Hi folks, 

I’ve been out sick for most of this week with a bad chest cold. It looks like I’m going to survive. Still, unfortunately, my limited waking hours have been spent either in recuperation mode (watching Bilibili videos and getting Meituan takeouts) or trying to finish the Bilibili deep-dive (which is in editing mode and will be with the premium subscribers soon. The eternal question is whether it would have been finished sooner had I rested, got better and then worked on it, but alas). This left no time for my intended piece on part II of the State of Chinese Cloud.

In its place, let me suggest a few things for your bi-weekly Chinese tech deep-dive needs:

• The Acquired Podcast on Meituan: Ben and David’s audio deep-dives on tech companies have been a staple of my information diet for years. They recently released a 2 hour 20 minutes deep-dive on Meituan, the third-largest tech company in China by market cap, which I found well-researched and informative. However, I did not entirely agree with their bullish take on Meituan’s future. Like any good Metaverse Native Talking Twitter Profile, I took to the proverbial town square to air my views.

• Twitter thread about my Meituan thoughts:

  Lillian Li @lillianmli

  1) Let's talk about @AcquiredFM's episode on Meituan. Fan disclaimer: I'm a big fan, my Substack is partly inspired by their process. I thought the episode was good, I have a few different interpretations and a more cautious outlook:

  March 12th 2021

  15 Retweets114 Likes

• The Acquired LP Podcast on the Meituan Bear Case with Lillian Li: Through the magic of Twitter, yours truly got invited to air my views on the Acquired LP podcast (Ben and David are as kind as they are wise). Here’s an ungated version for all you lucky folks, usually one has to be an elite member of the Acquired LP community to get insight such as this. You can hear the beginning of my chest cold in my gravelly voice. 

If there’s appetite, I’ll be happy to write a longer piece here similar to my note with Alibaba. Drop me a note; you know where to find me (reply to this email is where you can find me). 

Sickly yours but raging, raging against the dying of the light,

LL