Ben Thompson

So, I've launched a new podcast with @andrewsharp:

@signulll Makes sense 👍

i briefly worked at fb & basically friend content started disappearing because ppl started losing jobs etc. so they had to prioritize stuff like news & they discovered insane engagement. they triple downed. what they didn’t understand is the tiktok model of entirely graphless experience.

over the last ~15 of so years the algo made following or online friendship kind of pointless, it became basic decoration (esp cuz fb pushed the gas on engagement without second thought). the recommender took over & changed society / culture like never before. ppl started increasingly migrating to things like group chats & even joining communities etc. to connect but those things have serious friction. x has this unique ability to push the boundaries the other way here as it relies more & more on subscription revenue than ad revenue. you know the ppl at fb are watching closely to see what happens. if it works, i suspect they will fire up the xerox machine pretty quickly.

7-14-2026 ($) •The OpenAI Super App •ChatGPT = Codex •Whither Chat stratechery.com/2026/the-opena…

7-13-2026 ($) •Apple Sues OpenAI •Apple’s Real Problem stratechery.com/2026/apple-sue…

7-9-2026 ($) •Muse Image •Grok 4.5 •Alex Karp on CNBC stratechery.com/2026/muse-imag…

@boxerbk @stratechery @ParsecTeam No question. I’ve addressed this point in other posts

I'm a huge fan of @stratechery, but I think @benthompson missed something in his XBOX article today. Another major issue for games as a bundle is that people do not switch games often. I wrote an article in 2020 shortly after we shutdown the @ParsecTeam cloud gaming business. Gamers cumulatively played more hours than people watch TV or listen to music, but they did that on average across only a few games. They invest hundreds of hours in one game, not hundreds of hours in hundreds of shows or thousands of songs.

7-8-2026 ($) •XBOX Cuts •Bundling and the Internet Solvent •Transaction, Coordination, and Sunk Costs stratechery.com/2026/xbox-cuts…

@modestproposal1 Look what you get for being earnest smh

Controversy and trolling aside, for my entire life the US national team got by on raw athleticism, effort and some occasional individual brilliance. This is the first time a team has attacked at a world class level, technically and tactically, and are genuinely interesting to watch. They’ve created down the wings, found open space, and finished. Are they in the top 4-5, no. But they are playing the right way and getting results. They are up against an incredibly talented Belgium team that has even tho they’ve under delivered relative to their class are stacked and dangerous. I obviously hope the US advance tonight but I’m more optimistic on the team and the system than I ever have been. /end of earnestness

A Script for Mark Zuckerberg A script for what Mark Zuckerberg should say on Meta's next earnings call. stratechery.com/2026/a-script-…

I really enjoyed the one interview I did with him. I am sad it will only ever be one. I’ve made it free to read. stratechery.com/2024/an-interv…

Very sad news, on a human level, an industry level, and a personal level. I didn’t know Om super well, but he was one of the pioneers that made Stratechery possible. And my most vivid memory of him is some truly excellent device that he unilaterally reached out to give me right when I got started that was both right and that I have held onto. A generous man. om.co/2026/06/24/196…

6-24-2026 ($) •My Vibe Coding Adventure •The App and the Experience •Ten Takeaways stratechery.com/2026/my-vibe-c…

6-23-2026 ($) •Memory Chips and China •Microsoft and Chinese Models stratechery.com/2026/memory-ch…

6-22-2026 ($) •Apple Price Increases •Apple Intelligence and the E.U. stratechery.com/2026/apple-pri…

6-18-2026 ($) An Interview with Michael Morton About E-Commerce in the Age of AI stratechery.com/2026/an-interv…

6-17-2026 ($) •The State of Fable •The Jailbreak Problem •SpaceX Acquires Cursor stratechery.com/2026/the-state…

6-16-2026 ($) •Fox Buys Roku •The Problem With Fox's Smart Strategy •Streaming That Works stratechery.com/2026/fox-buys-…

Anthropic's Safety Superpower Anthropic's belief in its own commitment to safety gives the company license to aggressively favor its business and even challenge the U.S. government. stratechery.com/2026/anthropic…

6-11-2026 ($) An Interview with Ben Bajarin About Apple, AI, and Compute stratechery.com/2026/an-interv…

@LucasPerlove @deanwball Maybe the apology was censored because we don’t have Title II-based net neutrality, which the same people told me would lead to the end of the Internet

@benthompson @deanwball Turns out both can be true: DOW may have questionable leadership/ethics and private enterprise should not have control of govt war tools. @benthompson let’s see when you get an apology for “making a full-throated case for fascism.” I won’t hold my breath.

My last observation re: Anthropic’s secret sabotage safety policy, is that it undermines actually good safety policy. How? 1. First, it is very plausible to describe this as anti-competitive behavior (even if you are maximally sympathetic to Anthropic here you must admit this), and it is behavior being justified in the name of AI safety. If you believe, as I and many Anthropic staff do, that it may end up being critically important to relax antitrust enforcement so that the frontier labs can cooperate and collaborate on some areas of AI safety, Anthropic just undermined the case for that in a large way. 2. Overall, this massively and profoundly raises the status of the argument that AI safety has been hype to justify monopolistic behavior by labs. I continue to believe AI safety is a real and serious issue that is growing in importance rather than diminishing. If you agree with me, this incident is a setback, maybe a serious one. 3. As I have observed elsewhere, Anthropic’s official corporate policy is structurally identical to the fact pattern alleged against them by the Department of War. I still think DoW acted both falsely and wrongly in that fight, but it is no longer possible to defend Anthropic with a full throat after this incident. 4. This raises the case for heavier handed regulations. Anthropic is making an awfully good case here that their products ought to be treated as utilities, and thus that their alignment practices should be a matter of public policy rather than private property. I am starkly opposed to this sort of state power grab, but Anthropic is doing more to justify it than anyone else. 5. Thus, significant damage has been done to a community and entire approach to AI governance. It was done unilaterally by Anthropic, likely motivated largely by self-interest and justified within the internal psychology of the firm through the lens of safety. I suspect this is fixable in the economic and legal senses for Anthropic, but I fear the trust that has just been broken, and the goodwill extinguished, will take very much time to repair.