Twitter, Threads, and Tivo

Technology and finance venture capitalist Alex Rampell coined it “the Tivo Problem”. The mental model isn’t one for day-to-day operations but it is another arrow in our quiver for solving problems.

When TiVo arrived in 1999 the question was if the device could gain traction among new users before Comcast introduced a knock-off to their existing customers.

Businesses with innovation need distribution and businesses with distribution need innovation.

Who wins that race?

One is playing out in real time.

Only July 5th, Meta launched Threads - a Twitter competitor. Like many products before and since Tivo, the question is if Meta can harness their users to share a new product better than Twitter can use their product to pick up more users.

Like our first memo regarding Musk, Will People Pay for This?, we don’t care. Instead, it’s a business puzzle to think about, think through, and take those relevant lessons, back to our shop.

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