Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson - Introducing Sharp Tech

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Ben and Andrew discuss the origins of the podcast, their own backgrounds, and why they’re excited about making this show.

Hello and welcome to the introductory podcast for Sharp Tech. I'm your host, Andrew Sharp, on the other line, Ben Thompson. Ben, I'm going to kick this off with a big picture question. You can take it whichever direction you want. What made you want to do this podcast? There's a whole host of things. I'm still a little shook that you call it the introductory podcast instead of the introductory episode of the podcast. Sorry.

The funny thing is you're the. experience podcast here. I mean, podcasting is something that I've been interested and excited about. Like, I was very early to listen to podcast, like going back to the early 2000s when they first sort of existed. And I love the medium, both as a consumer and as a creator. And, you know, for a long time, Westracekery, you know, me and James Allworth had the exponent podcast, which was fantastic, like some of the best work that I've done. I'm really proud of it. And, you know, for various reasons that that's not a thing anymore. And so I missed it.

So there is an aspect here where I enjoy podcasting. It's fun to talk about the things that I currently just write about and to be able to bounce things off of someone and sort of go back and forth. So that's sort of a big part of it. And there's also a bit where I'm in the idea business, right? Like one of the fun things about Shachari is it turned out to obviously be a great job as far as sort of like, you know, compensation goes and all those sorts of pieces. But the reason I wanted to write and get into this, and I think this probably applies to a lot of

writers, is I have ideas. I want to share them. I want to sort of tell their folks about them. And I think the cool thing about the internet is you're not restricted to a single medium. Like you can convey some things in text. You can convey in a different way in conversation. And so this has sort of felt like a hole in the offering for a while. and it's fun to sort of like get something off the ground to, you know, this is an exponent. It's going to be something new and different. We'll get into that. But it's felt like a little bit of a hole in my life that I'm excited to sort of start refilling.

Yeah. Well, and you and I had been like daily text message buddies for about three or four years. So I felt comfortable, even though I am sort of a newbie as far as tech is concerned and like a full-fledged normie relative to the, hardcore tech people. I mean, like, I care about technology and follow tech news, but I have definitely not the person to explain the intricacies of semiconductor manufacturing or whatever esoteric topic you want to choose. But that's like, that's what that's, it's kind of exciting for me, though, because I would go back and I would like, the podcast that I enjoyed the most that I was on were the ones were like, I got to be the guest, right? Like, it'd be.

Being the guest is a very liberating experience. You kind of just get it go on and talk about what you're interested in. Being a host is a completely different job. And it's one that I've learned to get better at, but it doesn't feel like it's my sweet spot. And so one of the reasons why I'm super pumped to work with you is you're a long-time podcaster, long-time content producer, which, you know, you should tell the audience about yourself more and a bit. but my favorite podcast in the world is your other podcast greatest of all talk

where your partner also called Ben loves to have things and loves to expand on his opinions and I think you do such a great job handling and managing that I'm like I need someone

I need someone to do that for me and so here we are I'm excited we have some in the cans I think they're great and I'm excited to sort of see where this goes yeah here we are

I asked your assistant Dumbin what he'd want to hear from an intro podcast. And he said, first and foremost, he would want to know who we are. So for the people who aren't long time, strategicity readers and subscribers, can you tell people a little bit about your background? Sure. I mean, I was a, it's a long and winding road. So I don't know how far back you want to go. But I mean, I was, you know, I was someone that always interested in tech. I grew up in a small town, Wisconsin, had no concept of like never even thought about working in tech. No one around me did that sort of thing.

I ended up in New York University of Wisconsin and up in Taiwan teaching English where that's where I got into a podcast, right? Like that was a, that was something that I could still keep in touch with the space. And I owe my wife a massive debt. She's like, all you do is think about and talk about tech. Why don't you go work in tech? I'm like, you know, that's a great idea.

I never thought about that. And so I went to business school, not because like, you know, being in like, like the tech online space, like, oh, MBAs are all bad. But it was like the shortest, fastest route to legitimacy in the U.S. job market. And it worked. I got a job at Microsoft. My wife took the same course just for the record.

Actually, there's a few friends from there were like, look, you have all these takes. Like, you should blog. And I started a few blogs, like, as everyone had had back in the day. I loved writing. You know, I was like the editor of the students paper and, you know, one of the editors and things on those lines. And so I did.

And I started a trajectory well at Microsoft. And I started it from the beginning. I wanted it to be my job. And so it was already clear at that point that advertising was not necessarily going to be a sustainable route for like a blog. And so I did want to build this sort of subscription model and the idea of giving people more. Right. So I would write articles on strategically. I'm like, oh, in the future, I'm going to write every day once I can.

And that will be sort of available. And obviously it worked. It worked out much better than. I ever, ever anticipated. It's been incredibly gratifying to see it work for other people. I mean, substack, their pitch deck was trajectory in a box,

right? Like, other people can do this. And seeing other people succeed with this model has been really cool. And I feel like the model can work for podcasts. It's a little bit different. Like, how do you market?

How do you grow? Particularly with a paid podcast. And so that's the other motivation for doing this is we have a paid component. We, like, like, how do we grow? How can we make this big and popular? Yeah.

No, it will be really cool. Can I just add my favorite Ben Thompson biographical detail? I'm not sure. So you wrote recently about your time as a paper boy in Wisconsin, and I asked you a little bit about it offline. And what you told me is that you were delivering the afternoon additions, and you were frequently leaving it to the, the very last minute because you would get the papers and then just sit there and read them all afternoon

before going to deliver them. It's a great like newsman origin story, a great blogger origin story. And honestly, people think I'm very productive. It's I have daily deadlines. That's the only that's the only way sort of like get stuff done. You're like, oh, you can prewrite some of your articles. I'm like, no, no, I cannot do that. That's that's completely impossible. But enough about me. I think the bigger question, you know, tell you about adding more, one of the cool things we're doing is, you know, this is just a free addition to your subscribers.

You know, want to make, you know, make what they're paying for even better and more attractive. And so I think most folks probably know who I am, but no one knows who you are. So what is the story of Andrew Sharp? So I was a sports writer for almost 10 years. I started out working at Vox and SB Nation, working for Jim Bankoff back in the day.

and then I went to Grantland and worked for Bill Simmons and had a lot of fun with them for two and a half years or so before it was all shuttered. That's where I started podcasting, right? David Jacoby, I'll never forget, I was driving with him to a happy hour, and he pitched me on hosting a sports podcast for Grantland. And I was like, podcasting is stupid.

I'd never want to be involved in that. So it took me another. year, maybe year and a half before I came around and started hosting. Our listeners are going to realize that this is a pattern. I'm a late adopter as far as technology is concerned. But yes, I hosted NBA After Dark with Juliet Lippman and Chris Ryan. It was a cult favorite back at Grantland. And then I left Grantland and spent several years at Sports Illustrated where I hosted the open

floor podcast with Ben Goliver, had a lot of fun there. And then Sports Illustrated changed dramatically, laid off like half its staff. And over the last few years, I transitioned to law because I was in law school throughout my time at Sports Illustrated. And the further I got into law, I was having trouble envisioning myself practicing for the next 30 years. Like, I didn't hate it, but I could tell I didn't love it. And I could also tell that it was going to be a problem that I didn't love it, given the demands of the profession. And so around the time I was having all these epiphanies, you hit me up and were like, want to try something kind of crazy. No, no, no, no, it's backwards. I have to, I have to, I have to, I have to make it clearer. Okay. You came to me asking about,

like, what you should do going forward. And I did not pitch you. I tried to give you honest, subjective advice. I connected you with my former lawyer who himself was leaving the law to become a professional content creator. And then only once you made the decision and I'm like, well, it turns out, I have an idea for you. I have a potential opportunity. Yeah, well, and it's funny because your pitch was host a tech podcast with me. And my response was, I'm not an expert in tech. So I don't know. Maybe you're barking up the wrong tree here. But then I started to think about And I was like, you know, I don't know if I personally would want to listen to a tech podcast with two experts going back and forth and talking in like really high level terms. I think you and I can have fun on the show and keep it sort of light and also make sure that it's informative.

And somebody's going to learn something from every episode we do if they're a normie or an expert and a hardcore fan of yours. So that ultimately is what put me over the edge and said, all right, like, I should try this. Actually, recording the beta episodes is what pushed me over the edge because we had a lot of fun recording episodes in March and April this year. Episodes, which will be lost to the sands of time. Unfortunately. They exist out there.

But no, it's exciting from my perspective. I think, you know, strategic is, you know, it can be very dense. It can be like, you know, particularly when you get to the daily update where I assume much more knowledge on my audience than even like the weekly articles. Actually, weekly articles are much more difficult to write in many regards. It's like, okay,

how can this be, you know, accessible to people broadly, but also appeal to my core audience, whereas data, it's usually sort of dive right in. And I'm excited about the idea of creating a product that ideally be fun and interesting to listen to. To me,

that's the key thing for podcasts. Like, maybe it's a little dangerous, but I like care less about factual accuracy and more about, like fun. So we'll do our best to hit both, but also maybe to make some of the stuff that I write about and talk about more accessible. And I think you being a stand in for the audience. And, you know,

just in regards like, like, oh, you talked about this, what does that actually mean? What is this sort of thing? And, you know, maybe a lot of hardcore strategic readers might not like this. And I think that's fine. I think it's like different things, different things can appeal, you know, approaches can appeal to different folks and sort of expanding what's accessible and what's interesting. I'm excited to see how that works out. Yeah. Well, and the way I've been explaining the podcast to Friends is a show about how technology works and how technology is impacting the world. And I think you're going to handle the how technology works department and how it's impacting the world. I have a lot of takes on the way tech is reshaping society, and particularly over the last 10 years or so,

feels like it's all accelerated a little bit. And it also feels like we're sort of nearing the beginning of a new era in tech. And now we have all these dominant players and society is sort of trying to adjust to the massive influence and power that they have. I'm excited to cover all of that because that's the other thing that occurred to me as I was thinking through your pitch is it's like, well, there's no single area of society that has a bigger influence right now than the tech world. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right.

And to some extent, the groundwork's been laid or the foundation's been laid. And so the how tech works part, like that's sort of established. But the impact is only getting started. So I think there's a lot of a lot of sort of greenfield. And, you know, I think to explore these points, I mean, one thing that Streckery hasn't had is people email me all the time. And I, my responsiveness varies. You know, one of the reasons why, frankly, stuff works is I do try to draw real clear lines. Like, this is what I'm, I have to deliver these data up its every day.

And if I, to the extent I can do other stuff, the better. But I do think there's, there's more room and opportunity to like, no, what does you actually mean by that? Or pushback. Like, I think you're making some. assumptions here that aren't quite right. And I get those. And, you know, I address them in the daily update sometimes. But one of the things I'm excited about is adding on, like, you know, having the core

podcast be free, but having this is sort of extra episode where people can provide feedback. And you're going to be the stand in for them, right? Maybe you have questions, but maybe they email stuff and you can pose them. And we can go back and forth on them. I'm a little, it's a little scary because that's kind of like a new addition as opposed to me pontificating. Yeah. But it's going to be cool to see how it works.

It's one of the things I definitely like about your basketball podcast is the reader questions are often like, inspire really interesting discussions. And we'll figure it out and see how it goes. And let me tell you something. Okay, I went to law school. I went to Georgetown Law School and was prepared to leave sports writing entirely, leave the media entirely. Like, I expected to leave a year into law school, let's say. And the reason I didn't was. because the community of emailers that emerged around OpenFloor was so much fun to interact with.

Like if it was just me and Ben Goliver. OpenFlover was your Sports Illustrated podcast. Correct. Which you then converted to, or you started greatest of all talk with the same hosts. And look, I continue to do greatest of all talk as I was learning how to be a lawyer because I just wasn't ready to leave that community behind. And it became something that I looked forward to every single week. And so hopefully we'll have a similar sort of community with the Sharp Tech emailers.

We'll see what it turns into. But again, like I would have left podcasting literally like seven years ago, if not for the emailers to my basketball show. So I'm looking forward to that interactive element. And that's a decent transition to the housekeeping notes I was saving for the end here. So do you want to walk people through that? Well, part of it, again, I mentioned this before. but there's a like I get excited by figuring out the business side of stuff like it's not just like talking about business but like I mentioned before chatechere was very gratifying to figure out the newsletter model to figure out the subscription bit and this is kind of going to give a playpen to do that as well and so like like how do you actually promote a podcast how do you make it interesting how do you have people to sign up to get a custom feed we're going to play with all those pieces so all of this housekeeping bit

is we should stay up front is going to be a bit in flux. But, you know, like, so we're going to have the free podcasts where I talk about stuff. If you get a free account on, you know, Sharp Tech FM, you can get it a day early. Like, like, because we think it's a better experience to get that custom feed instead of using it at iTunes. So that's sort of, you know, step one. Step two, this Q&A episode, you know, subscribe. You can subscribe for $6 a month. Or if you're a strategic subscriber, you can get it for free.

And by the way, I have dithering also a different sort of podcast, short, brief to the point. Also going to be free versus directory subscribers. The idea of sort of expanding, you know, what's available and making it a more attractive subscription instead of just, you know, raising prices. And look, it's going to be fun to see how this goes. I can say as a consumer, I look forward to dithering each week. It's a 15-minute podcast. It's a perfect format.

I, unfortunately, am never going to have the kind of brevity required to host a 15-year. minute podcast, but I look forward to each one that you and Gruber do. Yeah. So, I mean, all these pieces are a bit in flux, though. So I think our goal is we're going to do one sort of big podcast a week, probably in two parts, like a 40-minute main thing. If I wrote about a big topic that week, we'll probably touch on that, 20 minutes on something else.

And then that part two, let our hair down a little bit. Like, like, like, this is where I think the input from listeners is going to be a big part of it, also from readers. and, you know, see what comes up. And that's going to be paid. Like, and we'll see what we can do here. What we can grow. It's fun and exciting not just to launch a new thing

and not just because I like podcasting with you and I think that we can make something that's pretty cool. But also, like, there's lots of stuff to figure out about this, you know, sort of brave new world and we can sort of do it together. There you go. Well, speaking of Brave New World, the mailbag adventures start later this week. So if anyone is hearing this, email us at email at sharptech.fm. And we're going to have answers to any questions you might have.

And if you have follow-ups on the topics we've already discussed on this show, I think we have five new episodes at launch. Hit us up because the feedback part of this is going to be really entertaining and is probably the thing I'm most excited about going forward. It's also going to be the most unknown. because the problem with doing beta and episodes and putting ones in the can is by definition, no one's sort of listening to them. So we haven't got any feedback yet.

So there is going to be no beta here. If you want in on the beta, sign up now. Yep. Time will tell. But I think that's a solid introductory episode and or introductory podcast. And look, we were recording this after recording another full show. A lot of podcasts purists hate calling episodes a pod. That's the one I actually prefer.

This is an introductory pod. I don't have a standing policy, but now that I'm a professional podcaster, I should probably pick a lane in that debate. We could debate it on the feedback too. There we go. All right. I look forward to more and email us. Email at sharptech.fm.