Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson
A Technology podcast
Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson
Episodes
Episodes of Sharp Tech
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After last week's conversation about AI for companionship, Ben and Andrew answer emails about the future of personalized LLM answers, speculative costs and benefits, the tension between building trust and building a product with 3 billion custo
Talking through Ben's article on Apple and the Ghosts of Companies Past, including Apple's religious commitment to privacy, untapped platform potential in AI, parallels to Intel, and why Tim Cook is probably the wrong CEO to undertake the cultu
Talking through the implications of memory capabilities for ChatGPT, the future of AI companionship, OpenAI's platform ambitions, and why Google Circles never found a market. At the end: College football, tech, and a bit of Bell Labs history.
Tracing the history of Facebook to understand the challenges for the government in this month's FTC v. Meta trial, and thoughts on the nature of competition on the Internet and its impact on the economy at large.
Andrew and Ben discuss another weekend of pivots, updates and clarifications to the Trump trade policies, the big picture shifts and fundamental questions underlying these policies, a question about Spotify, and Stevie's platform rant inspires
Ben and Andrew return to discuss Liberation Day whiplash, Apple’s history in China and tech’s history in Asia, and the various challenges inherent to the efforts to rejuvenate America’s industrial capacity. At the end: Ben recaps a visit to a F
Thoughts on both X and xAI in the wake of Friday’s announcement from Elon Musk, Chat GPT’s image capabilities and whether AI-adjacent SaaS companies will ever have a moat, and emailers offer counterpoints on Sam Altman’s ads answer and the noti
Reactions to OpenAI's "Images in GPT," and thoughts on the Trump administration's Signal debacle, including a few points Ben neglected to emphasize earlier this week.
A look at the logic of Google's plans to purchase an Israeli cybersecurity firm for $32 billion, more tension between Apple, Google and the EU, and an email about Xbox One and Microsoft's checkered history of consumer tech ambitions. At the end
After Ben's interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Andrew and Ben hold an impromptu symposium on AI and its implications, featuring questions from listeners. Topics include: The long-term UX for Deep Research, OpenAI's allergy to an ads-based bu
Answering all your emails in the wake of Apple's intelligence catastrophe. Topics include: whether Perplexity should be an acquisition target, the limits of local AI, the value of long tail product development, Apple's parallels to IBM, the fut
Revisiting Apple's nadir in the 1990s, along with internal friction that boiled over after Steve Jobs' passing, and explaining why Apple execs should—but probably won't—respond to the Apple Intelligence embarrassment by empowering third-party d
A question about the future of the NBA as the league sees record revenues and declining ratings, several emails about Apple's continued adventures in AI, and follow-ups to last week's episode on Formula 1, Amazon, chatbots as the AI UI, and tec
Surveying the streaming landscape in 2025, including YouTube’s opportunity to solve problems for millions of frustrated entertainment consumers, Peacock’s murky future, HBO and the Max mess, and lots more.
Andrew and Ben react to Amazon's announcement for an AI-powered Alexa that has been "100 percent re-architected," and then answer mailbag questions about OpenAI's long-term future, LLM confidence, LLMs and the future of the English language, ho
A discussion of Ben's Stratechery article AI Promises and Chip Precariousness, including basic geography and evolving geopolitical considerations informing today's Taiwan tensions, the recent history of US policy surrounding chips, consideratio
The history underlying Apple’s decision to pull its Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK market, criticisms of the UK, Apple and a few of Apple’s loudest critics, and thoughts on the future of drone delivery after Ben’s interview with M
On today’s special crossover Sharp Tech/Sharp China episode, Ben Thompson and Bill Bishop discuss the private enterprise symposium and Xi Jinping's rapprochement with China's tech companies, and the connection between xAI and DeepSeek. Then, an
Reactions to OpenAI's release of Deep Research, including the Deep Research contributions to Ben's Update on Tuesday, lessons from several other Deep Research experiments, and questions about the future of work, information flow, and a world in
Answering mailbag questions on a report that Apple has abandoned its plans for smart glasses, Google, OpenAI and advertising, why LLMs struggle with sports statistics, whether generative AI will become more acceptable in media, and a few though
Andrew and Ben reconvene to answer your emails on DeepSeek and its implications. Topics include: DeepSeek as the Oakland A’s and Big Tech as the Red Sox, questions about distillation, video game history and coding to the metal, waiting for Sili
Unpacking several days of dizzying reactions to DeepSeek, including a closer look at the costs of model development, why the heightened scrutiny looks like a coping mechanism, DeepSeek’s efficiency breakthroughs, the implications for big tech,
On their 200th episode of the show(!), Ben and Andrew discuss the Stargate Project and what clarifies about the dynamics between OpenAI and Microsoft. Then: the risks inherent to Stargate investments, the rationale for the corporate structure a
Reactions to 48 hours of TikTok twists and turns, and what the weekend’s news might tell us about the next several years (or decades) in Washington and beyond. At the end: Facebook tries to market to TikTokers, a question about tech companies a
AI’s Uneven Arrival, TikTok’s Potential Departure, Xiaohongshu and the Delights of Cultural Exchange
Looking to digital advertising history for clues about AI’s impact on the economy, proposed frameworks for AGI and ASI, and why AI benefits are likely to be unevenly distributed in the near term. Then: The logic and continued uncertainty surrou
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