In this episode we first defend surge pricing before continuing our debate from last week: is society better off when corporations try to innovate, or would we be better off if we left the innovation to startups? Your answer to this question may change your opinion of Silicon Valley.

• Nick Kokonas: Tickets for Restaurants – Alinea Restaurant
• James Allworth: Heavy Rain and Black Cars – Medium

Note: In the podcast Ben talks about owning a lot of Microsoft stock; to be clear that was while he was an employee. As a matter of policy he does not hold any individual stocks currently.

Hosts

• Ben Thompson, @monkbent, Stratechery
• James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review

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In this episode we take on the validity of Disruption Theory in three parts:

1. A discussion of Jill Lepore’s New Yorker article attacking disruption, as well as the debate that surrounded the article
2. Ben’s article from last fall “What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong”
3. A deeper discussion about whether or not managers can really do anything about true disruption, and whether or not they should even try

The quote referenced at the ending from Jill Lepore’s article on political polarization is as follows:

“But intellectuals, as Bruno Latour once pointed out, are nearly always one critique too late: “entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint, and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives.”

Also! We would love it if you would rate and review this podcast on iTunes. The link is here Thank you.

Links

• Jill Lepore: The Disruption Machine – The New Yorker
• Jill Lepore: Long Division – The New Yorker
• Larissa MacFarquhar: When Giants Fall. What business has learned from Clayton Christensen – The New Yorker
• Ben Thompson: Obsoletive – Stratechery
• Ben Thompson: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong – Stratechery
• Clayton Christensen: The Innovator’s Solution – Kindle
• Phil Rosenzweig: The Halo Effect – Kindle

Hosts

• Ben Thompson, @monkbent, Stratechery
• James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review

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There’s a bit of a consensus building post WWDC: Apple has grown up, and it’s great.

But is it great? Is it possible that something essential has been lost? After all, a lot of the praise being heaped on Apple and Tim Cook was once used for another company – Microsoft. In this episode we examine what it is that makes Apple unique, and why things might turn out different this time – and why they might not.

In addition, we discuss the end of privacy and what might be done about it.

Also! We would love it if you would rate and review this podcast on iTunes. The link is here Thanks!

Links

• John Gruber: Only Apple – Daring Fireball
• Ben Thompson: Tim Cook is a Great CEO – Stratechery
• Ben Thompson: What Steve Jobs Wouldn’t Have Done – Stratechery
• James Allworth: The Real Threat that Samsung Poses to Apple – Asymco
• John Gruber: The New Apple Advantage – Daring Fireball
• Ben Thompson: If Steve Ballmer Ran Apple – Stratechery
• Microsofter – New York Times
• Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech – Stanford News
• Ben Thompson: Privacy is Dead – Stratechery
• Actual Facebook Graph Searches – Tumblr

Hosts

• Ben Thompson, @monkbent, Stratechery
• James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review

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In this episode we discuss why James was less excited by WWDC than was Ben, why the Beats acquisition may actually be a textbook response to the Innovator’s Dilemma, whether Apple has every truly faced disruption, as well as James’ review of Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys

Links

• Ben Thompson: Growing Apple at WWDC – Stratechery
• James Allworth: Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator’s Dilemma – Harvard Business Review
• Max Wessel and Clay Christensen: Surviving Disruption – Harvard Business Review
• James Allworth: High Frequency Trading and Finance’s Race to Irrelevance Harvard Business Review

Hosts

• Ben Thompson, @monkbent, Stratechery
• James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review

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This episode surprised us; through a discussion of who is at fault in the latest series of new vs old-world spats, we realized that not only has the Internet fundamentally changed winners-and-losers, but also the very nature of economic competition and the type of regulation that is required.

Topics & Links

• Mathew Ingram: Giants Behaving Badly – GigaOm

Google v MetaFilter

• Matt Haughey: On the Future of MetaFilter – Medium

Journalism v Facebook

• Mike Hudack: A Rant About the State of Media – Facebook
• Ben Thompson: Newspapers are Dead; Long Live Journalism – Stratechery

Amazon v Publishers

• Ben Thompson: Publishers’ Deal With the Devil – Stratechery
• George Packer: Cheap Words – New Yorker

Antitrust, Network Effects, and the Age of Abundance

Do Tech Companies Have a Responsibility to Society?

On how the Internet has fundamentally changed the world, and how government regulation is hopelessly behind

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Hosts:

• Ben Thompson, @monkbent, Stratechery
• James Allworth, @jamesallworth

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Are the recent debates on net neutrality, the protests of Google buses, even SOPA a sign of things to come? Building on Ben’s article The Net Neutrality Wake-up Call Ben and James discuss the intersection of technology and politics.

• Why do people in technology tend to dislike politics?
• Is net neutrality really that important and understanding open loop unbundling
• The tech industry and creative destruction: is it good for society when companies go out of business?
• The impact of money on politics
• Why tech and politics are on a collision course
• What we can do to effect change on an individual basis

Links:

• The Net Neutrality Wake-up Call – Stratechery
• Net Neutrality Podcast – Stratechery.FM
• We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim – Lawrence Lessig at TED
• Lawrence Lessig’s PAC – MayOne

Note to listeners: the Stratechery.FM feed is now redirected to Exponent (although the archives remain on Stratechery.FM). If you have subscribed to both, just delete one or the other. Thanks! Also, James is not actually married. That was the joke…

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This episode is all about the (alleged) Apple Beats acquisition. While it may make a certain amount of business sense, does it signify a small but significant change in Apple’s priorities, and is it a cause for concern? Topics covered include:

• The rationale for the acquisition
• The difference between making and recognizing market opportunities
• What makes Apple uniquely capable of building revolutionary products
• Apple’s previous responses when threatened in music
• How to think about mergers and acquisitions
• How to best motivate employees

Links:

• Why Apple is Buying Beats – Ben Thompson
• The New M&A Playbook – Clayton Christensen
• One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? – Frederick Herzberg

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This episode was actually recorded on February 18; however, due to circumstances, we had to hibernate Exponent and the episode was never actually edited and posted.

Now that the show is back – for good this time – we wanted to post the “missing episode” plenty of folks have asked us about. There are a couple of dated references, but the content is still very applicable.

In this episode we talk about privilege and whether Silicon Valley is solving the right problems. It’s certainly not a new question, but has it become more pressing in the last few months?

Links:

• Don’t Build Your Startup Outside of Silicon Valley – Max Wessell HBR

Thanks for your patience!

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In this, the first episode of the Exponent podcast, we talk about our background, Microsoft and disruption, and the meaning of culture. We also explore our goals for this podcast, and just a bit about Taiwanese garbage trucks.

Show Notes:

• If Steve Ballmer Ran Apple link
• The Halo Effect:…and Eight Other Business Delusions that Deceive Managers link
• Skating Towards the Goal link
• Bill Gates’ Steve Jobs Moment link
• Friction link
• Note: The Internet Explorer rendering engine is called Trident, not Triton

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