufacture here...

I was on the road this week, doing a little tour of California. Three cities in three days. San Francisco Monday, L.A. Tuesday, San Diego Wednesday. Adobe’s MAX conference was this week in LA, where the creative software giant unveils its latest features.   Well, everybody’s got challengers, and one of Adobe’s is a startup called Canva. Canva has emerged to help regular folks add high-end creative flair to their presentations. Even better, it was founded by a young woman in Australia who was...

It's the biggest single cloud contract … possibly ever. Definitely the most talked about. The Pentagon's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract. JEDI, going to: Microsoft late last week. The Empire Strikes Back.  The JEDI contract is worth up to 10 billion dollars over 10 years, but just as valuable as the money: It's worth bragging rights and street cred. This was supposed to be Amazon's contract to lose. Amazon practically invented enterprise cloud computing 14 years ago with AWS....

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Washington this week arguing for Libra, the digital currency his company created and wants to build around. This after he last week made the case in front of an audience at Georgetown University that Facebook’s future, its past, its reason for being are all tied up in free speech. With me this week for another bite out of this Facebook and free speech debate: John Stanton, the cofounder of the Save Journalism Project, and Farhad Manjoo, columnist for the New...

Tech just can’t get away from politics.   Senator Elizabeth Warren has a bone to pick with Facebook. Mainly its standards for political ads. After Facebook refused to take down a Trump Campaign ad that accused former vice president Joe Biden of wrongdoing connected to his son Hunter’s work in Ukraine, Warren fired back. She posted her own Facebook ad that started with a false claim that Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg have endorsed Trump for re-election.   A little farther afield,...

It’s hard to save money these days – and I’m not talking about the new phones and earbuds that come out this time of year and tempt you to spend. Interest rates are really low. Which is great if you’re borrowing to buy a house or a car, but not so awesome if you want to save. The interest rate for the typical U.S. savings account is 9 hundredths of a percent.   But! All is not lost. For a long time there have been higher rates for savers, even from mainstream banks. Now a young and scrappy...

It’s hard to save money these days – and I’m not talking about the new phones and earbuds that come out this time of year and tempt you to spend. Interest rates are really low. Which is great if you’re borrowing to buy a house or a car, but not so awesome if you want to save. The interest rate for the typical U.S. savings account is 9 hundredths of a percent.   But! All is not lost. For a long time there have been higher rates for savers, even from mainstream banks. Now a young and scrappy...

We’ve got a blockbuster hardware announcement this week … from Microsoft. The biggest hardware risk the company has taken since Xbox. Surface Neo, two screens with a hinge in between, coming next year. And there’s more. Surface Pro X, arguably the first ARM-based computer to run full Windows 10.  Has Microsoft changed the game here? Or are these cool gadgets that won’t really sell?  With me this week, one of my favorite guys to talk hardware, Pat Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategies....

We’ve got a blockbuster hardware announcement this week … from Microsoft. The biggest hardware risk the company has taken since Xbox. Surface Neo, two screens with a hinge in between, coming next year. And there’s more. Surface Pro X, arguably the first ARM-based computer to run full Windows 10.  Has Microsoft changed the game here? Or are these cool gadgets that won’t really sell?  With me this week, one of my favorite guys to talk hardware, Pat Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategies....

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann resigned from the CEO role this week, in the face of skepticism about the coworking startup’s plans to go public. There are questions about the business model – we’ve addressed some of those here on Fortt Knox. There are questions about his eccentric leadership style. And there are questions about the way he’s maintained control of the company while taking lots of money out of it.   WeWork is in the headlines this week, but we’ve lived through versions of this...

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann resigned from the CEO role this week, in the face of skepticism about the coworking startup’s plans to go public. There are questions about the business model – we’ve addressed some of those here on Fortt Knox. There are questions about his eccentric leadership style. And there are questions about the way he’s maintained control of the company while taking lots of money out of it.   WeWork is in the headlines this week, but we’ve lived through versions of this...

Days ago California lawmakers passed a bill, AB5, that would force more companies to treat more workers as employees, not contractors. What’s the big deal?  The gig economy. Whether it’s Uber and Lyft, or Postmates and Doordash, or TaskRabbit and Instacart, a slew of companies have grown up in the smartphone era with a radical idea. When just about everyone has a smartphone and a credit card, you can assemble a workforce on a moment’s notice, pay workers electronically, and let them be...

Days ago California lawmakers passed a bill, AB5, that would force more companies to treat more workers as employees, not contractors. What’s the big deal?  The gig economy. Whether it’s Uber and Lyft, or Postmates and Doordash, or TaskRabbit and Instacart, a slew of companies have grown up in the smartphone era with a radical idea. When just about everyone has a smartphone and a credit card, you can assemble a workforce on a moment’s notice, pay workers electronically, and let them be...

Apple's iPhone extravaganza is still the biggest product event of the year for a simple reason: The iPhone remains the single most successful hardware product of the PC era. We can talk about whether sales are growing or not, whether Apple is innovating or not. But Apple still sells more premium phones every year than anyone else.   So what happened this week? Three new iPhones announced, the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and Pro Max. A new Apple Watch with a screen that doesn't turn off. A new...

Apple's iPhone extravaganza is still the biggest product event of the year for a simple reason: The iPhone remains the single most successful hardware product of the PC era. We can talk about whether sales are growing or not, whether Apple is innovating or not. But Apple still sells more premium phones every year than anyone else.   So what happened this week? Three new iPhones announced, the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and Pro Max. A new Apple Watch with a screen that doesn't turn off. A new...

The National Football League was on the brink last year. Not of death – let’s not talk crazy, now – but of the type of loss of relevance that has humbled baseball and boxing over the past generation or so.    But now as the NFL's 100th season kicks off this week, there's a sense of fresh energy. And I would argue that if football's going to make a full comeback, technology is going to have to play a big role.  First, a word about where we've been. Football was the undisputed champ of the...

The National Football League was on the brink last year. Not of death – let’s not talk crazy, now – but of the type of loss of relevance that has humbled baseball and boxing over the past generation or so.    But now as the NFL's 100th season kicks off this week, there's a sense of fresh energy. And I would argue that if football's going to make a full comeback, technology is going to have to play a big role.  First, a word about where we've been. Football was the undisputed champ of the...

Summer’s coming to a close, and that means the streaming wars are about to get a lot more real. Apple released a trailer for The Morning Show, one of the big series slated to hit its Apple TV Plus service this fall. Disney just gave us more details behind its slate of shows for the Disney Plus service that launches in November; and Disney and Sony get a movie divorce … and Sony gets custody of Spider-Man.   And later on the 1-on-1: Peter Reinhardt is the CEO of Segment, a startup that helps...

Summer’s coming to a close, and that means the streaming wars are about to get a lot more real. Apple released a trailer for The Morning Show, one of the big series slated to hit its Apple TV Plus service this fall. Disney just gave us more details behind its slate of shows for the Disney Plus service that launches in November; and Disney and Sony get a movie divorce … and Sony gets custody of Spider-Man.   And later on the 1-on-1: Peter Reinhardt is the CEO of Segment, a startup that helps...

Fifteen years ago this week, Google had its IPO. Initial Public Offering. That means shares of its stock were available to buy for the first time. I was working as a tech reporter in Silicon Valley at the time and remember it was a big deal for a couple of reasons. One, Google’s IPO was a glimmer of hope after the dotcom bust. Two, Google was trying to reinvent the IPO by making it more transparent. They used a process called a Dutch Auction.   Today the IPO hasn’t changed for the most part....

15 years ago this week, Google had its IPO. Initial Public Offering. That means shares of its stock were available to buy for the first time. I was working as a tech reporter in Silicon Valley at the time and remember it was a big deal for a couple of reasons. One, Google’s IPO was a glimmer of hope after the dotcom bust. Two, Google was trying to reinvent the IPO by making it more transparent. They used a process called a Dutch Auction.   Today the IPO hasn’t changed for the most part. But...

I’ve got a business idea. I’m going to take out loans to rent a bunch of apartments around the world. Two-year leases. Then I’m going to decorate them with a super-cool modern vibe … snacks, premium soaps, entertainment spaces… and Airbnb them by the week and half week to vacationers and business travellers for less than they’d pay for a hotel room.   But wait, you say. You’re signing up for two-year leases and only getting commitments in the days and weeks. What if the economy goes bad?...