Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson - Mailbag: Two Musk Questions, Streaming Follow Up, Ad-Supported Businesses, Interrogating Andrew on Tech

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Elon Musk is a land of contradictions, reframing re-bundling and TNT's NBA incentives, a variety of questions about ad-supported business models, and a podcast confirmation hearing as Andrew faces questions about his tech opinions.

Hello and welcome to Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp, and this is a free preview of today's episode. One of the reasons why ad-based businesses are bad at developing pay-for businesses or products that aren't ad-based is because the ad money is so good, right? And like nothing just measures up to that. And so like that's small potatoes essentially when you're trying to build. It's small potatoes and it takes all these skills and muscles that have like in ad business, you're at scale. because you're giving customers for free, you don't have to invest in customer service.

You don't have to sell because you just go to our website and get it. I mean, whereas a subscription, you have to, what's the value proposition? You have to convince people. You have to go to market you. You have to advertise. There's all these things that go into it

that you never had to develop for your core product. And by the way, the amount of money that you can make is way smaller. And so it's like, why do, that's why Google sucks and all this stuff because why should they bother? Yeah. And so,

So that was where that realization came from, and very much sort of tied into this thing. As far as ideas, I mean, I'm fortunate this is my job. To some extent, I'm just like swimming in it, right? And so, you know, if you have all these adjacent ideas, then connections can form and they can form in the context of talking to someone. Like one of the great things about a podcast is you have someone bouncing stuff off of you and that can trigger sort of, oh, yeah, we could connect it this way or that way.

And I maintain lots of conversations with people. And that that is certainly very helpful. There's also a bit, though, I think, like, when I write an article, I'm not building it up from scratch every time. People have this vision of, like, doing research and coming with an idea. I have an overarching view of how the world works. And so a lot of daily updates, like, I'm writing something. It's like, I know exactly what's going on here. It fits my model.

It's actually dangerous because you can be susceptible to confirmation bias. But by and large, that order. Sometimes there's like a missing. piece and that's how you make a prediction. I think something else is going to happen because it doesn't make sense if this other thing doesn't happen. And then sometimes I'm wrong. And when I'm wrong, that's, I often get the most interesting sort of articles coming out of that because I have to, I have to really reason and think through. Yeah, there's something that I don't have quite right here. And so, but I think that bit about I'm approaching things with sort of a systemic, pre-existing

systemic view of the world and how it works. That means that to build, the connection is not like rising up out of the ether. It's just like, oh, it's like a slightly different view of the problem. Oh, it's like discovery something that already exists. Like that connection is already there. It's like, oh, I didn't even think about it that way. But now it makes sense I can sort of articulate that. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it comes down to like being immersed in this for 20 years and the ability to just sort of offhand throw out a theory like that. Because I can sort of do that with basketball where it's like, Like, it's just accumulated knowledge from watching basketball and hearing takes for like 20 years. Yeah, accumulating knowledge is a huge thing. And like, particularly, you know, some of the most checkery articles are always the ones where I dive in, like, the historical angle or aspect of something.

And that's the sort of stuff that sort of builds up. And, and then it's like you have all the pieces are there. It just can you like put them together in a different structure or something on those lines? Well, I love imagining a meeting of Google leadership and all of their products basically getting laughed out of the room by the ad people and like the people selling for YouTube and stuff. Because it is small potatoes for, you know, companies that just have been printing money for the last 25 years. Yeah, it's seemingly always will. I do get to take the last question, though. I think this is my, this is my adaption of the Melbaig format.

people like people want to know you you always like to talk yep that you are the normie that's your brand normie and ludite normie and ludite uh you lean into it which is great except you maybe sometimes overdo it i think you're smarter than you give yourself credit for pretty credential but the people the people the good listener to sharp tech want a truth Greg is asking this i see i'm so bad at asking questions you're good at you're a normie who asks good questions Greg wants to get a true understanding of your tech knowledge. Okay. Are you ready?

Yes. Number one, what is the most early adopter tech you use today? Okay. So first of all, I answered these thoughtfully as I was sitting on the train from Philadelphia to D.C. today. And on this one, I wasn't sure if I had an answer. But in talking to you about it, you said you're an early adopter of subscription-based podcasts. And that's absolutely true. So I don't think I'm an early adopter of any other tech currently available, but... And it's a stress to say that's tech, but it's enabled by

tech, so we will grant it. Exactly. It's enabled by Stripe. Thank you, Stripe. And beyond that, I don't know. If Greg has suggestions for tech, I should get in on early, I'm all ears. No, you're not. That's a lot. I'm definitely not. What is the piece of tech you use the most, and that most delights you. It's a tie for me between WhatsApp and my iPad. And the iPad, this is embarrassing, but I read for 30 minutes before I go to sleep every night. And why I read on the iPad is because it's just so delightful

to just tap the screen and turn the page that way. There's something like satisfying from a tap. tactile standpoint about just hitting the page. So I listened to the sound of rain and read every night on my iPad. And also, it's great for watching shows. I'm a full-blown iPad convert. I bought it like a year and a half ago and have loved every second of it. That's the most hilarious part.

Number one, you bought it a year and a half ago. Number two, you might be the first person in history to say that you love the iPad because of the tactile experience of reading. Exactly. Which usually that's the, no, it's getting a book. You can actually flip it. You can feel the pages. That's why I'm embarrassed.

I'm a Luddite, and I feel like I'm betraying my roots by saying, you know what? I actually prefer to read on an iPad, but that's where I am. Full of mysteries. Number three, what is the piece of tech you use the most that most angers you? I see, I don't know if this is a piece of tech, but Twitter I use very frequently, and it angers me almost every time I use it. I'll sit there. Twitter is like Reddit, actually. There are certain things on Twitter that are great, and then there's so much nonsense, and you sort of have to weed through the nonsense to get to the things that are great. But either way, on balance,

I think Twitter is the tech entity that angers me the most on a daily basis. What company do you admire and what company do you despise? I'm going strictly positive on this one. I don't, despise any tech companies. I am skeptical of the big five, as it were. But the companies that I admire, all the favorite products you listed were all from the big five. I know. I know. I think that on balance, they've all, they've all been harmful to society except for maybe Apple. I think that the cost to society outweigh the benefits except in Apple's case. You can't deny. Access to all the world's information. Well, I'm going to get there.

Ben, I'm going to get there. Sorry. I see I'm a bad host. No, no, no, it's good. Shopify, they are one of my favorites because I think the story of their evolution is something I learned from reading Stratectary, and it's one of my favorite things in tech. The way they've adapted over the years, I also really like shop pay. I think that is like just a killer service.

And again, it works so well. it makes me want to buy more stuff on the internet, which is a true accomplishment. I also admire any company that's crazy enough to go after Amazon. Stripe, because they make my subscription podcast business possible, and they're providing like a reasonably priced service that helps millions of small businesses or will ultimately end up helping millions of small businesses. So Team Stripe, Team Shopify, but to be completely honest, my number one answer for this,

I really admire Wikipedia. Good old fashion Wikipedia is a vestige from a better time on the internet. They're the one, like, mainstay that hasn't gotten shittier as the years of that. Well, they're also not like a company.

It's like a foundation or something in other. Which perhaps makes your point. It's a cop out. I admit it. But honestly, when you look at like what I admire most, I admire the way Wikipedia has navigated the internet hellscape of the last 25 years and remained pretty true to its

initial mission. What are you most curious about and or baffled by in the tech world? Artificial intelligence, hands down. It's the area I know the least about and pretty clearly the area of tech that is going to make the biggest impact on society throughout the remainder of my life. And I also think it's kind of an interesting microcosm of tech generally, where like there are some ways that AI is going to improve life and make society better and more productive. And then there are some claimed AI breakthroughs. And I'm here like Nvidia and the graphics card and everything and what they can do for computer games. There are some breakthroughs that just aren't going to matter to regular people. And then there's also an area of AI and tech generally where, like, this could really end up disrupting society in some pretty harmful ways and, like, hollowing out the middle class. And so I'm a little wary of AI. I'm not going to be one of the people that predicts, like, The Terminator. But I think it sort of covers the full spectrum of tech potential, tech risks, and tech nonsense.

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