Top all-time · #16
Ben Thompson
Personal blog · stratechery.combusinessstartups
Ben Thompson's personal blog at stratechery.com covers business and startups. Since 2013, 920 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,975 times, most often “The Four Horsemen of the Tech Recession”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 5 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ben Thompson's Stratechery analysis of tech strategy, platform economics, antitrust and Apple, usually as background or support for a point. A few commenters call his pieces insightful, deep or a good read.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- Commenters call his pieces nuanced, insightful, a good read and a deep analysis; one says his FAQ on DeepSeek is very good. Another calls his Apple analysis som
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
On the business, strategy, and impact of technology.
Most-linked posts?
- The Four Horsemen of the Tech Recession40 people · 48 mentions · first linked 2015-07-06
- Aggregation Theory (2015)24 people · 26 mentions · first linked 2015-07-21
- Why Meta can be the most valuable company in the world15 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2015-05-02
- Apple’s Organizational Crossroads14 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2016-04-19
- Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II13 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2017-11-29
- The Bill Gates Line11 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2018-05-23
- The Amazon Tax11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-03-15
- Strategy Credit10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2019-06-04
- Opendoor, a startup worth emulating10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-12-07
- The TikTok War9 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2020-07-14
What Hacker News says?
It's not that reverse engineering is difficult - the FBI could theoretically do that now. It's that it needs to be signed to be accepted by the phone. Edit: see, for example, here: https://stratechery.com/2016/apple-versus-the-fbi-understand...
Comment linking /2016/apple-versus-the-fbi-understanding-iphone-encryption-the-risks-for-apple-and-encryption/
on “A Message to Our Customers”Submitted Apple’s Mistake as a story · 1273 points
HN discussionBen Thompson who writes Stratechery, which is often posted here, had a piece on Net Neutrality a few weeks ago which was quite controversial. Thompson is pro neutrality, but anti-title II. https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ Because that article was so controversial, he wrote an update as well: https://stratechery.com/2017/light-touch-cable-and-dsl-the-b... Pai was on Marketplace Tech before t…
Comment linking /2017/light-touch-cable-and-dsl-the-broadband-tradeoff-the-importance-of-antitrust/
on “F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules”Submitted The Anti-Amazon Alliance as a story · 681 points
HN discussionhttps://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
Comment linking /2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
on “F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules”Submitted The Google Squeeze as a story · 665 points
HN discussionI believe this is the Stratechery article Pai quoted and used for justification of the rollback. https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
Comment linking /2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
on “F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules”Submitted The China Cultural Clash as a story · 660 points
HN discussionFrom TFA: > If anything, the need has increased as social media and changing advertising landscapes have made shallow, sensationalistic reporting all the more lucrative. And your comment: > There were people among us who would gladly pay for this kind of coverage It's Friday so I'm going to be optimistic. I'd like to think (maybe fantasise) that we've passed the low point of ad-fuelled, sensational, information-ligh…
Comment linking /stratechery-plus/
on “AnandTech Farewell”Submitted The End of Windows as a story · 583 points
HN discussionThe argument [0] has been made that Twitter was why the US had as good of a response to COVID-19 as it did. [0]: https://stratechery.com/2020/defining-information/
Comment linking /2020/defining-information/
on “Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private”Submitted Intel's Humbling as a story · 569 points
HN discussionI recommend this Ben Thompson piece on why resiliency has declined: https://stratechery.com/2025/resiliency-and-scale/
Comment linking /2025/resiliency-and-scale/
on “Cloudflare Global Network experiencing issues”Submitted Cloudflare's Disruption as a story · 569 points
HN discussionThat's not really possible, because they contractually require venues and performing artists to only perform at their venues This kind of gross exclusionary contract should be illegal (it's kinda the same BS that Google does with Android OEMs - contractually force them to [1]), but for some reason antitrust avoided acting on the matter (including allowing acquisitions in the space) for quite some time [1] > Predicat…
Comment linking /2018/the-european-commission-versus-android/
on “Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes”Submitted Intel Problems as a story · 569 points
HN discussionPart of the reason why Crowdstrike have access, why MS wasn't allowed to shut them out with Vista was a regulatory decision, one where they argued that somebody needs to do the job of keeping Windows secure in a way that biased Microsoft can't. So, I guess you could have some sort of escrow third party that isn't Crowdstrike or MS to do this "audit"? Or see this for a much better write up: https://stratechery.com/20…
Comment linking /2024/crashes-and-competition/
on “Bypassing airport security via SQL injection”Submitted Instagram’s CEO as a story · 566 points
HN discussionBen Thompson has a nuanced piece on this: https://stratechery.com/2021/trump-and-twitter/
Comment linking /2021/trump-and-twitter/
on “Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump”Submitted Shopify and the Power of Platforms as a story · 549 points
HN discussionThere was a post by Ben Thompson[1] that outlines some of the challenges with Apples approach in the App Store. It's a good read if you have the time. I'm not trying to change your mind, but more give a different perspective on the conundrum that Apple is in. [1] - https://stratechery.com/2018/antitrust-the-app-store-and-app...
Comment linking /2018/antitrust-the-app-store-and-apple/
on “Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair”Submitted US Intel as a story · 543 points
HN discussionI doubt it, the cost of building an assembly line for chip fab is apparently one of the most expensive among all kinds of manufacturing. This link was posted on HN last week that alluded to this: https://stratechery.com/2020/apple-arm-and-intel/
Comment linking /2020/apple-arm-and-intel/
on “Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs”Submitted IBM’s Old Playbook as a story · 534 points
HN discussionThe argument is that purchasing WhatsApp was anticompetitive and allowed Faceboook to cement their dominant market position. WhatsApp the app might be fine, but the competitive landscape is much weaker than it would have been if the FTC had blocked the acquisition. I posted this elsewhere but I think Ben Thompson gives a very deep analysis of the issues in the competitive landscape here: https://stratechery.com/2017…
Comment linking /2017/manifestos-and-monopolies/
on “FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization”Submitted Apple, Epic, and the App Store as a story · 508 points
HN discussionFrom the article, the claim is: > illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly "Monopoly" is a term that's fairly overloaded/misunderstood; while in economics refers specifically to a situation where there is a single supplier for a good/service ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Market_structures ), in the legal definition "monopoly power" is defined much more loosely, as "the power to contro…
Comment linking /2017/manifestos-and-monopolies/
on “FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization”Submitted AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source as a story · 502 points
HN discussionIn 2017, the government passed a law that raised a tax in 2022. According to some, supporters of the tax raise could claim the raise wasn't real because it could be reversed before 2022. From https://stratechery.com/2023/buzzfeed-shutters-news-startups... > Because the 2017 “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” was passed via the reconciliation process (in order to avoid a filibuster), it had to be budget neutral after 10 years;…
Comment linking /2023/buzzfeed-shutters-news-startups-and-the-rd-tax-credit/
on “Panic at the Job Market”Submitted The Bill Gates Line as a story · 477 points
HN discussion
