A Big Ruling on LLM Training and Midsummer Mail on NBA Salaries in Tech, Starting from Scratch in 2025, and More

On today's show Andrew and Ben begin by breaking down a favorable ruling for Anthropic in a case concerning copyrighted material, the fair use doctrine, and LLM training. Then: A midsummer mailbag with questions on huge salaries for big names in tech that may be past their prime, waiting for AI to suggest software solutions, starting careers from scratch in 2025, Huwaei’s ascent and China’s commitment to Apple, Taylor Swift, shortform video regulation, recommendations for would-be watch collectors, and more.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Andrew Sharp?

  Hello and welcome back to another episode of Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp and on the other line, Ben Thompson. Ben, how you doing?

• 0:15Ben Thompson?

  Frazzled, Andrew. I'm frazzled. This is our last episode before the summer break, which we do every year.

• 0:22Andrew Sharp?

  The end is near. We need the summer break this year, absolutely.

• 0:27Ben Thompson?

  But I am traveling for the summer break. It requires a lot of preparation, this particular trip. And so I am, I'm just ensuring, just doubling down, making sure I go on this trip and feel mad. I needed this vacation. So that's what I'm doing right now.

• 0:42Andrew Sharp?

  There you go. Well, I'm happy for you. And this is why I said earlier in the week, we were gonna keep it light, keep it summery, have some fun questions peppered in. And the audience responded, we're not gonna even be able to get to all the fun summer questions on this episode, but we'll keep those rolling all summer long. Uh, and we have news at the top here. So like we said earlier.

• 1:06Ben Thompson?

  But unfortunately, we actually have a real topic to get to quickly. I'll try to give it a start.

• 1:11Andrew Sharp?

  I feel guilty inflicting fair use discussions on the audience, but it is pretty big news. So I'll read from the Washington Post. A federal judge this week ruled that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not break the law when it used copyrighted books to train its chatbot Claude without the consent of text authors or publishers. But he ordered the company to go to trial for allegedly using pirated versions of the books. The decision made Monday by Judge William Alsop of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California represents a win for AI companies which have battled copyright lawsuits from writers and news organizations for using their work to train AI systems.

• 1:55Andrew Sharp?

  So Ben, the floor is yours. What do you think of this ruling? I can probably guess based on some of our previous conversations, but break it down.

• 2:05Ben Thompson?

  I think it's great. It's fantastic. It's good news. I mean, it's always tricky with anything legal, right?

• 2:11Andrew Sharp?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:11Ben Thompson?

  To separate the, is this a legally correct ruling from a, what do I want to happen from a policy perspective ruling? Now, conveniently enough, and one might argue that it biases the discussion.

• 2:26Andrew Sharp?

  Some confirmation bias in play.

• 2:27Ben Thompson?

  I think this is both. Yeah. And so I've been writing about fair use for a long time. I've written about it in other contexts, but certainly in the context of AI. And I thought this was a very sort of gratifying decision in that I felt like the judge's decision was like a perfect repeat of the arguments that I've made.

• 2:47Andrew Sharp?

  He gets it.

• 2:48Ben Thompson?

  A couple of years ago. No, absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:50Andrew Sharp?

  And also a well-written opinion, a very well-written and well-reasoned opinion.

• 2:55Ben Thompson?

  I mean, I feel federal judges by and large have well-written opinions. Like, like, court cases are generally good reading. It's the lawyers and their briefs that are the problem. Um, so.

• 3:09Ben Thompson?

  Not that I ever saw yours, but, um, but yeah, so you have, you have fair use and the, really the big one is, is, you know, there's these different standards and, and fair use is tough because actually even zooming out, every fair use decision is case by case. And that is kind of maddening, but I think it's actually super important to the broader point, which is that intellectual property law is not a God-given right, natural order of the universe sort of thing. It is definitionally a trade-off.

• 3:45Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Ben Thompson?

  It's a government-granted monopoly that the government does so because it sees the benefits of monopoly, but you as our resident anti-monopolist should be intrinsically uncomfortable with intellectual property law because it is monopoly, right? And, and all the downsides that sort of come with that. And I think it's really important to ground any discussion in these points because I do feel a lot of advocates in.

• 4:15Ben Thompson?

  Favor of stronger copyright laws or stronger patent laws or whatever it might be. Forget about this fact that that it is implicitly a trade off. And therefore it's appropriate to consider the upsides and downsides and the benefits and whatnot of what's going on. Cause that's implicit in the concept of intellectual property rights as a whole.

• 4:36Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, intellectual property rights is ultimately just a policy to incentivize. Creating great art, music, literature.

• 4:47Ben Thompson?

  We're producing copyright content. We have, we have an interest in intellectual property law. Like we sell content for a living. So, so. You know, if anything, our biases should be in favor of copyright. But yeah, but you do see a lot of discussion about this where people just take it for granted. That obviously copyright exists. It's like, no, it's not obvious at all. It's a, it's a policy.

• 5:10Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, it doesn't necessarily exist in other countries the way it does here. But I think in general, intellectual property protection is a good thing. And so it is important to weigh that against the upside of AI.

• 5:25Ben Thompson?

  Well, that would, but that specifically, but generally that's why fair use is a case by case balancing test. A balancing test implies trade offs are involved. And so it's actually very appropriate that it is a balancing test and it's not a hard and fast rule. So you have these four prongs of the test. What is the purpose and character of the use? Is it transformative, et cetera? The nature of the copyrighted work? Like, for example, commercial copyright as much is less likely or is, is more. Fair use is more likely to apply to just like an instruction.

• 5:58Andrew Sharp?

  An academic use. Yeah.

• 6:00Ben Thompson?

  Well, or no, well, academic use on one side, but the nature of the original work, right? If I, I'm looking at a photocopier here or a printer. The printer manual, if someone hosts that manual in like a database of printer manuals. It's almost certainly going to be allowed under fair use because it's a printer manual. Like no one cares, right? That's different than hosting like a novel, right? Which, which is, which is, has more. Is assumed to have more protections. And again, that seems fuzzy and odd. Why can't it be clear? But that's because this entire area is trade offs. And of course, we want to make different trade offs for a printer manual than we want to do for a novel. And so that's number two. Number three, the amount and substantiality of the portion to be used. And number four, the effect upon the potential market for the copyrighted work.

• 6:46Ben Thompson?

  So the most important is the first one. Well, actually, the more, but let's start with the third one.

• 6:50Andrew Sharp?

  Okay.

• 6:50Ben Thompson?

  Number three, the amount and substantiality of the portion to be used. One of the challenges with L M's and copyright material is they use all of it. All right. This is so I think about fair use in the context of stratechery, where I quote stuff all the time. I always use the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg because the way they write, they write a classic. Everything you need to know is in the first three paragraphs and everything else is filling it in. It's very easy for me to grab it, put it at the beginning of an update and write about it.

• 7:18Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Ben Thompson?

  And I take a portion and I believe I'm entitled to do so under fair use. I'm not copying the whole article. Right? There have been times I've reached out to authors and said, can I reproduce this whole thing? Because I want to talk about the whole thing, et cetera. And have, you know, gotten their, you know, permission just via email or whatever, say, yeah, that's fine. You can, you can do that. But that's, I'm careful because I'm taking the whole thing.

• 7:43Andrew Sharp?

  Right.

• 7:43Ben Thompson?

  If I'm just taking a paragraph, I think I'm entitled to do that. There's precedent about that.

• 7:47Andrew Sharp?

  Well, and also most of what you're taking in those paragraphs is just raw information that the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg is conveying.

• 7:55Ben Thompson?

  That's right. I could have gotten it from a gazillion other ones. It's just out there.

• 7:58Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Ben Thompson?

  That's right. But in this case, L M's are taking everything. So that's sort of like an initial sort of bit to where, oh, this must be a big deal. And I thought the judge, his understanding of L M's, I thought was very strong. And basically the point, it's, it's kind of like Google and the web. It's like, yes, any one book, they need it all, but they need so much that any one book actually isn't that material. Relatively speaking, you could exclude, exclude it just as easily. And, and, you know, just, and I think that that's the correct interpretation, which is. Not any one book in an LLM's corpus is critical to the LLM's functioning. It actually is completely immaterial. One, any one book we take away with no impact whatsoever.

• 8:43Ben Thompson?

  It's sort of like looking at the substantiality bit and flipping it on its head. Which is, it's substantially unimportant, so it doesn't really matter if it's all in there. And then that gets to number one, the purpose and character of the use, is it transformational? And I think undoubtedly, yes. An LLM is producing completely new content. And Judge Ellisup came back again and again, and we should talk about this, to the bit that Quad does not reproduce copyrighted works. And the authors were not arguing that it did.

• 9:13Andrew Sharp?

  Right, that wasn't an issue. The OpenAI case with the New York Times is one where the New York Times was able to force the ChatGPT, and this is also hotly contested in that case, but ChatGPT in some cases that the New York Times cited, was spitting back full New York Times articles.

• 9:33Ben Thompson?

  That's right, and that's at stake in a meta case about this as well. Let's park that and come back to that in a moment, because that is something to follow up on. But I think by and large, LLMs are clearly transformational. They're generating completely new content. And there's a bit here where the judge analogizes to humans, right? I read a lot of stuff and I generate new content. Is that stuff going into it? Yes, does that mean they can restrict what I write? Of course not. Now, we've talked on this podcast, is it right to analogize humans to computers doing the same thing at scale?

• 10:08Andrew Sharp?

  That was the one piece of his opinion that I didn't really love, because I agree that ultimately, the output from LLMs, he used the word orthogonal. The output is orthogonal to what you're getting from a full book from an LLM. But the scale of what's being done by LLMs when they train on these books, I do think that makes it a little bit different than humans reading a bunch of books and internalizing that information, and then producing their own original works over the long term.

• 10:41Ben Thompson?

  Right, but it's not reproducing the work. It's unquestionably generating original work. And I think this gets to number four, which is the effect on the potential market. I think it's like- Do LLMs, is it going to be challenging for authors going forward because there's more stuff to read? Is it going to be challenging for graphic designers? Something, again, I do care a lot about personally. Is it going to be a challenge for them going forward because anyone could just generate an image?

• 11:11Andrew Sharp?

  Yes.

• 11:12Ben Thompson?

  For sure. That's also, that's not part of the argument here. Like copyright law didn't exist so that you'd have less competition from other authors. It exists so people can't copy your work. And at the end of the day, he distinguished between what's going into the LM and what's coming out. And as long as what's coming out is not a facsimile of the content, it is a fair use case. And again, I think there, I get the concern and the fear, but under what copyright is and supposed to be and stepping back the broader points about it being a trade-off, I think this is the right determination.

• 11:54Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, well, and as far as the scale argument, I mean, you've read a lot of books, but you haven't read seven million books. That's what I was alluding to earlier.

• 12:04Ben Thompson?

  I know, but, but, but, but that's.

• 12:06Andrew Sharp?

  What this technology makes possible is essentially copyright infringement on like a massive scale.

• 12:12Ben Thompson?

  It's not copyright infringement. No, that's the point. This is like the antitrust thing we talked about.

• 12:18Andrew Sharp?

  Ingesting all this material.

• 12:19Ben Thompson?

  That's the antitrust thing we talked about before. If you think that's a problem, then make a law about it. Don't try to retrofit copyright, which is about copying. I'd be like.

• 12:29Andrew Sharp?

  Well, that's fair. Look, my main takeaway from all this, reading the opinion, I thought it was a well-reasoned opinion, but my main takeaway was to double back to what I was saying earlier in the week about longer-term AI concerns. I would be more encouraged if the federal government were even attempting to reckon with any of these issues. And it's alarming to me, just generally speaking, it seems like all of the most consequential questions in tech are consistently answered by random district courts around the country. And so if the federal government wanted to take a lead here and set a policy and reckon with these trade-offs, I think that would probably be a good thing.

• 13:10Andrew Sharp?

  But confined to the legal arguments, I do think that the judge ended up in the right place on this issue.

• 13:17Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, but I think this is one that that for this specific point, I don't think we need a new law. I think copyright law and the fair use test is very appropriate, has been appropriately applied, and came to the correct outcome. Like, it, it, this is sort of like, you know, this is, yeah, I, I think the analogy or not to antitrust law i- is useful. Like, there's some cases where antitrust law works fine.

• 13:40Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Ben Thompson?

  You know, a- a- and there's other ones with the aggregators in particular where we do need new laws. Now, in this case, I do think there's room for Congress, and that gets to the, the, what we just tabled, the discussion about the, this question of forcing ChatGPT back in the day, which, by the way, I think this is limited now, uh, uh, to reproduce the New York Times.

• 14:02Andrew Sharp?

  Well, before we get there, can I just say that the reason I would say it might make sense for there to be some rules of the road here and might make sense for Congress to intervene is because you're right. Legally speaking, it's not the court's job to reckon with the future market for copyrighted work, whether it's books, whether it's movies, whether it's music. Because if you apply the logic in this case to, you know, training on all music created or all video created, you could eventually find a proliferation of AI-generated audio and video content.

• 14:40Ben Thompson?

  Oh, that already, that, which already is already.

• 14:41Andrew Sharp?

  That's already here. Look at TikTok. Um, like, that absolutely competes in the same general market as the copyrighted material, the same way Netflix is ultimately competing with YouTube or TikTok. So the net effect of allowing training on those works is to depress the long, long-term market for human-generated material that's ostensibly protected by copyright. And I don't know whether that's a good thing, and I, I would hope that people would reckon with it, but I don't know that copyright necessarily, if you're bringing cases, I don't know that that necessarily solves the problem.

• 15:21Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, well, I mean, we can and have had debates about this. Like, my argument about the OpenAI New York Times case from a philosophical perspective is this, the AI explosion is good for the New York Times because having trusted branded content that is a totem, we discuss this the kind of extra techery or or sharp tech content, is actually beneficial if you have, you know, I think

• 15:43Andrew Sharp?

  If you're differentiated.

• 15:44Ben Thompson?

  More of a market for that. Yeah, I mean,

• 15:45Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Ben Thompson?

  And and do we want to handicap our AI industry to protect undifferentiated content? At the end of the day, that's sort of the argument that is implied here.

• 15:56Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:56Ben Thompson?

  But I do want to get to that that OpenAI New York Times bit. The way to force ChatGPT, and this is ChatGPT three, I think, back in the day, to copy the New York Times, was you had to paste like the first two paragraphs of the New York Times article, and then it would spit out the rest because it got locked into like the the predictive set of tokens, which it's it was trained on. And whose fault is that? Is that like, I could take a New York Times article, I could put it on a photocopier, and I could press a button and get a thousand copies of that and walk around and hand it out. Is that the photocopier's fault?

• 16:34Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:35Ben Thompson?

  In fact, there's been a Supreme Court case about this, which is the Sony versus Universal case, the Betamax case, where they, uh, Universal Studios sued Sony because you could record a TV show and then watch it later. And the Supreme Court ruled, number one, that was fair use to time shift on your own. And number two, because it was fair use, the Betamax had lots of legal uses, not just illegal ones, and so they it wasn't their fault, right? And I think this distinction between the toolmaker and the user making a decision is a really important one in general. Uh, you know, this is The counter was the Napster case where basically the decision was, look,

• 17:20Ben Thompson?

  if this is used for nothing but illegality. But, but that, that is also the problem with the Napster case in some respects and some like the BitTorrent cases and, and things along those lines. But I, I do think that distinction by and large is an important one. And I think it falls heavily in favor of the L L Ms. L L Ms are quite obviously used for far, far, far more than trying to reproduce a New York Times article and should not be held liable. The user who does that can be held liable because they're doing an illegal action, but not the toolmaker. And, and so even if in this case, the implication of what, what Judge Allsop was saying is that

• 18:02Ben Thompson?

  because Anthropic in their product, in the quad product, did filters for copyrighted content, that, that meant they were okay. My view is actually that shouldn't, it doesn't even matter. Why, like filter or no filter, and this is a big problem for like open source and just model weights and L L Ms being available generally. You shouldn't have to wrap an L L M in a filter for it to be legal. Like, like it, it, you hold users liable by all means. The tools themselves should not be held liable.

• 18:31Andrew Sharp?

  Right. I mean, that was an element of the New York Times case that rang pretty hollow to me because they were, I mean, we're talking about like extreme edge cases that were clearly generated for the purpose of bringing a lawsuit. And so holding OpenAI liable for that behavior seems unjust.

• 18:51Ben Thompson?

  There are other ones, like some of the llama one, like, and I, I linked that in there, Timothy Lee wrote about this, but like it's, there's like, it's actually somewhat trivial to generate a fair bit of content.

• 19:02Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, I hadn't seen that. Okay. So you mentioned in your piece, I didn't read the, the Tim Lee portion of what you wrote in your update because it published about 15 minutes before we came on to record the podcast.

• 19:15Ben Thompson?

  But you're our excuse.

• 19:17Andrew Sharp?

  But I did see that you said this bears on the future of open source models. So in what respect does it bear on open source? Versus some of the big model players.

• 19:28Ben Thompson?

  Well, I mean, Judge also said again and again that Anthropic's output is not violating copyright.

• 19:33Andrew Sharp?

  Right.

• 19:34Ben Thompson?

  The reason its output is not violating copyright is because Anthropic has filters applied, which are really annoying, right? Anthropic is the one that like chides you the most or refuses to give answers the most. They're the most overbearing about that. In this case, it pays off because their product is very good about not letting you generate.

• 19:53Andrew Sharp?

  Copyrighted material.

• 19:54Ben Thompson?

  Or reproduce copyrighted material, right? The, the, the less you have those filters, if you just train an L M without any of the, the, the, the R L sort of on it, or the filters on it, or whatever the product does to stop that copyrighted material from being regenerated when the user is asking it to regenerate copyrighted material, the more likely you're going to get it, right? And so, so the problem is we should want, this is the trade off bit. We should want there to be more, less restricted, less censored, just broadly available models that anyone can use to do what they want.

• 20:29Andrew Sharp?

  Right.

• 20:30Ben Thompson?

  Implicit in that is those models could be used to generate copyrighted content. And my view is hold the user liable for that. Don't hold the tool liable. If we hold the tool liable, we're, we're de facto restricting the market to closed products like Claude or like Chat G P T.

• 20:51Andrew Sharp?

  Because you're imposing massive administrative costs in order to.

• 20:56Ben Thompson?

  Massive liability risk, yeah.

• 20:58Andrew Sharp?

  Liability, yeah, okay.

• 20:59Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, so number three, there, there's one more. So there's the other thing about this is Anthropic was, or so this is just a motion about whether the case could proceed or not. The case can proceed on the pirated content issue, which is, and Meta is, is in trouble for this too. There's archives around of millions of books that you could, that have fell off, fell off a truck on the internet.

• 21:21Andrew Sharp?

  I saw that and I was, I was not familiar with those archives, but I'm glad these model makers are availing themselves.

• 21:28Ben Thompson?

  Oh, yeah. You know, so Anthropic's like, well, this is fair use and the judge is like, well, just because your usage of it is fair use. Doesn't mean your acquisition is now suddenly legal of like getting all this content. And what was ruled fair use was Anthropic buying a bunch of used books, tearing off the binders, scanning them, and then throwing the the physical books away and keeping the digital copies. Like that was fair use. And that was, that's like directly downstream from the Google Books case previously. And I think that's correctly decided. And I also think it's correct that like Anthropic pirated a bunch of stuff and you don't get a free pass for not doing that. But this is also, doesn't make sense in a way.

• 22:08Ben Thompson?

  Like Anthropic bought mostly used books, so it's not like the authors are being deprived of revenue. They went through all the hassle of scanning them in and having access to them. How, at the end of the day, the effect is no different than having just pirated them. Beyond the fact that like there's a legal hurdle. Fig leaf. Right, no, exactly, exactly. And so, I thi- I understand Judge Alsup's decision here. I also think if we're talking about Congress acting, this is where Congress could make a big difference. If the requirement to get books into your system is to go through, scour the earth for used books, cut the binders off, set up a scanning operation.

• 22:52Ben Thompson?

  We're cutting off startups, we're cutting off new companies. And, and anyone who's not willing to follow the law, or is in another country and doesn't give, care about USIP law, like China, they have a huge advantage. And this is where I think Congress should recognize AI is really important. We as Congress, you know, there is, I believe there's patents in the US Constitution, but by and large copyright law is like all downstream from congressional acts. Right. We should tell the Library of Congress, and Congress has to do this, Library of Congress can't do this unilaterally. Digitize all your content, make it available to US AI companies to train on, which is fair use, and anyone can come and get it.

• 23:36Ben Thompson?

  And, and not only does that level the playing field between startups and incumbents, it actually advantages US companies specifically to, to have more opportunities to train models. And this is a little, I get the controversy here because you're, you're-

• 23:52Andrew Sharp?

  You're prioritizing AI at the expense of the works in the Library of Congress and-

• 23:58Ben Thompson?

  My point is, this is happening regardless. And do we want, who do we want it to be easy for? Do you want it to be easy for US companies trying to follow the law? Or do you want it to be easy for non-US companies and bad actors? And, and in this case, I think the trade-off in AI is so important. I think the trade-off is worth making.

• 24:16Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, your argument makes sense to me. And earlier on, when I was talking about Congress getting involved, I don't know where Congress should fall. And honestly, you, you've convinced me to some degree that you have to prioritize AI.

• 24:30Ben Thompson?

  It only took like 20 minutes. Great.

• 24:32Andrew Sharp?

  But it would be encouraging if I had a sense that Congress was paying attention to any of this. And that's where I come back to like, do we have the ability to pass laws and reckon with any of these questions at this point? And right now, again, it's like a case by case basis and literally a case by case basis because some of the courts elsewhere in the country may reach different answers on these questions. And so hopefully, one way or another, we get some sort of black and white rules that people can anchor around as we move forward.

• 25:05Ben Thompson?

  No, that's right. This, this is the first of many. Most of the decisions have gone broadly in favor of the AI companies. I think this is the most clear. It directly takes on the fair use question. And I think the arguments are very compelling. We'll put it, we can put a link to the, to the case in the show notes. I think it's worth a read. Obviously, you know, I just finished writing about it for Wednesday's daily update. But all in all, this is great news. Um, so-

• 25:32Andrew Sharp?

  We'll see.

• 25:33Ben Thompson?

  Good, good note to get into the summer on.

• 25:34Andrew Sharp?

  There you go. Celebrate this fair use decision on your 4th of July.

• 25:39Ben Thompson?

  And everyone who's angry about it and emailing us, sorry, you're not gonna, we're not gonna address it for, for at least a week and a half.

• 25:45Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, exactly. We'll double back. I'm sure we'll talk more fair use as the summer unfolds here. But speaking of mail, let's move to mail. Eric says.

• 25:54Ben Thompson?

  I'm limiting all my answers to two minutes.

• 25:57Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. Eric says regarding Tuesday's update on athlete money for AI researchers, one of the aspects of tech versus sports is how impossible it is to objectively judge someone's impact in the moment. I feel like by the time someone is notable enough to deserve $100 million, it's likely they're past their productive usefulness to actually deserve $100 million. For example, it's totally true that John Karmic has created a ton of value, but I don't think if you hired him today, he would provide that additional value commensurate, commensurate with what he could command. So I thought this was an interesting take on

• 26:41Andrew Sharp?

  the frothy market for big names in AI. It's also something that I wondered about in the wake of the Johnny Ive news. What do you think of that comment from Eric?

• 26:52Ben Thompson?

  Well, I mean, I think this is the same in sports, right? I mean, most guys get, would they make the most money, particularly because of the NBA sort of structure. I wrote about this in the context of the NBA, but it's so biased towards seniority, you're generally overpaying old guys and underpaying young guys. So there is a bit where you're always getting paid for, for.

• 27:12Andrew Sharp?

  Pass for.

• 27:12Ben Thompson?

  There's a mismatch, a timing mismatch. Yeah. I mean, I think what's interesting about the AI market, this is the point I made in Tuesday's update, in a lot of times, impact is really company specific and it's a big deal, but that sort of limits the bargaining power of the employee. And so the way to get your true worth was to start your own company. In that case, you're, you're directly generating the value that you could harvest later on in an IPO or, or whatever it might be. What's interesting about AI is because it is fairly commoditized, like everyone. Kind of doing the same thing. That is actually a huge benefit for AI researchers. Because what they do at Google is what they're doing at OpenAI is what they're doing at Anthropic is what they're doing at Meta.

• 27:55Ben Thompson?

  And because what they do is very specialized, but the overall job is commoditized. It's not specific to Meta. It's not specific to Google.

• 28:04Andrew Sharp?

  NBA teams. One of my favorite quotes from an NBA player was somebody was asking him where he was going to go in free agency. And he said, I don't know. There's a bank in every city. There's a bank in Menlo Park. There's a bank in all sorts of places for these researchers.

• 28:18Ben Thompson?

  There's a bank in San Francisco. That's exactly right. So I just, which I think is kind of a unique moment in, in, there's always been the case for, like, even for infrastructure, right? Google has its own infrastructure. Facebook has a more open one, but like, I don't know if it's ever been the case to such a degree where there's such a minimal number, a small number of people that is readily identifiable who they are that are good at this. Everyone's trying to do the same thing and outputs are somewhat measurable. So you know who's good and who isn't. Like it's much more sports like for top AI researchers than it's, the market for tech talent has probably ever been. Which is why they're starting to get paid like NBA superstars.

• 29:01Andrew Sharp?

  But is there some truth to the idea that an engineer or a researcher has a prime? And their prime is in their late twenties, let's say, as opposed to their early forties?

• 29:15Ben Thompson?

  Probably. Um, you know, I mean, we're both past our prime, let's be honest. So I mean.

• 29:20Andrew Sharp?

  Long past our prime, indeed. Uh, but the checks keep cashing. That's all that matters. Um. Well, the other thing that I wanted to mention, because it occurred to me reading your update on Tuesday and it made me laugh. Well, it's actually two things, two competing thoughts I had reading your update. On one hand, I was reading it and thinking about our conversations about athlete money for all these tech employees. And it occurred to me, you know, $6 billion for Johnny Ive or $6 billion in stock, $14 billion.

• 29:52Andrew Sharp?

  For Alexander Wong, maybe a billion for Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. Those numbers are in fact way bigger than athlete salaries across all the major sports, even soccer. The soccer guys get paid crazy amounts of money, but not AI money. And then a second later, I thought about the percentage of overall value at OpenAI and Meta. And in that context, 14 billion for Alex Wong or a billion for Nat Friedman. That's actually far less than what the best players in the NBA are getting. So just to underscore your longstanding point about all the numbers in tech being absolutely ridiculous. It amused me as I was reading on Tuesday.

• 30:35Ben Thompson?

  It's absolutely ridiculous. It really is. You do appreciate the extent to which almost definitionally, tech employees have always been underpaid.

• 30:43Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Ben Thompson?

  But to the point, it's been hard to measure. And also, tech companies have been found appropriately guilty for colluding to keep that down. So, um, so there you go.

• 30:54Andrew Sharp?

  That's right. I wasn't familiar with that case until you surfaced it on Tuesday, but that was amusing as well. I had seen the Steve Jobs email to his Adobe counterpart. But I didn't know that was downstream from an antitrust case. And, you know, NBA guys getting close to parity, but a lot of these players are going to make like $500 million, $600 million by the end of their career. So they're compensated fairly and maybe that's where tech employees are headed. At least the very best are headed over the next couple of decades here. Following up on my request for cool LLM use cases, here is Alex from Ohio. This is two parts. Part one, hey, guys, my wife is a former special education teacher

• 31:38Andrew Sharp?

  who recently started a day program for adults with disabilities. She bills Medicaid and it sucks. You pretty much need to submit TXT files with incredibly specific spaces and characters to separate different data fields. It's wild. She used to do this manually, quite literally opening TextEdit and counting out as she hit. The space key. God, that sounds miserable. A few months ago, as she added new members to her program, she spun up ChatGPT and decided to ask if it had a better way to do it. ChatGPT created a Google app script that allowed her to use a Google Sheet format she created and then translate it to the Medicaid format.

• 32:23Andrew Sharp?

  That was great for a while. This week, she spun up Google Gemini, our new favorite, and it created a custom script where she just had to hit a checkbox on a spreadsheet and it spit out the right billing information. It's a huge time saver and she was really ecstatic after a few hours of back and forth with Gemini. So he continues from there, but I'll stop. What comes to mind when you hear about that utility?

• 32:49Ben Thompson?

  I think it's awesome. The other thing that's interesting is it does, it speaks to a certain agency point that we keep coming back to. He mentioned that she was really ecstatic after a few hours of back and forth with Gemini. I mean, without question, she's going to save way more than a few hours. It still takes the volition and executive function to devote a few hours upfront to pay it off sort of down the line. But no, it's a great example.

• 33:16Andrew Sharp?

  Very cool. And then part two from Alex. I don't know what this is and where it falls on the vibe coding spectrum, but it's enabling non-technical people to create custom-made software for highly specific tasks. I think she should work with Gemini to build an application wrapper and sell this software to other day programs, but that's a topic for another day. This was all super powerful and what really got me excited was imagining a future where some AI was watching her submit this billing on her MacBook for a week or so, and then it said, hey, I noticed you doing this really manual task. I built you a piece of software to automate that.

• 33:58Andrew Sharp?

  That's what will enable software to truly eat the world. There are so many industries that haven't been disrupted yet because somebody with software knowledge didn't know the problems that existed.

• 34:12Andrew Sharp?

  In Alex's vision for the future, you don't actually have to be high agency or have, you know, tremendous executive function because the AI will notice you just hammering away at the spacebar and say, there's a smarter way to do it. This might be the vibe solution future you were advocating for earlier in the week.

• 34:34Ben Thompson?

  I think to do this, it's gonna be really important to sort of do it in a non-threatening way. Use something familiar that people, you know, some sort of interaction model. You could maybe like make like a character that's like a paperclip.

• 34:50Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, boy.

• 34:51Ben Thompson?

  Like Clippy.

• 34:51Andrew Sharp?

  Clippy. Here we go.

• 34:54Ben Thompson?

  Clippy's final redemption.

• 34:56Andrew Sharp?

  The Clippy future that nobody signed up for is coming whether we want it or not. That's great. Way to bring me down.

• 35:02Ben Thompson?

  There's a long, no, no. In all seriousness, there's a long history in tech of ideas that were right just way, way, way too early, right? Like, like every dot com company that you make fun of is now a thriving company today, just by another name and they started 15 years later.

• 35:16Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:17Ben Thompson?

  And that will probably be the case with Clippy and all this sort of stuff. Is that viable in the long run? Sure. Do we have a long way to go to get there? Absolutely. Is it incredible how far we've come and what can be done? And actually, most people are not even remotely taking advantage of it? Yep. Also true.

• 35:34Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. Well, we'll see how long it takes to get to that utopian vision from Alex. And honestly, the timelines are getting tighter and tighter here. So maybe that's only a couple of years away. Pfizer Frank, whose daughter hosted the fashion show judged by ChatGPT, which we referenced on Tuesday's episode. Glad to make my return to the Sharp Tech Mailbag. One thing your conversation made me wonder about. My seven-year-old daughter now uses ChatGPT, but it'll probably be another seven to eight years before I'll let her get Instagram or whatever social media accounts are relevant in 2032 when she's 14 or 15 years old. Maybe I'll let her get a smartphone a couple of years before that. Who knows?

• 36:16Andrew Sharp?

  But that got me thinking. ChatGPT, along with Roblox and Minecraft, will likely Be at the core of her computing experiences before she ever has to make decisions about which phone she wants, what social media apps to use, etc. While AI use cases feel very ancillary to my iPhone experience, I could certainly see an LLM-based experience or assistant being way more central to the expectations of what young people will want from a phone or iPad moving forward. So Ben, this was a lightbulb moment for me as a parent because if I project forward, I'm gonna be a lot more comfortable letting my kids get on ChatGPT early than I will be letting them get on

• 37:01Andrew Sharp?

  any sort of social media or maybe even the absolute wasteland that like the general internet has turned to do. ChatGPT feels safer for some reason. And maybe that means that ChatGPT is gonna be like the primary computing experience for the youth. I don't know whether you have any thoughts on Fisster Frank's projections there and how it may bear on the device maker market, but it's just crazy to think about.

• 37:30Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, it's a really good insight. I mean, this is why tech companies always fought tooth and nail to get into schools. And giving stuff away for free because they know once you get, you know, once you get kids hooked, you have them for life, you know, like from Philip Morris to Google and Apple. So it speaks to what we talked, the email where a couple of episodes ago, we talked about the, we're understating the risk to like Meta and Facebook and the social apps.

• 37:56Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Ben Thompson?

  And this idea that, yeah, they're trying to get kids early as well, but especially nowadays, parents are more and more reluctant to let that happen. And hey, I already have lots of imaginary friends or interactions or whatever.

• 38:09Andrew Sharp?

  Right.

• 38:09Ben Thompson?

  That's, that's, that's good enough. It also, is there a bit where? Should ChatGPT and other apps be wary of getting into anything social for this reason? Where you don't want to get sort of stuck in that bucket? I don't know, but it is, it is a very good observation from Frank.

• 38:26Andrew Sharp?

  Yes, well, keeping it moving here, Rahim says, Ben and Andrew, I was wondering, if you both had to start all over again in 2025, how would you go about it? Would Strategery start off as purely TikTok and Instagram accounts? Would you start a parody account on X as a hack to get followers? More generally, how would you best leverage AI in your own workflows? So a big question there, the thought of Ben starting a parody account on X as a hack to get followers for Strategery is unbelievably depressing.

• 39:10Andrew Sharp?

  But do you have any thoughts for Rahim?

• 39:13Ben Thompson?

  No, I, I would not do any of these things. I mean, well, it's easy, whatever, well, here, number one, it's hard to deal in hypotheticals because I'm aware of the situation I exist today and it's hard to sort of think outside of that. But my view of the extent to which these other platforms are beneficial is that speaks to how difficult it is to build your own platform. It's harder and harder, but that doesn't change the necessity of doing so. If you, you know, if you're a TikTok creator or YouTube creator, you're stuck on those platforms and what they want you to do.

• 39:47Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Ben Thompson?

  And again, this might be, is almost certainly very rich of me to be saying, I'd have my own site with my own name on it and control my own destiny. And at the end of the day, getting followers is getting followers.

• 40:00Andrew Sharp?

  I was gonna say, would anybody find it if you started from scratch?

• 40:03Ben Thompson?

  It's much harder to spread and be aware and all those sorts of things that, that we've talked about. I think realistically, if I were to start again, I would still want to own all my old stuff and my content would be dramatically more expensive. Because my assumption would be I wouldn't be able to amass the size of audience that I have today.

• 40:24Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Ben Thompson?

  And so the ones that would find it, I would charge them a lot for it. And. Sort of accept the fact that my audience is going to be smaller and make economic decisions in line with that. Uh, you know, I think I could charge a lot more, probably even in maintain sort of most of my audience. I like being relatively low price and accessible. I'm in the privileged position because I started early. I have a large audience and people do know about me and even find out about me and can still be growing today. But if I were starting again, I think that'd be the main difference. I actually would be more exclusionary, not, not less.

• 41:00Andrew Sharp?

  Well, and it's a, it's a more crowded market than it was when you started because you've made this model work and lots of people have replicated this independent creator model. And so it makes sense that you would sort of approach the whole problem a little bit differently. This was an eye opening question for me because I came of age during an era where there was a lot of VC money flying around at various blog companies. I started at Vox and SB Nation with Jim Bankoff, which was a great opportunity. I love Jim to this day and I did well there, which led me to Grantland and there was real upward

• 41:40Andrew Sharp?

  mobility. So for me, I mean, there are other steps and twists in my journey, but like the first four years of my career in media were great and those four years don't seem to be viable.

• 41:53Ben Thompson?

  Spoil the expectations for basically every millennial online content creator forever.

• 41:57Andrew Sharp?

  Exactly. Well, and so if I were starting in 2025 at 23 or 24 years old, I didn't need a ton of money, but I didn't want to make money.

• 42:07Ben Thompson?

  Basically millennial content creators are like the boomers that like bought a house for $5,000 and walked into Goldman Sachs and said, can I get a job?

• 42:17Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 42:17Ben Thompson?

  And, and everyone else hates them for it because they're like, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you're like, I'm a successful podcaster and, and, and kids should just try harder.

• 42:26Andrew Sharp?

  What's the problem?

• 42:27Ben Thompson?

  I was the one, I think I was the one just making that argument, but yes, uh, you know, it's true. We are, we are the, the boomers of online content creation. We got in when the beginning was good.

• 42:37Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. And so the most honest answer I have for Rahim. Is that if I were starting today, I think I would have considered content creation for a year or two, and then probably gotten impatient by the time I turned 24, 25 and gone to law school and become a lifelong lawyer, which would have been fine. And to his question about AI, AI would have been extremely helpful in my workflow as a lawyer and probably more helpful in law than it would be in content creation. So.

• 43:08Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, I mean, using AI in content creation, the problem is if you use it as a tool, such that you're developing a unique vibe or whatever, that's fine. If you're using it as a content generator, you're by definition completely not differentiated.

• 43:24Andrew Sharp?

  Yep.

• 43:24Ben Thompson?

  So, so they're, those sound might be somewhat similar, but they're different. Is it the content generator or is it a tool you use to generate a unique vision or to create a unique vision? That's still going to be more important than ever. We mentioned it earlier, the context of New York Times, like being unique still has value. It's harder, it's harder, it's harder to break through. And to that point, if you do break through, you have to really capitalize on it.

• 43:51Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Ben Thompson?

  Like I feel confident even today, could I get a few hundred or a few thousand people who know about me and value me and charge them a lot more money than I do, $1,000 a month or $10,000 a month?

• 44:07Andrew Sharp?

  The price is going up in 2025.

• 44:10Ben Thompson?

  No, like independent research analysts on Wall Street charge like a hundred thousand dollars a year. I mean, like, so that's the approach I would take is not spreading myself thin on social media, but really doubling down on people who are willing to pay.

• 44:22Andrew Sharp?

  That's really interesting. Okay. Well, speaking of LLMs as tools, Sajal says, I find myself going back to old Strategery articles quite often. A habit rooted in my approach of asking, what would Ben think about this? Sajal sounds like he's somebody who might be willing to pay a thousand dollars a month for Ben Thompson analysis. So Sajal, the price is going up. Basically, I do multiple searches and read through several articles before I can find. Relevant information from Ben that I am looking for. I was thinking most websites that are behind a paywall could use a chatbot like feature, which is basically an LLM trained on all past newsletters.

• 45:03Andrew Sharp?

  That way, I could just talk to an LLM trained on Ben's writing, AKA Ben LLM, and have a conversation on any topic. I'm surprised that this feature isn't already widely present and pushed by major blog publishers like WordPress. Currently, I could paste the articles in a personal notebook LM instance and chat with that, but it's cumbersome and I have to refresh the articles and link every time a new article is added. I would love Ben's view on this sort of feature. Ben, do you have a view on that sort of feature?

• 45:37Ben Thompson?

  Figuring out how it would work, the user experience, the cost structure, you know, these queries cost is certainly a thing. I've thought about it. I think Automac has done some stuff with this in terms of WordPress or having a sort of offering. So yeah, I think it's a, it's something to consider. I should consider it. I've been busy with other stuff. There's also the bit where what I'm delivering is facts and words. It's also the content itself. I'm delivering essays in my voice, in my style, and it's a bundle. And do I want to unbundle myself as far as what I'm delivering? Particularly what I'm selling is not necessarily past content, but it's the delivery of sort of future content. And maybe that speaks to the fact why I should do this,

• 46:22Ben Thompson?

  because the past content is relatively speaking, not that valuable. But that says some of the consideration points. I thought about this a bit, probably should do it. Stay tuned, we'll see what happens. No promises, but yes.

• 46:36Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. I mean, do you think this is something that will be more common, like three or four years from now, when the costs to run something like this come down?

• 46:47Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, I would say almost certainly, but I that's why it's going to be important for authors and publishers to think carefully about what they're selling and what they want to break up, unbundle, make available. There's there's sometimes you do want to make things more inconvenient for your customers, for better or for worse.

• 47:04Andrew Sharp?

  Yep. Okay. Well, to keep it moving, Sam says, hey, guys, relatively new subscriber here, but I did my part to bring Apple in China up in the rankings. Great rec. So stepping back now, it seems that the only reason China hasn't leveraged its supply chain grip over Apple even more is because Huawei was crippled from America's decision to cut off its phones from Android and our newest chips. If Huawei's Harmony OS and in-house chip capabilities catch up in the same way it caught up to Apple in product design and manufacturing, how would we expect China to respond? Is this ultimately a race to see if Apple can redesign its supply chain faster than Huawei can redesign Android and US chip capabilities?

• 47:49Andrew Sharp?

  Even if Apple wins that race, is the clock ticking on their access to the Chinese market? Ben, do you have thoughts?

• 47:56Ben Thompson?

  I think this just has the this kind of misses the point, which China is very happy with Apple. Why does Apple? Why does China want to get rid of Apple? Apple is in there innovating, teaching their companies what to do, how to build things. They're accommodating to China's wishes in terms of the App Store and what they limit. You know, Patrick McGee didn't say this explicitly because it's never been officially confirmed, but people that we talked to strongly believe that Apple has handed over encryption keys in China. What it what? Why does China want to attack Apple? And I think that overall, I'm sort of picking on Sam a little bit, but I think there's this is the assumption people have

• 48:38Ben Thompson?

  had for years. When is China going to crack down on Apple as sort of like retribution for what US did to Huawei or wherever else it might be? And the I think part of the point of Patrick's book is Apple's been fantastic for China and China is well aware that Apple's been fantastic for China.

• 48:56Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Ben Thompson?

  And why would they want to wreck a good thing?

• 49:00Andrew Sharp?

  That makes sense. I mean, it does seem like the relationship between Apple and the Chinese government has gotten a little bit more complicated recently, like they've banned Apple phones in Chinese government offices and stuff like that. And there's sort of a nationalist streak in the consumer market over there. But from a macro standpoint, your logic makes sense. And that's certainly proven true over the course of time. Like Tesla and Apple are always the targets that people mention, like, oh, boy, they're going to crack down on Tesla. They're going to crack down on Apple. But also Tesla and Apple are companies that the Chinese government points to as evidence of what's possible if you get in deep and really embed in China.

• 49:46Andrew Sharp?

  And I don't think they would want to crack down on those companies unless things devolve to a point of no return, which may be possible.

• 49:55Ben Thompson?

  No, but, but again, I'm not disagreeing with you. That is true. They can point to them. They can also, you know, it's also the fact that Apple employs like a million people in China, or if not more.

• 50:05Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, I believe Foxconn is the biggest private employer of anybody in China.

• 50:09Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, but, but the point of the book, and I think it's very well made, is that Apple is actively beneficial to China, not just as a marketing scheme. Apple has trained their entire manufacturing industry and the consumer electronics industry. And all their dominance in all these different fields is downstream from Apple spending billions of dollars

• 50:31Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:31Ben Thompson?

  in China to train manufacturers there, and they continue to do so. Every new innovation Apple does is dispersed throughout the Chinese ecosystem as they, as they build these things out. And that's priceless and, and.

• 50:44Andrew Sharp?

  Well, what Sam is asking though, is, is there a point where that relationship outlives its usefulness? And if Huawei develops, you know, in-house chip capabilities and develops its own OS that's better than Android, at a certain point, does the CCP just turn its back on Apple and the relationship over the last 15 years? Which obviously has yielded massive benefits to the manufacturing base in the PRC.

• 51:12Ben Thompson?

  Well, I mean, that that argument is no different than the longstanding argument, which is, oh, company XYZ is about to start out innovating Apple. Apple's doomed. I mean, like, sure, if your if your bet is, which, by the way, maybe it's your bet that Apple can't design or do anything innovative anymore in terms of manufacturing or new devices, then they're expendable. But, I mean, that's sort of betting against history. Like, it's part of Apple's entire modus operandi, why they're so successful, that they actually do actively innovate and create new things, particularly in terms of hardware. And as long as that's the case, China is the biggest beneficiary of everyone, of anyone.

• 51:49Andrew Sharp?

  Interesting. All right. Well, to keep it moving, Fraser says, I work in the online gambling industry, which, due to heavy regulations, provides users with many ways to restrict how much, how often, and what they bet on. This is reasonable, given how harmful a gambling addiction can be. Why, then, is there no way for users to restrict themselves from short-form videos? I would love to be able to, quote unquote, "self-exclude" from ever seeing a YouTube short again, but Google will never add this option on their own. Will a powerful lobby ever emerge against this type of content that is addicting all of us and melting our brains, especially our youth, he puts in parentheses, in the

• 52:32Andrew Sharp?

  same way that lobbies emerged against other vices like drugs, cigarettes, gambling? Ben, do you have thoughts?

• 52:40Ben Thompson?

  Well, I think this is more of like a sociological question in many respects. But I think the motivation for a lot of these regulations and capabilities is about harm that is done to other people. So, you know, if you're if you get drunk and are drunk driving, you hit and kill someone, that's the problem is you're killing somebody else, right? If you're gambling, it destroys families, people go into debt, there's crime that falls from that, et cetera, et cetera. I think, by and large, the, you know, if you're melting your brain and wasting tons of time, that's a you problem.

• 53:14Andrew Sharp?

  Yep.

• 53:15Ben Thompson?

  And I appreciate the sentiment here. I, you know, I think. I find that Google, the YouTube shorts in particular, extremely irritating.

• 53:24Andrew Sharp?

  Except the YouTube shorts that we publish on Sharp Tech and our YouTube channel.

• 53:29Ben Thompson?

  I don't know what you're talking about. So the, uh, but YouTube is such a resource and to have it polluted with these, particularly in search results, is really annoying. So, so I agree. At the same time, not really where I want to see government intervention in something that doesn't harm other people. That affects people who can't control their own time. That feels it's, where do you draw the line? You know, there's lots of stuff people do that's really bad. And, um,

• 53:59Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a perspective observation.

• 54:01Ben Thompson?

  Government steps in is when it starts extending to other people.

• 54:05Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, I hadn't considered that, that really it's the effect on, you know, law abiding people that pushes things over the edge and forces the government to get involved. I mean, drugs would be a counter example. Cigarettes would be a counter example.

• 54:20Ben Thompson?

  When those laws were passed, they were often framed as additional healthcare costs, secondhand smoke, um, you know, drugs, broken crime. You know, you know, this is where we put in our boomer complaint, monthly complaint to walk around cities that smell like weed.

• 54:36Andrew Sharp?

  Legalized marijuana. It's pretty tough. When I'm walking my two-year-old son and the block just reeks of weed is pretty depressing. But it is what it is. Yeah, I think moral regulation can be underrated. My main reaction to Frazier's question is if this option existed, I would check yes. Please restrict how many short form videos I watch. Because I can't think of like any short form video that I've watched where I've been like, man, I'm really glad with that 90 seconds I just spent watching a short form video on X. So if I could experience the internet without those.

• 55:20Ben Thompson?

  Well, yeah, the X ones are terrible. The X ones are terrible. You know, gotta give some credit to TikTok here. So those are pretty good. Everyone email Sharp with your. Best search for videos.

• 55:31Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, God.

• 55:33Andrew Sharp?

  There's no short.

• 55:34Ben Thompson?

  He's got a whole week off from work. He could, he could definitely have some time.

• 55:38Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. Ruin my vacation, just besieged with short form nonsense. Frasier, thank you for showing us the change that I personally would like to see in the world. Elizabeth says, I almost unsubscribed after Ben's Taylor Swift comment on the podcast last week. Dangerous territory. This, of course, is in reference to you explaining the situation between Taylor Swift and the record executives.

• 56:08Ben Thompson?

  I think is the word.

• 56:09Andrew Sharp?

  Manspelled, very, very dangerous territory. Do you have any thoughts for Elizabeth?

• 56:16Ben Thompson?

  Elizabeth, let me explain this to you.

• 56:18Andrew Sharp?

  Oh.

• 56:23Ben Thompson?

  I think I've said enough.

• 56:24Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, God. Yeah. Well, look, Elizabeth.

• 56:27Ben Thompson?

  No regrets.

• 56:28Andrew Sharp?

  Take solace. Ben was a shame. He went through a Taylor Swift phase over the last several years.

• 56:36Ben Thompson?

  I remain a Taylor Swift fan from like, from a business perspective. I think the way she's approached music in her career is great.

• 56:44Andrew Sharp?

  You applaud her exercising her leverage and mobilizing her fan base. I mean, you've written to that effect.

• 56:50Ben Thompson?

  Like the way, and the way she leveraged her fan base and built like the Taylor's version of her songs to depress the value of her masters so she could reacquire them. And I have my daughter coming to me saying, oh, I could finally listen to the good version again. You know, I mean, very impressive. She got all her fans to listen to inferior versions of her music. So that she could buy it back at a cheaper price. How can you? It's brilliant. It's amazing. Yeah.

• 57:20Ben Thompson?

  It also, her complaints about someone else owning the masters are still BS, but it's impressive how she got them back.

• 57:27Andrew Sharp?

  Well, and look, deep down, you're a Swiftie yourself. You've been to concerts. You've listened to lots of Taylor Swift in cars with your daughter and.

• 57:36Ben Thompson?

  I, I, yeah, I've been to a lot of concerts. I know a lot of Taylor Swift songs. So, yeah, Elizabeth, get off my case here.

• 57:42Andrew Sharp?

  Don't worry and stay subscribed. All right. Greg says, Andrew, you and Ben need to try the live video function of Gemini Live. If you're looking for AI cooking help, it's incredible. Have you tried the live video function on Gemini Live?

• 57:58Ben Thompson?

  I have not. I'll, I'll try to, I'll try to get to that. I, but I will say being back and not, not in my condo in Taiwan, but out of house in America and stuff needs to be fixed and done. My, it's actually almost a problem because my use of AI is so out of control that like, I'll be like, I've talked about like using AI for like interview prep. And I do a deep research report and then I go back like a few hours later to reference the report. I have to like scroll down to find where it is because I have so many ongoing conversations. It's, it's out of control.

• 58:30Andrew Sharp?

  Well, and I mean, it seems like Gemini in general is amazing in all sorts of ways. And I just never find myself using Google AI products, except for AI search overviews, which I'm never asking for explicitly. And so there are probably lots of things that Google is offering that I should try to explore over the next couple of months. Uh, so I appreciate the tip from Greg. And, um, you know, Ben, good luck with your ongoing AI addiction there. A couple more questions. Gabe says, can we go ahead and pencil in a crossover episode where Ben Thompson comes on the greatest of all talk?

• 59:11Andrew Sharp?

  So we can fix the NBA. Please see the following email. I wrote to this effect last year. And last year, Gabe identified himself as a goat who converted to Stratechery after hearing you recap your trip to Davos, which was one of my favorite episodes we've ever recorded, uh, 25 minutes on Davos. So, uh, what do you think? Are you willing to guest on greatest of all talk at some point and fix the NBA with me?

• 59:39Ben Thompson?

  Uh, if I were not in partnership with greatest of all talk, I absolutely would. But I would feel I'm like inserting myself under the current scenario.

• 59:49Andrew Sharp?

  Oh my God. That's a ridiculous policy. We're going to get you on the greatest of all talk at some point. Because half the time we could fix the NBA on Sharp Tech, but that's not really what the Sharp Tech audience wants.

• 1:00:00Ben Thompson?

  All right. When Ben's on vacation, may, maybe I'll jump in. I, I, I do have a long catalog of takes, which, you know, I. Are filtering, I'd say they're getting out through the NBA. I have, I have a few ones I think people will be surprised that, that I'm going to claim ownership of going years back. Um, so maybe I will.

• 1:00:23Andrew Sharp?

  There you go, Gabe. We will get there eventually. Um, it will probably do-

• 1:00:27Ben Thompson?

  There was one just last week where you wanted to credit somebody else for the idea. And I'm like, no, I gave that person the idea.

• 1:00:34Andrew Sharp?

  Ben got mad during game seven of the NBA finals. I'm just locked into game seven at that point. It was the first half when it was still close. Ben comes off the top rope mad at me for crediting someone else. But that's the sort of content you can look forward to when Ben finally joins greatest of all talk at some point as a guest. We'll do that before we eventually launch an F1 podcast. We got a lot of requests asking for an F1 podcast. We will have a review of the F1 movie, which is in theaters Friday. I might be seeing it on opening night. Uh,

• 1:01:11Ben Thompson?

  I thought we were gonna go see it together. I thought that was the plan.

• 1:01:14Andrew Sharp?

  Well, that was one person's idea. Duman's idea was for us to see it together, but I'm not gonna wait a couple of weeks to see F1. I think I'm gonna go see it with Alice. I'll see it again with you.

• 1:01:25Ben Thompson?

  No, see, I might not see it then. I'll just wait till it comes out on home.

• 1:01:29Andrew Sharp?

  That would be the ultimate Ben Thompson move. So wait two and a half years to see the F1 movie. Hawkins says, I'm currently on paternity leave and after having some trouble adjusting to the slower pace, I've decided to get into mechanical watches. Ben seems to have a well thought out answer for most questions. So I'm interested in learning more about his approach to watch collection. I've just, I've just started learning about the different movements and I'm trying to figure out what I value in a watch. I'm also wondering how the resident normie Andrew approaches all the training metrics available from his garment. I don't look at it personally, but because

• 1:02:09Andrew Sharp?

  it stresses me out. P.S. Ben once outlined how the printing press created nation states. What world will AI create? Will a handful of- Companies take over. So that is an enormously weighty postscript. Probably the most intense postscript that anyone has ever sent us.

• 1:02:32Ben Thompson?

  The answer is where I've written about this. It's not actually, it's a continuation of what's going to happen with the internet. Where you're going to have these overarching organizational structures and then increasing devolution into smaller entities. City, states, fiefdoms, sort of like whatever it might be in the physical world.

• 1:02:55Ben Thompson?

  Again, you go back to before the printing press where the Catholic church was the overarching entity. And they need a bunch of city, states in Europe and the printing press undid that. And now we're sort of like going back in time. So there's your answer to part number two. Part number one, mechanical watches are like short form video for very rich men. They're very addictive and will destroy your life. Yes. So. My approach to mechanical watches is to not get too into mechanical watches. That said, I do have, I do have a few.

• 1:03:25Andrew Sharp?

  Can you, can you enlighten me? What's the difference between a mechanical watch and some other kind of watch? Is he talking about a digital watch like a Garmin?

• 1:03:34Ben Thompson?

  No. So there's smart watches like a Garmin or an Apple watch. You have to charge it as a digital display. It might connect to your phone, can track your metrics. I hate them. I hate having to charge. I hate notifications bugging me all the time. I hate metrics that I feel stressed out about and I have to keep track of horrible, very anti smart watch. I see the value. I understand why people like them. I personally do not enjoy wearing a smart watch. Then there's like, you're sort of like, there's your digital watch, like the old Casios or whatever, right? That shows that there's, there's quartz watch or automatic, right? Do they call them mac watches? But like battery powered watches that keep time normally.

• 1:04:16Ben Thompson?

  I think when he says mechanical watch, he means a self winding watch or, or actually doesn't mean self winding. A watch that there's a movement and a spring that uncoils and actually moves the hand. So it's all, it's all mechanical.

• 1:04:28Andrew Sharp?

  Okay.

• 1:04:28Ben Thompson?

  And that can be self winding where there's a disc in there that moves as you move your arms. So you never have to actually wind it. It might be manual winding. We have to actually pull it. You have to actually turn the spindle and that gives it a, that gives it its quote unquote charge, which is sort of tightening the spring that slowly untitans and moves the whole thing. So. I personally don't really care about movements and stuff like that. I like mechanical things. I like having a mechanical, so I appreciate like a really nice movement. But I, I like having an analog thing on my wrist that I don't have to charge, that is always readable,

• 1:05:07Ben Thompson?

  that doesn't stress me out generally. And I specifically have learned I need to have a date complication. I hate not having the date and I really like a GMT watch because I live in two places. So, and I like a real GMT watch. A real GMT watch is one where the second hand is set independently of the rest of the watch. So you have the 24 hour GMT hand that always stays the same. I like the one, like a traditional, like a Rolex GMT II, which I don't have. If a dealer wants to hook me up, I wouldn't mind, but I personally like, oh geez, I'm getting myself in trouble here. The Tudor has a great, the Black Bay GMT, great watch, relatively inexpensive.

• 1:05:47Ben Thompson?

  It's the same functionality. I think Tudor is doing an amazing job. Tudor is like, Rolex is like a bargain brand. But they're like what Rolex used to be. They're pretty attainable, well-made, good-looking watches for everyday use. Rolex like became like a luxury brand over the last 20 years, but that's what Rolex used to be. That's why like our parents or grandparents would have Rolex is it wasn't a big deal. It was just a nice watch. It was an investment, but you weren't like, it wasn't like a collector's item.

• 1:06:17Andrew Sharp?

  That's helpful information because my dad has a Rolex that he got in like the seventies. And I found myself thinking the other day like, Dad, how the hell did you afford a Rolex in like 1975? But I guess Rolex wasn't always Rolex.

• 1:06:32Ben Thompson?

  Tudor is like, like, like, it's like $3,000, $4,000. So it's, it's, it's a big purchase, but it's not like a once in a lifetime sort of thing. And if you wear it every single day for years, it's trivially worth it if you actually like calculate that out, right? We, you pay $500 for an iPhone that you use for a year or two. You could use this watch for, for a very long time. So the watch I wear almost every, so I've. I got into buying different watches, but part of it was just honing in on what I like. So I wear the Tudor Black Bay GMT almost every day. It has a 24 hour time. I set it to GMT and then I move the bezel, it's a movable bezel to the time zone I want to know. So I have the bezel right now set for Taiwan time. So I can see the 24 hour thing against the bezel to know what time it is in Taiwan. Then the second, the second hand is independent.

• 1:07:17Ben Thompson?

  So when I'm flying, the moment I get on the plane, I change my watch. And instead of pulling it out and stopping the second hand and changing the time, like you do with normal watches, with a real GMT, uh, there's an actual name for it. I'm just trolling, I'm really calling it a real GMT. You just pull out the, the crown a little bit and then the watch keeps running. And then you can move the second hand simultaneously. So if I'm going to, to just the East Coast, I pull it out, I pop the hour, move it one hour. Boom, I'm on the right time. My watch never stopped moving. I don't have to reset to align it to whatever seconds it is or whatever. And then I can, at least in theory, if I don't want to pull up my phone, I can look down and see Taiwan time. I could turn the bezel and see, oh, what's UK time? UK is zero and that one's easy, right?

• 1:08:02Ben Thompson?

  If, oh, this place is plus six, this is minus eight. The problem of course is daylight savings time screws all this up. So you can't just memorize it. My parents live in Arizona, which doesn't have daylight savings time, which is endlessly confuses me. I could never figure out the time there without looking at my phone. So the, the world GMT stuff, not as useful as it used to be. Cause phones often are just easier in a complicated world. But for me, where I generally want one time zone, that's great. And then you have the jumping second hand, but it took me a while to get to this. I had a watch I really liked, but it didn't have a date function. I had other watches, I, I, I like the look of chronographs. But I find I value a GMT function more. I like titanium watches.

• 1:08:47Ben Thompson?

  There's actually a Tudor titanium GMT that I've tried, that I have a chance to try it, but I think that looks really great. Cause it's really light and I, when I'm typing, I do feel the weight of a watch. I really like rubber bands. I got this from the Apple watch, which actually has an incredible rubber band. But, uh, rubber bands with a watch gets wet, does whatever. I dress casually most of the time, but part of this is just sort of figuring out what you like and. For a while, I would get a new one every couple of years. Like I would say, like every 10,000 subscribers, I'm gonna get a new watch.

• 1:09:22Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Ben Thompson?

  But, uh.

• 1:09:24Andrew Sharp?

  Good little reward system. Great.

• 1:09:26Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, but it's, it's, it's a pretty expensive one. And at the end of the day, I found out what I like and I just kinda stick with it. So I went through my phase. I never got crazy about it. I never, you know, got into like the, the, you know, again, it can get very, very crazy.

• 1:09:43Andrew Sharp?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:44Ben Thompson?

  If Stradale gets bought for, you know, a hundred million dollars, or if Mark Zuckerberg hires me,

• 1:09:48Andrew Sharp?

  Let's get really, really crazy.

• 1:09:49Ben Thompson?

  I will get more watches.

• 1:09:52Ben Thompson?

  But I think I, I think I made it through, got it through my system without, without going bankrupt. So I'm good now.

• 1:09:58Andrew Sharp?

  Yes. Well, I appreciate the question, Hocken, because I have been toying with entering a mechanical watch phase, expensive watch phase. I do like my Garmin a lot. I don't pay attention to any of the training metrics for the exact same reason that Hocken cites. It stresses me out and I just don't really care about any of it. I do like the step counter and the ultimate selling point with the Garmin is that I charge it once every seven days as opposed to having to charge a smartwatch every single day. In that scenario, I'm just not gonna wear a smartwatch. But I've started to become intrigued with some of the more expensive watches. And I find myself thinking, is it time to upgrade?

• 1:10:41Andrew Sharp?

  And to your point on Rolexes, I was actually in a meeting with someone earlier this week who had a really nice Rolex on and it was this green face. And I was like, that's a pretty cool watch. And I Googled it later and it was a $20,000 like Hulk Rolex. And so that sort of stopped me in my tracks. To your point on just needing to proceed with caution on any of these fronts as you delve into the mechanical watch world. So.

• 1:11:10Ben Thompson?

  Right. But then, again, that's just Rolex has sort of become, I think we already did a segment on Sharp Tech about the tiers of luxury. Rolex is still fairly low, to be clear, but, but no longer your sort of working man's watch. No, I think like the other advantage I have, I have very large wrists. I'm big boned, as they say.

• 1:11:29Andrew Sharp?

  Okay.

• 1:11:30Ben Thompson?

  Which is great, cause I can wear these big beefy watches. I can wear sort of all kinds of them. And again, you get into movements at your own. Be careful. That's where you start spending a lot of money, right?

• 1:11:42Andrew Sharp?

  And also be aware of whether you do or don't have big beefy wrists like Ben, because there are a lot of guys out there that are wearing these like garish 47mm face watches and they look kind of ridiculous. So get something that actually fits your wrist, I feel like is a good bit of advice as Hocken delves into this.

• 1:12:06Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, the watch, the real watch, you will know that Mark Zuckerberg hired me. If I come out with a, I don't even know how to say the name, Lange, Lange?

• 1:12:17Andrew Sharp?

  That's how you know it's expensive. If you can't pronounce it.

• 1:12:20Ben Thompson?

  It's not Swiss, but it's, it's actually German.

• 1:12:24Ben Thompson?

  Amazing watches. I do, I do look at those, but um, but no, it's, it's,

• 1:12:30Andrew Sharp?

  For now, you're going to your tutor, man.

• 1:12:32Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, I'm good with my tutor. There's other ones in that class that are, that are good. I also, I think some of the luxury companies, it's funny because like the Hermès and LV or Louis Vuitton, and those sort of entities, they all make watches. They're like the entry level and kind of scoffed on. It's like the opposite of in terms of like apparel or bags or like whatever it might be. It's like, oh, like they're, they're not collectible. They're, they're Swiss made, but it's like people in the watch world look down on them.

• 1:13:01Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:03Ben Thompson?

  Hermès in particular makes some really great looking watches. And so if you don't care, you just want to watch that looks really good. That's actually a surprisingly good place to look.

• 1:13:15Andrew Sharp?

  There you go. That's again, this is helpful advice for me. Forget Hocken. This is helpful advice for me. I'm not spending $20,000 on a Rolex, but I would like something that looks nice that I can wear with formal wear.

• 1:13:28Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, if you like, that's a good place if you want like a more formal watch. And again, just know what you're getting into. You're not buying an Hermès because it's collectible. You want to pass, you're buying, it's a disposable, quote unquote disposable, but it's a nice mechanical watch that works well, looks really great. They have this amazing set of square watches that I really, really like. I can't remember what they're called. The H8 or H0 or something like that, but yeah. I like them because I like mechanical. I like having a a mechanical device on my wrist. I don't like like that. It's not digital. I like wearing a watch. I hate not having a watch on. So for me, it's pure function. I want it to look good. Uh, I want it to be comfortable and um, I don't want to go broke.

• 1:14:12Andrew Sharp?

  There you go. Well, I too love having a watch on. I did. I was not a watch guy until like two and a half years ago. And now if I don't have my watch, I get very, very frustrated when I look down at my wrist.

• 1:14:22Ben Thompson?

  It's the worst. You're just, it just bothers you constantly that you don't have your watch on.

• 1:14:26Andrew Sharp?

  Exactly. Um, well, on that weird note, we're gonna head into the vacation week here, Ben.

• 1:14:32Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, don't have me talking about buying watches and I'm about to take a week off. It doesn't need to art this subscription.

• 1:14:39Andrew Sharp?

  This is the Davos Ben self loathing all over again. Absolutely, man.

• 1:14:44Ben Thompson?

  No, I'm not wearing a Rolex. I don't have a Patek Philippe or.

• 1:14:49Andrew Sharp?

  This is what I'm saying. Richard Meeley. All the F1 watches are like 800 grand. So um, I'm familiar.

• 1:14:57Ben Thompson?

  Well, this is Lewis. Lewis is in your ball. Like IWC is like, that's like a, they have like entry level watches. Um, so.

• 1:15:05Andrew Sharp?

  Well, we'll continue this conversation offline, you know, you can coach me through my first couple of watch purchases.

• 1:15:10Ben Thompson?

  Well, I will also like Red Bull is like, like Tag Heuer. That's also like an entry level sort of.

• 1:15:15Andrew Sharp?

  I was looking at some of that and um, I would feel like a dork if I were walking around with a Formula One branded watch. So I'm not going to go the F1 watch direction. Uh, but they are nice looking watches, which is why they caught my eye initially. So.

• 1:15:33Ben Thompson?

  I think people think I, I think it's brightling that people are pretty pleased. They've, they've come out with a a lot. Basically Tudor, I think, really set the pace.

• 1:15:41Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:41Ben Thompson?

  Where Rolex is like, we're, we're not filling the space we used to. We should make really good watches for under $5,000. I think mine is the one I was talking about is 4,500. Now I think I bought it for like 3,000, but I've had it for years.

• 1:15:53Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:54Ben Thompson?

  And that's where you like, look at the various brands there. Find one you like the look of. Get that and that's a nice place to start. I, I think tutors are amazing deals. I think they look great. They are fairly beefy, but um, that's my recommendation.

• 1:16:09Andrew Sharp?

  Well, thank you, Hocken, and thank you to everyone who wrote in. And again, we got more questions that we are going to roll over. I'm looking forward to the summer. I'm looking forward to 4th of July and I hope everyone has a great vacation out there. And Ben, you too have a great vacation.

• 1:16:27Ben Thompson?

  Thank you. I will see you. I think we're recording in person in

• 1:16:29Andrew Sharp?

  In person, in an undisclosed location. Perhaps we'll have an F1 review by then. Uh, but until then, enjoy yourself and I will talk to you soon.

• 1:16:40Ben Thompson?

  Talk to you later.