A decade of the Tim Cook machine — Benedict Evans
Board
Privacy, ads and confusion — Benedict Evans
Mainframes, ML and digital transformation — Benedict Evans
VCs predict the VC industry in 2025
What will venture capital look like in a few years? View email in your browser Braintrust Good afternoon! In many Braintrust editions, we ask venture capitalists to tell us how the fields they invest in could change over time.
Twitter’s Analyst Day, The Interest Graph, Super Follows – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
Super Follows made the news, but Twitter’s Analyst Day was interesting for more reasons than that.
MoviePass, Finally; Value Chains and Unit Costs; Atlassian and Slack – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
Finally, the MoviePass breakdown so many have been asking for; then, another story to catch-up on, about Atlassian, Slack, and leadership.
Google Cloud Changes CEOs, Layers of Surprise (or Not), The VMWare Analogy – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
Google Cloud has a new CEO: the news is a surprise at first glance, but may make more sense than it seems. To understand why, look at VMWare, outgoing Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene’s most fam…
How Microsoft crushed Slack - by Casey Newton
And why the era of worker-centered work tools may be over
The Software Inflation Rate in 2021: 1.4%
Delibr delivers a note-taking app for product managers
The Age of Ultra
Some thoughts on Apple’s ‘Peek Performance’ event…
The Business Case for the Mac
No images? Click here The Mac's growth potential in the enterprise has been a lingering question. As a part of our IT and employee experience research study, we explored more deeply the opportunity for Mac in the enterprise.
Google’s Spotify Deal, The Ideal App Store Approach, Spotify’s South Korea Option – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
Google and Spotify’s deal is light on details, but it’s clear who the big winners are.
There's something off about ApeCoin
Tokens like the new one from Bored Ape Yacht Club promise to decentralize the web. So why are insiders reaping most of the profits?
Apple Is in a League of Its Own
During Apple’s “Peek Performance” event held last month, the company announced not only a brand new Mac category with the Mac Studio, but also iPhone SE and iPad Air updates that will be well-received in the marketplace. Management fit so much into its 57-minute event, Apple’s entry into live sports
How Google Is Challenging AWS
AWS seems to have a dominant position in enterprise computing, but Google is trying to change the rules to favor their inherent strengths.
Zomato’s unit economics could get help from an unexpected quarter
But it won’t be happening anytime soon Read this edition online Tuesday, 05 April 2022 A weekly newsletter about the biggest changes in commerce—focusing on shifts that matter to you.
Super-App | No Mercy
Finally. Two years ago I wrote a letter to the chairman of Twitter calling for Jack Dorsey to be replaced as CEO. Or, more to the point, for the board to appoint a full-time CEO. An executive who spends 90% of his time running another company and plans to spend half the year on a […]
Yandex: Google Through the Looking Glass
Plus! Shifting the Curve; Where Housing Demand Comes From; Throughput; Lobbying; Customer Service-as-a-Service
Crypto is cursed for two seconds in India
Can’t recruit. Can’t advertise. Can’t sell. Can’t buy Read this edition online A paid 🔒 weekly emailer that explains fundamental shifts in business, technology and finance that happened over the last seven days in India.
Law Enforcement and User Data, Tradeoffs and Trust, Centralization and Encryption – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
A story about how hackers got data from tech companies illustrates the fundamental challenge of trust on the Internet, and gives insight into the challenges of interoperability.
The Gym Business: Usage, Slacking, and the Duel Between Margins and Lifetime Value
Plus! Diff Jobs; Twitter; Remote Work and Neurodiversity; Granularity; Unhealthy SPACs; More Evidence for the Travel Boom; Surcharges You're on the free list for The Diff.
Apple Silicon: Ultra Clever - Creative Strategies
I have been arguing for years, and I will die on this hill. Apple silicon remains one of the most innovative products Apple creates on an annual basis. You may disagree with the framing of Apple silicon as a product, but knowing Apple as I do, they view almost everything they create as a product…
Back to the Future of Twitter
Twitter should go private and return to its pre-2012 approach of being a centralized service with third-party clients.
Celebrating the end of The Good Times
It's deja vu all over again for founders looking for easy money on soft terms to chase dreams of unicorns and waterfalls. With interest rates shooting up, a recession in the forecast, and three whirlwinds of economic hurt spinning at the same time, the fair-weather funding conditions are over. Good. See, The Good Times™ all too often s...
Beyond Aggregation: Amazon as a Service
Amazon’s new Buy With Prime announced the arrival of Amazon Logistics as a Service, and is a big red flag for Shopify.
The Future of the European Union
Will the war in Ukraine finally unite it?
Why I’m more loyal to my kirana than to BigBasket
It’s not because I want to back the little guy over a US$2 billion company Read this edition online Tuesday, 29 March 2022 A weekly newsletter about the biggest changes in commerce—focusing on shifts that matter to you.
Film Credits
In 2015 I gave a presentation at the DLD Conference about brands and tech. The video of the talk went semi-viral on YouTube after a music industry analyst (@boblefsetz) featured it in his newsletter. Soon after, I had a book deal; I was writing this newsletter every week; CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg were calling […]
Drive to Survive and Content Marketing
A template for other brands to follow?