
Exponent
A podcast about tech and society, hosted by Ben Thompson and James Allworth
Latest episodes

Jun 9, 2017 • 1h
Episode 117 — Fruitful Clapping
Ben and James discuss Apple’s WWDC keynote, playing to your strengths, and privacy that matters.
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Links
Ben Thompson: Apple’s Strengths and Weaknesses — Stratechery
IAMA Foxconn insider with information on next 12 months of hardware updates — Reddit
Ben Thompson: Apple’s Organizational Crossroads — Stratechery
How Apple’s Siri Lost Her Mojo — Wall Street Journal
Zac Cichy on Apple and Privacy — Twitter
Ben Thompson: Strategy Credit — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Tim Cook’s Unfair and Unrealistic Privacy Speech, Strategy Credits, The Privacy Priority Problem — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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May 26, 2017 • 60min
Episode 116 — Blockchain Beauty Contest
Ben and James discuss myths, culture, and blockchains — and yes, bubbles.
NOTE: The original version had a corrupted file. Our apologies.
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Links
Ben Thompson: Tulips, Myths, and Cryptocurrencies — Stratechery
Abhishek Chakravarty: The Product Manager’s guide to the Blockchain — Medium
Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens
Fred Ehrsam: Blockchain Tokens and the dawn of the Decentralized Business Model — Coinbase Blog
Greeks are Rushing to Bitcoin — CNN
Facebook accused of targeting ‘insecure’ children and young people, report says — Mashable
Ben Thompson: The Cost of Bitcoin — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Selling Feelings — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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May 19, 2017 • 60min
Episode 115 — Business Matters
Ben and James discuss Google I/O, the importance of business relative to technology, and why Uber is in trouble.
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Links
Ben Thompson: Boring Google — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Google’s Go-to-Market — Stratechery
How Uber and Waymo Ended Up Rivals in the Race for Driverless Cars — New York Times
Ben Thompson: Does Uber Have a Strategy Problem? — Stratechery Daily Update
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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May 12, 2017 • 50min
Episode 114 — The Job of Local News
Ben and James discuss why figuring out a new model means abandoning the old, this time in the context of newspapers and news.
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Links
Ben Thompson: The Local News Business Model — Stratechery
Jim Rutenberg: Ad Buyers Have a Say in Whether Real News Survives — New York Times
Ben Thompson: Wikitribune — Stratechery Daily Update
Ben Thompson: Why BuzzFeed is the Most Important News Organization in the World — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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17 snips
May 5, 2017 • 60min
Episode 113 — WeChat, China, and Apple
Ben and James discuss how leverage shifts in a value chain, why WeChat is so powerful in China, and why that is a problem for Apple.
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Links
Ben Thompson: Apple’s China Problem — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Messaging: Mobile’s Killer App — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Slack and the State of Technology at the End of 2015 — Stratechery
Connie Chan: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China — a16z
Ben Thompson: Peak Google — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Beyond Disruption — Stratechery
James Allworth: The Blessing of Failure — Medium
Ben Thompson: The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014 — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Why Doesn’t Apple Enable Sustainable Businesses on the App Store? — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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Apr 28, 2017 • 1h 4min
Episode 112 — It’s Complicated
Ben and James discuss whether or not monopolies are good, the differences between education and healthcare, and how to build an economy of the future.
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Links
Episode 012: The Internet Rainforest — Exponent
Episode 005: The World Has Changed — Exponent
Ben Thompson: Not OK, Google — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly — Stratechery
How Google Eats a Business Whole — The Outline
Meet the Google Alum Who Created China’s Facebook-Groupon Mashup — Bloomberg
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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Apr 21, 2017 • 1h 2min
Episode 111 — Lamentation Not Condemnation
Ben and James discuss what it means if Facebook is a monopoly, what is lost if it is, and why there isn’t anything that can be done about it — for now.
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Links
Ben Thompson: The Facebook Epoch — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly — Stratechery
Kurt Gessler: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of our posts. And it’s getting worse — Medium
Ben Thompson: Manifestos and Monopolies — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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Apr 14, 2017 • 1h 23min
Episode 110 — Moral Hazard
James and Ben discuss moral hazard and what seems to be going wrong with the U.S. economy, the different kinds of regulation, and how the App Store explains government policy.
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Links
James Allworth: Prioritizing Economics is Crippling the U.S. Economy — Medium
Ryne Rohla: Creating a National Precinct Map — Decision Desk HQ
Jeff Bezos: Annual Letter to Shareholders — SEC
Matt Stoller: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul — The Atlantic
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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Apr 7, 2017 • 57min
Episode 109 — Screw-ups Are Fun!
Ben and James discuss Apple’s Mac Pro screw-up and what it might say about the company and its culture.
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Links
John Gruber: The Mac Pro Lives — Daring Fireball
Jay Yarow: Phil Schiller on Apple’s Ad Agency in an Email — Business Insider
Ben Thompson: Whither Liberal Arts — Stratechery
Apple iPad Air Ad — YouTube
Steve Jobs After the GarageBand Demo During the Introduction of the iPad 2 — YouTube
Ben Thompson: Apple’s Organizational Crossroads — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: From Products to Platforms — Stratechery
Ben Thompson: Why Doesn’t Apple Enable Sustainable Business on the App Store — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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Mar 31, 2017 • 1h 6min
Episode 108 — Statistics Gone Wild
Ben and James discuss the meaning of artificial intelligence, whether machine learning qualifies, and a platform for dealing with the impact.
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Links
Chris Dixon: How Aristotle Created the Computer — The Atlantic
Ben Thompson: The Arrival of Artificial Intelligence — Stratechery
Dan Primack: Takeaways from Steve Mnuchins Axios Interview — Axios
Maureen Dowd: Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse — Vanity Fair
The Most Common Jobs in Every State — NPR
At Blackrock, Machines Are Rising over Managers to Pick Stocks — [The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/business/dealbook/blackrock-actively-managed-
Ben Thompson: Verizon, AOL, Facebook Instant Articles, and the Future of Digital Advertising — Stratechery
Episode 012: The Internet Rainforest — Exponent
Ben Thompson: The Brexit Possibility — Stratechery
Hosts
Ben Thompson, @benthompson, Stratechery
James Allworth, @jamesallworth, Harvard Business Review
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