Mary Meeker Internet Trends Report 2018
slideshare.net
slideshare.net
http://web.archive.org/web/20180530170222/http://www.kpcb.co...
Let's say I'm wondering about "number of smartphone users growth". A google search might pull one chart for that.[1]
What Mary Meeker does is ask 200 of those types of questions, gathers all the data to make the charts, and puts them together in one deck. That's more convenient than conducting 200 searches on the Statista website.
I think the disconnect and dissatisfaction happens because they expect Mary Meeker's slides to provide some mind-blowing insight. I think it's more realistic just to accept it as a nice data dump of some of the latest trends.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartph...
At the time, many people didn't realize that Android + iOS shipments had dwarfed Wintel shipments until they saw this dramatic image in her 2012 slide deck. https://image.slidesharecdn.com/internettrendsstanford120312...
Since then, IMO, people keep showing up because they're looking for another major shock. But there hasn't been a major shock like the rise of mobile since then. Mobile is still big. China is still big. etc.
Now her presentations convey a feeling of comfort. "I believed all of this already, because I am a smart, well-informed person, and here's the data to prove it."
It's well researched, it's sourced, it's free - quite likely the only compendium of that size that meets those criteria.
Her report isn't trying to identify "a trend" (singular). They are slides for multiple trends (plural). Notice that "trends" is the actual title of the report.
There isn't meant to be only one single narrative for all the slides. (Well, the "internet" is a common denominator but "internet" is obviously already in the title.)
E.g. the slides for voice assistants trends (Amazon echo) are separate from housing space utilization trends (AirBnb). Multiple trends for different technologies, different business sectors, different geographies, etc.
https://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/internet-trends-re...
edit: Slide 8, "Internet Penetration"
As an example of why the insights seem kind of bland to me, here's where she has a pie chart about "Where Do You Begin Your Product Search?", with Amazon at 49% vs 36% for "Search Engine":
https://youtu.be/HdjcdZqODoE?t=8m22s
However, looking up the source for that data, and it seems like the more interesting insight is that Amazon's lead shrunk from 55% to 49%:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/google-na...
But I guess for most people, it's insightful enough to know that Amazon has such a lead in the first place? I'll admit I didn't know that without seeing her slide.
The slides usually cite sources, so it's pretty easy to tell if the underlying methodology is weak. (And often it is.)
I usually enjoy reading the annual reports, my biggest criticism is just that it focuses on completely different trends each year. It will go from social to AI to messaging to privacy, etc. If something is only relevant and worth talking about for one year, then pretty much by definition it isn't a trend.
"That's a meaningful trend in the data" vs "it's just a trend."
For example, I've not learned much at all from that deck about whats happening in Africa or India.
I think you nailed it here. It's only intended as a starting point, for drawing your attention to a whole range of data points you may not already been aware of. Getting caught by one slide or data point, wondering what the deeper story is and going off and researching it yourself is exactly what the deck is for.
Most successful predictions obvious (mobile, China). Lots of misses (AI, cloud computing), and lots that’s wrong (everyone will be using wearables?).
If you look at that iOS has nearly 50% penetration for a single manufacturer, making them the largest individual one.
Amazing for one company.
For e.g. in terms of investing, smartphone shipments are not growing, which means that for companies like Apple that derive a significant piece of their revenue from smartphones will probably have to find growth elsewhere, either further up the stack or by launching newer products. This means that until a significant non-handset source of revenue emerges, Apple would likely not grow dramatically from this huge base.
Also they missed the 100 mn new internet users which came online in India the past year and the rock bottom mobile data rates which enabled it.
“Google Machine Learning Word Accuracy”
Does this mean anything practical to users?
In the NLP realm for instance, Google translate is (or used to be) based on a much older statistical model rather than the hot deep learning models the cool projects use nowadays.
-> 0% growth + people upgrading every year.
Mary was one of the early financial analysts to focus on the emerging Internet. She's now at KPMG and this report is an annual distillation of a lot of the current trends and data.
I mess that particular one up all the time.
I'm afraid that's exactly backwards. It's Irresponsible not to manage for unintended consequences... but it's crucial to keep innovation and progress moving forward.