My conversation with @benthompson. Ben has been writing Stratechery for over a decade and remains one of my favorite business thinkers. We covered a lot. Every important company in the industry and the forces acting on all of them. - Why he thinks it would be problematic for the US to win the AI race - Will we run out of money to fund AI - Google becoming Berkshire Hathaway - Why ads are amazing - TSMC, Intel, and Samsung - Nvidia's invisible price cuts + biggest competitors - Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Meta I love talking to Ben about everything happening in markets and technology. Enjoy! TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:59 America and the AI Race 8:26 AI’s Funding Problem 15:31 AI’s Capabilities and Limits 20:30 Aggregation Theory, AI, and Ads 31:10 Compute, TSMC, and Intel 47:31 Amazon and Apple’s AI Moats 54:43 The Frontier AI Players 74:07 Nvidia and Commoditized Intelligence 82:52 What Survives an AI Bubble?