Stratechery

Thompson analyzes the emerging alliance between Spotify and Netflix against YouTube. Both companies face the same threat: YouTube's free, ad-supported model undermining their subscription businesses. Their response: exclusive content and superior curation.

Thompson analyzes Google's Gemini models and argues that Google's custom TPU chips provide a structural cost advantage that may matter more than model quality in the long run — AI is becoming an infrastructure competition.

Thompson argues that the companies winning the AI race face a paradox: the more they invest in AI infrastructure, the more they commit to a technology whose value proposition is not yet clear. The winner of the AI race may be cursed by overinvestment.

Thompson examines the trend of nations building their own AI capabilities rather than depending on US companies — the geopolitical implications of treating AI as critical infrastructure, like energy or defense.

Judge Mehta rules that Google is a monopolist in search. Thompson argues this is the most important antitrust ruling in tech since Microsoft in 2001 and analyzes what remedies might follow — from behavioral changes to a forced sale of Chrome.

Thompson analyzes Apple's late entry into AI: its integration advantage (controlling hardware, OS, and distribution) versus its innovation disadvantage (no frontier model, no research culture). The question: can integration compensate for arriving last?

Thompson argues that AI assistants will eventually replace traditional search — and this isn't a crisis but an improvement. Search was always a compromise: you wanted an answer, but the system gave you a list of links. AI gives you the answer directly.

Thompson reflects on 10 years of Stratechery: the predictions that were right (Aggregation Theory, Apple's services revenue), the ones that were wrong (Twitter's potential, Facebook's VR pivot), and what he's learned about the practice of technology analysis.

On Apple's 50th anniversary, Thompson examines why Apple's vertical integration strategy — controlling both hardware and software — has produced the world's most valuable company despite violating every MBA textbook on specialization.

Thompson provides the definitive analysis of the OpenAI board crisis. He argues the real lesson isn't about Sam Altman's leadership — it's about the impossibility of governing a trillion-dollar technology through a nonprofit board structure.

Thompson analyzes Meta's launch of Threads to compete with Twitter/X: why Meta's distribution advantage makes Threads a credible threat, and what the competition reveals about platform economics.

Thompson analyzes why TikTok's algorithm represents a fundamental shift in social media: from social graph (who you know) to interest graph (what you like). This shift explains TikTok's explosive growth and why Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are scrambling to copy it.

Ben Thompson revisits his most influential framework — Aggregation Theory — in light of Apple's App Store battles, Google's antitrust trial, and the rise of TikTok. He argues the theory's predictions have largely held but need updating for the AI era.