PODCAST · technology
Exponent
by Ben Thompson / James Allworth
Exponent, a production of Stratechery.com, is hosted by Ben Thompson and James Allworth. In this program we seek to explore the massive effect technology is having not just on technology companies, but also on society as a whole. Ben Thompson is the author of Stratechery, a blog about the business and strategy of technology. James Allworth is the co-author with Clay Christensen of "How Will You Measure Your Life" and a writer for the Harvard Business Review. Visit the website at https://exponent.fm for show notes and to subscribe. To see old Stratechery.FM episodes, please visit http://stratechery.fm
Episodes
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Episode 197 — ChatGPT (at Normal Speed)
Ben and James reunite to discuss the potential impact of AI on white collar work. Subscribe to Stratechery Plus, including Sharp Tech and Sharp China. Links Ben Thompson: AI Homework — Stratechery Ben Thompson: An Interview With Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman About the Democratization of AI —...
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Episode 196 — Forecasting the Metaverse
Ben and James discuss Facebook and Microsoft’s metaverse announcements, and how the future might play out. Links Ben Thompson: Meta — Stratechery Ben Thompson: An Interview with Mark Zuckerberg about the Metaverse — Stratechery Ben Thompson: AR vs. VR — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apps, People, and...
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Episode 195 — Technological Revolutions
Are we in the middle of the IT revolution, or on the verge of something new? Links Ben Thompson: The Death and Birth of Technological Revolutions — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The End of the Beginning — Stratechery John Perry Barlow: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace — EFF Ben…
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Episode 194 — Back on Spotify
Ben and James discuss the history of podcasts and why Spotify’s recent announcements are so compelling for creators. Links Ben Thompson: Spotify’s Surprise — Stratechery Episode 185 — Open, Free, and Spotify — Exponent Ben Thompson: Podcasts, Analytics, and Centralization — Stratechery Ben...
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Episode 193 — Sovereign Podcasters
Ben and James discuss Substack and the rise of the sovereign creator. Links Ben Thompson: Sovereign Writers and Substack — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Never-Ending Niches — Stratechery Bruno Maçães: History Has Begun — Hurst Publishers Ben Thompson: Defining Information — Stratechery Hosts Ben...
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Episode 192 — The Australian Perspective
Ben and James discuss Australia’s Media Bargaining Code and its fall-out. Links Ben Thompson: Google Makes Deal With News Corp, Facebook Blocks News in Australia, Microsoft’s Shamelessness — Stratechery Daily Update James Allworth: Australia’s Proposed “Fox News Tax” — Medium Hosts Ben Thompson,...
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Episode 191 — Facebook, Twitter, and Trump
Ben and James discuss whether Facebook and Twitter should de-platform President Trump. Links Ben Thompson: Tech and Trump — Stratechery Ben Thompson: New Defaults — Stratechery James Allworth: Prioritizing Economics is Crippling the U.S. Economy — Medium Ben Thompson: Trump and Twitter —...
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Episode 190 — Intel, Apple, Disruption, and Differentiation
Ben and James discuss Apple’s new chip announcement and what it means for both Apple and Intel. Links James Allworth: Intel’s Disruption is Now Complete — Medium Ben Thompson: Apple’s Shifting Differentiation — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The Intel Opportunity — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apple…
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Episode 189 — Bundles
Ben and James discuss the state of bundles in 2020, including Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Microsoft, and Apple. Links Ben Thompson: 2020 Bundles — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The Great Unbundling — Stratechery Reed Hastings: 2018 Q4 Letter to Shareholders — Netflix Growth At Any Cost: Top Facebook...
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Episode 188 — Big Tech, Antitrust, and Democracy
Ben and James discuss the antitrust subcommittee hearing, the problems of mixing antitrust and Aggregators, and how to think about regulation and democracy. Links Ben Thompson: Antitrust Politics — Stratechery The New York Times: Here’s which tech C.E.O. was asked the most questions by lawmakers.…
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Episode 187 — India, TikTok, and the U.S.
Ben and James discuss the Indian internet, TikTok, and whether or not the U.S. should ban it. Links Ben Thompson: Facebook Invests in Jio Platforms, The Building of Jio, Understanding the Deal — Stratechery Daily Update Ben Thompson: The China Cultural Clash — Stratechery Ben Thompson: India Bans...
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Episode 186 — Speech and Systems
Ben and James discuss the current protests and Facebook’s decision to not take down Trump tweets. Links Ben Thompson: Zero Trust Information — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Dust in the Light — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Zuckerberg’s Choice, Zuckerberg’s Power, Zuckerberg’s Conviction — Stratechery...
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Episode 185 — Open, Free, and Spotify
Ben and James discuss Dithering, how Spotify is like Facebook, and a bit about working from home. Links Ben Thompson & John Gruber: Dithering — Dithering Ben Thompson: Dithering and Open Versus Free — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The Daily Update Podcast — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Spotify’s Podcast...
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Episode 184 — Good is Better than Perfect
Ben and James discuss masks and Twitter’s decision to delete tweets about COVID-19. Links Zeynep Tufekci: Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired — The New York Times Ben Thompson: Unmasking Twitter — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Compaq and Coronavirus — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Zero…
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Episode 183 — A Search for Everything
Ben and James contrast U.S. and China’s response to the coronavirus, and the choices facing society about how to handle information. Links Ben Thompson: Apple’s Earnings, Slowing Services Growth, Apple and the Coronavirus — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Economic Power in the Age of Abundance —...
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Episode 182 — Scale Scale Scale
Ben and James discuss the FTC’s decision to block the acquisition of Harry’s Razors, the DTC market, and the difference between being a monopoly and being too big. Links Ben Thompson: Apple’s Investor Warning, Foxconn’s Investor Warning, An Interview with Dan Wang — Stratechery Daily Update |…
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Episode 181 — Competing with Spotify and Regulating Acquisitions
Ben and James discuss Ben’s new Daily Update Podcast, and why Exponent is not on Spotify. Then, should regulators roll back acquisitions or prioritize the avoidance of unintended consequences? Links Ben Thompson: The Daily Update Podcast — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The Rationale Behind the Daily...
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Episode 180 — It’s Been a Week
Ben and James eulogize Professor Clayton M. Christensen Links Clayton M. Christensen: How Will You Measure Your Life? — Harvard Business Review Ben Thompson: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Clayton Christensen Passes Away, Professor Christensen and I, Kobe Bryant…
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Episode 179 — The Water We Swim In
Ben and James discuss whether mobile and hyper-scale clouds are the natural endpoint for this stage of technology, or if new companies will ride new paradigm shifts to replace Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Links Ben Thompson: The End of the Beginning — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Obsoletive…
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Episode 178 — More Ergonomic
Ben and James discuss the downsides of monopoly, and Apple. Then, why there is no absolute answer when it comes to integration or modularization, and why different approaches require different types of organizations and different types of leaders. Links Ben Thompson: Integration and Monopoly —...
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Episode 177 — Principle Stacks
Ben and James discuss the origins of the First Amendment, what a culture of free expression means, and Facebook’s ad policy. Links Ben Thompson: Tech and Liberty — Stratechery Randall Munroe: Free Speech — xkcd Pat Kerr: Why I think xkcd is wrong about Free Speech — Medium Ben Thompson: The China...
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Episode 176 — The Second Estate Era
Ben and James discuss how the Internet’s impact will be like the printing press’s, and what that means for how we should think about Facebook. Note: We apologize for the slight audio discrepancy between Ben and James Links Ben Thompson: The Internet and the Third Estate — Stratechery Ben…
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Episode 175 — The Abyss Stares Back
Ben and James discuss the NBA and Apple in China and the long-term implications of doing business with authoritarian governments. Links Ben Thompson: The China Cultural Clash — Stratechery r/HongKong: List Of Companies Under China’s Censorship Orders (So Far). Credit To U/Lebe — Reddit Sam…
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Episode 174 — Distracted at Facebook
Ben and James discuss Facebook from multiple angles, including child sexual abuse material, encryption, Oculus, and a leaked all-hands meeting. Links Ben Thompson: Friction — Stratechery The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong? — New York Times Ben Thompson…
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Episode 173 — The Exponent IPO
Ben and James discuss Cloudflare and what it is like going through an IPO, as well as what has gone wrong with WeWork. Links Ben Thompson: Netflix and the Conservation of Attractive Profits — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Cloudflare’s S-1 — Stratechery Daily Update Ben Thompson: AWS and the Impact on...
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Episode 172 — Game of Phones
Ben and James discuss WWDC keynote and why it was so important for Apple to move past the iPhone. Links Ben Thompson: Apple’s Audacity — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apple’s Middle Age — Stratechery Letter from Tim Cook to Apple investors — Apple Ben Thompson: Strategy Credit — Stratechery Updates…
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Episode 171 — An Intra-west Debate
Ben and James discuss the U.S.-China trade war and the fundamental issues facing both countries generally and tech specifically. Links Ben Thompson: China, Leverage, and Values — Stratechery We Were Pirates, Too — Foreign Policy How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities — New…
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Episode 170 — A Perfect Meal
Ben and James discuss the Zoom and Slack IPOs in the context of Microsoft’s current success and long-term challenges. Links Ben Thompson: Microsoft, Slack, Zoom, and the SaaS Opportunity — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The State of Technology at the End of 2018 — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Google…
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Episode 169 — Family-Friendly Disney
Ben and James discuss Disney’s recent announcements on streaming and what it says about not just TV but strategy broadly in the Internet era. Links Ben Thompson: Disney and the Future of TV — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Disney and the Value of the Consumer Relationship, Disney’s Consolidation of...
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Episode 168 — A Community of Loonies
Ben and James discuss why Internet regulation is coming, why it is probably necessary, and how it should be targeted. Links Ben Thompson: A Regulatory Framework for the Internet — Stratechery New Livestreaming Legislation Fails to Take Into Account How the Internet Actually Works — The…
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Episode 167 — YouTube and the End of Friction
Ben and James discuss the question of YouTube, why it’s similar and different from Facebook, and why engagement is both alluring and a potential problem. Links YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant — Bloomberg Ben Thompson: Apple’s Services Event — Stratechery Ben...
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Episode 166 — Fence-building vs. Axe-wielding
Ben and James discuss Senator Warren’s proposal to break up Big Tech, including why its history is wrong, why details matter, and what needs to be done instead. Plus, Spotify’s antitrust complaint against Apple. Links Senator Elizabeth Warren: Here’s how we can break up Big Tech — Medium Ben...
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Episode 165 — Mark Zuckerberg’s Projected Self
Ben and James discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s latest missive, whether Facebook is actually changing anything, and wonder if the company will ever tell the unvarnished truth. Links Mark Zuckerberg: A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking — Facebook Ben Thompson: Facebook’s Privacy Cake —...
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Episode 164 — Valuing Value Chains
Ben and James discuss Amazon, Walmart, and groceries, Google Cloud versus AWS, and why understanding value chains helps evaluate business opportunities. Links Ben Thompson: The Value Chain Constraint — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Walmart’s Earnings, Walmart’s Grocery Business, Amazon’s Grocery...
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Exponent 163 — Publishers vs Apple News
Ben and James discuss Apple News as it is today, where Apple wants to take it in the future, and why publishers should push back. Links Ben Thompson: The Cost of Apple News — Stratechery Ben Thompson: What Direct-to-Consumer Publishers are Selling — Stratechery Daily Update Apple News’s Radical...
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Exponent 162 — Why Exponent Isn’t on Spotify
Ben and James discuss Spotify’s move into podcasts and integration and modularity in value chains. Links Ben Thompson: Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Lessons From Spotify — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Podcasts, Analytics, and Centralization — Stratechery Ben…
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Episode 161 — Vigilante Justice
Ben and James discuss Apple vs Facebook (and Google!). Links Josh Constine: Facebook Pays Teens to Install VPN That Spies on Them — TechCrunch Facebook’s Onavo Gives Social-Media Firm Inside Peek at Rivals’ Users — Wall Street Journal Ben Thompson: Facebook Versus Apple — Stratechery Daily Update...
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Episode 160 — Zeros All the Way Down
Ben and James discuss Netflix, why it is an Aggregator, and why Disney isn’t actually a competitor Links Ben Thompson: Netflix Flexes — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Netflix and the Conservation of Attractive Profits — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apple Should Buy Netflix — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Why...
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Episode 159 — Inverted Pyramids
Ben and James discuss open source in a cloud world, how enterprise value chains have changed, and AWS versus Microsoft. Links Ben Thompson: AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source — Stratechery Ben Thompson: How Google is Challenging AWS — Stratechery Satya Nadella on Microsoft —...
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Episode 158 — A Significant Shift
Ben and James discuss Apple’s revenue warning and the company’s shift to services. Links Ben Thompson: Apple’s Errors — Stratechery Letter from Tim Cook to Apple Investors — Apple Ben Thompson: Two Bears — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apple’s China Problem — Stratechery Ben Thompson: CES and the...
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Episode 157 — Clumping and Clustering
James and Ben talk about the connection between Jobs to be Done and Aggregation Theory, why the consumer and enterprise markets are so different, and discomfort with big companies like Google. Links Ben Thompson: Aggregators and Jobs-to-be-Done — Stratechery Ben Thompson: The Scooter Economy —...
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Episode 156 — Rent-Seeking
Exponent is back, kind of. Ben and James talk about Apple’s case in front of the Supreme Court, and debate whether the company is acting anti-competitively with its App Store policies. Links Ben Thompson: Antitrust, the App Store, and Apple — Stratechery Ben Thompson: Apple App Store Follow-up —...
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Episode 155 — The End, For Now
Exponent is taking a break, for now anyways. We couldn’t be more grateful for everyone that has given us so much of their time. Hosts Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review Podcast Information Feed iTunes SoundCloud Twitter Feedback…
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Episode 154 — Legacy Leverage
Ben and James discuss Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub. Note: This is the last episode of the season; Exponent will return in the fall Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: The Cost of Developers — Stratechery Ben Thompson:...
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Episode 153 — Black Holes
Ben and James continue their discussion on why aggregators and platforms are different and why it matters for big companies, competitors, and regulators. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: The Bill Gates Line — Stratechery...
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Episode 152 — Platforms Versus Aggregators
Ben and James continue to discuss the differences between platforms and aggregators, including Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Uber. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: The Moat Map — Stratechery…
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Episode 151 — Two by Twos
Ben and James discuss the differences between Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple specifically, and the differences between aggregators and platforms generally. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Google Duplex Demo — YouTube Ben...
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Episode 150 — Round Numbers
Ben and James discuss how Apple and Amazon’s focus on the customer experience protects them from low-end disruption. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: Divine Discontent: Disruption’s Antidote — Stratechery Ben Thompson:...
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Episode 149 — Zillow and Sustaining Aggregation
Ben and James discuss Zillow’s shift in business model and the further refinement of Aggregation Theory through the incorporation of the ideas of disruption. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: Zillow, Aggregation, and...
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Episode 148 — Facebook Fatigue
Ben and James discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s appearances before Congress, and try to sort out exactly which Facebook issues matter, and which don’t. Presented by WordPress.com: Get 15% off on a new site by visiting WordPress.com/Exponent. Links Ben Thompson: The Facebook Current — Stratechery Zeynep...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Exponent, a production of Stratechery.com, is hosted by Ben Thompson and James Allworth.
In this program we seek to explore the massive effect technology is having not just on technology companies, but also on society as a whole. Ben Thompson is the author of Stratechery, a blog about the business and strategy of technology. James Allworth is the co-author with Clay Christensen of "How Will You Measure Your Life" and a writer for the Harvard Business Review.
Visit the website at https://exponent.fm for show notes and to subscribe. To see old Stratechery.FM episodes, please visit http://stratechery.fm
HOSTED BY
Ben Thompson / James Allworth
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Exponent have?
Exponent currently has 199 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Exponent about?
Exponent, a production of Stratechery.com, is hosted by Ben Thompson and James Allworth. In this program we seek to explore the massive effect technology is having not just on technology companies, but also on society as a whole. Ben Thompson is the author of Stratechery, a blog about the business...
How often does Exponent release new episodes?
Exponent publishes regularly with 199 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Exponent?
You can listen to Exponent on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Exponent?
Exponent is created and hosted by Ben Thompson / James Allworth.
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