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 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.

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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
  • Principle Stacks — Exponent

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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 Aggregation Play — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: America Wakes Up?, An Interview with Matt Mullenweg About Working From Homey — Stratechery Daily Update

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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 Trust Information — Stratechery
  • China’s Decision to Leave Asymptomatic Patients off Coronavirus Infection Tally Sparks Debate — Caixin
  • Ben Thompson: Apple’s Organizational Crossroads — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Books and Blogs — Stratechery
  • Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model — FiveThirtyEight

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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 — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: The Corona Virus Whistleblowers; NBA Salary Cap Decreases; Apple, Benefits, and Risks — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Disney and COVID-19, The Coronavirus IPO, In Defense of Twitter — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Zero Trust Information — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: The Internet and the Third Estate — Stratechery

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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 | Daily Update Podcast
  • Ben Thompson: Email Addresses and Razor Blades — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Dollar Shave Club and the Disruption of Everything — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: First, Do No Harm — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Netflix and the Conservation of Attractive Profits — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: The Local News Business Model — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Brandless Closes, The DTC Facebook Challenge, DTC Versus Softbank — Stratechery Daily Update
  • Ben Thompson: Morgan Stanley Acquires E*Trade, Intuit Reportedly Acquiring Credit Karma, User Acquisition and Market Power — 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 Update Podcast, Podcasts and Email, Spotify and the Three Bens — Stratechery Daily Update
  • Ben Thompson: Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Spotify Earnings, Podcasts and Lifetime Value, The Ringer Acquisition — Stratechery Daily Update
  • Ben Thompson: First, Do No Harm — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson re: Facebook Acquiring Instagram in 2011: Twitter
  • Eric Jackson: Why the FTC Should Block Facebook’s Acquisition of Instagram — Forbes
  • Ben Thompson: The End of the Beginning — Stratechery
     

 

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Episode 180 — It’s Been a Week

Ben and James eulogize Professor Clayton M. Christensen

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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 — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: The End of the Beginning Follow-Up, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Venture versus Productive Capital— Stratechery Daily Update
  • Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital — Carlota Perez
  • Ben Thompson: Bubble Talk, Revisited; It [Wasn’t] 1999; The Big Tech Basket — Stratechery Daily Update
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — Thomas Kuhn
  • Ben Thompson: Visa, Plaid, Networks, and Jobs— Stratechery

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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 — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly — Stratechery
  • John Gruber: 16-Inch MacBook Pro First Impressions: Great Keyboard, Outstanding Speakers — Daring Fireball
  • Ben Thompson: Apple’s Organizational Crossroads — Stratechery
  • Ben Thompson: Why Microsoft’s Reorganization Is a Bad Idea — Stratechery

Hosts

 

 

Podcast Information

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS