businessbriefs
Topic

Algorithms

Procedures that decide things, increasingly without being asked.

10
in business
10:35
average
106 min
in total
60
across the network
Algorithms across the network →
Refine21
Desks
Company stories 19Rise & fall 35Founders 15Deals & IPOs 9Scandals 13Strategy 102Management 10Marketing 4Finance 42Startups & venture 48Product 27
Verdict
Worth your time 376Worth skipping 6
Topics
Infrastructure 72Supply chains 60Energy 58Banking 44Engineering 42Platforms 40The Industrial Revolution 33Oil 28All 146 topics →
All briefs10
video still
9:34

Zhang Yiming

Zhang Yiming didn’t build a media company — he built an attention refinery, and the world became its feedstock.
video still
10:37

Baidu

Robin Li · 2000

Baidu is a foundational case of algorithm-first platform building: its 1996 RankDex technology became its 2000 product, its 2001 ad model predated Google’s, and its 2003 content-search innovations were tailored to Chinese media structures. It achieved national dominance and NASDAQ listing — but never decoupled from search advertising, even as it invested in Apollo, Xiaodu, and AI stacks.

video still
9:49

Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek didn’t build a music company — he built a licensing wrapper for peer-to-peer infrastructure.
video still
9:32

Netflix, Inc.

Reed Hastings & Marc Randolph · 1997

Netflix is a case study in operational iteration — not technological invention. Its value lies in how it structured incentives, removed friction, and scaled infrastructure — not in what it claimed to be.

video still
10:21

Spotify

Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon · 2006

Spotify is a Swedish music streaming service founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It operates under a freemium model, offering DRM-protected audio content—including over 100 million songs and 7 million podcasts—from record labels and media companies. Royalties are distributed based on stream share rather than fixed per-unit payments, with ~70% of revenue going to rights holders. It became publicly traded on the NYSE in April 2018 and reported its first profitable year in fiscal 2024. As of March 2026, it served over 777 million monthly active users and 300 million paying subscribers.

12:56

ByteDance

Zhang Yiming · 2016

ByteDance is an AI-driven content platform company built on internal competition, strategic acquisition, and rapid global scaling — not organic product leadership or transparent monetisation.

12:20

Google DeepMind

Demis Hassabis · 2010

Google DeepMind is a research lab inside Alphabet, not a standalone business. Its value lies in scientific credibility, not revenue. Its best work — AlphaFold 2 — solves a concrete biological problem. Its stated mission — AGI — remains speculative and unmeasured. Its funding, costs, and commercial path are undisclosed. It is a demonstration of what elite AI research looks like when decoupled from market feedback.

video still
10:21

Google

Larry Page & Sergey Brin · 1998

Google in 1998 is a case study in pre-commercial technical foundation—not a functioning business. Its value lies in how cleanly it separates algorithmic insight from economic execution.

10:55

TikTok

Zhang Yiming · 2016

TikTok is a Chinese-origin short-form video platform launched internationally by ByteDance in September 2017 as the overseas counterpart to Douyin. It uses AI-driven recommendation algorithms to connect creators with audiences. It surpassed two billion mobile downloads by April 2020. Its corporate entity, TikTok Ltd, is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles. Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance in 2012 and explicitly framed global expansion as essential because China accounts for only one-fifth of global internet users. ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for US$800 million in August 2018 and integrated it into TikTok.