The Diff

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Cultural Stasis? Or Just Rising Budgets, a Limited Supply of Good Movie Release Dates, and the Kelly Criterion? (09:20) - MTurk, RIP (10:42) - The Economist Cover Indicator (12:15) - AI Cycles (13:13) - Narratives (14:13) - Intrusions

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - The Mythical Agent-Minute (07:08) - AI, Globalization, and Comparative Advantage in Lobbying (08:16) - Media M&A (09:41) - Retaliatory Tariffs (10:15) - Capex (10:52) - Pivots

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Blind Extrapolation as a Powerful Force in Finance (07:50) - Midjourney Medical (11:10) - Chips (12:02) - Financial Engineering (12:39) - Rigged Games (13:30) - Reality is the Complement

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - What Does it Mean to Have a Trillion Dollars? (09:47) - Anthropic (11:04) - Mean and Variance (12:17) - Fragmentation (13:37) - Guidance (15:58) - Slightly-Heterodox Center-X

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - It's Maturity Transformation All The Way Down (06:17) - Weather (07:19) - Adverse Selection (08:33) - Compute, and P/S Ratios (09:46) - Software PE (10:48) - Automation and Utilization

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Using AI for Writing like a Responsible Adult (06:25) - Granular Price Discrimination (07:04) - ETFs (07:52) - Form Factors (08:41) - Training Data

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - The Rocketship (08:52) - Unit Economics (10:01) - Rearrangements (10:42) - Vibeslop (11:35) - Mindshare (12:08) - Consumption Equality

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - (07:19) - Prediction Markets (08:18) - Exotics (09:34) - Binning (10:38) - Unpopular AI (11:51) - The Rebalancing Trade

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Why does Resource Extraction Produce Such Concentrated Wealth? (08:30) - RLHF (10:17) - When Will AI Show Up in Labor Market Data? (11:16) - Aligning Incentives (12:00) - Local Volatility (12:41) - FDE Shortage

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Dead Airlines (04:46) - Synergy (06:02) - Indexes (06:58) - Warehousing (07:53) - Capacity (08:43) - Defense

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Are the AI Labs Ready for the AI Backlash? (06:27) - Barter (08:06) - State Hypercapitalism (09:05) - AI Pricing (10:05) - Reflexivity (10:48) - Complements

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Ad-Based Platforms Have Mostly Solved Optimal Taxation (08:06) - The Infrastructure Put Option (09:14) - Monetization (10:03) - Headless SaaS (11:36) - Gazumped! (12:49) - Bits and Barrels

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Ring, Cloudflare, and the Supply Chain of State Capacity (08:32) - Work Trials (09:43) - The Mezzanine Tranche (10:29) - Politics by Other Means (12:51) - Lawyers (13:51) - Token Shortages

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Uncanny AI (05:39) - Organic Content (06:22) - Inconsistent Candor (07:28) - Liquidity (08:22) - Return to Office (09:06) - Long-Lead Time Hacking

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Handy Robots (08:25) - It's Personal (10:03) - Rationing (10:37) - Penny Stocks (11:47) - The Text Glut (13:34) - Sora

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Apple, Occasionally a Commodities Trading House (06:08) - How Inflation Spreads (07:50) - Reaching Your Target Audience (10:00) - Labor Substitution (11:05) - Agents (12:04) - Financing

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Are We Already Building a Piecemeal AI Data Royalty Model? (05:30) - Refounding (06:20) - User Acquisition Costs (07:09) - Data Sharing (08:05) - Fees

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - America Has a Comparative Advantage in Handling Global Disorder (08:14) - A Word From Our Sponsors (08:17) - Where We Are in the Cycle (09:47) - Insurer of Last Resort (10:27) - Marketplaces and Routers (11:10) - Getting a Bid (12:14) - Tal...

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - The Year of Convergence (09:03) - Ads (10:10) - Maximalism (10:50) - Comparative Advantage (11:35) - Trader-in-Chief (12:20) - GenAI

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Routers, Apps, AGI (23:09) - Peripheral Bets (23:59) - Fragmentation and Industry Maturity (24:35) - Deepfakes as Pull Quotes (25:12) - Benchmarks (26:15) - Platforms

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - In Defense of Generative Video Accelerationism (14:12) - Notifications (15:14) - IP (16:09) - Hyperliquidated (17:45) - DOGE (19:11) - Painting the Tape

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Technological Progress is a Stack of S-Curves; Diffusion is a Stack of J-Curves (10:01) - AI Efficiency (10:54) - Dollar Diplomacy (11:48) - Sora (12:44) - Capital Structure (14:12) - Reshoring Paradoxes

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Media Gluts Happen at the Level of Distribution, not Content (09:16) - Headline Risk (10:02) - The Crypto Treasury Trade (11:10) - The Paradox of Decentralization (12:08) - TikTok (13:04) - Signal and Noise

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - A Sense of History (09:30) - Coasian Labor Markets (12:06) - Industrial Policy (13:05) - Trading (13:41) - TikTok (14:52) - Crypto Treasury M&A

This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - On Faking It 'Til You Make It (08:01) - GPU Clouds (08:55) - Going Global (09:51) - Prediction Markets (10:41) - Revenge Trading (11:41) - Authenticity