Stratechery

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Posts 100 posts

#	Date	Post	↓ Outlier	Views	Likes	Reposts	Bookmarks
1	Sep 5, '23	The Rise and Fall of ESPN's Leverage Charting ESPN's rise, including how it build leverage over the cable TV providers, and its ongoing decline, caused by the Internet.	11.4×	563k	487	63	276
2	Jun 19, '17	Amazon's New Customer Whole Foods is a retailer, but that is not what Amazon bought	6.3×	0	720	434	13
3	Nov 1, '23	Attenuating Innovation (AI) Innovation required humility about the future and openness to what might be possible; Biden's executive order proscribing AI development is the opposite	5.5×	273k	264	58	48
4	Apr 30, '19	Microsoft, Slack, Zoom, and the SaaS Opportunity The Zoom and Slack IPOs show what Microsoft is missing in its growth story: a way to acquire new customers.	4.9×	0	732	215	123
5	Jul 14, '20	The TikTok War How TikTok exposed Facebook's blindspot, thanks to its Chinese roots, and why that China connection make TikTok a genuine concern.	4.8×	0	637	204	108
6	Feb 28, '23	What the NBA Can Learn From Formula 1 Formula 1 has done an impressive job earning fans; the NBA should study it, because the pay TV bundle is slowly disintegrating	4.8×	239k	166	28	58
7	Dec 3, '20	Stripe: Platform of Platforms Stripe's announcement of Treasury — banking-as-a-service — manifests the breadth of the company's ambition.	4.5×	0	698	128	143
8	Oct 8, '19	The China Cultural Clash The NBA controversy in China highlights a culture clash that both tech companies and the U.S. government need to take to heart. Plus, why Tiktok being Chin	4.3×	0	558	220	68
9	Sep 25, '19	Neither, and New: Lessons from Uber and Vision Fund Uber represents something new: a company that is different than incumbents because of technology, yet not itself a tech company	3.7×	0	544	126	121
10	Nov 5, '25	The Benefits of Bubbles We are in an AI Bubble: the big question is if this bubble will worth it for the physical infrastructure and coordinated innovation that result?	3.7×	182k	310	52	343
11	Jul 21, '20	India, Jio, and the Four Internets There are four Internets: China versus the U.S., and the E.U. and India. India's potential new model rests on Jio.	3.6×	0	435	172	103
12	Jun 6, '23	Apple Vision Apple Vision is incredibly compelling, first as a product, and second as far as potential use cases. What it says about society, though, is a bit more pessimistic.	3.6×	177k	234	60	53
13	Feb 15, '21	Clubhouse's Inevitability Clubhouse will do for audio what Twitter, Instagram Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video.	3.1×	0	401	116	97
14	Apr 16, '24	MKBHDs For Everything Marques Brownlee has tremendous power because he can go direct to consumers; that is possible in media, and AI will make it possible everywhere.	3.1×	154k	181	25	84
15	Nov 28, '17	Why Ajit Pai Is Right Any regulation, including those around net neutrality, should be put to a cost-benefit analysis. In this case regulation advocates come up short.	2.9×	0	326	146	3
16	Jan 7, '20	The End of the Beginning The beginning of technology was about the shift from batched computing in one place to continuous computing everywhere. That era of paradigm changes may be	2.8×	0	395	101	96
17	Feb 26, '19	The Value Chain Constraint Companies succeed or fail not based on technology but rather according to their ability to integrate within their value chains.	2.7×	0	410	104	83
18	Aug 20, '19	The WeWork IPO The WeWork IPO is defined by audaciousness and excess, all of which is driven by unlimited access to capital.	2.5×	0	363	92	60
19	May 11, '21	Cloudflare on the Edge Cloudflare is uniquely positioned to become a major player in an Internet 3.0 world, where politics matter more than economics.	2.5×	0	337	71	112
20	Mar 31, '20	Unmasking Twitter Twitter has a new policy to listen to experts about what content to limit; what happens, though, when experts are wrong?	2.5×	0	354	108	54
21	Apr 15, '19	Disney and the Future of TV TV is moving from a world where distribution dictates business models to one where business models need to fit the jobs consumers want done.	2.3×	0	378	93	44
22	Sep 30, '21	Cloudflare's Disruption Cloudflare's new storage offering is potentially disruptive both economically and strategically.	2.2×	0	320	82	63
23	Apr 2, '18	The End of Windows The Windows division no longer exists at Microsoft, marking the end to a four-year process of changing Microsoft's culture.	2.2×	0	287	147	15
24	Jul 11, '19	Shopify and the Power of Platforms Platforms are the way to compete with Aggregators; Shopify is a good example	2.2×	0	291	105	49
25	Jul 7, '20	The Slack Social Network Slack lost to Microsoft head-to-head, but has smartly shifted to a horizontal strategy that the vertically-oriented Microsoft can't match.	2.2×	0	348	75	49
26	Jan 27, '25	DeepSeek FAQ DeepSeek has completely upended people's expectations for AI and competition with China. What is it, and why does it matter?	2.1×	104k	375	92	276
27	Mar 12, '19	Where Warren's Wrong Warren's proposal is wrong about history, the source of tech company power, and the nature of tech itself. Then, what antitrust regulation should actually focu	2.1×	0	267	109	25
28	Oct 19, '20	Twitter, Responsibility, and Accountability Twitter went too far last week for reasons that go back to 2016 and the unfair blaming of tech for media's mistakes.	2.1×	0	278	76	66
29	Jan 12, '21	Internet 3.0 and the Beginning of History The actions taken by Big Tech have a resonance that goes beyond the context of domestic U.S. politics. Even if they were right, they will	2.0×	0	249	68	71
30	Feb 7, '19	Spotify's Podcast Aggregation Play Spotify is making a major move into podcasts, where it appears to have clear designs to be the sort of Aggregator is cannot be when it comes to m	2.0×	0	310	89	36
31	Mar 27, '18	Stratechery 4.0 New ways to explore Stratechery, dramatically improved search, and a new logo	2.0×	0	379	59	8
32	Apr 18, '22	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.	2.0×	0	230	68	39
33	Jan 31, '18	Amazon Health Amazon Health doesn't seem like much now, but there are hints it could be the ultimate application of Aggregation Theory.	2.0×	0	262	141	1
34	Nov 20, '23	OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain	2.0×	97k	266	69	96
35	Oct 27, '21	Sequoia Productive Capital Sequoia’s transformation of its venture capital is actually a shift from financial capital to productive capital	1.9×	0	249	44	106
36	Jun 29, '20	Apple and Facebook Apple and Facebook seem like they are in conflict, but have often been each other's best partners.	1.8×	0	257	56	85
37	Dec 15, '20	Social Networking 2.0 Facebook and Twitter represent the v1 of Social Networking; it's a bad copy of the analog world, whereas v2 is something unique to digital, and a lot more pro	1.8×	0	238	52	69
38	Sep 13, '18	The iPhone Franchise The iPhone is a franchise, a product that will make money in well-defined ways; Apple understands that and is exploiting it more than ever before with the iPho	1.8×	0	259	103	18
39	Jul 7, '21	Instagram's Evolution Instagram's shift away from being a photo-sharing app is very much inline with the service's continuous evolution.	1.8×	0	244	57	78
40	Feb 3, '21	The Relentless Jeff Bezos Jeff Bezos is retiring, and will go down as one of the great CEO's in tech history, in part because of how he transformed Amazon into a tech company in ev	1.8×	0	270	70	57
41	Jul 20, '16	Dollar Shave Club and The Disruption of Everything Dollar Shave Club is a warning about imminent value destruction	1.8×	0	190	118	0
42	Nov 5, '19	Tech and Liberty The First Amendment is not about a law, but rather a culture — specifically a culture of liberty. It is essential to tech, and in this context, Facebook is mostly	1.7×	0	260	66	33
43	Jun 3, '21	Passport Announcing Passport, the new infrastructure supporting Stratechery.	1.7×	0	301	31	29
44	Jan 28, '19	The BuzzFeed Lesson The lesson of BuzzFeed is that dominant Aggregators like Facebook have no incentive to act against their self interest and support suppliers.	1.7×	0	227	85	31
45	Jan 14, '20	Visa, Plaid, Networks, and Jobs The history of credit cards helps explain why Plaid is valuable to Visa, and how Visa can make it significantly better.	1.7×	0	242	59	54
46	Jan 23, '18	Amazon Go and the Future Amazon Go exemplifies how Amazon is building its monopoly in three ways: horizontally, vertically, and financially.	1.7×	0	217	122	1
47	Aug 28, '17	Uber's New CEO Uber made a good choice; that able to, despite the dysfunction, shows the company's strength	1.7×	0	249	95	0
48	Jun 25, '19	Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game Libra is less about an immediate benefit to Facebook, and more about creating a world where companies like Facebook have the best chance to prosp	1.7×	0	250	67	35
49	Jan 4, '17	Alexa: Amazon's Operating System Operating systems are chokepoints, which is why they—and Alexa—are so valuable.	1.7×	0	200	133	1
50	May 9, '18	Tech's Two Philosophies Google and Facebook represent one philosophy, and Microsoft and Apple represent another; tech needs both, but ultimately platforms are more important than a	1.7×	0	226	100	20
51	Jan 14, '19	AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source Amazon's latest offering highlights the economic challenges facing open source companies — and Amazon should pay attention.	1.7×	0	236	96	26
52	Mar 13, '23	The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) Silicon Valley Bank bears responsibility for its demise, but it symbolizes a Silicon Valley reality that is very different from the myth — and the	1.7×	84k	163	43	67
53	Apr 21, '20	How Tech Can Build Marc Andreessen has written (another) seminal essay: It's Time to Build. What does that mean for tech and venture capital?	1.7×	0	253	68	48
54	Oct 12, '21	The Death and Birth of Technological Revolutions Carlota Perez documents technological revolutions, and thinks we’re in the middle of the current one; what, though, if we are neari	1.6×	0	217	56	60
55	Dec 18, '19	The 2019 Stratechery Year in Review The most popular and most important posts on Stratechery in 2019.	1.6×	0	269	44	59
56	Jan 7, '19	Apple's Errors Apple's management made three errors that led to a revenue warning; those errors, though, suggest that the company's business is in better shape than it appears.	1.6×	0	253	80	18
57	Jul 30, '18	Facebook Lenses Facebook was down dramatically after its last earnings; to decide if it is justified it is worth looking at the company through many different lenses, both financia	1.6×	0	244	70	17
58	Aug 14, '17	The Uber Dilemma Game theory explains why Benchmark is risking its reputation to sue Uber. Plus, what comes next.	1.6×	0	203	103	0
59	Apr 4, '22	Why Netflix Should Sell Ads Netflix has been resolutely opposed to selling ads, prioritizing the user experience; however, the market conditions for streaming have changed, and so	1.5×	0	165	33	53
60	Sep 25, '18	Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom had the title CEO, but the one that built the business — and thus controlled its destiny — was Mark Zuckerberg.	1.5×	0	216	80	19
61	Apr 7, '25	Trade, Tariffs, and Tech There is an argument for the Trump tariffs, but the risks are too great relative to the uncertain rewards	1.5×	72k	150	21	172
62	Jan 18, '17	The Great Unbundling Not all media — nor all TV — is the same. That will be the root of unbundling.	1.5×	0	199	100	1
63	Oct 21, '19	The Internet and the Third Estate Mark Zuckerberg suggested that social media is a "Fifth Estate"; in fact, social media is a means by which the Third Estate — commoners — can seiz	1.4×	0	198	62	40
64	Oct 13, '20	Disney and Integrators Versus Aggregators Disney's reorganization reinforces their integrated strategy; there is a lot to learn for anyone competing with Aggregators.	1.4×	0	206	42	54
65	Nov 8, '16	Why Twitter Must Be Saved Twitter's weaknesses are an essential antidote to Facebook's focus on engagement	1.4×	0	179	96	0
66	Jun 2, '20	Dust in the Light The Internet ends gatekeepers and increases transparency, which has world-altering effects — both good and bad.	1.4×	0	177	67	25
67	Jun 25, '18	Intel and the Danger of Integration Intel is in an increasingly bad position in part because it has been captive to its integrated model. Or, you could simply say they were disrupt	1.4×	0	215	71	11
68	Nov 6, '17	Apple at Its Best The iPhone X is a reminder that Apple's HW/SW advantage is a durable defense against disruption	1.4×	0	212	95	0
69	Jan 22, '19	Netflix Flexes Netflix is an Aggregator, with a value chain that lets it drive demand, raise prices, and dismiss competition.	1.4×	0	221	65	20
70	Sep 21, '16	Oracle's Cloudy Future Building for the middle won't win the cloud; flexibility and focus matter	1.4×	0	181	89	0
71	Dec 12, '18	The State of Technology at the End of 2018 The State of Technology, at least in the enterprise space, is strong; consumer tech is another story, and it is time to question the domi	1.4×	0	192	77	25
72	Jun 5, '18	The Cost of Developers Microsoft paid a lot for GitHub, because it had to pay directly for access to developers. It doesn't have the leverage of users the way that Apple does on th	1.4×	0	198	76	14
73	Dec 12, '17	Disney and Fox Disney's rumored acquisition of 21st Century Fox is all about competing with Netflix; whether or not that is a good thing depends on your frame of reference.	1.3×	0	182	81	0
74	Nov 16, '16	Fake News Fake news and filter bubbles are a problem; the proposed solutions are worse	1.3×	0	155	92	3
75	Feb 21, '17	Manifestos and Monopolies Facebook has long been too powerful, but Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto crossed the line	1.3×	0	169	85	0
76	Jan 19, '21	Intel Problems Intel is in much more danger than its profits suggest; the problems are a long time in the making, and the solution is to split up the company.	1.3×	0	207	45	31
77	Feb 22, '22	Shopify's Evolution Shopify should build an advertising business to complement Shop Pay and the Shopify Fulfillment Network	1.3×	0	207	31	44
78	Dec 5, '22	AI Homework The first obvious casualty of large language models is homework: the real training for everyone, though, and the best way to leverage AI, will be in verifying and editi	1.3×	0	157	44	37
79	Oct 29, '18	IBM's Old Playbook IBM has bought Red Hat in an attempt to recreate its success in the 90s; it's not clear, though, that the company or the market is the same.	1.2×	0	159	76	14
80	Aug 17, '20	Apple, Epic, and the App Store The App Store is not one thing: it is installation, payments, and customer management; the further Apple gets from iOS, the worse its actions are for	1.2×	0	181	47	25
81	Mar 19, '18	The Facebook Brand The Facebook brand is, due to Facebook's strategic choices, about not respecting privacy. That is why the Cambridge Analytica story is such a problem for the com	1.2×	0	173	82	8
82	May 23, '17	Tulips, Myths, and Cryptocurrencies The tulip bubble is a myth, which shows that myths are powerful — and valuable	1.2×	0	158	87	1
83	Jun 11, '18	The Scooter Economy Scooters are everywhere, and the use case is amazing. It's not clear if the businesses will be, which means more consumer surplus.	1.2×	0	185	58	13
84	Sep 15, '20	Nvidia's Integration Dreams Nvidia's acquisition of ARM only makes sense from a financial perspective, unless you buy Jensen Huang's datacenter dreams.	1.2×	0	177	40	39
85	Mar 5, '18	Lessons from Spotify Spotify has a marginal cost problem, but while the cause is unique to Spotify, the challenges are more applicable than it seems.	1.2×	0	182	63	15
86	Feb 8, '22	Digital Advertising in 2022 The advertising has shifted from a Google-Facebook duopoly to one where Amazon and potentially Apple are major forces.	1.2×	0	157	39	41
87	Apr 25, '22	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.	1.1×	0	152	33	47
88	Apr 28, '20	The Anti-Amazon Alliance Google Shopping is changing its model, suggesting Google is joining the Anti-Amazon Alliance; 3rd-party merchants should do the same.	1.1×	0	162	43	28
89	Jan 28, '20	The Tragic iPad The iPad is 10, and while it remains a useful device, it is ultimately a disappointment. Apple lost the vision for what the iPad could be, and never gave space for	1.1×	0	146	45	24
90	Dec 12, '22	Consoles and Competition Reviewing the history of video games explains why Sony is dominant today, and why Microsoft is actually introducing competition, not limiting it.	1.1×	0	144	44	25
91	Dec 6, '21	The Amazon Empire Strikes Back Amazon's logistics investment makes the company increasingly attractive to 3rd party merchants.	1.0×	0	161	28	41
92	Dec 20, '17	The 2017 Stratechery Year in Review The most popular and most important posts on Stratechery in 2017.	1.0×	0	201	48	1
93	Aug 28, '18	Uber's Bundles Uber's crisis necessitated a new strategy: enter bundles	1.0×	0	166	42	10
94	Aug 3, '21	Metaverses The Metaverse of Snow Crash is not the best analogy for the future, as the Internet looks more like Stephenson’s dystopian real world	1.0×	0	146	35	27
95	Feb 26, '24	Gemini and Google's Culture The Google Gemini fiasco shows that the biggest challenge for Google in AI is not business model but rather company culture; change is needed from the t	1.0×	50k	161	32	35
96	Dec 19, '18	The 2018 Stratechery Year in Review The most popular and most important posts on Stratechery in 2018	1.0×	0	152	47	23
97	Sep 13, '17	The Lessons and Questions of the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 The iPhoneX fits Apple; does that leave room for the 8?	1.0×	0	143	58	0
98	Mar 26, '19	Apple's Services Event Apple's Services Event generally made sense, even if most products weren't ready to launch. It's fair to wonder, though, if something important is being lost	1.0×	0	163	41	13
99	Jan 28, '19	Today's Stratechery article is late due to an unexpected helping-daughter-prepare-for-a-test-that-she-was-very-stressed-about interruption.	0.9×	0	253	11	1
100	Apr 17, '19	Note: I accidentally sent today's Daily Update out to the entire Stratechery mailing list, paid and unpaid. Oops, and you're welcome 😬	0.9×	0	240	4	2

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