Exponent is a podcast about tech and society hosted by Ben Thompson and James Allworth

Ben Thompson is the author and founder of Stratechery, a blog about the business and strategy of technology. You can follow him on Twitter @benthompson.

James Allworth is the co-author with Clay Christensen of How Will You Measure Your Life and a writer for the Harvard Business Review. You can follow him on Twitter @jamesallworth.

Episode 018: Agree to Disagree

In this week’s episode Ben explains why he has changed his mind about Apple Watch. James is not convinced. We go on for a while.

Links

  • Ben Thompson: What I Got Wrong About Apple Watch – Stratechery
  • John Gruber: Apple Watch: Initial Thoughts and Observations – Daring Fireball

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Episode 017: Let’s End it There (Updated)

In this week’s episode we follow-up on Episode 15’s console discussion, and then dive into the Apple Watch introduction. We cover why we were disappointed in the presentation, and discuss the luxury market in Asia and why the Edition will cost thousands of dollars. And then we go back for seconds. And thirds.

(Note: This is an updated version that removes a gap present in the previous version)

Links

  • Ben Thompson: Gaming and New Market Disruption – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Friction – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Apple Watch: Asking Why and Saying No – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Whither Liberal Arts? – Stratechery
  • Benjamin Clymer: A Watch Guy’s Thoughts On The Apple Watch After Seeing It In The Metal – Hodinkee

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Episode 017: Let’s End it There

In this week’s episode we follow-up on Episode 15’s console discussion, and then dive into the Apple Watch introduction. We cover why we were disappointed in the presentation, and discuss the luxury market in Asia and why the Edition will cost thousands of dollars. And then we go back for seconds. And thirds.

(Note: There is a gap at around the 12:30 mark due to an editing error. We apologize)

Links

  • Ben Thompson: Gaming and New Market Disruption – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Friction – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Apple Watch: Asking Why and Saying No – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Whither Liberal Arts? – Stratechery
  • Benjamin Clymer: A Watch Guy’s Thoughts On The Apple Watch After Seeing It In The Metal – Hodinkee

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Episode 016: Naked People

In this week’s episode we discuss James’ first ever trip to Burning Man, ugliness in modern culture and on the Internet, the new divide in politics, and ultimately why we have hope for the future.

Links

  • Grover Norquist: My First Burning Man: Confessions of a Conservative from Washington – The Guardian
  • Devin Faraci: Why I Feel Bad For – And Understand – The Angry #GamerGate Gamers – Badass Digest

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Episode 015: Consoles and Disruption

In this week’s episode we discuss whether or not consoles will be disrupted. This episode was recorded a week ago (immediately after last week’s episode), before Ben wrote his pieces Games and Good Enough and Games and New Market Disruption.

Links

  • Ben Thompson: How Apple TV Might Disrupt Microsoft and Sony – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Games and Good Enough – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Gaming and New Market Disruption – Stratechery
  • Medallia Receives $50M in New Funding to Meet Growing Market Demand for Software that Makes Companies More Customer Centric – Medallia

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Episode 014: The Rise of the Algorithm

In this week’s episode we spend a good bit of time revisiting the native ads discussion, then dive into the different ways that Twitter and Facebook have handled the news this week. From there we discuss Twitter’s timeline changes, the realities of venture capital, and whether or not our entire economic system will survive the automation revolution. Yes, it gets deep quickly!

Links

  • Ben Thompson: Print, Chinese Walls, and “Objective” Journalism – Stratechery (members only)
  • Clay Shirky: Last Call – Medium
  • Jay Rosen: When Quoting Both Sides and Leaving it There is the Riskier Call – PressThink
  • Hamilton Nolan: Time Inc. Rates Writers on How “Beneficial” They Are to Advertisers – Gawker
  • Derek Willis: New Republican Leader Finds New Friends, and Quick Cash – New York Times
  • Marco Arment: I’ll Never Fly Amazon Again – Marco.org
  • Ben Thompson: Twitter is Great for Unprofitable News – Stratechery (members-only)
  • Mathew Ingram: Twitter vs. Facebook as a news source – GigaOm
  • Matt Buchanan: The Twitter of Tomorrow – New Yorker
  • Humans Need Not Apply – YouTube

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Episode 013: BuzzFeed and Native Advertising

In this week’s episode we discuss feedback about Ben’s Android criticism, then dive into Andreessen Horowitz’s $50 million investment into BuzzFeed. Is there a real business here? We also discuss native advertising: Ben is quite a bit more optimistic than James.

Links

  • Ben Thompson: Is BuzzFeed a Technology Company? – Stratechery
  • Chris Dixon: BuzzFeed – Chris Dixon’s Blog
  • Marc Andreessen: Introducing our new venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz – Blog Pmarca
  • Ben Casselman: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted – 538

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Episode 012: The Internet Rainforest

In this week’s episode we discuss how the Internet is enabling not only big winners, but also small, focused niche players, and why that’s exciting. We also discuss the impact this transition will have on society, follow up on last week’s integrated/modular discussion, and in a special “After Dark” segment briefly discuss Ben’s recent experience with Android and theorize that the Android/iOS are at equilibrium.

Links

  • Ben Thompson: Daily Update: Micromax Wins on Local Taste – Stratechery (members-only)
  • Rohin Dharmakumar: Can Micromax Become India’s Leading Smartphone Maker? – Forbes India
  • Ben Thompson: How Technology is Changing the World (P&G Edition) – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Christmas Gifts and the Meaning of Design (includes a reference to P&G’s design process in the footnotes) – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Pleco: Building a Business, not an App – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Smartphone Truths and Samsung’s Inevitable Decline – Stratechery
  • Anita Elberse: The Way of The Blockbuster – Harvard Magazine
  • Albert Wenger: It is OK to Worry about Work (& Doesn’t Make you a Luddite or Socialist) – Continuations

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Episode 011: Red Pill or Blue Pill?

In this episode we discuss this tweet of Ben’s:

We also discuss the news that OKCupid and Facebook are running tests on their users.

Links

  • Fabian Giesen: What I mean when I say “I think VR is bad news” – Github

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Episode 010: Clap on Three

In this episode we discuss feedback about Uber and pricing, then discuss Ben’s recent articles on Microsoft and Apple/IBM.

  • Ben Thompson: It’s Time to Split Up Microsoft – Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Big Blue and Apple’s Soul – Stratechery (Note: We recorded this show before this piece was written)

We had some technical difficulties while recording this show, so we apologize in advance if there are any issues.

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