Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson: Recent Episodes
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A podcast about understanding how tech works and the way it is changing the world. Hosted by Andrew Sharp with Ben Thompson.
An emailer wonders whether 30 years of Internet investments and data were the bootloader for an AI transformation in the real world. Ben offers his take on recent reports that OpenAI and Google are seeing diminishing returns from their latest LLMs, and the arrival of Ultrawide capabilities leads to refined takes on the Vision Pro and advice for Apple moving forward.
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OpenAI, Google and Anthropic Are Struggling to Build More Advanced AI — Bloomberg
Apple Earnings; AI, Capex, and R&D The Vision Pro Gets a Killer App — Stratechery Update
Meta Meets Microsoft — Stratechery
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Looking to President Trump's first term for clues about what tech policy might look like for the next four years. Topics include: Apple's balancing act with the U.S. and China, why Meta and Google might have fared better under Kamala Harris, the implications for "Little Tech," an open question on M&A policies, unresolved tensions with EU regulators, TikTok, crypto policy, the case for growth, and thoughts on Elon Musk and the role that X played in the election.
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Apple’s E.U. Fine, Apple’s Next Case? — Stratechery Update
President Trump, Take Two; Big Tech, Little Tech, Chips, and Hardware; Elon Musk’s Triumph — Stratechery Update
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An email comparing James Harden to a tech company spawns several other tech and basketball crossovers. Then: A brief history of the bandwidth buildout that made it possible for video to take over the internet, an email about generative AI and digital advertising, a listener cries for help over political donation solicitations, and Ben aborts an experiment with the Google Pixel.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
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Talking through Ben's piece on Meta and Abundance, including the past, present and future of Meta's value proposition to e-commerce advertisers, plans to incorporate AI-generated content into news feeds, and questions about augmented reality and the next phase of user interfaces. At the end: An emailer highlights potential downsides of the vision Meta is selling.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
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Meta’s AI Abundance — Stratechery
Meta sees AI spending accelerating as earnings top forecasts — Financial Times
Meta’s going to put AI-generated images in your Facebook and Instagram feeds — The Verge
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The open questions about competition in AI and enterprise software, emails regarding text-to-voice podcasts and replacing Andrew with an AI agent, and a question about Amazon and the proposed tariffs on consumer goods from China. Plus: Apple Intelligence, OpenAI's naming strategy, and the daily media intake for both hosts.
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An Interview with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff about AI Abundance — Stratechery Interview
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A closer look at the emergence of stablecoins, their utility in crypto and cross-border payments, progress in the crypto space that could lead to more widespread adoption, and the strategic logic of Stripe's plan to buy Bridge, a stablecoin platform, for a reported $1.1 billion. At the end: Updates on the Apple Vision Pro, and the secret behind the success of Jayden Daniels in Washington, D.C.
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Stripe Confirms Plans to Acquire Stablecoin Platform Bridge — Bloomberg
Stripe Acquires Bridge, Stablecoins, Platform of Platforms — Stratechery Update
Tim Cook on Why Apple’s Huge Bets Will Pay Off — Wall Street Journal
Apple Sharply Scales Back Production of Vision Pro — The Information
Jayden Daniels’ growth with VR simulation has Commanders embracing mind games — The Athletic
The German VR ‘flight simulator’ behind LSU QB Jayden Daniels’ Heisman-caliber 2023 season — The Athletic
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OpenAI's latest valuation and the value of the ChatGPT brand, the AGI clause in the OpenAI-Microsoft partnership, a follow-up on Waymo's data and the Bitter Lesson, a twist in the AI device form factor conversation, and a question about Orion and the importance of elite talent in big tech.
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OpenAI’s New Model, How o1 Works, Scaling Inference — Stratechery Update
OpenAI DevDay, OpenAI’s Wrenching Transition, Lonely At the Top — Stratechery Update
Microsoft and OpenAI’s Close Partnership Shows Signs of Fraying — New York Times
Elon Dreams and Bitter Lessons — Stratechery
An Interview with Hugo Barra About Orion and Meta’s AR Strategy — Stratechery Interview
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Understanding Tesla’s approach to an autonomous driving future, why some observers think Tesla is ahead of Waymo today, and questions about market structure and regulation concerns as the future of transportation takes shape. At the end: An additional note on politics as a zero sum game, and a few thoughts on the rest of the F1 season.
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Elon Dreams and Bitter Lessons — Stratechery
The Bitter Lesson — Incomplete Ideas
An Interview with Hugo Barra About Orion and Meta’s AR Strategy — Stratechery Interview
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Explaining the SpaceX breakthrough over the weekend and why it mattered, an email about the next decade in tech, Tesla's 'We, Robot' event and the challenge of analyzing Elon Musk, a few more Waymo emails, and watches.
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In an engineering feat, mechanical SpaceX arms catch Starship rocket booster back at the launch pad — AP
SpaceX Starship Flight 5 — YouTube
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
An Interview with Gregory Allen About Transforming U.S. Defense — Stratechery Interview
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An injunction in the wake of the Epic v. Google case highlights the value of network effects in the app store market and the limits of antitrust law to restore competition, the DOJ proposes a break-up of Google that may run into similar problems in the search market, and Ben explains why Tesla's taking a different approach to autonomous driving than Waymo.
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Google Must Make It Easier for App Stores to Compete on Android, Judge Rules — Wall Street Journal
Google’s Play Store Remedies, The Injunction, The Power of Network Effects — Stratechery Update
US Weighs Google Breakup in Historic Big Tech Antitrust Case — Bloomberg
Tesla’s Robotaxi Event, Tesla Self-Driving 12.5 Experience, Starlink and Airlines — Stratechery Update
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Ben's experience with Waymo and a question about AI automation implications, NotebookLM arrives and intrigues, follow-ups on the Orion conversation, and two notes on platforms and the future of media consumption.
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Taking Waymo, Uber and Waymo — Stratechery Update
More on Orion, Where Vision Pro Went Wrong, Apple’s Response and Meta’s Motivation — Stratechery Update
Post from Kuldar — X: @kkuldar
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A few follow-up questions on Meta's plans for the Orion glasses and the looming competition with Apple, surveying the past 12 months at OpenAI, a question about X and the decision to limit the distribution of a hacked JD Vance dossier, and a question about the future of media consumption in the wake of ESPN's decision to part ways with Zach Lowe.
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More on Orion, Where Vision Pro Went Wrong, Apple’s Response and Meta’s Motivation — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth About Orion and Reality Labs — Stratechery Interview
Turning OpenAI Into a Real Business Is Tearing It Apart — Wall Street Journal
Snap Spectacles, iOS 18 Contacts Crack Down — Stratechery Update
ESPN lays off NBA reporter Zach Lowe over seven-figure salary — New York Post
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An episode of reactions to Meta Connect 2024. Topics include: the lively atmosphere during Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote, Ben’s experience with the Orion AR glasses, the strengths and weaknesses of Apple and Meta in the race to create a platform for the future, Llama 3.2, Snap’s Spectacles, and more.
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An Interview with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth About Orion and Reality Labs — Stratechery Interview
Meta and Reasonable Doubt — Stratechery
DALL-E, the Metaverse, and Zero Marginal Content — Stratechery
Snap Spectacles, iOS 18 Contacts Crack Down — Stratechery Update
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Answering listener questions on a tidal wave of sports gambling advertising, Sony’s strategy for the PlayStation Pro, robotics and the potentially destabilizing impact of AI, Apple’s latest ads, Microsoft’s LinkedIn purchase, and more.
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Unity Scraps Runtime Fee, Back to Reality, Sony PlayStation Pro — Stratechery Update
OpenAI’s New Model, How o1 Works, Scaling Inference — Stratechery Update
Copilot Pages, Salesforce Agents — Stratechery Update
Apple store employees hype the iPhone 16 — X: @9to5mac
Apple Intelligence | Custom memory movies | iPhone 16 Pro — Apple YouTube Channel
How to Have Interesting Ideas (The Ben Thompson Playbook) — How I Write
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Understanding the way LLMs have worked and why OpenAI's o1 model appears to be different, reactions to Microsoft's Copilot Pages and Marc Benioff's vision for agents, and why o1 and a generation of "reasoning models" could provide intriguing possibilities for AI investments across the enterprise space.
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Copilot Pages, Salesforce Agents — Stratechery Update
OpenAI’s New Model, How o1 Works, Scaling Inference — Stratechery Update
MKBHDs For Everything — Stratechery
Microsoft Customers Pause on Office AI Assistant Due to Budgets, Bugs — The Information
Steve Jobs Insult Response — YouTube
Matt Damon and George Clooney in Ocean's 11 — YouTube
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Questions about politics as America's most dominant pop culture franchise, recommendations for the EU, and more.
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What Apple's iPhone event signals about priorities for the company, a digression on the App Store and its attendant risks, and thoughts on what Steve Jobs could and couldn't change about Apple in 2024.
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Boomer Apple — Stratechery
Everything as a Service — Stratechery
Apple’s Middle Age — Stratechery
iPhone Pricing, DirecTV and Disney, Bars and Sports — Stratechery Update
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Answering questions about Apple’s Woj, a cornucopia of iPhone options, founder mode, and more.
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Apple Moves Forward With Foldable iPhone — The Information
Unboxing the new #Pixel9 — TikTok: @google
Founder Mode — Paul Graham
ASML’s China Chip Business Faces New Curbs From Netherlands — Bloomberg
China Warns Japan of Retaliation for Possible New Chip Curbs — Bloomberg
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Tracing the history that led to the decline of Intel, why Ben is conflicted about the potential solutions to the company's woes, and a Third Circuit verdict on Section 230 that could upend three decades of precedent across the tech ecosystem.
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Intel Honesty — Stratechery
Broadcom and Intel?, Nvidia Earnings, DOJ Investigating Nvidia — Stratechery Update
Intel Concerns, Fubo Blocks Venu — Stratechery Update
Intel Earnings, Intel’s Nadir — Stratechery Update
An Interview with “Father of the iPod” Tony Fadell — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger About Intel’s Progress Towards Process Leadership — Stratechery Interview
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The charges against Pavel Durov in France, the differences between encrypted messaging apps and Telegram, the philosophical questions underlying moderation scrutiny, and thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg's letter to the House Judiciary Committee this week.
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Post from Ethan Mollick — X: @emollick
DALL-E, the Metaverse, and Zero Marginal Content — Stratechery
Telegram CEO Durov faces preliminary charges in France of allowing crime on messaging app — Associated Press
Telegram CEO Charged Over Alleged Criminal Use of App — Bloomberg
The Multitudes of Social — Stratechery
Why Facebook Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Buy tbh — Stratechery
Google, Machine Learning, and CSAM; Takeaways and Tradeoffs; Apple’s CSAM Controversy — Stratechery Update
Mark Zuckerberg's Letter to Jim Jordan — Meta
Twitter, Responsibility, and Accountability — Stratechery
Russia, Google and Apple; The App Firewall; Laptop Assumptions — Stratechery Update
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Answering listener questions about Disney's massive investment in cruises, follow-ups on Canva and Sarbanes-Oxley, a new Chick-Fil-A streaming service, Perplexity’s advertising strategy, and lots more.
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Disney’s Taylor Swift Era — Stratechery
An Interview with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins About Disrupting Design — Stratechery Interview
Chick-Fil-A Hatches Plans For Streaming Service As Reality TV Comes Home To Roost — Deadline
Chick-fil-A Opens Its First-Ever Elevated Drive-Thru Restaurant — Yahoo! News
Parisian Love (2010) — Google
The world has changed a lot in the last decade...has your search engine? — Perplexity
Perplexity Print ads — X: @jackgwhitaker
This Is What Happens When Tech Bros Attempt to ‘Fix’ Online Recipes — Eater
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A conversation about Canva and lessons from its growth story, the future of graphic design and visual learning, and a word about tech IPOs in the modern era. At the end: The injunction blocking the launch of a new streaming service, follow-ups on surgeon groupchats, and an emailer makes Sharp Tech history.
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An Interview with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins About Disrupting Design — Stratechery Interview
Fox-Disney Sports Service Blocked by Judge in Win for Fubo — Bloomberg
Vision Pro at Work, The Sports Bundle — Stratechery Update
The Rise and Fall of ESPN’s Leverage — Stratechery
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Answering listener questions on the BNPL model for smartphones, whether Apple employees hate the App Store policies, Apple Intelligence and search, and lots more.
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The history of PCs and smartphones as context for Google's integrated strategy for Android, and reactions to Apple's plans for the NFC chip and its approach to Patreon and payment processing. At the end: Final thoughts on Peacock and the Olympics, Amazon’s Whole Foods experiment, and a listener requests a tour of Ben’s cord bag.
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For a collection of all the accessories Ben mentioned during the final segment, click here.
The Truth About Windows Versus the Mac — Stratechery
Obsoletive — Stratechery
Integration and Android — Stratechery
Apple to Open Payment Chip to Third Parties and Charge Fees — Bloomberg
NBC Measurement, Apple and Patreon, Substack Next? — Stratechery Update
Olympic Ratings, Peacock’s Abundance, Comcast Earnings — Stratechery Update
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The implications and inherent tensions of this week’s verdict in U.S. v. Google, Apple and a mountain of services revenue suddenly in jeopardy, and emails on aggregators, Elon Musk’s latest lawsuit, Crunchyroll and more.
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Friendly Google and Enemy Remedies — Stratechery
Google Decision Follow-Up, Amazon Earnings — Stratechery Update
United States v. Google — Stratechery
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What Nike's recent struggles can teach us about maintaining culture and competing in e-commerce, plus questions on Amazon and Temu, Meta's threat to AI incumbents, and the pricing strategy of AI cloud providers. At the end: The implication of recent Netflix news, NBC's pricing strategy for Peacock, Google's new Gemini commercial, and more.
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Nike: An Epic Saga of Value Destruction — Massimo Giunco
Microsoft Earnings, Copilot and CapEx, Pichai on Risk — Stratechery Update
Llama 3.1; Zuckerberg on Open Source AI; Kamala Harris, Europe, and Tech Innovation — Stratechery Update
Google Earnings, YouTube and Brand Advertising, Network and the Web’s AI Problem — Stratechery Update
Netflix Earnings, The Status of Netflix Advertising — Stratechery Update
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Meta debuts a powerful new LLM, Mark Zuckerberg makes the case for an open approach to AI, and Ben explains the Crowdstrike mess and why this episode highlights fundamental tensions between security and competition. At the end: Updated thinking on Netflix and what it wants from the ad business, and marveling at Apple's spending spree in Hollywood.
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Open Source AI Is the Path Forward — Mark Zuckerberg
Llama 3.1; Zuckerberg on Open Source AI; Kamala Harris, Europe, and Tech Innovation — Stratechery Update
What is CrowdStrike, and what happened? — The Verge
Netflix Earnings, The Status of Netflix Advertising — Stratechery Update
Crashes and Competition — Stratechery
Why Netflix Should Sell Ads — Stratechery
Apple Tries to Rein In Hollywood Spending After Years of Losses — Bloomberg
Ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd (on Apple Vision Pro) — The Verge
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Projecting antitrust policy in a second Trump administration and explaining the splintered interests among little tech and big tech, checking in with the state of X under Elon Musk, and two ChatGPT testimonials help explain the status quo. At the end: Both hosts choose new jobs and new favorite teams.
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JD Vance and Tech, Big Tech Versus Little Tech, JD Vance’s Remarks About Antitrust at the RemedyFest Conference — Stratechery Update
Tech For Trump, Breaking the Deal, From Inertness to Interest — Stratechery Update
Tech CEOs on Trump, X and the E.U., Apple Settles with E.U. Over NFC — Stratechery Update
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Ben and Andrew return with thoughts on Apple's calculus in the EU, why better App Store policies may not have mattered, perspectives from US and EU citizens, and follow-up to Ben's article on various EU regulatory ambitions. Then: The news that neither Apple nor Microsoft will take observer seats on the OpenAI board, Paramount's merger and an endorsement of irrational Hollywood, Apple unveils its F1 movie, bubble tea takes, and President Mr. Beast.
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The E.U. Goes Too Far — Stratechery
Apple and the OpenAI Board, Microsoft and the OpenAI Board — Stratechery Update
Microsoft and Apple drop OpenAI seats amid antitrust scrutiny — Financial Times
Why Apple Deserves Special Scrutiny, Paramount Merges with Skydance — Stratechery Update
'F1' Official Tease — YouTube
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Perplexity and the choices facing publishers in the AI era, revisiting the decisions and structural forces that led to media struggles in the online economy, and an emailer from the EU who wonders about the costs of the expansive language in the digital markets act. At the end: Ice cream, and a few interview recs for the break.
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Perplexity and Robots.txt, Perplexity’s Defense, Google and Competition — Stratechery Update
European Commission Charges Apple, Apple Delays New Features for E.U. — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Benedict Evans About Regulation and AI — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang About AI’s iPhone Moment — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Eugene Wei About Twitter, Threads, and Taylor Swift — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Michael Nathanson About a Tumultuous Year in Media — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Michael Morton About E-Commerce Winners and Losers — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with The Ringer Founder and CEO Bill Simmons — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Om Malik About Tech’s History and Future — Stratechery Interview
An Interview With The New York Times Company CEO Meredith Kopit Levien — Stratechery Interview
An Interview with Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) About Being a YouTube Star — Stratechery Interview
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Lessons from the FTC's lawsuit alleging that Adobe has violated consumer protection laws in its cloud services business, a question about the vibes at WWDC and other tentpole keynotes across big tech, and a few more notes on Apple, including Facebook's data calculus, the DRI model, and stress-testing the developer concerns with respect to the Vision Pro.
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FTC Sues Adobe, The Legal Question, The Value of Doing Right — Stratechery Update
Adobe’s Subscription Model & Why Platform Owners Should Care — Stratechery
MLS on Vision Pro, The Vision Pro’s Missing Content, The Vision Pro’s DRI — Stratechery Update
The Uncanny Valley of a Functional Organization — Stratechery
Apple’s Organizational Crossroads — Stratechery
Divine Discontent: Disruption’s Antidote — Stratechery
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Answering listener questions in the wake of WWDC, including thoughts on AI for Outlook, whether Apple competitors will allow data access to Apple Intelligence, cloud questions, chip questions, and more.
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Apple Intelligence is Right On Time — Stratechery
WWDC, Apple Intelligence, Apple Aggregates AI — Stratechery Update
How Apple Intelligence Works, Apple’s AI Bear Case, The Talk Show Live — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman About Apple and AI — Stratechery Interview
The Apple-OpenAI “Deal”, Japan and the App Store, Apple’s AI Developer Risk — Stratechery Update
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Reviewing all things WWDC in 2024, including the introduction of Apple Intelligence, why Apple's vision for mainstream AI was compelling, the Apple partnership with OpenAI, questions about Private Cloud Compute, and lots more.
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Apple Intelligence AI, iOS 18 and the biggest announcements at WWDC 2024 — Engadget
Apple Intelligence is Right On Time — Stratechery
WWDC, Apple Intelligence, Apple Aggregates AI — Stratechery Update
How Apple Intelligence Works, Apple’s AI Bear Case, The Talk Show Live — Stratechery Update
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A look at Microsoft Recall and the implications of the security changes that were announced this weekend, follow-up questions on what Netflix may build in its advertising business, and a few countervailing notes on the possibility of a dark GPU sequel to the dark fiber story after the dot com bubble.
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Apple Intelligence is Right On Time — Stratechery
Stealing everything you’ve ever typed or viewed on your own Windows PC is now possible with two lines of code — inside the Copilot+ Recall disaster. — DoublePulsar
Windows won’t take screenshots of everything you do after all — unless you opt in — The Verge
Microsoft Build, Copilot Platforms, A Note on Recall — Stratechery Update
Netflix and the NFL, Netflix Internalizes Ads, Comcast’s Bundle — Stratechery Update
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A look at Walmart’s challenges and opportunities as it builds an ad business, how Walmart became a differentiated competitor to Amazon, and a question about AI skepticism spawns extended discussion of life in the middle of a bubble. At the end: Picks for the NBA Finals.
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An Interview with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon About Omnichannel Retail — Stratechery Interview
Walmart Earnings, Walmart Connect and Closing the Loop, Walmart Acquires Vizio — Stratechery Update
The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam — Wall Street Journal
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A question about generative AI and the hardware powering voice assistants, projecting the GPU future with the dot com bubble as context, and thoughts on Amazon’s capital expenditures and the state of AWS and Amazon Supply Chain. At the end: An Elon hater reviews the Cybertruck.
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Apple Plans AI-Based Siri Overhaul to Control Individual App Functions — Bloomberg
An Interview with Craig Moffett About Charter vs. Disney and the Path Dependency of the Communications Industry — Stratechery Interview
Computex 2024, Is AWS Modular or Integrated? — Stratechery Update
The AWS IPO — Stratechery
The Amazon Tax — Stratechery
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A question about the spectrum between LLMs and AGI spawns a conversation about where and how AI might introduce upheaval in the workplace, what TSMC can teach us about probabilistic LLMs, whether AI will be a feature for all big companies or a differentiating product for one winner, and frustrations at the barriers to entry that have thus far allowed big tech to retain control of AI's mainstream applications. Also: An important note about Scarlett Johannson.
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AI Integration and Modularization — Stratechery
Microsoft PAINT can turn your crappy sketch into whatever you imagined it to be! — TikTok: @trevorlong
Apple Bets That Its Giant User Base Will Help It Win in AI — Bloomberg
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The Microsoft Build conference and the introduction of Copilot+ PCs, the potential for Windows as an AI platform that gives developers more certainty, and reactions to Scarlett Johansson's statement about her negotiations with Sam Altman and the launch of GPT-4o.
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Windows Returns — Stratechery
Microsoft Build, Copilot Platforms, A Note on Recall — Stratechery Update
Interviews with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CTO Kevin Scott About the AI Platform Shift — Stratechery Interview
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
Scarlett Johansson Says She Was ‘Shocked’ and ‘Angered’ Over OpenAI’s Use of a Voice That Was ‘Eerily Similar to Mine’ — Variety
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A variety of notable Netflix developments over the past few weeks, Hollywood's continued move to a (kinda) rebundled future, and what sports leagues are learning as internet realities take hold across entertainment. At the end: Andrew finally watches "Her" and shares his review.
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Netflix and the NFL, Netflix Internalizes Ads, Comcast’s Bundle — Stratechery Update
Netflix to Show NFL’s Two Christmas Day Games in 2024 — Wall Street Journal
The NFL-Netflix Broken Hearts Club — Puck
The Coming Comp War at Netflix — Puck
Netflix Says Ad Tier Has 40M Users, Plans to Bring Ad Tech In-House in Shift From Microsoft — The Hollywood Reporter
Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery to Launch Disney+, Hulu, Max Streaming Bundle — Variety
Comcast to Launch Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ Bundle at a ‘Vastly Reduced Price’ — Variety
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Reactions to two hours of Google on stage this week, thoughts on what an AI makeover for search will mean for businesses that rely on Google for customer acquisition, and answers to mailbag questions on Google Cloud, Apple's rumored partnership with OpenAI, Amazon, and the continued ascent of SpaceX and Starlink.
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Google I/O, Google’s Strengths and Weaknesses, AI Search — Stratechery Update
DJ Marc Rebillet at Google I/O — X: @keshavchan
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Reactions to the GPT-4o demo, a reminder that OpenAI looks more and more like a consumer tech company, and questions about a potential partnership with Apple. At the end: A follow-up on Apple’s ads, and an emailer defends the Bumble CEO.
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Introducing GPT-4o — OpenAI
OpenAI’s Spring Event, GPT-4o, OpenAI and Apple — Stratechery Update
The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs — Stratechery Update
Christmas Commercial 2013 — Apple
Welcome Home by Spike Jonze — Apple
Bumble CEO on Future of Dating — X: @tsarnick
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The iPad commercial that made the Internet angry this week, a question about Google search spawns thoughts on the various futures of Google's business, and a few observations on the Tom Brady roast as a reflection of Netflix strategy. Plus: A final word on the iPad and its utility.
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Meet the New iPad Pro — X: @tim_cook
The iPad Commercial in Reverse — X: @rob_keyes
Apple’s iPad Event, The Peaceful iPad, Disney Earnings — Stratechery Update
Google Earnings, Google’s Re-Org, Google’s True Moonshot — Stratechery Update
TV Advertising’s Surprising Strength — And Inevitable Fall — Stratechery
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A question about Apple sentiment in China spawns memories of Apple's entrance to Japan, the utility of the iPad as a Mac replacement (and why the Vision Pro would be the better option for that job), plus Apple acquisitions, Apple's growth premium, and where, exactly, Meta is spending all that money in the Metaverse.
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Apple’s New iPad Pro Should Turn Device Into True Laptop Replacement — Bloomberg
Apple Earnings, Wearables and Vision Pro, AI Leverage — Stratechery Update
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Parsing the latest reports on the battle for the NBA's next round of broadcast rights, a question about the NBA schedule and how the league should think about competing with the NFL, and the implications of an increasingly bleak outlook for regional sports networks.
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The NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and Microsoft Earnings — Stratechery Update
NBC Prepares $2.5-Billion-a-Year Bid to Pluck NBA Rights From TNT — Wall Street Journal
NBC Sports could buy back rights to iconic theme song ‘Roundball Rock’ if it airs NBA games again, composer John Tesh says — CNBC
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Ben proposes a potential update to Clayton Christensen's theory of disruption, why the latest round of Meta market skepticism is not as crazy as the last few episodes, questions about Facebook and Apple, and an emailer wonders whether Uber is the future aggregator for transportation and beyond.
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Meta and Open — Stratechery
Does VR Matter?, Modular Products and Defining New Markets, TikTok Acquirers — Stratechery Update
Apple Rivals Retool to Challenge the iPhone and Vision Pro — Bloomberg
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Why TikTok makes more sense for Wal-Mart and Amazon than Oracle and Microsoft, and the FTC's ban on noncompete agreements prompts reflections noncompetes in Silicon Valley and the decline of trust across society. At the end: A question about Bluey and purchasing power for streamers, and an update on Drake's AI freestyle.
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The Inside Story Of How Glen Taylor Sabotaged The Timberwolves Sale — Huddle Up
An Interview with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon About Omnichannel Retail — Stratechery Interview
Business Groups Race to Block FTC’s Ban on Noncompete Agreements — Wall Street Journal
FTC Enrages Corporate America by Eliminating Non-Compete Agreements — BIG by Matt Stoller
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A closer look at Netflix after news that the streamer will stop reporting subscription numbers in 2025, a question about Meta’s AI ambitions, and the case for Google making a play to compete with the iPhone. At the end: Drake’s use of AI Tupac in a rap battle.
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Netflix Earnings, Netflix’s Reporting Change, Netflix’s Waiting Game — Stratechery Update
Google and the Limits of Strategy — Stratechery
Google’s True Moonshot — Stratechery
Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends — Stratechery
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Celebrating 10 years of Stratechery as a subscription business with 10 questions about analysis, creating on the Internet, what's coming with AI, and what it was like on day 1.
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MKBHDs For Everything — Stratechery
Meta Myths — Stratechery
Why Microsoft’s Reorganization Is a Bad Idea — Stratechery
Popping the Publishing Bubble — Stratechery
Peak Google — Stratechery
The Vision Pro and the Newton, The Case Against AVP as an Entertainment Device, The Most Valuable Tech Product of All — Sharp Tech
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The advertising possibilities that AI can unlock for Meta, Google and Amazon, why TikTok is interested in AI to create digital influencers, and looking to past technologies to predict the impact that AI will make on the economy. At the end: Two questions about chips, a story about EVs and British mechanics, and Scrabble.
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Actors Are Making Thousands of Dollars Through Fake Video Podcast Ads — Bloomberg
TikTok Plots Using Virtual Influencers for Advertising — The Information
The rise of the chief AI officer — Financial Times
Nike designed these wild Air sneakers with a little help from AI — Fast Company
EVs Head for Junkyard as Mechanic Shortage Inflates Repair Costs — Bloomberg
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Andrew and Ben turn to the emailers and answer questions on Jony Ive's post-Apple adventures, structural parallels between tech and the rise of journalists Shams Charania and Adrian Wojnarowski, Instagram's strategy for Reels, the information environment surrounding Neuralink, and the best approach to solving age verification for teenagers.
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Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s AI Device Startup in Funding Talks With Emerson, Thrive — The Information
Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends — Stratechery
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Shows First Patient Using Its Brain Implant — Wall Street Journal
What the NBA Can Learn From Formula 1 — Stratechery
ESPN Financials, NBA Spin, Jon Stewart vs. Apple — Stratechery Update
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Updated thoughts on Amazon rolling back “just walk out” in grocery stores, context for a viral Meta tweet and a year of pessimism surrounding TSMC in Arizona, and Ben walks through what happened with the XZ backdoor and the changes that should come next.
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The Status of Just Walk Out, TSMC Gets CHIPS Act Grant — Stratechery Update
The XZ Backdoor, What Happened, Open Source Safety — Stratechery Update
Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores — Gizmodo
Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence — New York Times
TSMC says Arizona fab is now ahead of schedule; signs semiconductor talent agreement with Kyushu University — Data Centre Dynamics
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Scheduling Note: There will be only one episode of Sharp Tech this week
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MLS on Vision Pro, The Vision Pro’s Missing Content, The Vision Pro’s DRI — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Hugo Barra About a Career in Tech and the Future of VR — Stratechery Interview
Exclusive: Microsoft to separate Teams and Office globally amid antitrust scrutiny — Reuters
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Follow-up on Apple and the DOJ, including new antitrust laws Ben would like to see, distinctions between platforms and aggregators in a regulatory context, and both sides of the Apple API argument. At the end: Attempts to bridge antitrust confusion and a rant on Boeing’s CEO search.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Scheduling Note: There will be only one episode of Sharp Tech next week
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United States v. Apple — Stratechery
Apple and Antitrust for Aggregators, DMA Investigations and Apple’s Risk — Stratechery Update
Apple and the Monopoly Question, iPhone Market Share, Apple’s Durability — Stratechery Update
A Framework for Regulating Competition on the Internet — Stratechery
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A closer look at the US v. Apple complaint, including the good and bad of the introductory rhetoric, debate over the notion that consumers have co-signed Apple's control of the app store, text messaging technology, smartwatches, what Apple has always offered consumers, and the strategic decisions that made the company an attractive antitrust target.
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United States v. Apple — Stratechery
The Supreme Court Declines to Hear Apple-Epic, Apple’s (Predictable) Response — Stratechery Update
Integrated Apple and App Store Risk — Stratechery
App Store Arguments — Stratechery
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An AI day for Sharp Tech. Topics include: Nvidia’s GTC and the Blackwell B200 GPU, Nvidia’s strategic calculus after achieving product market fit, whether Google missed a chance to market TPUs to a wider audience, the logic underlying Microsoft’s bizarre arrangement with Inflection AI, and Apple’s rumored talks about a partnership with Google Gemini.
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Nvidia Unveils Latest Chips at ‘AI Woodstock’ — Wall Street Journal
Nvidia Looks to Extend AI Dominance With New Blackwell Chips — Bloomberg
Nvidia Waves and Moats — Stratechery
Microsoft and Inflection AI, Inflection Oddities, The Acquisition That Isn’t — Stratechery Update
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A closer look at Meta's strategy with WhatsApp, why Disney's failure to buy Google in 1999 shouldn't be surprising, Apple's doomed car project and attendant AI ambitions, and a question about the New York Times spawns discussion of the podcast industry, in general.
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WhatsApp launches in-chat payments service for businesses in India — Financial Times
Strategy Letter V — Joel on Software
The incredible shrinking podcast industry — Semafor
How Apple Sank About $1 Billion a Year Into a Car It Never Built — Bloomberg
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A look at Reddit’s business as well as the company’s message board DNA, examining some of the opposition to this week’s TikTok legislation, and at the end, identifying the company that should buy TikTok.
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Reddit S-1, Reddit’s Prospects, Reddit Grows Up — Stratechery Update
Congress Considering TikTok Ban, TikTok’s War, What Now? — Stratechery Update
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The latest legislative push to address TikTok’s relationship to ByteDance, Ben’s 2020 analysis of the threats posed by the app, the arguments and interests opposing a ban, and why US freedoms may ultimately be the best defense against a foreign influence campaign.
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Congress Considering TikTok Ban, TikTok’s War, What Now? — Stratechery Update
The TikTok War — Stratechery
Xi Jinping Thought, Facebook’s Blindspot, The Moat Map Revisited — Stratechery Update
Lulu Cheng Meservey — @lulumeservey
Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping's China by John Garnaut — Sinocism
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A closer look at Elon Musk’s lawsuit, why it will probably fail, and the OpenAI concerns Musk highlights that remain relevant. Then: Apple’s latest App Store crusade, some amateur psychology, and an emailer’s Google observation yields a Microsoft history lesson.
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Elon Musk Sues OpenAI, Sam Altman, Saying They Abandoned Founding Mission — Wall Street Journal
Elon Musk vs. OpenAI, OpenAI’s Response, OpenAI’s Foundational Problem — Stratechery Update
Elon Musk’s legal case against OpenAI is hilariously bad — The Verge
OpenAI and Elon Musk — OpenAI Blog
Apple Fined by European Commission, Apple’s Spotify Press Release, Apple Revokes Epic’s Developer Account (Again) — Stratechery Update
Post from Tim Sweeney — X: @TimSweeneyEpic
Post from Paul Graham — X: @paulg
Complexity and Strategy — HackerNoon
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The challenges posed by AI as aggregators like Meta and Google deploy models around the around, why personalized LLM output might be a long term solution, and reactions to the latest release from Anthropic and the current pace of AI progress. At the end: A word about Perplexity.
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Aggregator’s AI Risk — Stratechery
Google's Culture of Fear — Pirate Wires
The AI wars heat up with Claude 3, claimed to have “near-human” abilities — Ars Technica
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
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The letter from Sundar Pichai in the wake of a Gemini’s disastrous week, the relationship between TSMC and Nvidia (and why Intel is part of the conversation), and an emailer asks Ben to compare Apple’s now-abandoned car ambitions with Google’s investment in Waymo. At the end: A Vision Pro question and a new Formula One season.
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Gemini and Google’s Culture — Stratechery
Google CEO says Gemini AI diversity errors are ‘completely unacceptable’ — The Verge
An Interview with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross Reasoning About AI — Stratechery Interview
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An email about AI losers spawns a check-in on the AI efforts of the big five, Google’s Gemini rollout prompts a history lesson and questions about the culture, while the debates over Gemini highlight the limits of chatbots and signal another step toward bifurcation between the physical and virtual world.
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Groq Costs, Gemini Pro 1.5, Google’s Timidity — Stratechery Update
Sora, Groq, and Virtual Reality — Stratechery
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How the gaming market went from PlayStation to Microsoft Game Pass, the fundamental tensions underlying Microsoft’s current strategy in games, and thoughts on the future for Sony and Meta’s Quest 3 as a gaming console.
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Microsoft: four Xbox-exclusive games are coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch — The Verge
Xbox Games to Go Cross-Platform?, Console Context, Xbox’s Final Strategy — Stratechery Update
Xbox’s Announcement; Microsoft’s Messy Middle; Apple in Europe, Continued — Stratechery Update
Consoles and Competition — Stratechery
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A look at the questions surrounding the sports streaming bundle that’s coming from Fox, Disney, and Warner Brothers Discovery, including the challenge of targeting video ads on the internet, why Disney’s bet on sports is a bet on ads, and why Andrew is bearish on the joint venture. At the end: Mark Zuckerberg on the Vision Pro, and Ben takes to Twitter to talk Vision Pro on an airplane.
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Why Three Media Giants Made a Hail Mary Bet on Sports Streaming — Wall Street Journal
I tried Vision Pro. Here's my take, shot with Quest's high resolution mixed reality passthrough. — Instagram: @zuck
@BenThompson — X
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Ben and Andrew begin with a note about a recent Stratechery announcement before to turning their attention to a variety of emails about the Apple Vision Pro.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
Vision Pro at Work, The Sports Bundle — Stratechery Update
Meta Earnings; Meta, AI, and ATT; Meta’s New Playbook — Stratechery Update
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Ben and Andrew share first impressions after Andrew demos a Vision Pro and Ben spends 24 hours exploring the AVP at home. Plus: Venting about Apple’s user-hostile guest mode process.
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@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
The Apple Vision Pro — Stratechery
Apple Vision — Stratechery
Quest vs. Vision, Vision and the Mac, Apple Acquires Mira — Stratechery Update
the thing no one will say about Apple Vision Pro — YouTube: CaseyNeistat
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A new mailbag featuring a comparison between the Vision Pro and night vision goggles, Ben’s process for digesting quarterly earnings news, and some final thoughts on Apple’s approach to the App Store.
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Google Earnings, Microsoft Earnings — Stratechery Update
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A question about AI video and what sectors it might disrupt, and the latest attempt at Apple regulation promos a conversation about Apple’s property rights and the future of the App Store.
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@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
Lumiere — Google Research
Apple and the DMA, Apple and “Or”, A Reluctant Apple Apologist — Stratechery Update
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Introducing the Sharp Tech YouTube Channel, understanding why Netflix choose the WWE for its first live rights partner in sports, more on the Vision Pro and watching sports in VR, and recapping Ben’s week in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum.
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@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
An Interview with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters About Strategy and Execution — Stratechery Interview
Netflix’s Subscribers, Revenue Surge as It Cracks Down on Password Sharing — Wall Street Journal
Amazon and Diamond Sports, Netflix and WWE — Stratechery Update
The secret to Netflix's total dominance — Business Insider
I co-founded Occupy Wall Street. Now I'm headed to Davos. Why? — Guardian
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Apple’s new App Store rules inspire plenty of familiar complaints, while some of the biggest tech companies in the world tell Apple to launch Vision Pro without them.
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Apple’s Testy Developer Relationships Threaten to Hamper Vision Pro — Bloomberg
The Apple Vision Pro’s Missing Apps — Stratechery
The Supreme Court Declines to Hear Apple-Epic, Apple’s (Predictable) Response — Stratechery Update
Apple’s biggest critics are big mad about the new 27 percent App Store tax — The Verge
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Peacock makes history as the first streaming service to broadcast an NFL playoff game, an emailer asks Chat GPT licensing deals, and Boeing follow-up spawns questions on the future of free markets and humans vs. software.
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What is Peacock? Why the NBC platform is exclusively streaming Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game — The Athletic
Global news publisher Axel Springer partners with OpenAI in landmark deal — Reuters
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The latest failures at Boeing invite fresh scrutiny of the incentive structure, strategy lessons embedded in the company's decline, and why Boeing exemplifies the same mistakes and challenges that the rest of the American industrial base will confront in the years to come. At the end: ESPN eyes an even bigger college football investment and a release date for the Vision Pro.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Panel on Boeing Plane May Not Have Been Properly Attached, Agency Says — New. York Times
‘I Honestly Don’t Trust Many People at Boeing’: A Broken Culture Exposed — New York Times
The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course — The Atlantic
How Engineering "Took a Back Seat to Finance" at Boeing — WTTW
Inside the strained union of Boeing and Spirit Aerosystems — The Air Current
Apple’s Vision Pro Headset to Go on Sale at US Stores on Feb. 2 — Bloomberg
Sources: College Football Playoff, ESPN discuss 6-year rights contract — ESPN
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A word about the Packers and microchips, and then reactions to the New York Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, the similarities and differences between past copyright cases with Google and Napster, and a question about automated copyright enforcement.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work — The New York Times
AI’s future could hinge on one thorny legal question — Washington Post
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Celebrating the end of the year with a few reactions to Wednesday’s Paramount-Warner Brothers rumors and a wide variety of mailbag questions. Happy holidays from the entire Sharp Tech team!
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Scoop: Warner Bros. Discovery in talks to merge with Paramount Global — Axios
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The patent dispute that has Apple ready to take Apple Watches off the market, the expanding powers of the EU regulatory regime, why the Adobe-Figma acquisition raised legitimate competition concerns, and the uncertainty for the startup ecosystem as mergers become more difficult across tech.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Apple Is So Big, It’s Almost Eclipsing France’s Stock Market — Bloomberg
Apple Watch Import Ban, Apple v Masimo, Apple’s Response — Stratechery Update
Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 sales in the US this week — 9to5Mac
When Apple Comes Calling, ‘It’s the Kiss of Death’ — Wall Street Journal
Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma — The Verge
Adobe to Buy Collaboration-Software Company Figma for About $20 Billion — Wall Street Journal
Adobe Acquires Figma, Figma’s Disruption, The Figma OS — Stratechery Update
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong — Stratechery
Google Loses Antitrust Case to Epic; The Differences Between Apple and Google, Revisited; The Tying Question — Stratechery Update
Malakai Bayoh sings a stunning ‘O Holy Night’ duet with Aled Jones — Classic FM YouTube Channel
King's College, Cambridge : 'O Holy Night' : 2015 — Archive of Recorded Church Music YouTube Channel
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Bull and bear cases for Google's long term prospects, why navigating the AI era may require leadership and culture changes, and thoughts on college football's success and Mark Cuban's sale of the Dallas Mavericks. At the end: Select wisdom from Charlie Munger.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
A collection of Charlie Munger's best quotes — X: @MorningBrew
The College Football Playoff, Events Over Inventory, NASCAR’s New Deal — Stratechery Update
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Ben’s article on “Regretful Accelerationism,” the differences between today’s Internet and that of 10 years ago, AI articles at Sports Illustrated as digital media continues its decline, and why the increasingly bleak outlook for social media might be healthy for society itself.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Regretful Accelerationism — Stratechery
Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers — Futurism
Why Web Pages Suck — Stratechery
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
NYT DealBook Summit: Elon Musk — X: @andrewrsorkin
Two Apple Items, Twitter Cash Flow, Twitter Versus Advertisers — Stratechery Update
Substack Has a Nazi Problem — The Atlantic
Spotify and Joe Rogan, Culture and Principles, Music Versus Podcasts and the Long Run — Stratechery Update
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Altman Returns as OpenAI CEO in Chaotic Win for Microsoft — Bloomberg
OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain — Stratechery
The OpenAI Saga Continues, Microsoft’s New Chips, Microsoft’s AI Platform Hedge — Stratechery Update
HitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, gets beheaded in Philadelphia — CNN
The Crown season 6 review – so bad it’s basically an out-of-body experience — The Guardian
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Reactions to one of the most extraordinary weekends in the history of the tech industry, the blindspots that were exposed among both the OpenAI board and Microsoft, the non-profit model for development and OpenAI's recruiting prowess, and a groundswell of support for Sam Altman as a variety of questions remain.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain — Stratechery
The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs — Stratechery Update
The OpenAI Saga Continues, Microsoft’s New Chips, Microsoft’s AI Platform Hedge — Stratechery Update
OpenAI, Artificial Intelligence and Data, Data and Recruiting — Stratechery Update
Altman Sought Billions For Chip Venture Before OpenAI Ouster — Bloomberg
Microsoft Wants to Work With OpenAI’s Sam Altman, No Matter Where he is, CEO Nadella Says — Bloomberg
Inside the Chaos at OpenAI — The Atlantic
The Doomed Mission Behind Sam Altman’s Shock Ouster From OpenAI — Bloomberg
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After one year of Sharp Tech and Sharp China, a summit with Ben Thompson, Bill Bishop and Andrew Sharp to discuss podcasting, the chip ban, the US-China relationship and beyond.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
To read the full transcript, click here.
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An emailer makes the argument for text over voice as the AI interface of the future, the introduction of Humane's AI pin, and questions for Apple and OpenAI as the AI ecosystem evolves. At the end: A few clarifications from listeners and more thoughts on tech and the real estate market.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The OpenAI Keynote — Stratechery
Realtors Lose in Court, Zillow and Real Estate Aggregation, From Franchises to Businesses — Stratechery Update
AI, Hardware, and Virtual Reality — Stratechery
This is the Humane Ai Pin — @Humane
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The possibilities of a universal chatbot for the future, the challenges for any new consumer tech company trying to match the scale of incumbents, and the strategic questions facing OpenAI as its leadership allocates resources and considers a move into hardware.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The OpenAI Keynote — Stratechery
OpenAI DevDay, Opening Keynote — OpenAI
More on Google and AI; OpenAI, Integration, and Microsoft — Stratechery Update
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
AI Homework — Stratechery
Designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman Discuss AI Hardware Project — The Information
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A verdict in Missouri portends big changes in the real estate industry, why real estate is a natural fit for an aggregator, and divergent outcomes from two tech-adjacent price-fixing cases. At the end: The NBA and streaming, and Ronald Reagan’s version of Mission: Impossible.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The Way You Pay to Buy or Sell a Home Is About to Change — Wall Street Journal
Atlantic City Hotels Turn Attention to Vegas Courthouse in Pricing Algorithms Case — The National Law Review
An Interview with Opendoor CEO Eric Wu About Building a Marketplace in a Real Estate Slowdown — Stratechery Interview
Opendoor Earnings, Opendoor’s Pricing, Opendoor’s Scalability — Stratechery Update
Are Broker Commissions Too High? — New York Times
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The White House executive order on AI, the accidental lesson of all the analogies to nuclear technology, what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can teach us about innovation, and a look at the competing systemic priorities that create AI questions without clear answers.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Attenuating Innovation (AI) — Stratechery
An Interview with Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman about the AI Hype Cycle — Stratechery Interview
Netflix Follow-Up, The Senate Tech Bill — Stratechery Update
Biden wants to move fast on AI safeguards and signs an executive order to address his concerns — The Associated Press
Fukushima Outrage Continues; Secretary Raimondo in China; Perfect Timing for a Huawei Launch; TikTok Lobbyists Take a Bow — Sharp China
Taking On AI | Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One — Paramount Pictures YouTube Channel
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Celebrating 100 episodes of Sharp Tech with quick thoughts on Monday night's Apple event, a second look at GM's foray into software, the tech CEO that should be the next NBA commissioner, and more emails from listeners.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
GM thinks it can wean you off Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — The Verge
Apple unveils the new MacBook Pro featuring the M3 family of chips, making the world’s best pro laptop even better — Apple Newsroom
China Chips and Moore’s Law — Stratechery
The World’s Biggest Carmaker Made a Huge Bet on Tech. Things Went Wrong Fast. — Wall Street Journal
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A Netflix letter to shareholders that doubles as a message to the rest of Hollywood, the NBA’s precarious negotiating posture as the cable bundle crumbles, and one way Amazon could make the NBA a worthwhile investment.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Netflix Earnings, Netflix’s Licensing Pitch, Netflix Gaming Revisited — Stratechery Update
Amazon Is Eyeing an NBA Package for Tuesdays or Thursdays — Front Office Sports
ESPN Financials, NBA Spin, Jon Stewart vs. Apple — Stratechery Update
ESPN May Be Worth $22 Billion Based on First Look at Results — Bloomberg
An ESPN Aggregator, Google Magic Eraser, Bing Chat Monetization? — Stratechery Update
What the NBA Can Learn From Formula 1 — Stratechery
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The Maps history that undergirds Google’s partnership with Apple, whether the Apple and Google app stores should be regulated like modern day utility companies, and a question about regulation and ideological consistency. At the end: iPhone etiquette, a Delta update, and TikTot on interesting parents and adult supervision.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Google and the Limits of Strategy — Stratechery
‘Unprecedented’ Secrecy in Google Trial as Tech Giants Push to Limit Disclosures — New York Times
Microsoft CEO warns of ‘nightmare’ future for AI if Google’s search dominance continues — CNN
Microsoft Says Apple Used Bing as Google ‘Bargaining Chip’ — Bloomberg
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Memories of an article in 2016, a reminder that the impact of fake news is generally correlated to the speaker, not the speech, and a question about harm yields an answer about the importance precision and principles.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Fake News — Stratechery
In Defense of The New York Times — Stratechery
Defining Information — Stratechery
Twitter, Responsibility, and Accountability — Stratechery
After Hospital Blast, Headlines Shift With Changing Claims — New York Times
Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence — New York Times
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An emailer recommends ignoring college students on Twitter, the strategic logic of America’s ban on the sale of advanced chips to China, and a few different questions about AI and our digital future. At the end: Apple’s rumored F1 interest and why the partnership makes sense.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Phillies grand slam without announcers — @steph_turkey
Defining Information — Stratechery
An Interview with Chip War Author Chris Miller — Stratechery Interview
Chips and Geopolitics — Stratechery
The Huawei Mate 60 Pro, 7nm Background, Implications and Reactions — Stratechery Update
Apple set to take over Formula 1 — TheJudge13
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Zero Trust Information — Stratechery
Tech and War — Stratechery
The TikTok War — Stratechery
Graphic war videos go viral, testing social media’s rules — The Washington Post
TikTok Footage Becomes World’s Window Into Israel Conflict — Bloomberg
Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II — Stratechery
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The Sphere in all its LED splendor, more questions about AI devices and virtual reality, brief thoughts on Michael Lewis and SBF, and reading a few of the many listener emails inspired by Tuesday's Amazon discussion.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The world's most unique billboard: The hefty price tag to advertise on the Vegas Sphere — NBC Las Vegas
New York Loves to Hate Him. Can a $2.3 Billion Sphere Redeem Jim Dolan? — New York Times
Las Vegas and Its Big, Big Ambitions — New York Times
World While Las Vegas inaugurates its Sphere, London residents push back on plans for replica venue — CBS News
Amazon Used Secret ‘Project Nessie’ Algorithm to Raise Prices — Wall Street Journal
AI and Ambient Computing, Zuckerberg and The Verge, Amazon and Anthropic — Stratechery Update
AI, Hardware, and Virtual Reality — Stratechery
Michael Lewis on '60 Minutes' — CBS News
SBF Was Reckless From the Start — Bloomberg
Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America — Good Reads
24 years ago today, the ultimate posterize by Shaq — YouTube: New York Post Sports
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The FTC’s Amazon complaint and ongoing criticism of FTC Chair Lina Khan, understanding Amazon’s power and the limits of antitrust law, modern regulators vs. the Chicago school, and why “big is bad” might be a good strategy.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Khan Seeks to End Amazon ‘Illegal Conduct,’ Quiet on Breakup — Bloomberg
Lina Khan Once Went Big Against Amazon. As FTC Chair, She Changed Tack. — Wall Street Journal
Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox — The Yale Law Journal
Lina Khan Has a Weak Case Against Amazon — Wall Street Journal
Market share of leading retail e-commerce companies in the United States as of June 2022 — Statista
Is William Baxter Anti-Antitrust? — New York Times
Beyond Aggregation: Amazon as a Service — Stratechery
FTC Sues Amazon, FBA and Prime, Pricing Punishment — Stratechery Update
Fulfillment: A Conversation on Amazon and Regional Inequality with Alec MacGillis — American Compass
Antitrust and Aggregation — Stratechery
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Ben shares his experience with a ChatGPT demo that inverted his expectations, a reminder that reducing friction is essential for AI’s next steps, and reactions to Meta’s Smart Glasses and reports of Jonny Ive and Sam Altman brainstorming. At the end: Delta follow-up, Disney capacity, and the Swift-Kelce bundle.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
AI, Hardware, and Virtual Reality — Stratechery
A Dame Trade Deep Dive With Ben Thompson, Plus Seth Meyers and Million-Dollar Picks — The Bill Simmons Podcast
OpenAI and Jony Ive in talks to raise $1bn from SoftBank for AI device venture — Financial Times
Designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman Discuss AI Hardware Project — The Information
Emergency Podcast: Giannis, Heat Twitter, Depraved Suns Decision Making, and More Winners and Losers from the Damian Lillard Trade — Greatest of All Talk
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The voice and image commands announced by OpenAI (and the Google threat that still looms), Spotify’s new translation software, and a wave of CarPlay love among the emailers leads to clarifications and more talk of software and the auto industry. At the end: Kids in a world of advertising, and advice for budgeting time and money in early parenthood.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
You can now prompt ChatGPT with pictures and voice commands — The Verge
Spotify is going to clone podcasters’ voices — and translate them to other languages — The Verge
AI Homework — Stratechery
Podcast Grifting; Aggregator Lessons; Ostroff, Simmons, and Harry — Stratechery Update
An Interview with The Ringer Founder and CEO Bill Simmons — Stratechery Interview
How do consumers perceive in-car connectivity and digital services? — McKinsey & Company
Wayne Jenkins Supercut - The Rewatchables Podcast — YouTube
Lex Fridman on X — @lexfridman
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Microsoft Mistakenly Reveals Secret Game Plans in Court Case — Bloomberg
The new FineWoven iPhone cases are very bad — The Verge
Max Gets Sports, The Fox Linchpin, Disney’s Taylor Swift Era Confirmed — Stratechery Update
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How the history of Google and may predict the future for YouTube, the stakes for Disney and Bob Iger as the earth shifts underneath them, and various considerations for consumers and content makers alike as the entertainment industry prepares for a new era. At the end: missed exit opportunities, a few antitrust digressions, and one man's iPhone 15 grievance.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Why Has a Useless Cold Medication Been Allowed on Shelves for Years? — The Atlantic
FTC Fines Epic, Netflix Ads, YouTube and the NFL — Stratechery Update
Bob Iger Back at Disney; Chapek’s Tactics, Iger’s Strategy; Tactics, Strategy, or Environment — Stratechery Update
Cord-Cutting and YouTube TV, Disney Earnings, Pay TV’s Vision Cycles — Stratechery Update
An Interview with The Ringer Founder and CEO Bill Simmons — Stratechery Interview
Disney’s Taylor Swift Era — Stratechery
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Reactions to Tuesday’s iPhone event at Apple, the recent history of the development landscape in gaming, and an overview of the flaws in the plan Unity announced this week. At the end: Competing thoughts on the NFL and NBA, John Malone’s portfolio, and Taylor Swift in theaters.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Apple’s iPhone Event; Innovation and Iteration; Pricing, Inflation, and Services — Stratechery Update
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The eleventh hour agreement between Charter and Disney, why Charter was the clear winner but Disney will benefit regardless, and what Charter’s investments say about the future of internet in America. At the end: Reactions to a breakthrough chip from Huawei and SMIC and its potential implications on US-China policy.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
The Rise and Fall of ESPN’s Leverage — Stratechery
An Interview with John Kosner About the Past and Future of Sports in an Age of Abundance — Stratechery Interview
Disney Earnings, A Split Disney?, ESPN’s Advertising — Stratechery Update
Cable’s Last Laugh — Stratechery
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Beyond Aggregation: Amazon as a Service — Stratechery
What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong — Stratechery
Shopify Exits Logistics, The Shopify Logistics Side Quest, Whither Buy with Prime — Stratechery Update
Harley Finkelstein — X
Amazon in Talks With Disney About ESPN Streaming Partnership — The Information
‘Ahsoka’ Premiere Draws Big Audience, Disney+ Says — The Hollywood Reporter
Live-Streamed CNN Channel With New Shows Set to Debut on Max — Variety
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Another round of monster earnings for Nvidia, the challenges and opportunities that will define the next decade for Nvidia and other AI players, and questions on Sony's success and Adyen's hiring practices. At the end: More on nut picker-uppers!
The Wall Street Journal’s expansive look at the Chinese economy inspires an analogy for the comparative strength of America, two questions on Microsoft, and some follow-up to last week’s enthusiasm for ad-supported streaming services. At the end: Spotify has a White Noise controversy, and a rejection of calls for branding democracy.
Next steps for a direct-to-consumer ESPN are beginning to come into view, Disney’s tech challenges and Bob Iger’s streaming price hikes, and an overview of Fox and the legacy telecoms companies. At the end: college football analogy clarification and various Tik-Tot follow-up.
Ben’s experience seeing Taylor Swift live in Los Angeles, what her success can teach us about the modern entertainment landscape, and a closer look at Apple and Disney. At the end: Harsh reality after a hell of a ride for LK-99.
Musk vs. Zuckerberg as the undercard to another round of Meta vs. the European Union, Microsoft's pricing strategy for Copilot, and the latest universally unpopular move that makes perfect sense for college football's biggest market participants. At the end: Free speech follow-up and introducing Tik-Tot, our new parenting segment.
A look at LK-99 and the various ways a room temperature superconductor might change the world, EU and US officials express concern over China’s move toward trailing edge chips, and recent Intel lobbying efforts highlight the challenge of real decoupling and the nuances of US-China competition. At the end: The Elon deliberate sabotage theory and a call for parenting questions.
The Wall Street Journal's report that Facebook removed content related to Covid-19 in response to pressure from the Biden administration, both the principled and pragmatic cases for not repeating that pattern in the future, and a listener wonders whether CTO should be an official member of the Presidential cabinet. At the end: Mailbag questions on Fusion and Starlink technology, a Taylor Swift streaming service, and raising phonk awareness.
Checking in with Netflix as the ad-supported model matures, more on streaming residuals and the future of movies and TV, and general thoughts on the latest news at “X,” née Twitter. At the end: Follow-up on AI and concerns over the Meta’s open source LLM.
Meta makes its large language model free for commercial and research use, why enabling a dispersed development environment could help Meta's business and AI consumers as a whole, and thoughts on ChatGPT as its momentum slows. At the end: A warning to movie stars, while lazy sports continue to take the world by storm.
The familiar tech stories underlying the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, why streaming residuals are so difficult to calculate, and Disney's current problems as a microcosm for the entertainment industry as a whole. At the end: A few words about coffee.
The push to enjoin the Microsoft-Activision merger and why it failed, the broader challenges inherent to applying existing antitrust laws to tech, and the uncertainty clouding Microsoft's next moves in the UK and elsewhere. At the end: A word about Top Chef and answering some mail on Twitter and Threads.
Tracing the recent social media history that led to Threads, 70 million users in three days (and whether Meta can keep them coming back), an early contender for worst Thread of all time, and the dysfunction at Twitter that has now opened the door to a wide variety of challengers.
Boom Supersonic and the (possibly) imminent future of supersonic commercial air travel, listener emails on Apple and Sony, TSMC, Google’s graveyard, Reddit, and European regulation. At the end: the BBS glory days, tech origin stories, and recs for a weekend in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Prince Harry "grifter" controversy as an object lesson in the internet content economy, what Spotify has (and maybe hasn't) learned from its adventures in podcast development, and the strategies on both sides of the announcement that GM and Ford will use Tesla's charging network for their EVs. At the end: A rumored HBO pivot prompts a victory lap live on the podcast.
Understanding the challenges facing Reddit in the modern internet environment, the various tensions underlying this week’s controversy with moderators, and the future of niche subscription offerings as The Athletic rethinks its coverage. Plus: The Vision Pro keyboard and a word about Zuck as Headset Fortnight concludes.
Responding to listener questions and comments in the wake of Apple’s WWDC and the announcement of the Vision Pro, including thoughts on the absence of AI in Apple’s messaging, a headset hater’s epiphany, gaming partnerships that should (but won’t?) happen, sports possibilities, immersive memories, and some obligatory speculation on the Apple Car.
Ben’s experience with the Apple Vision Pro, the components and capabilities that make it so expensive, implications for the future of personal computing, and what it would mean to have a society full of people in headsets.
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Talking all things Nvidia as Wall Street catches GPU fever, parallels to Sun Microsystems and the dot com bubble, and questions about AI energy efficiency and reliance on TSMC. At the end: a streaming lover pushes back on nostalgia for cable and involuntary sports subsidies.
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To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
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Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Get Sharp Tech Premium, Sharp China, Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Greatest of All Talk and the Dithering Podcast as part of Stratechery Plus for $12/month.
To email the show: email@sharptech.fm
Substack Notes, Twitter Blocks Substack, Substack Versus Writers — Stratechery Update
Substack CEO pushes back at Elon Musk, says Twitter situation is ‘very frustrating’ — The Verge
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Replit and Google, The Google Perspective, Twitter’s Bad Idea — Stratechery Update
Tweet by Elon Musk — @elonmusk
Twitter Has a New CEO; What About a New Business Model? — Stratechery
ChatGPT Gets a Computer — Stratechery
The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs — Stratechery Update
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter — Future of Life Institute
Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down — Time
Harry Potter by Balenciaga — YouTube
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Apple and AI, Lobotomized Lovers, XR Companions — Stratechery Update
AI and the Big Five — Stratechery
Welcome to Stratechery — Stratechery
Who Funds the Future? — The New Yorker
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The Future of Work With AI — Microsoft YouTube Channel
AI and the Big Five — Stratechery
More on Google and AI; OpenAI, Integration, and Microsoft — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger About Artifact — Stratechery Interviews
Sovereign Writers and Substack — Stratechery
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GPT-4, Google Adds AI to Productivity Apps, Local Language Models — Stratechery Update
Here are some incredible things people are already doing with GPT-4 — @LinusEkenstam
Lensa and Stable Diffusion, Stable Diffusion and Apple Silicon, Open Questions — Stratechery Update
Friction — Stratechery
Meta’s powerful AI language model has leaked online — what happens now? — The Verge
Update on Meta’s Year of Efficiency — Meta
Oscars Draw 18.7 Million Viewers — New York Times
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The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) — Stratechery
Joint Statement by the Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC — U.S. Dept. of Treasury
The Demise of Silicon Valley Bank — Net Interest
Startup Bank Had a Startup Bank Run — Bloomberg
The Uber Dilemma — Stratechery
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
The End of the Beginning Follow-Up, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Venture versus Productive Capital — Stratechery Update
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Spotify Stream On 2023 — YouTube
I don’t think Meta knows it’s a game company — The Verge
Status as a Service (StaaS) — Eugene Wei
Meta and the Quest Pro; Meta and VR as Console; Microsoft, Activision, and the EU — Stratechery Update
FCC relaxes rule limiting foreign ownership of media stations — Washington Post
White House backs Senate bill to boost US ability to ban TikTok — Reuters
Exclusive: Senator's TikTok whistleblower alleges data abuses — Axios
MLS commissioner Don Garber discusses expansion, Apple TV deal and more in exclusive interview — The Athletic
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What the NBA Can Learn from Formula 1 — Stratechery
ESPN wants to be the hub of all live sports streaming — even if it helps its competition — CNBC
The Intel Opportunity — Stratechery
r/formuladank — Reddit
MLS on Apple TV, The MLS Perspective, The Apple Perspective — Stratechery Update
The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports — Amazon
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The Google CEO Question, Steve Ballmer and Peacetime CEOs, About That Bard Mistake — Stratechery Update
Evaluating Sundar Pichai, EC Announces New Google Investigation, Amazon Blocks FLoC — Stratechery Update
The maze is in the mouse — Medium
Google Executives See Cracks in Their Company’s Success — New York Times
App founder quits Google, says company doesn’t serve users anymore — Ars Technica
Welcome to Stratechery — Stratechery
Elon Musk suggests Twitter could open source its algorithm ‘next week’ — TechCrunch
Back to the Future of Twitter — Stratechery
Apple Makes Major Progress on No-Prick Blood Glucose Tracking for Its Watch — Bloomberg
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Spotify’s Future Isn’t Exclusive Podcasts. It’s Advertising. — Bloomberg
Lessons From Spotify — Stratechery
Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play — Stratechery
Spotify Earnings, Spotify Exclusives, Spotify vs. Apple — Stratechery Update
Spotify Buys Megaphone, Spotify’s Podcast Strategy, Spotify’s Megaphone Strategy — Stratechery Update
How Spotify's podcast bet went wrong — Semafor
“Not, like, the nine greatest experts on the internet”: Justices seem leery of broad ruling on Section 230 — SCOTUSblog
Diamond Sports Misses Interest Payment, Bally’s Dire Situation, Negotiating Bankruptcy — Stratechery Update
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From Bing to Sydney — Stratechery
Microsoft Puts New Limits On Bing’s AI Chatbot After It Expressed Desire To Steal Nuclear Secrets — Forbes
Ben Thompson on Twitter — @benthompson
The Four Horseman — Stratechery
Google and Microsoft’s Events, Monetizable Panic, Paradigms and Hardware — Stratechery Update
Mark Zuckerberg — Facebook
Biden and Republican senators join forces in attack on Big Tech at Supreme Court — NBC News
New Bing Errors, User Preferences and Company Reputations, Section 230 and LLMs — Stratechery Update
Another Congressional Hearing, The Genesis of Section 230, The Battle over Section 230 — Stratechery Update
Her Official Trailer #1 (2013) — YouTube
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From Bing to Sydney — Stratechery
New Bing Errors, User Preferences and Company Reputations, Section 230 and LLMs — Stratechery Update
Eric Schmidt Is Building the Perfect AI War-Fighting Machine — Wired
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Google Stock Tumbles Nearly 8% After Bard Ad Shows Inaccurate Answer, AI Race Heats Up — Investor’s Business Daily
New Bing, and an Interview with Kevin Scott and Sam Altman About the Microsoft-OpenAI Partnership — Stratechery Interview
Why TV Has Resisted Disruption — Stratechery
In Paris demo, Google scrambles to counter ChatGPT but ends up embarrassing itself — Ars Technica
Here's Why Apple Isn't Making a Television — Time Magazine
Disney to cut 7,000 jobs in major revamp by CEO Iger — Reuters
Nelson Peltz’s Other C.E.O. Gambit — Puck News
Regional Sports Networks, ESPN + RSNs, TechDirt’s Response on Title II and Net Neutrality — Stratechery Update
MLB, NBA and NHL may buy biggest owner of regional sports TV networks: sources — New York Post
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Meta Myths — Stratechery
Facebook Lenses — Stratechery
The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok — Wired
‘If You Think The Internet Is Terrible Now, Just Wait a While’ — The Awl
EarPods with Lightning Connector — Apple
Album Club — Listener Andrew D
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Cloudflare’s Disruption — Stratechery
Microsoft Earnings, Azure’s Slowdown, Office Strikes Back — Stratechery Update
Tech Layoffs, Big Tech’s Hiring Rates, Microsoft’s VR Layoffs — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Michael Nathanson About Netflix and the Media Industry — Stratechery Interviews
Column: The real aim of big tech’s layoffs: bringing workers to heel — Los Angeles Times
Finding Visible Egress/ingress nodes on the big-I Internet — Reddit
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) ORIGINAL TRAILER — YouTube
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Amazon’s New Customer — Stratechery
Walmart Earnings, Walmart’s Grocery Business, Amazon’s Grocery Stumbles — Stratechery Update
An Interview With Instacart CEO Fidji Simo About Big Ambitions — Stratechery Interviews
Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II — Stratechery
Netflix and Net Neutrality — Stratechery
An Interview with The Air Current’s Jon Ostrower about Southwest’s Meltdown and Independent Publishing — Stratechery Interviews
Die Hard: With A Vengeance Trailer (HD) — YouTube
Ron Dayne Wisconsin Highlights — YouTube
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An Interview with Michael Nathanson About Netflix and the Media Industry — Stratechery Interview
Tech Layoffs, Big Tech’s Hiring Rates, Microsoft’s VR Layoffs — Stratechery Update
DOJ Sues Google, Google’s Advertising Aggregation, No Duty to Deal — Stratechery Update
Peloton Changes CEO, The Pandemic Stocks, Peloton’s Options — Stratechery Update
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Netflix’s New Chapter — Stratechery
AI chatbot’s MBA exam pass poses test for business schools — Financial Times
Netflix’s New Look Is Already Catching On — Wall Street Journal
Netflix Earnings, Netflix Doubles Down, Netflix’s Ad Tier — Stratechery Update
Why Netflix Should Sell Ads — Stratechery
Why Netflix Should Not Sell Ads, Elon Musk and Twitter — Stratechery Update
Cable’s Last Laugh — Stratechery
A Free Ad-Supported Netflix Service? Ted Sarandos Says Company Is “Open” to the Idea — The Hollywood Reporter
Reed Hastings’ Journey at Netflix Would Make for Binge-Worthy TV — Bloomberg
Acorn History (via listener Andrew D.) — Qsl.net
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Twitter Timelines, Azure and OpenAI, Apple and China — Stratechery Update
Peloton’s Operations, Intel Buys Tower Semiconductor, What Now for ARM (plus Intel + RISC-V) — Stratechery Update
The Amazon Tax — Stratechery
Beyond Aggregation: Amazon as a Service — Stratechery
The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
WWE stock upgraded at Wells Fargo as analysts debate potential buyers — Yahoo! Finance
"These 3rd graders acting different" — Twitter: @Overtime
How to Pronounce Oeuvre? (3 WAYS!) UK Vs US + French Pronunciation Guide — YouTube
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Amazon confirms its massive layoffs will affect 18,000 employees — The Verge
Amazon Kept Inventing, and Now It’s Going to Start Cutting — Bloomberg
Amazon Earnings, Amazon’s Costs, Amazon Closes Stores — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Brad Stone about Amazon Unbound — Stratechery Interviews
Day Two to One Day — Stratechery
Alexa: Amazon’s Operating System — Stratechery
Meta open sources early-stage AI translation tool that works across 200 languages — The Verge
Social Networking 2.0 — Stratechery
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AI and the Big Five — Stratechery
More on Google and AI; OpenAI, Integration, and Microsoft — Stratechery Update
An Interview with Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman about ChatGPT and the Near-Term Future of AI — Stratechery Interview
FTC Fines Epic, Netflix Ads, YouTube and the NFL — Stratechery Update
Amazon wraps 'TNF' debut season with lower numbers, but much younger demos — Sports Business Journal
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Give Stratechery Plus as a Gift.
FTC Fines Epic, Netflix Ads, YouTube and the NFL — Stratechery Update
YouTube the likely home for 'Sunday Ticket — Sports Business Journal
Alphabet’s YouTube TV Nears Deal For NFL Sunday Ticket. Profiting Will Be a Challenge. — Barron's
Google’s YouTube in Talks for Rights to NFL Sunday Ticket — Wall Street Journal
US targets China’s potential chip stars with new restrictions — Financial Times
How TikTok Became an International Crisis — The New York Times
What Comes Next for the Most Empty Downtown in America — The New York Times
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Narratives — Stratechery
Twitter and What Might Have Been — Stratechery
Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II — Stratechery
“Light Touch”, Cable, and DSL; The Broadband Tradeoff; The Importance of Antitrust — Stratechery Update
Ajit Pai: the man who could destroy the open internet — The Guardian
What if You Couldn’t See This Page? — The New York Times
The Internet Is Dying. Repealing Net Neutrality Hastens That Death. — The New York Times
The US net neutrality fight affects the whole world — The Verge
Come for the tool, stay for the network — Chris Dixon
How L'Oreal Sculpted The Cosmetics Industry — Strategy Factory
‘Everything that could go wrong did go wrong’ says Alpine boss after double DNF in Austin — Formula 1
Lando Norris: Alpine have done ‘bad job’ to only just be ahead of McLaren — Planet F1
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Consoles and Competition — Stratechery
The App Store and the Digital Markets Act, Third-Party App Stores, Messaging Interoperability Madness — Stratechery Update
The European Commission Versus Android — Stratechery
Will semiconductor plants really drain Arizona? That theory is overblown — AZ Central
Halt and Catch Fire Season 2 Promo — YouTube
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TSMC in Arizona, Arizona Challenges, Realities and Motivations — Stratechery Update
Chips and China — Stratechery
AMD (and Intel) Earnings, TSMC Earnings, Morris Chang on U.S. Semiconductor Production — Stratechery Update
TSMC Raises Arizona Chip Investment to $40 Billion as Biden Visits — Wall Street Journal
The U.S. Commits to Buying Millions of Vaccine Doses. Why That’s Unusual. — New York Times
COVID-19 Vaccine Advance Purchases Explained — The Petrie-Flom Center
Can semiconductor manufacturing return to the US? — Brookings Institute
TSMC founder Morris Chang says globalization 'almost dead' — Nikkei Asia
Transcript of Morris Chang Dec. 11, 2022 — Twitter: @kevinsxu
America Wakes Up?, An Interview with Matt Mullenweg About Working From Home — Stratechery Interviews
How Loneliness Is Damaging Our Health — New York Times
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Lensa and Stable Diffusion, Stable Diffusion and Apple Silicon, Open Questions — Stratechery Update
Google Earnings, YouTube and Google Cloud, Google’s Falling Margin — Stratechery Update
Media, Regulators, and Big Tech; Indulgences and Injunctions; Better Approaches — Stratechery Update
Non-Fungible Taylor Swift — Stratechery
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AI Homework — Stratechery
ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue — OpenAI
OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows why implementation is key with generative AI — TechCrunch
DALL-E Open to All, OpenAI and Openness, OpenAI Opportunities and Threats — Stratechery Update
“It's like you wake up to the news of first nuclear explosion and you don't know yet what to think about it but you know world will never be the same again.” — Twitter: @styleus
The AI Unbundling — Stratechery
AI Bundling Follow-Up, iPhone Follow-Up — Stratechery Update
An Interview With Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman About the Democratization of AI — Stratechery Interview
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Surveying the landscape after a week of Musk tweets and rumors of a Musk-Cook summit, Amazon has a $10 billion Alexa problem, and Ben and Andrew are asked to build a successor to The Social Network.
The legend of Bob Iger and the recent history of Bob Chapek, why Disney stock went up last week (but not by much), ESPN and Disney+ in the shadow of the $71 billion 21st Century Fox acquisition, and emails about third party play-by-play and a scientific defense of cigar clubs.
The night Twitter was laid to rest, TV in movie theaters and the debate over David Zaslav, whether strategy consultants are useful, and celebrating Thanksgiving with a plan to fix the NBA and a taxonomy of group chats.
A closer look at Opendoor in the midst of its biggest challenge yet, the state of Twilio and Cloudflare, excellent pushback on claims that crypto doesn’t have a product, and reactions to SBF’s DMs and Max Verstappen’s antics.
The implications of a straight-forward case of fraud, what Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX teach us about the dangers of conflation, why and how Twitter is failing under Elon Musk, and responses to emailers who have asked about Meta's ability to develop a Twitter competitor.
An email about Netflix spawns an extended overview of Spotify's present and future, a closer look at Apple Music's royalties messaging, reactions to the permanent injunction block Penguin Random House's attempted acquisition of Simon and Schuster, and the two most important features we need from Twitter Blue.
A question about Section 230 spawns expansive thoughts from Ben, a proposal for an alternate solution to moderation, new questions on Twitter as the Mastodon takeover approaches, and responses to listeners who balked at Andrew's broad social media dismissal last week.
Reactions to $8/month for Twitter Blue, the fevered conversation around Musk’s ownership, whether Twitter should take even more risks as a private company, and answers to mailbag questions about Apple, Netflix and Ben’s personal calculus in Taiwan.
How Ben reads an earnings report, the various challenges that might unsettle TikTok investors, an extended debate on whether Twitter and Facebook have been good for society, and Andrew is profiled by a major news outlet while Ben shares lessons from his early years.
Google's core business is sound but YouTube's numbers are murkier, the bull case for Meta as the market runs the other way, and a fair and balanced look at Snap. Then, a few mailbag questions about automation, Netflix abroad, and the psychology of a Red Bull fan.
Netflix's Q3 response to all its Q1 critics, sorting through the threats elsewhere in the streaming landscape, what to look for as Netflix makes its foray into ads. Then, responses to a new report on TikTok that was published hours after last Friday's podcast.
Taiwan's military readiness and the modal outcome for Tik Tok in the U.S., a question about immersive audio spawns Clubhouse lament, two questions about the future of AI in the knowledge economy, choosing the NBA coaches and GMs who will lead the next era in tech.
The narrow purpose of the latest US export controls, the broad attack the Chinese government will likely perceive, why heightened American attention to Taiwan could be dangerous, and a variety of unknowns as the world awaits the next steps.
Ben remembers why he believes in the future of VR, Andrew remembers why he's not a fan the metaverse movement, listeners wonder about possibilities at Apple and beyond, and Ben offers guidance on tech travel kit best practices.
Reactions to Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at Meta Connect 2022, why it makes sense for Meta to partner with Microsoft in the virtual reality space, the aspects of the VR pitch that still feel underwhelming, and whether Zuckerberg is the right person to lead this era of Facebook.
Elon Musk is a land of contradictions, reframing re-bundling and TNT's NBA incentives, a variety of questions about ad-supported business models, and a podcast confirmation hearing as Andrew faces questions about his tech opinions.
Why it may make sense to sell Netflix, Apple TV, Paramount Plus and other streamers as one product, why cable may (or may not) be the intermediary brokering the sale, questions for the future of live sports rights. Then, an answer to listeners who have questions about the new era of Stratechery.
User agency within Apple's ATT landscape, what Covid can teach us about the risks of regulating content moderation, whether AI fears spawned by The Terminator are reasonable, interrogating Andrew's gamer logic.
Why the internet is upset after Nvidia's Ada Lovelace announcement, the perfect storm of the past 12 months, a bet on AI inside and outside of gaming. Then, the calculus for Apple and Nvidia as tensions rise between China and the U.S.
Adobe-Figma antitrust questions, the pluses and minuses of ignoring user complaints, how Twitter hype led to real infrastructure at Tesla, a word about porcupines.
Ben and Andrew discuss the origins of the podcast, their own backgrounds, and why they’re excited about making this show.
New AI image generators hint at a decentralized future, newspapers vs. the internet as an analogy for what’s next, potential implications for white collar workers, and how Steve Ballmer can help Apple.
A Google enforcement strategy gone awry, the pluses and minuses of horizontal integration, and the common thread among most big tech complaints. Then, the downsides of Netflix’s binge model.
Apple’s emphasis on privacy and the competitive advantages that come with it. Then, the varied concerns surrounding TikTok’s emerging dominance in culture.
The future of Facebook and Instagram in the TikTok era, Instagram's shifting priorities, and stated preference vs. revealed preference. Then, the new era of the New York Times.
A brief history of semiconductors in the US and Taiwan, what the CHIPS act can and can’t fix, and why the legislation is probably a good idea regardless. Then, reactions to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.