The Diff
Byrne Hobart
The Diff is a newsletter exploring the technologies, companies, and trends that are making the future high-variance. Posts range from in-depth company profiles, applied financial theory, strategy breakdowns and macroeconomics.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 13, 2020 • 18min
How Bubbles and Megaprojects Parallelize Innovation
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - How Bubbles and Megaprojects Parallelize Innovation
(10:52) - Vaccine Economics and Emerging Markets' Tough Choices
(11:58) - Big Tech and the Missing Middle in Emerging Asia
(14:17) - The Personal, The Political, and Ant
(15:08) - Form, Function, and Ads
(16:40) - Understanding Value's Underperformance
Nov 6, 2020 • 20min
Big Tech Sees Like a State
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Big Tech Sees Like a State
(14:34) - Pirate's Treasure, Redux
(15:23) - Takedowns
(16:10) - Antitrust and Laggy Beliefs
(16:51) - Money, The High-Order Bit
(17:44) - Perceptual Arbitrage in Crowdfunding
(18:50) - Covid and the Talent Shift
Nov 2, 2020 • 11min
Media Refragmentation and Funnel Capture
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Media Refragmentation and Funnel Capture
(05:57) - Disaggregation and Reaggregation in Fundraising
(06:45) - Separation of Powers
(07:29) - The Mortgage IPO Boom
(08:10) - Multichannel Retail
(09:13) - Recursive R(t), Redux
(09:52) - Case Studies in Central Bank Fiscal Policy
Oct 30, 2020 • 15min
Hardware-as-a-Service
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Hardware-as-a-Service
(10:08) - A Word From Our Sponsors
(10:45) - The Muni Crisis
(12:46) - Worker Mobility
(14:03) - Supply Shocks
Oct 23, 2020 • 19min
Engineering a Conglomerate
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Engineering a Conglomerate
(09:18) - A Word From Our Sponsors
(09:50) - Pretty Bad Privacy
(11:31) - Exercising the Whistleblower Option
(12:13) - Who Owns Streamed Games?
(13:08) - Rebooting Transit
(13:45) - Palantir
(14:59) - Tech Sees Like a State
(15:49) - Rationalists and Thymos
Oct 21, 2020 • 12min
The WeWork Arc
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - The WeWork Arc
(07:26) - Amazon's Third-Party Data
(08:14) - The Lucas Critique in Finance
(09:20) - Matching the Huawei Strategy
(10:02) - Froth
(10:52) - Demand and Logistics
Oct 16, 2020 • 14min
How the Pandemic is Fixing Some of the Real Estate Market's Flaws
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - How the Pandemic is Fixing Some of the Real Estate Market's Flaws
(06:32) - A Word From Our Sponsors
(07:11) - Measuring the World's Largest Economy
(08:14) - Showrooming and Retail
(09:58) - Google Continues to Disaggregate Pages
(10:43) - Canada Policy Goes Post-Covid
(11:18) - The Bus Factor
(11:56) - Retro Trade Policy
(12:52) - Payments and the Acquisition Option
Oct 9, 2020 • 29min
Inside the House Report on Big Tech and Competition: Part II
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Inside the House Report on Big Tech and Competition: Part II
(21:57) - Yelp’s Crypto-Coinbase Moment
(22:50) - Life at a Hypergrowth Startup
(25:38) - Square and Bitcoin
(26:15) - Driverless
(27:21) - Local Champions and Good Globalization
(28:04) - China’s Domestic Consumption Push
Oct 2, 2020 • 14min
The Gamer/Arbitrageur to Generalist Pipeline
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - The Gamer/Arbitrageur to Generalist Pipeline
(06:15) - A Word From Our Sponsors
(06:52) - Office Politics, Redux
(08:53) - Vaccine as Perk
(10:13) - Who Owns User Data?
(10:53) - Tech Sees Like a State, Test-and-Trace Edition
(11:36) - Conflicts of Interest
(12:18) - The Negotiate-With-Hackers Hack
(12:51) - Small Deals and Stagnation
Sep 25, 2020 • 19min
Surfing the Right S-Curve
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week.
(00:00) - Surfing the Right S-Curve
(10:43) - Google: Benefits and Retention
(11:21) - Tail Risk on Trial
(12:37) - A Theory of Policy Homogeneity
(13:38) - Procurement
(14:45) - Density Redistribution
(15:45) - Crisis Hormesis
(17:07) - The Other Derivatives Narrative
