The 2024 Stratechery Year in Review – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Stratechery, incredibly enough, has been my full-time job for over a decade; this is the 12th year-in-review. Here are the previous editions:

It has long been a useful cliché to say that covering tech is easy, because something is always happening; now that that something is AI, that is more true than ever. Nearly every Article on Stratechery this year was about AI in some way or another, and that is likely to be true for years to come.

This year Stratechery published 29 free Articles, 109 subscriber Updates, and 40 Interviews. Today, as per tradition, I summarize the most popular and most important posts of the year.

The Five Most-Viewed Articles

The five most-viewed articles on Stratechery according to page views:

1. Intel Honesty — The best way to both save Intel and have leading edge manufacturing in the U.S. is to split the company, and for the U.S. government to pick up the bill via purchase guarantees.
2. Gemini and Google’s Culture — The Google Gemini fiasco shows that the biggest challenge for Google in AI is not business model but rather company culture; change is needed from the top down.
3. Intel’s Humbling — Intel under Pat Gelsinger is reaping the disaster that came from a lack of investment and execution a decade ago; the company, though, appears to be headed in the right direction, as evidenced by its execution and recent deal with UMC.
4. The Apple Vision Pro — The Apple Vision Pro is a disappointment for productivity, in part because of choices made to deliver a remarkable entertainment experience. Plus, the future of AR/VR for Apple and Meta.
5. MKBHDs For Everything — Marques Brownlee has tremendous power because he can go direct to consumers; that is possible in media, and AI will make it possible everywhere.

AI and the Future

Looking ahead to how AI will change everything.

• Enterprise Philosophy and The First Wave of AI — The first wave of successful AI implementations will probably look more like the first wave of computing, which was dominated by large-scale enterprise installations that eliminated jobs. Consumer will come later. YouTube
• The Gen AI Bridge to the Future — Generative AI is the bridge to the next computing paradigm of wearables, just like the Internet bridged the gap from PCs to smartphones.
• The New York Times’ AI Opportunity — The New York Times is suing OpenAI, but it is the New York Times that stands to benefit the most from large language models, thanks to its transformation to being an Internet entity. YouTube
• AI Integration and Modularization — Breaking down the Big Tech AI landscape through the lens of integration and modularization. YouTube
• Aggregator’s AI Risk — A single AI can never make everyone happy, which is fundamentally threatening to the Aggregator business model; the solution is personalized AI. YouTube

Government and Regulation

An emerging theme this year — which I expect to continue alongside AI — is the rising importance of non-economic factors in terms of technological development, even as regulators ramp up pressure on the giants of the Aggregator era.

• A Chance to Build — Silicon Valley has always been deeply integrated with Asia; Trump’s attempt to change trade could hurt Silicon Valley more than expected, and also present opportunities to build something new. YouTube
• Intel’s Death and Potential Revival — Intel died when mobile cost it its software differentiation; if the U.S. wants a domestic foundry, then it ought to leverage the need for AI chips to make an independent Intel foundry viable. YouTube
• The E.U. Goes Too Far — Recent E.U. regulatory decisions cross the line from market correction to property theft; if the E.U. continues down this path they are likely to see fewer new features and no new companies. YouTube
• Friendly Google and Enemy Remedies — The DOJ brought the right kind of case against an Aggregator, which stagnates by being too nice; the goal is for companies to act like they actually have enemies. YouTube
• United States v. Apple — Apple is being sued by the DOJ, but most of the complaints aren’t about the App Store. I think, though, Apple’s approach to the App Store is what led to this case.

Big Tech

The biggest tech companies, as usual, provided the most consistent lens on how the world is changing.

Other Articles this year included: The Apple Vision Pro’s Missing Apps | Sora, Groq, and Virtual Reality | Meta and Open | Meta and Reasonable Doubt | The Great Flattening | Windows Returns | Crashes and Competition | Boomer Apple

Stratechery Interviews

Thursdays are for Stratechery Interview — in podcast and transcript form — with public company executives, founders and private company executives, and other analysts.

Public Company Executive Interviews:

Arm CEO Rene Haas | Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters | Zoom CEO Eric Yuan | dLocal Founder Sebastian Kanovich and CEO Pedro Arnt | Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian | Walmart CEO Doug McMillon | Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CTO Kevin Scott | AMD CEO Lisa Su | Google SVP Rick Osterloh | Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman | Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth | Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff | Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi

Startup/Private Company Executive Interviews:

Rescale CEO Joris Poort | Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi | Terraform Industries CEO Casey Handmer | Scale AI CEO Alex Wang | Canva CEO Melanie Perkins

Analysts:

Om Malik on tech history | Joanna Stern on the Apple Vision Pro | Eric Seufert on digital advertising in February and October | Matthew Ball on VR and gaming | Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman on AI in February and June | Hugo Barra on AR and VR in March and October | Benedict Evans on regulation and AI | Michael Morton on e-commerce | Matthew Belloni on Hollywood and streaming | Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) on YouTube | Ben Bajarin on Apple and Intel | Craig Moffett on Apple and telecoms | Gregory Allen in October on the U.S. defense industry, and December on the China chip ban | Timothy B. Lee on AI and self-driving cars | Dylan Patel and Doug O’Laughlin on the semiconductor industry | Byrne Hobart on innovation | Tae Kim on The Nvidia Way

The Year in Stratechery Updates

Some of my favorite Stratechery Updates:

• January 29: Apple and the DMA, Apple and “Or”, A Reluctant Apple Apologist (See also: European Commission Charges Apple, Apple Delays New Features for E.U.)
• February 19: Xbox’s Announcement; Microsoft’s Messy Middle; Apple in Europe, Continued
• March 12: Walmart Earnings, Walmart Connect and Closing the Loop, Walmart Acquires Vizio
• April 1: MLS on Vision Pro, The Vision Pro’s Missing Content, The Vision Pro’s DRI
• May 7: TSMC Earnings, TSMC’s Pricing Mistake, Intel v. TSMC
• May 20: Netflix and the NFL, Netflix Internalizes Ads, Comcast’s Bundle (See also: Netflix’s Boxing Event, Customer Acquisition vs. Churn Mitigation, Accounting for Events)
• June 18: FTC Sues Adobe, The Legal Question, The Value of Doing Right
• June 24: Perplexity and Robots.txt, Perplexity’s Defense, Google and Competition
• July 17: Tech For Trump, Breaking the Deal, From Inertness to Interest
• August 26: Telegram CEO Arrested, Telegram’s Non-Encrypted Advantage, Telegram Complexities
• September 16: OpenAI’s New Model, How o1 Works, Scaling Inference
• September 30: More on Orion, Where Vision Pro Went Wrong, Apple’s Response and Meta’s Motivation
• October 1: Taking Waymo, Uber and Waymo (See also: GM Kills Cruise, Fleets Versus Autonomy, Robotaxi Outlook)
• October 7: U.S. Communications Hacked, The History of CALEA, Encryption and Backdoors
• October 22: Stripe Acquires Bridge, Stablecoins, Platform of Platforms
• October 28: Trump on Rogan, The Voters Decide, The Podcast Election
• November 6: President Trump, Take Two; Big Tech, Little Tech, Chips, and Hardware; Elon Musk’s Triumph
• November 13: Shopify Earnings, Software Self-Awareness, Rebels and the Arms Dealer
• December 4: AWS re:Invent, Nova and Model Choice, AI as Commodity
• December 17: Google Announces Veo 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Free ChatGPT Search

I am so grateful to the subscribers that make it possible for me to do this as a job. I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and I’m looking forward to a great 2025!