Stratechery Year in Review

Thanks! Money Stuff is great and of a similar caliber for sure.

I think Platformer is solid, but seems to fall a bit more into media-punditry, though there are a lot of interesting reported stories which you don't get on Stratechery.

I don't really read the other two, but I'll check them out. I do think Noah Smith falls into a category I'm wary of, which is folks who seem to cast their net really wide, but not super familiar with his work so hard to criticize specifically. Maybe he is really good too.

To clarify: The newsletter is his main avenue: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/about

He's more on the industry insider side than industry analyst side. It's interesting, but not like Stratechery.

He's on the top of the substack tech category. There is Platformer too. https://substack.com/discover/category/technology/paid This list may interest you since substack seems to be the primary place for serious (and wannabe) writers these days.

I get it, but also I think this is one of the things that makes Ben so good at his job and is also a bit more nuanced than might initially appear. He (mostly) isn't interested in being an activist for a certain perspective and really just seems to think about things in terms of systems, incentives, and revealed preferences as they exist today. I think this can butt heads with idealist types who want things to be a different way, but to me it's a big part of what makes his writing and analysis so good.

You could browse the fiction shelves at a local bookseller; they may have things approximating what you seek.

>> Basically I'd love to find a publication that's similar better reflects my values.

Beware of an active search for an echo chamber. Because for example:

>>it constantly runs the wrong way if you're at all skeptical of, like, giant business or ads or AI... at a social level.

Is a viewpoint that could very well be wrong when faced with the analysis from a different perspective from yours. Having someone repeat your values to you doesn't make it true or take into account trade-offs that are being made which could prompt you to change your opinion.

There is absolutely a tech optimism bias which he is upfront about. I would find it very hard to find any one that deeply understands technology and makes their living writing about technology that does not think technological progress is a net positive.

There is another part where he just saying how things are which people don’t like to hear. They don’t like how powerful the big tech companies are but don’t want to grapple with the reasons they are big or delve into the nuances of the impacts of changing the status quo. People just want to hear big tech bad, let’s hurt big tech. If your looking for that, there countless pundits that will provide that “analysis”.

He is absolutely willing to regulate big tech. He was immediately against the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram.

It's entertainment in the form of macro level tech industry analysis. Some people enjoy that. Others like news, TV shows, gaming, books, etc

I definitely use his blog to be thoughtfully informed when it matters. As a 40ish startup guy myself I take on many roles, including helping set product and technology strategies. But I also need to work in the weeds most of the time and don't often have the opportunity or headspace to just ponder the big picture, so having someone else inject perspective at the right time can be very useful. Thus I tend to read Bens work in huge gulps as a new project kicks off, grabbing as much perspective as possible to feed a new initiative with ideas that have evolved and simmered over time.

Moreover, being able to think at a strategic, systems level about the technology landscape is a trained mindset and it helps to have sources of inspiration accordingly. Reading the work of people who think in ways you also wish to be able to think seems like good training for your mental muscles. Like all commentary and advice you learn to keep what you think is relevant and supplement it with your own information and ideas, but having the framework and the examples can absolutely push your further, faster.

I've had a similar thought. I read a LOT of these various blogs and I frequently ask myself whether its valuable and how much time I should invest in these. I've concluded its probably valuable and a few hours a week is probably the right amount of time.

I think where the value lies is in when I am asked to give input into product or technology strategy. Having a broader understand of the technology ecosystem is a useful foundation for making recommendations to my specific scenario.

According to Ben (the author and proprietor of Stratechery) every major influential VC firm and/or head subscribes. He once remarked that something to the effect of there's no major VC that isn't subscribed, I deliver email to their inboxes daily. I do think he's also quite popular with many big time CEOs (Mark Zuckerburg being a confirmed subscriber for one. Who knows who reads what though).

I'm not sure if that means anything though, to be quite honest.

That said, I think its really the business of technology, and that could make this useful, but for ICs or those on a more technical path that don't plan on owning a business? That is less direct.

All of this is to say, I think the more one understands the systems at play in which they live and work, the better they are at making informed decisions, especially about where to work. I left a job a few years ago for another one at a company that was working in the space that publications like this were talking about - but the market itself hadn't seen as high growing fields yet - and having that ahead of time analysis lead me to believe it would be lucrative for me to switch companies, and that really did work out for me.

There's no impact in reading anything.

The impact comes with what you do with what you've read.

Personally I find that if I read something that I enjoy, I’ll usually find a way to incorporate it into my life somehow. For Stratechery and information economics in particular, it’s been finding ways to leverage my skills to make myself indispensable professionally.

I agree with you. I just read it for fun. And that’s still worth it

Interesting that you use the word "impact", which I interpret as software engineer performance review jargon to quantify the larger results of engineering work, and the word "alpha" which I interpret as financial jargon to indicate some investment advantage. I think reading anything is at best just a starting point to moving the needle on any of those, and will provide nothing without further action. That said, I see two kinds of value:

If you are operating in a business-level capacity in tech where you have shallow but potentially valuable interactions with a lot of other people in the industry (eg, founder, operator, salesperson, marketer, etc), then there is significant value in reading the same things they do so you can anticipate their state of mind and have plenty of fodder for small talk. Your VC friends' comments notwithstanding, I think this is probably the biggest direct impact.

Secondarily, I think there is a good amount of passive value in reading good industry analysis if you ever want to run your own business or rise to a level of contributing strategic input within an established business. This is less of a straight line, but considering all the garbage put out by even reputable mainstream publications, and the sheer volume of zero-value entertainment options, I think reading expert analysis by well-informed, well-written and consistently committed individual authors is probably one of best ways to get quality information. That is no small thing in today's world.

All that said, I think you are right that focusing on your family and more local concerns will probably be higher ROI, but it depends what you're optimizing for.

I read it because I think about these kind of things quite a bit. I used to do so for a living but now days I do it because I still find it interesting. Ben is a very good analyst. He doesn't get everything right but this is a field where that's not really possible. He's as good or better than anyone I know of and I also appreciate he does review where he's been wrong and, even better, spends time exploring why.

Who do you find is generally right about the tech industry more often?