Pulling this out from a conversation I had with . We're both fans of , but I disagree with him often. I realised a few years ago that Ben Thompson has a particular analytical style. Once you crack that, you can more critically engage with his ideas. 1/5
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The best thing about Thompson is that he's is very open about it. His formula is basically "take traditional business school framework or concept, look out to a world with little to no marginal costs, and now ask: how does this change the traditional framework?" 2/5
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Rinse and repeat for all the major sectors and all the major companies in each sector. Sometimes, do this but through the lens of current events. Whenever something unexpected happens, Thompson will often default back to some framework, and try it out for size. 3/5
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Over time, he builds a collection of variations. Sometimes, something novel drops out: aggregation theory, for instance stratechery.com/aggregation-th
Thompson does some heavy lifting in nearly all his pieces. But once you know his formula, something interesting happens. 4/5
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You can trace the ideas back to the original sources, and disagree with the way he thinks the world deviates from the classical versions of these frameworks. This is useful because you now have some structure to do critical evaluation of his analysis. Which makes reading easier!
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