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I wouldn't say FB Messenger is globally dominant at all. However, for a messaging platform that has global reach, I think it's easily #1 (WhatsApp (also owned

I wouldn't say FB Messenger is globally dominant at all. However, for a messaging platform that has global reach, I think it's easily #1 (WhatsApp (also owned by FB) is probably #2). This doesn't mean most people use it, by a long shot; most people mostly only communicate with people inside their own countries, which is why WeChat, KakaoTalk, etc. are dominant inside their own countries. My broader point is that US big tech companies have global reach, and also tend to set standards. I think the chat stuff is really a red herring; there's far more to tech than chat apps, and those tend to be very regional/national as we've discussed.

alephnerd 2y ago
And my point is that the people within BigTech who lead product lines that have eaten the world would have not been in the US if there was an extended tech recession in the late 2000s. The product leaders for Google Docs/Spreadsheet/Slides, Google Chrome, Google Pay, Azure, etc were all on EB1/2s or still in the process of naturalizing in the late 2000s, and if there was an extended tech recession in the US, they absolutely would have returned to India or China. Same with startups - Zoom, Rubrik, Cohesity, Nutanix, Databricks, Datadog, Spotify, etc would have not moved to or get founded in the US if there was an extended tech recession in the 2008-12 period as the founders were all in the process of naturalizing at the time. As I've already shown you, multiple startups in Asia have already been founded by alumni from American BigTech during the 2008-12 layoffs and hiring freezes, and already a new generation of startups are getting funded due to the COVID era layoffs and hiring freezes. > However, for a messaging platform that has global reach And that's the issue I'm getting at. WhatsApp has strong PMF in Europe and South Asia because the founding team and later leadership at Meta were immigrants from Ukraine and India respectively who were able to execute fairly successful growth strategies in Europe, South Asia, ASEAN, and parts of South America due to domain experience. Yet they were unable to crack other large markets. PMF requires domain experience, knowledge, and localization, and a lot of that comes from immigration.

alephnerd 2y ago

And my point is that the people within BigTech who lead product lines that have eaten the world would have not been in the US if there was an extended tech recession in the late 2000s. The product leaders for Google Docs/Spreadsheet/Slides, Google Chrome, Google Pay, Azure, etc were all on EB1/2s or still in the process of naturalizing in the late 2000s, and if there was an extended tech recession in the US, they absolutely would have returned to India or China. Same with startups - Zoom, Rubrik, Cohesity, Nutanix, Databricks, Datadog, Spotify, etc would have not moved to or get founded in the US if there was an extended tech recession in the 2008-12 period as the founders were all in the process of naturalizing at the time. As I've already shown you, multiple startups in Asia have already been founded by alumni from American BigTech during the 2008-12 layoffs and hiring freezes, and already a new generation of startups are getting funded due to the COVID era layoffs and hiring freezes. > However, for a messaging platform that has global reach And that's the issue I'm getting at. WhatsApp has strong PMF in Europe and South Asia because the founding team and later leadership at Meta were immigrants from Ukraine and India respectively who were able to execute fairly successful growth strategies in Europe, South Asia, ASEAN, and parts of South America due to domain experience. Yet they were unable to crack other large markets. PMF requires domain experience, knowledge, and localization, and a lot of that comes from immigration.