Person
Ben Thompson
Stratechery founder
(Preview) Three Weeks of Meta Momentum, The Ultimate Muse Upside, A King Kong vs. Godzilla Aggregator War
Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp argue that Meta’s recent hardware push may signal a real comeback, but only if its new glasses are understood as Muse delivery devices rather than standalone AR/VR products. They also connect AI agents to consumer convenience, discuss Meta’s organizational reset, and sketch why a consumer AI aggregator could become winner-take-all.
(Preview) Astra (and AGI?) Arrives, Meta’s Muse and the Agent Opportunity, Anthropic and the Revival of (P)Doom Angst
Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp focus on OpenAI’s Astra as a turning point for agents, especially computer-use systems that can operate software directly. They also connect note-taking, memory, and Markdown to a broader theory of why LLMs feel more useful, then widen out to safety, benchmarks, TPU vs. Blackwell infrastructure, and the implications for software moats.
(Preview) A Summer Break Mailbag: Memory Mania, Vibe Coding, Mafia PR, Caffeine Intake, Garages, and How to Fix Soccer
Ben and Andrew spend most of the episode on memory-chip markets, arguing Apple’s recent price hikes signal it missed a supply shock that Nvidia anticipated. They then pivot into caffeine routines, garage organization, and a detailed pitch for AI-assisted home-inventory software built with photos, QR codes, and a hierarchical location model.
(Preview) The Anthropic Saga Continues, Fox and the Future of Streaming, Q&A on ChatGPT, Agentic Shopping, Autonomous Driving
Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp open with a World Cup hydration-break riff before diving into Anthropic’s export-control fight and what it says about AI security, trust, and government oversight. The rest of the preview ranges from Fox’s Roku deal and ChatGPT competition to agentic shopping, AI-generated vulnerability discovery, and whether autonomous driving can scale beyond today’s constraints.
(Preview) Five Questions on WWDC 2026, Fable 5 And Its Guardrails, What Anthropic Has in Common With Apple
Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp focus first on Apple’s WWDC 2026 AI story, arguing the company’s credibility problem made any keynote outcome hard to win. They then break down Apple’s model stack and cloud setup, before turning to Anthropic’s Fable 5 guardrails and the broader strategic tension between model capability, safety, and distribution.
(Preview) SpaceX Hype and the Elon Bargain, Nvidia and the Neoclouds, Q&A on Dropbox, Google, Ferrari Luce Backlash
Ben and Andrew open with a framing of SpaceX as a Musk-style capital engine: a risky, audacious company whose public-market appeal comes from belief as much as current financials. They then move through space data centers, terrestrial stranded-energy compute, Nvidia’s AC segment and neocloud demand, plus lighter but pointed commentary on Dropbox, Google, and the Ferrari Luce backlash.