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) - Text and Telos (07:03) - Scaling (07:49) - Retail Investors (09:12) - Comparative Advantage (09:47) - Transaction Costs and Corporate Structure (10:58) - DeepSeek Governance

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) - Tools, Agents, Interfaces, and Synthetic Luck: AI Interaction Models (06:40) - Lyft Got Fined For Telling the Truth and is Now Compelled to Lie to Drivers (09:59) - Ozempic and Signaling (10:41) - Wargaming and 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) - Tokenomics, Revisited (04:41) - AI and Education (06:59) - Money Laundering (07:54) - Agglomeration Economics (08:49) - Threat Models (09:24) - Universal Hardware

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) - And, elsewhere: (00:01) - Capital Structure (01:12) - Designer Brands and Transaction Costs (02:45) - SMBs (04:27) - Top-Down Market Reform (05:10) - Chosen Obligations

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) - Money and Legitimacy (06:53) - Moats (07:36) - Big Tech Sees Like a State (08:43) - Shifting Costs (09:31) - Managing Macro (10:11) - Experimentation

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) - Auto-Paternalism (05:11) - Growth (06:58) - AI Deployment (08:06) - S-Curves and TV (09:04) - Increasing the Asymptote (10:00) - China

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) - Look for Boring First (07:27) - Moderation (08:46) - ex-SBC (10:26) - Platform Risk (12:51) - Strategic Resources (13:40) - Meta and AI

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) - Will The EU Choose to Compete? (13:45) - Unit Economics (15:02) - Coreweave and Capital Structure Arbitrage (15:57) - AI and the Distribution Problem (17:10) - Markets and Narratives (18:15) - Convergence

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 Currencies (08:23) - Taiwan and the US (09:11) - Massaging the Numbers (10:09) - First Loss (10:56) - Pods (11:54) - Fake Offers

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, Exactly are we Trying to Tax? (11:40) - Correlations (12:33) - Reorganization (13:57) - Dating Copilots (15:24) - Thematic Investing (16:42) - Bid Density

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) - Mission and Variance (05:37) - Transitory, After All (07:38) - The Amazon Model (08:46) - Contextual Ads (09:57) - The PE and Sports Transition (11:24) - Credit and Insurance

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) - Building the Oracles (07:07) - Price Discrimination in Media (07:53) - AI-Generated Propaganda (08:54) - War Economies, Redux (09:40) - Unbundling and Rebundling (10:26) - Attrition

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) - Our Surprisingly Capital-Abundant World (05:58) - Audience Capture at Two Levels (06:58) - Does Crypto Add Value to Financial Markets? (09:21) - Continuation Funds, Club Deals, and the New Equity Market (11:07) - Implementation Details (12:...

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) - P&L Beta: How Much You Keep out of How Much You Make (06:51) - A Word From Our Sponsors (07:25) - Narratives and Volatility (08:14) - The New Acqui-hire Model (10:34) - A Good Trade (11:55) - Terms (12:57) - Celebrity AI Economics

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) - Meta's Open-Source AI Economics, Re-Revisited (08:26) - A Word From Our Sponsors (08:29) - The Quantum Gambit (09:33) - Monetizing Volatility (10:45) - Banking and Credit (12:03) - How Long is the Long Game? (13:26) - Sticky Expectations

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) - Software is the new Hardware (07:18) - Vendor Risk (08:19) - Hardware and Software (09:44) - Compounding (10:41) - AI as an Interface (11:38) - Rotation

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 Quality Factor (05:21) - Predictions (07:03) - The 4Chan of Crypto (07:54) - Adverse Selection (08:57) - AI and Ads (09:59) - Algorithmic Collusion

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) - “Bullshit Jobs” is a Terrible, Curiosity-Killing Concept (17:48) - A Word From Our Sponsors (18:30) - Sanction Economics (20:00) - Exiting (21:19) - Building Complements (22:18) - Shares and Votes (24:00) - Quality Problems

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 Supply Chain of Talent (07:36) - Getting the Cycle Right (08:55) - Regulatory Arbitrage in E-Commerce (10:04) - Dry Powder and Meta-Stability (11:11) - The Split Market (12:00) - Transmission Mechanisms

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) - Fertilizer and Toxins (07:50) - Margins (08:41) - A Better, Costlier Alexa (09:30) - Elasticity (11:08) - Counterparty Risk, Served Two Ways (12:20) - The Universal Denominator

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) - "Nobody Knows Anything": Backtests are Hard (06:59) - The Economics of Hacking (07:43) - Lead Generation (09:30) - Adverse Selection (10:58) - Tip Economics (12:36) - First and Last Resort

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 Bid Ask View of Who Gets to Raise and What Gets Traded (06:40) - A Word From Our Sponsors (07:38) - Privacy and Insurance (08:59) - AI Fragmentation (09:40) - Too Central to Fail? (10:45) - Meritocracy (11:54) - Activism

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) - Details! (08:53) - A Word From Our Sponsors (09:48) - The Google Feedback Loop (10:42) - Fees on What? (12:41) - The Micro Meta Turnaround (14:34) - Yes, We're Doing the Meme Stock Thing Again (15:39) - Diverisification

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) - Get Used to a More Hallucinatory Search Experience (09:19) - Cap Structure Arbitrage and Elon Musk (10:51) - Active, Passive, and Risk (12:57) - Convergent Evolution (14:09) - Market Timing (15:01) - It's All Ads!

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) - One Edge or Many? Reflections on Renaissance Technologies (11:22) - Retention (12:24) - Training Data (13:20) - Social Networking Primitives and Local Maxima (14:33) - Renting (15:02) - Ads