Byrne Hobart

The Diff

Business EN ↓ 323 episodes

The Diff is a newsletter exploring the technologies, companies, and trends that are making the future high-variance. Posts range from in-depth company profiles, applied financial theory, strategy breakdowns and macroeconomics.

Author

Byrne Hobart

Category

Business

Latest episode

Oct 26, 2026

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Episodes

What We'll Lose With AI 07.07.2025

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 We'll Lose With AI (09:05) - Platforms and Reputation (10:35) - General-Purpose Technologies (11:26) - Court Politics (12:46) - Post-Ozempic Snacking (13:20) - The Next Phase of Crypto Treasury Strategies

In Defense of the Ad Economy 30.06.2025

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 the Ad Economy (09:45) - Wage Elasticity (11:23) - Coopetition (11:58) - Capital Structure (12:46) - Market Breadth (14:26) - Playing Chicken

Gonzo Startups 23.06.2025

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) - Gonzo Startups (07:01) - Don't Bet on a Third World War (08:11) - Perplexity (08:39) - Equity Compensation (09:36) - Hiring (10:36) - LLM SEO!

What Happened to Working Your Way Up from the Mailroom? 16.06.2025

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) - Reasoning Models Don't Really Reason, But It's Fine: Computers Don't Really Think in 1s and 0s, Either (05:51) - Guidance (06:21) - Correlated Outages (06:57) - Attrition (07:52) - Policy Impact (08:35) - Antitrust

Search Remains the Best Business in History 09.06.2025

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) - Search Remains the Best Business in History (09:38) - Equity Market Vigilantes (10:27) - Scale (11:15) - Volatility (12:02) - Tariff Impact (13:03) - Splits and Synergies

Democratizing Complicated Financial Products is Inevitable, but Fraught 02.06.2025

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) - Democratizing Complicated Financial Products is Inevitable, but Fraught (08:27) - Startup Fraud (09:09) - Automation (09:52) - Motivations (10:31) - Ads (11:15) - Utilization

Adversarial Attacks in Statistical Arbitrage 27.05.2025

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: (00:03) - Banking (00:44) - Financial Engineering (01:20) - Hiring and Game Theory (02:38) - Currency Blocs (03:13) - AI SEO

Competing Elite-Selection Mechanisms 19.05.2025

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) - TK Competing Elite-Selection Mechanisms (06:39) - Left-Tail Outcomes (08:18) - Downgrades and Giffen Goods (10:21) - Bearer Instruments (11:27) - Currency (12:07) - Shipping

Arbs Close, Infrastructure Remains 12.05.2025

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) - Arbs Close, Infrastructure Remains (06:41) - Abundance and Realignment (07:17) - AI Undeath (08:11) - Basic Capital (09:42) - Tariffs (11:28) - Insurable Risks

When Step One is to Light Money on Fire and Measure How Fast it Burns 28.04.2025

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) - When Step One is to Light Money on Fire and Measure How Fast it Burns (06:21) - Groupchats and Norms (09:56) - Venture (10:23) - Made in America (11:08) - Real Estate Elasticity (11:47) - Lagging Investments

Thinking-Things-Through Privilege 21.04.2025

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) - Thinking-Things-Through Privilege (08:11) - Trade Negotiations (10:05) - M&A (11:09) - AI and IP (11:58) - Consolidation (12:42) - Sourcing

Information Economies and Institution Economies 14.04.2025

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) - Information Economies and Institution Economies (07:58) - Distribution (09:19) - Non-Tariff Barriers (10:24) - Low-Background Text (11:08) - Application Layer (12:05) - Socks

Finance as a Scale-Invariant Global Computer 07.04.2025

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) - Finance as a Scale-Invariant Global Computer (06:29) - The Market (08:45) - Supply and Demand (09:38) - The March Continues (10:43) - ETFs (11:42) - Intellectual Property

"Do Firms Need Juniors?" Might be the Wrong Question 31.03.2025

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) - "Do Firms Need Juniors?" Might be the Wrong Question (06:02) - Solve for X + X (07:45) - Refactoring (08:21) - AI and Distribution (09:11) - How Models Think (10:14) - The AI Business Model

There's More Than One Efficient Market Paradox 24.03.2025

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) - There's More Than One Efficient Market Paradox (08:06) - Reciprocal Tariffs (08:46) - AI Purgatory (09:24) - Payments and Credit (10:47) - LinkedInFluencers (11:43) - Efficient Markets

Klarna and the Two Pivots of 2022 17.03.2025

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) - Klarna and the Two Pivots of 2022 (11:00) - Crypto Adoption (12:26) - Art Margin Calls (13:13) - Liquidations (14:07) - Corporate Espionage (15:26) - DeepSeek

Text and Telos 10.03.2025

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

Tools, Agents, Interfaces, and Synthetic Luck: AI Interaction Models 28.10.2024

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

Tokenomics, Revisited 21.10.2024

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

Offshoring and AI Agents 14.10.2024

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

Money and Legitimacy 07.10.2024

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

Auto-Paternalism 30.09.2024

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

Look for Boring First 23.09.2024

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

Will The EU Choose to Compete? 16.09.2024

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

On Currencies 09.09.2024

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

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