Tech Economics

A product generating real revenue can still be a net drain on the company. Understanding why requires rethinking what 'cost' means in software.

A competitor dropping to $0 doesn't automatically destroy your pricing. It forces you to answer a question your customers were never asking before.

Being first costs more than it pays. The companies that dominate tech markets usually got there second, with better timing and someone else's tuition bill.

The compute bill is the headline. The human labor underneath it is the real story that AI companies don't want to discuss.

Winning a market and profiting from it are different things. The economics of tech competition consistently reward the runner-up more than the leader.

Technical superiority rarely decides market outcomes. Distribution, timing, and switching costs matter more than most product teams want to admit.

Informatica didn't lock in its enterprise customers with contracts. It did it with data pipelines, trained workflows, and ten years of institutional memory baked into a single vendor.

The math on engineering talent is almost always done wrong. Salary is the least important number in the equation.

When a venture fund stops deploying capital, its portfolio companies don't just lose a backer. They enter a slow-motion crisis most founders never see coming.

The most productive engineers aren't the ones writing the most code. They're the ones deciding what not to build.

A dormant app isn't free to own. The ongoing costs of keeping one alive are real, largely invisible, and almost never factored into shutdown decisions.

Market leaders capture share. Their closest rivals capture margin. The economics behind this pattern explain some of the most counterintuitive outcomes in tech.

The tools your team pays nothing for tend to become the hardest to leave. Here's why cheap software is a trap, and how to spot it before you're inside.

Adding a second engineer feels like doubling your output. It usually isn't. Here's the friction you don't see coming.

Shipping is the beginning of the expense, not the end. Most founders budget for launch and forget to budget for survival.

Being first gets you credit. Being second gets you customers. Here's why the pioneer rarely collects the prize.

Well-funded startups don't fail despite their money. They often fail because of it. Constraints aren't a handicap — they're a forcing function.

Being first sounds like an advantage. Historically, it's often a curse. Here's why the pioneer usually loses and the fast follower cashes in.