Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson

By Andrew Sharp and Ben ThompsonTechnology

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Typical duration
26 min
per episode

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Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson episodes

March 25, 2024 (Preview) US v. Apple, Specific Allegations and Broad Implications, The Decisions that Made Apple a Target
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
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
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.
11 min
March 21, 2024 Nvidia Searches for a Moat at AI Woodstock, The Blackwell B200, Microsoft’s Deal with Inflection AI
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
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
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.
1 hr 5 min
March 18, 2024 (Preview) Monetizing WhatsApp, Big Companies and Big Company Incentives, Why the New York Times Has a Podcast App
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
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
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.
13 min
March 14, 2024 (Preview) Reddit Goes Public, Reddit and Evolution on the Internet, The Company that Should Buy TikTok
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
Reddit S-1, Reddit’s Prospects, Reddit Grows Up — Stratechery Update
Congress Considering TikTok Ban, TikTok’s War, What Now? — Stratechery Update
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.
9 min
March 11, 2024 (Preview) Congress and TikTok, Listening to China to Understand the TikTok Concerns, Empty First Amendment Arguments
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
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
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.
13 min
March 07, 2024 (Preview) Elon Musk Sues OpenAI, Apple’s Bizarre Epic Misstep, What Microsoft Could Teach Google
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
@Stratechery Channel — YouTube
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
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.
17 min
March 05, 2024 The Road to Personalized LLM Answers, The AI Risk for Aggregators, Anthropic Releases a ‘Near-Human’ Claude 3
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
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
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.
1 hr 3 min
February 29, 2024 (Preview) Pichai's Gemini Letter, Nvidia and TSMC and Market Structure, The End of the Apple Car
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
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
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.
12 min
February 26, 2024 (Preview) AI and the Big Five, Google and the Ongoing Gemini Catastrophe, The Stakes (or Lack Thereof) for Chatbot Output
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
Groq Costs, Gemini Pro 1.5, Google’s Timidity — Stratechery Update
Sora, Groq, and Virtual Reality — Stratechery
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.
14 min
February 21, 2024 (Preview) The History of Consoles, The Murky Present for Microsoft and Xbox, The Gaming Future for Sony and Meta
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.
To email the show: [email protected]
@SharpTechPodcast Channel — YouTube
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
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.
13 min