Today, we are breaking down John Deere. With a history dating back almost two centuries, Deere has been a mainstay in the agriculture industry for generations. And despite its rich history as an incumbent, Deere is also on the leading edge of technology and innovation in ag-tech. To help break down John Deere, Zack Fuss is joined by Matt Coutts. Matt comes from a multi-generation family of farmers, and brings a unique ability to connect finance and farming. During our conversation, we discuss what the ag ecosystem looks like today, what drives farming economics, and why Deere holds such a strong competitive advantage that seems to only be growing. Please enjoy this breakdown of John Deere.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.   -----   Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:03:04] - [First question] - What Matt does as a farmer and where he spends his time [00:03:54] - How big the global crop production and agriculture industry is  [00:05:48] - Key considerations in production efficiency with such a large market [00:08:15] - John Deere’s role in the global agriculture industry [00:08:58] - Deere’s business model and how they generate revenue [00:10:14] - What farmers tend to buy and how distribution works [00:12:06] - How a farmer traditionally thinks about their business [00:13:18] - Some of the large machine purchases that a farmer needs [00:14:11] - What a combine does and its role in crop production [00:14:53] - The landscape and types of family farms  [00:15:57] - Whether or not farmers can earn above industry returns through any cycle [00:18:18] - The role Deere plays in controlling variable costs to improve returns [00:20:38] - The things Matt’s most focused on as a farmer and how Deere optimize outcomes [00:22:48] - Brand loyalty and mixing and matching machines from different brands [00:24:55] - What precision agriculture actually means [00:27:55] - Overview of a harvest and how Deere equipment interacts with it [00:31:16] - Unit economics and how their recurring relationship generates profit [00:34:01] - Interpreting data, who owns the data, and digital agriculture analytics [00:35:55] - What enables Deere to generate such large margins as an industrial manufacturer [00:40:35] - Is Deere a higher-priced product than its competitors? [00:41:16] - Recent acquisitions and what it says about their growth [00:43:17] - The John Deere API and potential third party integration  [00:44:28] - Will farmers even be physically operating machinery in the future? [00:46:35] - Lessons learned as a builder and an investor from John Deere’s story 

Today, we are breaking down Solana. Founded in 2017 by an ex-wireless engineer from Qualcomm, Solana is a layer one blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum that has been built to process transactions as quickly and cheaply as possible. Where Bitcoin can process about ten transactions per second and Ethereum around 30, Solana can handle over 60,000 transactions per second, and it can do so at a fraction of the cost. Unsurprisingly, Solana’s network has attracted huge interest from developers, users, and investors alike over the last year.   In this breakdown, we cover the killer app for decentralized ledgers, the history of on-chain transaction speeds, and the fundamental difference between software and blockchain technology. We then delve into the architecture that has enabled Solana’s speed unlock and look at the platform’s potential to become a huge piece of the world’s financial infrastructure. To help me break down Solana, I’m joined by Kyle Samani, co-founder and managing partner at Multicoin Capital.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. -----   Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:02:49] - [First question] - How he views the opportunity set of blockchain technology   [00:06:37] - The evolution of transactions-per-second from Bitcoin to new cryptocurrencies [00:13:43] - Why does decentralized finance matter versus centralized finance [00:18:34] - What is Solana and the scope and scale of it today [00:20:31] - Reintroducing costs with DeFi software compared to prior zero marginal costs [00:24:13] - How to go from 30 transactions a second to 30,000 and make the system work [00:31:03] - What about Solana’s design code that allows it to take advantage of parallelism [00:33:05] - Differences between proof of history and proof of work [00:39:05] - The tokenomics of Solana, their distribution setup, and what owning SOL offers [00:46:24] - What Solana’s blockchain will enable for application development [00:55:15] - The emerging adoption and creation of social tokens   [00:57:40] - Thoughts on regulation and security in regards to Solana [00:59:41] - Competition that Solana may face and layer one blockchains in general [01:04:54] - What has him most excited about Solana and the landscape writ large [01:08:11] - Lessons for builders and investors when studying the Solana story [01:11:23] - Leaning into your differences and the team behind the project