Data privacy's conundrum in a global economy + 2025 business predictions

On Friday, Zuckerberg appeared on Joe Rogan’s 3-hour podcast and I’ve been assimilating the interview over the course of a few days (taking 3 hours at a time isn’t a luxury I can usually afford).

Mark is a controversial figure - just like any other billionaire or successful founder. But someone running a “network of networks” with 3.5 billion daily users and over 4 billion monthly visitors, this represents the biggest digital consumer market in the world.

It’s a great show (catch it on Spotify or YouTube if you can), but I posted about one of the topics he brought up, namely the EU fining big tech over 30 billion dollars over the past decade. I made some suggestions or assumptions about data privacy - and got almost annihilated by European workers around data protection and adhering PII.

Controversial topics are one thing - and I know that privacy is one of them. But I’m fascinated by several things:

• I never said that privacy shouldn’t exist or it’s a bad thing or anything. The fact that Europeans defaulted to this assumption (dozens of them) was alarming.

• A reaction of this magnitude is generally a sign with a deeper psychological meaning. I’m not a therapist, but someone can probably track this down to early childhood or other trauma, complex, or underachieving at school, missing out on opportunities and choices, or anything else.

• It felt like most people were zealously protecting data privacy “at all cost.” Again, I’m not AGAINST privacy; I’d rather not deal with spam, cold emails and texts, robocalls, and other means of passing my data elsewhere. But as a technologist, I know very well how systems work, how many SaaS/pixels you need to integrate within a general system, and how most brands will die because of outdated feature set and boring functionalities if they have to drop everything passing data to 3rd parties, revert half the features, and run in the blind because of lacking events and GA4 data and what not.

Ole has published a viral thread around EU vs. US after I got mine live:

One of his key revelations in the thread is:

“Europe chose security over growth.

America chose innovation over regulation.”

After my first heated LinkedIn story on Zuck, I posted a new one today named “GDPR vs. CCPA vs. CPRA vs. VCDPA vs. CPA,” comparing some of the key differences here (tax caps, the minimum threshold on ARR or processed users, and a few others.) It’s based on a Bloomberg Law analysis between all four:

People usually get triggered (and end up jumping into flame wars) when they feel strongly about a nuanced problem and fail to uncover a deeper, rich context in a conversation. This is the reason why left and right, democrats/republicans, liberals/conservatives are always bumping into one another - even though the overarching goal is the same - decent living standard for all humans, some basic income opportunities, developing a progressive nation that’s safe and sound, healthy, happy, competitive. It’s the means and approach in getting there - or prioritizing the “how” but rarely the “why”.

The privacy bit is also a personal reminder of different viewpoints for entrepreneurial nations vs. more laid back cultures where 9-to-5 corporate jobs make a ton of sense as long as the employer is able to “provide” somehow (no questions asked.) For instance, I faced backlash from Microsoft employees arguing against ChatGPT or Meta employees on Zuck’s interview.

But one evergreen topic is employment - and it’s also driven by forecasts and predictions for the new year. And opinions are mixed here.

I enjoyed Eric and Neil’s episode around 2025 predictions in Marketing School:

Bottom line, we aren’t moving back to the hockey stick growth model anytime soon. Interest rates won’t get close to ZIRP in the coming years. Investors are more cautious and optimize for productivity. AI is getting hyped now, but that S&P bump is unlikely to last forever (the market returns right now are historically over twice as large as the average market return in both 2023 and 2024).

The other normality element - especially in this down market involving AI - is a “permission” for cool businesses to optimize internally. Layoffs are never a popular move and in an up market (that was going on for nearly a decade), it was virtually impossible for big tech to do notable cuts because this would mean that top talent would go elsewhere.

And normalizing that since late 2022 and early 2023 is not just an opportunity to invoke “return to office”, but also normalize regular annual cuts to keep engagement higher and performance on track.

Most white-collar people in my circle (especially in Europe - it’s better in the US and Asia) still don’t get how the market shifts. When they undergo layoffs, it’s always blaming managers, or “picking the wrong people to fire”, or “it should have been them”, or “that team isn’t as good as ours”, and plenty of similar reasons to blame someone while being a mid-level manager in an underperforming corporation.

Without arguing on failure or capabilities or reality check in the market, it goes to show that preparedness for talent to actually go all in and increase productivity is still low. Until that gets balanced out, corporations will keep to push for AI and look into outsourcing or fractional consulting, and maximize that momentum. Ultimately, the cuts are not over, and if certain orgs are still not heavily affected, trimming the fat is inevitable.

It’s still a great M&A landscape, though. Blake of Flippa confirmed that H2 acquisitions are higher than H1 and my investments in profitable businesses are doing great! (just not angel investments in startups looking for product-market fit)

As to foreign markets, there’s still a lot to hedge there. Especially in LATAM with Argentina’s excessive inflation rates, but talent practically cost the same in USD:

If you have any internal insights or stories to share around the macro - acquisitions, layoffs, hedging services, hiring, or innovation elsewhere, definitely let me know. I’m working with my companies + the Strategic Growth Circle community on roadmap planning, closing new deals based on these forecasts, and documenting a portion of the web that’s not covered by Mashable and the other hot media outlets.

Mario

🔖 High-Volume Email Failover Basics — A solid failover strategy ensures uninterrupted delivery even during system disruptions by combining redundancy, resilient databases, and smart monitoring tools.

🔖 Best Practices for PPC Data Syncing in 2025 — Learn how AI-driven solutions and privacy-first strategies, like Google Consent Mode, ensure accurate data tracking while staying compliant with GDPR and CCPA.

🔖 Align Lifecycle Stages for Better Lead Nurturing — Strengthen your lead nurturing strategy by aligning lifecycle stages for a seamless customer journey.

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📃 Jobs surge sends yields up. Strong December job growth erased hopes for a January Fed rate cut, pushing bond yields higher and stocks lower.

📃 UK opens antitrust probe into Google. The UK’s watchdog is investigating Google’s search dominance under new competition laws, potentially leading to stricter regulations as AI reshapes the market.

📃 China’s exports surge 10.7% ahead of U.S. tariff hikes. Well above expectations—as China braces for higher tariffs under incoming U.S. policies. This rush pushed their annual trade surplus close to $1 trillion.

📃 T-Mobile & Starlink activated satellite texting. T-Mobile and Starlink have enabled satellite texting for Android users in Los Angeles, providing reliable communication as wildfires impact cell networks.

📃 Remote work is fading out. More London-based employers are tightening flexible work policies, with companies like Amazon pushing for full-time office returns.

Let’s see the latest offers from Flippa. Don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter for daily/weekly/monthly offers such as these.

AI-Powered Video Editing App - This app enabling users to edit photos and videos maintains a 4.6-star rating across 4.4K+ reviews and has generated a TTM revenue of $508.5K.

• Monthly profit: $16,277

• Average monthly downloads: 66,584

• Business age: 2 years

3-Product Business Building Portfolio - This business features a portfolio of three products which include an ad marketplace, analytics SaaS, and a digital course.

• Monthly profit: $11,024

• Average order value: $151

• Business age: 2 years

Pickleball Paddle Ecommerce - This ecommerce business featuring a brand of pickleball paddles, gear, and apparel has generated a TTM revenue of $217.3K.

• Monthly profit: $10,725

• Average order value: $123

• Business age: 4 years

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