Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson

Ben and Andrew begin with a salute to the world champion Milwaukee Brewers before turning to Anthropic’s S-1 as the company prepares for its public offering in November. Topics: Anthropic’s impressive margins, questions about the second half of 2026, how the company “lost” $80 billion in 2026, how compute will be paid for going forward, and an SEC disclosure that finally shows us the breakdown of training vs. inference costs. From there: Anthropic’s obsession with OpenAI, reactions to Craig Moffet’s questions about the AI bubble, understanding Meta’s AI spending as an echo of Anthropic’s S-1, a brief 1Password history, and Muse as the ultimate founder bet. At the end: An emailer wonders about Elon’s role in the Ukraine War, Ben sees You Can See Everything, and a few emotional thoughts on the Brewers World Series win.

Sharp Tech is Presented by Stripe.

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Anthropic S-1, The Cost of Compute, Who Is Paying? — Stratechery Update

An Interview with Craig Moffett About SpaceX and Bubbles — Stratechery Interview

An Interview with Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar About the AI Religious War — Stratechery Interview

Meta Earnings, Muse and the Frontier, Musebook — Stratechery Update

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Ben and Andrew begin with notes on the future of the podcast before turning to a raft of ominous Netflix shows and a question: what can Netflix fix, and what growth problems are more intractable? From there: A note on Elon’s investment in Skydance, Anthropic solves an NSA mystery, and reactions to a variety of ominous cybersecurity developments from the past several days. At the end: Meeting the Meta VR glasses in person, Anthropic’s branding spawns thoughts on alignment, why Apple has retained the “Siri” branding (so far), reading as an AI bottleneck, olive oil recs, podcast-listening speeds, and Andrew reverses his stance on the new Nathan Fielder movie.

You can watch this episode of Sharp Tech on YouTube.

Sharp Tech is Presented by Stripe.

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Netflix Earnings, Business or Franchise, Disney’s Deal — Stratechery

Is Netflix Washed Now? — Sharp Text

You Can See Everything (And It’s a Great Time) — Sharp Text

Presented by Stripe — Stratechery

Claude reveals ECDSA curve origins — Anthropic

NSA Advisory: Critical Patches Recommended for PHP Vulnerabilities — NSA

Indian firm eMudhra exits global digital certificates business after vulnerability disclosure — Reuters

Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts — Axios

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Ben and Andrew begin with reactions to Apple’s HomeView, including backlash to one of the company’s worst commercials ever, why the product category should exist, and whether Apple is the right company to execute in this space. From there: SpaceX moves full speed ahead with its plans for cellular coverage, why some airlines and carriers balked at partnering with SpaceX, and challenges the company will face going toe to toe with cellular incumbents. At the end: The Ringer’s new, Substack-forward model, the future of sports TV rights as AI spending continues, more on Amazon prices and the company’s logistic moat, building AI apps for iOS, the maddening centrality of smartphones in daily life, solidarity with Ben in his cupboard strategy and smart home instincts, the AI pitch that more companies should be emphasizing, and AI show & tell on a parenting use case that has paid dividends.

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Apple HomeView, The New Apple TV, The App Story — Stratechery Update

SpaceX Buys More Spectrum, Musk and Market Structure, Distributed Cellular — Stratechery Update

Palantir CTO says some AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer — Business Insider

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Andrew and Ben begin with reflections on Ben’s changing relationship with the Mac and two markets that may ultimately be impossible to serve with one product and operating system. Then: Why Apple’s plans for your living room make sense, reactions to the Duo, and the near-term outlook for humanoid robots in the home. From there: More specifics on why agents put certain types of advertising at risk, thoughts on Amazon adopting a YouTube Premium model, and a question about product pricing that spawns a lesson in advertising, generally. Then: Reactions to OpenAI’s math progress, anxiety among mathematicians, inter-disciplinary skills, joining forces on Machine Intelligence Island, and a reminder that equating raw IQ with value is a bad idea. At the end: Grading Ben Affleck’s AI knowledge, Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft habit, and a digression on IBM, Compaq, and the decompilation of video games (and why fair use is not a viable defense for hackers).

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Apple and a Hacker’s Future — Stratechery

Apple and LG, The House For Everyone Else, Agent Standards and Amazon — Stratechery Update

Email Addresses and Razor Blades — Stratechery

AI Solved One Math Problem and Everyone Freaked Out. It Just Cracked Hundreds More. — The Wall Street Journal

ChatGPT Gets a Computer — Stratechery

Super Intelligence Is Not Right, Either — Sharp Text

Ben Affleck on Programming in Python and Using AI in Filmmaking — @firesidealpha on X

EP 1: ROOFTOPS, PENTHOUSES, AND URBAN LIVING — Mike Tomlin: YouTube

Game Decompilation, Is This Legal?, A Well-Trodden Path — Stratechery Update

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Ben and Andrew begin with a note on VIM and reactions to a confusing product launch from OpenAI at Dev Day earlier this week. Then: Will personal agents be a winner-take-all market? What can Apple and Google do in the consumer agent space? Will normal people take longer than expected to adopt these products? And did Meta’s push into the enterprise break the company’s hot streak? From there: Emails on the future of payments, “super intelligence” branding for AI, America.gov, and firing Dario Amodei. At the end: AI Show & Tell with notes on generational adoption shifts (and Tamagotchis), movie games, a personalized sports page, App Store hell, and going full KGB on messaging.

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Dot.com — Grok Bot

Apps, Agents, and Aggregation — Stratechery

OpenAI Dev Day, Dot and OpenAI’s Product Transition, Sign In With ChatGPT — Stratechery Update

The Problem with Payments — Stratechery

Google Grapples With Employee Skepticism About New Gemini 4 — Bloomberg

One More Note on Agents, Meta Connect, Meta Enterprise Platform — Stratechery Update

Super Intelligence Is Not Right, Either — Sharp Text

Enterprise Philosophy and the First Wave of AI — Stratechery

Tentpole Game — Tentpole

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Ben and Andrew begin with the Meta Connect keynote and a simple question: is this the first time since 2021 that Meta has been cool? From there, new VR glasses, the Muse Charm, a basketball analogy for Meta Connect in 2026, and the infrastructure and talent investments that have helped Muse resonate over the past few weeks. Then: An emailer shares his Muse epiphany, a potential secondary effect of agents saving users money, why Muse is not sharing user data with Meta, and the ultimate “aggregator of aggregators” upside. Then: Extended thoughts on the Muse vs. Amazon tensions, why Meta’s Walmart deal was potentially crucial, and Amazon’s moat in logistics (and returns) that may prove durable in the agents era. At the end: A CarPlay victory lap, and a round of AI Show and Tell with a wedding planner, a SunOS coder, and a fantasy football league.

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Meta Debuts Dedicated ‘Charm’ Device for Using Muse AI — Bloomberg

Meta Launches Lightweight $1,299 VR Headset That Looks Like Glasses — Bloomberg

Amazon Blocks Muse, Amazon’s Moat, Aggregator v Aggregator — Stratechery Update

More on Muse, Amazon, and Walmart; Muse and Expedia; Whither Google? — Stratechery Update

Amazon and Shopify, Shopify and Its Merchants, The Payments Question — Stratechery Update

An Interview with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg About AI and the Evolution of Social Media — Stratechery Interview

Ben on AI’s Problem Marketing Consumer AI — X: @TBPN

Ben’s Full Interview on TBPN — X: @TBPN

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On today’s Ben and Andrew begin with Andrew’s article on AI alarmism, the primacy of the effective altruists in AI risk conversations, and why these discussions are exhausting without more evidence, even as AI risk becomes the biggest story in American politics. From there: A distinction between regulation malaise five years ago and where we are today, the grind of modern software, and questions responding to Ben’s Update on Monday, including thoughts on why OpenAI and Anthropic won’t unilaterally slow down, why Sam Altman and Elon Musk were incentivized to agree with Dario Amodei, and an emailer who asks whether doomerism hysteria is crowding out more urgent economic questions. Then: Questions on China’s incentives in AI, the strategic benefits of chip sales and distillation, military implications of American lead in AI, and China’s messy cybersecurity situation. At the end: An ode to ApplePay, Walmart, and Walton Goggins (but not Matt LaFleur).

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Some of All Fears — Sharp Text

Pacing the Frontier, AI’s Digital Limits, AI Commissars — Stratechery Update

Anthropic’s Safety Superpower — Stratechery

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote — Goodreads

AI Promise and Chip Precariousness — Stratechery

OpenAI Ads, Amazon Ads in ChatGPT, Walmart to Accept Apple Pay — Stratechery Update

Sharp Text on EZ-Pass History — Sharp Text

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Andrew and Ben begin with Ben’s article on Tuesday on the transformative value of LLMs writing things down. Topics include: How assistants have helped Ben solve his blindspots, the omnicompetent assistants that are now available to everyone, a brief detour into markdown file history, the arrival of OpenAI’s Astra models, a future of models that use computers, the astounding value of a pro subscription to Anthropic and OpenAI, and the pace of AI progress in the fall of 2026. From there: More on the Hugging Face incident, a listener asks for advice on getting started with agents, and Meta’s Muse arrives to help normal unlock the potential of agents. At the end: Reactions to a pair of viral p(doom) tweets from Anthropic employees, why one writer’s pandemic callback offers an unintentionally instructive parallel, and an emotional announcement about the iPhone Air.

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Write Things Down — Stratechery

An Interview with OpenAI President Greg Brockman About Astra and Alignment — Stratechery Interview

OpenAI Does Math, Reward-Hacking, Meta Launches Personal Agent — Stratechery Update

Anthropic Researcher Jacob Coxon Quits Over ‘Out-of-Control’ AI Fears — The Wall Street Journal

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with notes on a home networking project before turning to the release of Fable 5.1, including Anthropic’s announcement that it has walked back the data retention safety initiative the company announced earlier this year. From there: Reactions to a viral post on the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, the problem with anthropomorphizing machines, and why Ben finds this discourse unhinged and unproductive. At the end: Follow-ups to last week’s Meta discussion on the tension between libertarian and conservative impulses, Shopify is a platform and not an aggregator (and that’s great), a well-timed question about 3-D Printing, an F1 app PSA, a listener’s girlfriend hates vibe coding, and apropos of last week, a pronunciation email.

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Fable 5.1, Enterprise Frontier Safeguards — Stratechery Update

The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations — Dwarkesh Podcast

Meta Settles, A Framework For Regulating Content, The Rest of Big Tech — Stratechery Update

Friction — Stratechery

An Interview with Michael Morton About E-Commerce in the Age of AI — Stratechery Interview

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with initial reactions to Meta’s settlement with 29 states, including behavioral remedies that will impose restrictions on teens using Facebook and Instagram. From there: Reactions to a report that Nvidia is set to acquire HuggingFace, including why a robust open source ecosystem looks increasingly urgent for Nvidia, and why OpenAI’s surprisingly impressive jalapeño chip underscores the point. At the end: Netflix pivots from a longstanding refusal to funnel customers to rivals, F1’s declining ratings on AppleTV, ESPN abandons the bottom line for college football, Stanley Druckenmiller uses AI for his Wall Street Journal op ed, a vibe coding question (and more adventures with Ben’s over-engineered psychosis), a coffee pot question, parameter sizes and the mysteries of model performance, and a hurling PSA yields an appreciation for various sports on TV.

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Meta to Pay up to $18 Billion in Settlement With States Over Social-Media Addiction Claims — Variety

Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure His Competitors Share His Pain — New York Times

I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup — Slate Star Codex

Nvidia Agrees to Buy Open Source AI Platform Hugging Face For $12.9 Billion — The Information

The Biggest Dogs in Streaming Want You to Use Only Their App — New York Times

Analysis shows F1 viewership on Apple TV down significantly from ESPN — Awful Announcing

ESPN Removing BottomLine Ticker on College Football Games — Front Office Sports

Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s WSJ Op-Ed Criticizing Bessent Was Written With AI — NOTUS

The Magic of Hurling — YouTube

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On today’s show Andrew and Ben begin with reflections on big Apple news that feels relatively small alongside a world of growth and dramatic questions across technology in the AI era. Then: They turn to the news that OpenAI is pausing its Internet model training, the incentive structure that makes cybersecurity challenging and how AI compounds the challenge, two digressions from Ben on misalignment and a new AI use case, and why black hat and white hat cybersecurity actors are both doing the same thing in the AI era. At the end: More thoughts on bubble benefits that may survive, an emailer considers a financial planning career but is concerned about AI, two follow-ups on AI and the writing process, and European emailer thinks Americans who love sports love everything but the actual sport.

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Apple Settles With E.U.; U.S. App Store Fees; ATT Rules in — Stratechery Update

Data and Definitions — Stratechery

What Happened: OpenAI and Hugging Face — The Zvi

Black Hat USA 2026 | The ‘Breaking’ News: The OpenAI–Hugging Face Incident — Black Hat YouTube

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Ben and Andrew begin with Nvidia’s announcements of a new funding model for AI infrastructure, including the differences and similarities with railroad expansion 150 years ago, why LLMs were a gift and curse to Nvidia’s business, the pressure on Nvidia coming from Google and Amazon, and the expanded blast radius as Nvidia works to mobilize third party funding. From there: Why the turnover at Google may actually be a good sign for Google’s frontier efforts, and extended thoughts the future of AI-generated output, ideas and substantiation, and Anthropic’s plan to watermark outputs. At the end: A question about the Vision Pro, the obstacles for Starlink Mobile, and a cranky emailer yields a clarifying answer on why Ben is excited about his vibe coded app.

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Nvidia’s Risky Business — Stratechery

The Google Capital Company — Stratechery

Anthropic’s Watermarking, How It (Probably) Works, Worse Than It Seems — Stratechery Update

The AI Unbundling — Stratechery

Apple Earnings, OpenAI Deep Research, The Unbundling of Substantiation — Stratechery Update

My Vibe Coding Adventure, The App and the Experience, Ten Takeaways — Stratechery Update

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with Microsoft, Meta and Google in the wake of their latest earnings reports. First: Microsoft’s push to be the middle layer for enterprise AI, threats to the company’s competitive position in the long run, and the subtext of the open weights open letter frenzy two weeks ago. Then: Parsing Google and Meta strategies as Google hedges its frontier bets, while Meta continues its frontier spending and announces questionable plans for an enterprise business. At the end: The future of the lending environment for Meta and the other hyperscalers, a bubble check-in, a rundown of what happened between Citadel and the Situational Awareness, close encounters with Ben’s vibe coded app, and an emailer offers a compelling theory on the push for Permanent Daylight Savings Time.

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Microsoft Earnings, Microsoft vs. Meta, The Efficiency Payoff — Stratechery Update

Meta Earnings, Meta’s Timing Problems, The Financial Tail — Stratechery Update

Google Earnings, The Frontier Case, Amazon Earnings — Stratechery Update

Microsoft’s Monopoly Hangover — Stratechery

Citadel Securities Sees Warsh Delivering Surprise Fed Hike — Bloomberg

Citadel Buys Situational Awareness’s Stock Portfolio After Big Losses in AI — Wall Street Journal

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with takeaways from OpenAI’s sandboxing snafu, including a reminder that the big bad wolf is real, OpenAI’s failures, and the timing challenge with warnings from AI labs. From there: Talking through Ben’s article on Kimi K3 and the future of open weights AI models in the U.S., including why the U.S. open source market has stagnated, the motives of various tech constituencies to drive competition with OpenAI and Anthropic, the difference between the training market and the inference market, intelligence as a commodity, and why OpenAI and Anthropic may have a more defensible lead than it seems. At the end: The government’s disagreements about how to handle Chinese models, the argument for encouraging U.S. distillation, the security risks of building atop Chinese infrastructure, an email about Chinese innovation, concerns over American credentialism, and a potential curveball from the CCP after a week of Kimi anxiety.

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Who’s Afraid of Chinese Models? — Stratechery

OpenAI Hacks Hugging Face, What Happened, Alignment and Paper Clips — Stratechery Update

Economic Power in the Age of Abundance — Stratechery

China weighs tighter export controls on AI models and chips — Financial Times

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with a raft of OpenAI news, including reactions to the first reports of what OpenAI’s first hardware product will be, the logic of OpenAI’s hardware business generally, the Codex push in the mac app, and a request for a Codex computer. From there: The Apple-OpenAI trade secrets lawsuit, including Apple history, a reckless OpenAI employee, and the funniest part of the complaint. At the end: IBM’s stock and the specific way AI may have affected mainframe spending, how AI will manifest in real-world software, an email about Meta’s messaging as a recruiting pitch, notification management, monetizing expertise, and a word about daylight savings time.

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Apple Sues OpenAI, Apple’s Real Problem — Stratechery Update

The OpenAI Super App, ChatGPT = Codex, Whither Chat — Stratechery Update

IBM Misses, IBM’s Mainframe Moat, IBM’s Many AI Problems — Stratechery Update

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On today’s show Andrew and Ben begin with a look at the state of Meta. Topics include: Mark Zuckerberg’s sins of commission vs. omission as a messenger, Meta’s AI opportunity, directionally correct investments, the problems with Meta as a cloud provider, and the absence of religion in Menlo Park. From there: Why Microsoft should move on from the XBOX era, and the shift in gaming habits that doomed Game Pass from the outset. At the end: OpenAI introduces GPT-Live, a question about the cost of Ben’s vibe coding adventure spawns a digression on future token costs, the cost of youth sports, American soccer and learning Chinese, tech weirdos and the future of normie app building, and Ben gets castigated for bringing a Starlink on vacation.

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A Script for Mark Zuckerberg — Stratechery

Meta’s AI Abundance — Stratechery

XBOX Cuts; Bundling and the Internet Solvent; Transaction, Coordination, and Sunk Costs — Stratechery Update

An Interview with Matthew Ball About Gaming and the Fight for Attention — Stratechery Interview

Introducing GPT-Live, a new generation of voice models for natural human-AI interaction. — X:@OpenAI

Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard — Pinyin

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Ben and Andrew begin with an extended look at the market for memory chips, including market history, the supply crunch driving up today’s valuations, the myopia from SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron, new entrants from China, and why the timing of Apple’s price increases are a bearish signal. From there: Both hosts share their daily caffeine regimen, garage takes, and lots of thoughts on vibe coding after Ben’s 10-day foray into AI-assisted engineering. At the end: Codex marketing and an imminent OpenAI super app, Sam Altman’s appearance in a game of mafia, could the EU push Apple to better business strategy, stock buyback clarification, ocean data centers, metricmaxxing, and an update on last week’s hydration break take along with a better fix for international soccer.

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Memory Chips and China, Microsoft and Chinese Models — Stratechery Update

An Interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan About CHIPS — Stratechery Interview

Summer Top Fives: 2025 Bandwagons and Candy — Greatest of All Talk

My Vibe Coding Adventure, The App and the Experience, Ten Takeaways — Stratechery Update

Apple Price Increases, Apple Intelligence and the E.U. — Stratechery Update

The SpaceX IPO and Data Centers in Space — Stratechery

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On today’s show Ben and Andrew begin with a hydration break take as the World Cup continues before turning to the latest on Anthropic’s export control saga, what the Trump administration may not understand about AI cybersecurity, and what Anthropic still doesn’t understand about dealing with the government. From there: Fables differentiation, the dangers of ringfencing frontier AI within U.S. borders, and how open source Chinese AI may affect the marketplace. From there: Why Ben gives Fox the benefit of the doubt after its Roku purchase this week, whether Siri AI will nuke ChatGPT’s market, Noam Shazeer joins OpenAI, what e-commerce will and won’t be automated, and whether autonomous driving can scale on ICE vehicles.

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The State of Fable, The Jailbreak Problem, SpaceX Acquires Cursor — Stratechery Update

Anthropic’s Safety Superpower — Stratechery

The Window Has Closed — X: @AndrewCurran_

Fox Buys Roku, The Problem With Fox’s Smart Strategy, Streaming That Works — Stratechery Update

An Interview with Michael Morton About E-Commerce in the Age of AI — Stratechery Interview

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Ben and Andrew begin by talking through five questions on WWDC in 2026, including thoughts on Apple’s answer to the critics, whether Apple is or is not thinking different, decoding the Google partnership and Craig Federighi’s corporate speak, the wide gap between Siri AI and frontier AI, and why memory concerns are misplaced. From there: Explaining the Fable 5 guard rails, Anthropic safety concerns that align with Anthropic business incentives, Ben’s first impressions of the Fable 5 performance, and a week of Anthropic angst that adds additional context to the company’s standoff with the Department of War. At the end: Passing another checkpoint on the AI 2027 journey, Microsoft on the hot seat in the AI era, and the United States of YouTube.

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The iPhone’s Last Stand — Stratechery

Enterprise Philosophy and the First Wave of AI — Stratechery

ChatGPT Gets a Computer — Stratechery

Fable 5, Anthropic Alignment, AI Tiers — Stratechery Update

Anthropic and Alignment — Stratechery

An Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella About Finding Core Competencies — Stratechery Interview

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Ben and Andrew begin with a look at SpaceX before its June IPO. Topics include: Why the S-1 math that doesn’t quite pencil out for now, the madness of analyzing Musk companies generally, the company’s ultimate upside, and why the IPO is worth applauding regardless. Then: Questions on terrestrial solutions vs. data centers in space, the durability of SpaceX’s rocket monopoly, Nvidia’s earnings and the future of the ACIE market, why neoclouds are advertising on podcasts, and the op-ed from Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince explaining his company’s AI-driven layoffs. From there: Dropbox as the Penny Hardaway of tech companies, an emailer worried about enshittifed AI chatbots yields discussion of the real reasons Google’s gotten worse. At the end: The Jony Ive-designed Ferrari Luce, why Ben regrets a tweet, how Ferrari will sell these cars, and more philsophical thoughts on why everyone was upset this week.

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The SpaceX IPO and Data Centers in Space — Stratechery

It’s a Tesla — Stratechery

Mistakes and Memes — Stratechery

How I Choose Which Cloudflare Employees to Replace With AI — Wall Street Journal

Enterprise Philosophy and the First Wave of AI — Stratechery

Fake News — Stratechery

Ferrari Luce — Ferrari

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