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Marc Benioff
Salesforce didn’t end software — it rebuilt itself around cost control, using AI not to invent but to downsize.
Big tech
Five companies with the reach of states and none of the accountability.
- 4
- in business
- 10:12
- average
- 41 min
- in total
- 5
- across the network
All briefs
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Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg isn’t a company — he’s a governance model disguised as a founder.
Meta Platforms
Mark Zuckerberg · 2004
Meta Platforms is a vertically integrated advertising monopoly masquerading as a metaverse infrastructure company. Its business model is simple and brittle: monetise attention at scale. Its strategy is contradictory: spend billions on speculative futures while refusing to decouple from surveillance-based ads. Its governance is absolute: Zuckerberg controls votes, vision, and compensation.
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.