It has been over a decade of Stratechery; this is the 11th Year in Review I have published. You can find previous years here:

I am both proud and grateful to have made it to this milestone. Stratechery has changed my life; I hope it has had some small impact on yours.

At the beginning of last year’s review I said that the biggest story in tech was the emergence of AI; I can say the exact same thing about 2023, but even more so: 12 of Stratechery’s free Weekly Articles were about AI in some way, shape, or form. The second biggest topic was a Stratechery staple: the evolving content landscape; 2023 was particularly notable, though, for the dramatic shifts that are hitting Hollywood, highlighted by both strikes and the Disney-Charter standoff this fall. There were also big stories about the tech industry itself, from a bank failure to board room drama, and a “vision” of what might come next.

This year Stratechery published 27 free Articles, 105 subsriber Updates, and 37 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. From Bing to Sydney — Microsoft launched a new conversational UI in Bing based on GPT-4; I got early access, and discovered Sydney, and had a series of conversations that blew my mind.
2. The Four Horsemen of the Tech Recession — Tech is increasingly divorced from the real economy thanks to the COVID hangover and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency.
3. OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain — The end of a dramatic weekend in tech is that OpenAI has split and Microsoft is partnered with one and has hired the other; this is the ultimate failure case of what should have been a for-profit company organized the wrong way.
4. Apple Vision — Apple Vision is incredibly compelling, first as a product, and second as far as potential use cases. What it says about society, though, is a bit more pessimistic.
5. The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) — Silicon Valley Bank bears responsibility for its demise, but it symbolizes a Silicon Valley reality that is very different from the myth — and the ultimate cause is tech itself.

AI Strategy

Is AI a sustaining technology that makes existing companies stronger, or a disruptive one that leads to new entrants?

• AI and the Big Five — Given the success of existing companies with new epochs, the most obvious place to start when thinking about the impact of AI is with the big five: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.
• Google I/O and the Coming AI Battles — Google A/I suggests that AI is a sustaining innovation for all of Big Tech; that means the real battle will be between incumbents and Big Tech on one side, and open source on the other.
• Windows and the AI Platform Shift — Microsoft argued there is an AI platform shift, and the fact that Windows is interesting again — and that Apple is facing AI-related questions for its newest products — is evidence that is correct.
• The OpenAI Keynote — OpenAI’s developer keynote was exciting, both because AI was exciting, and because OpenAI has the potential to be a meaningful consumer tech company.
• Google’s True Moonshot — Google could do more than just win the chatbot war: it is the one company that could make a universal assistant. The question is if the company is willing to risk it all.

AI Questions and Philosophy

AI doesn’t just raise strategic questions: it raises questions about the nature of computing, the future of society, and what it means to be human.

• ChatGPT Gets a Computer — It’s possible that large language models are more like the human brain than we thought, given that it is about prediction; that is why ChatGPT needs its own computer in the form of plug-ins.
• AI Philosophy — AI-generated content is not going to harm those with the capability of breaking through: it will make them stronger, aided by Zero Trust Authenticity.
• Nvidia On the Mountaintop — Nvidia has gone from the valley to the mountain-top in less than a year, thanks to ChatGPT and the frenzy it inspired; whether or not there is a cliff depends on developing new kinds of demand that only GPUs can fulfill.
• AI, Hardware, and Virtual Reality — Defining virtual reality as being about hardware is to miss the point: virtual reality is AI, and hardware is an (essential) means to an end.
• Regretful Accelerationism — The Internet removed constraints from the analog world, and AI is finishing the job. That this may be the final blow for the Internet as a source for truth may ultimately be for the best.

Streaming and Hollywood

While the past, present, and future of content has always been a focus of Stratechery, this year felt like a tipping point for Hollywood in particular.

• Netflix’s New Chapter — Netflix waited out Blockbuster with better economics, and it’s seeking to do the same with its competitors today; the key to the company’s differentiation, though, is increasingly creativity, not execution.
• The Unified Content Business Model — Every content company is or should be moving to a model that incorporates both subscriptions and ads; creator platforms should help their publishers do the same.
• Hollywood on Strike — The Hollywood strike is setting talent against studios, but the problem is that both are jointly threatened by the reality of the Internet and zero distribution costs.
• Disney’s Taylor Swift Era — Not even Taylor Swift can fight the devaluation of recorded music, but she makes it up in physical experiences; Disney isn’t much different, but it looks much worse given the company’s old business model.
• The Rise and Fall of ESPN’s Leverage — Charting ESPN’s rise, including how it build leverage over the cable TV providers, and its ongoing decline, caused by the Internet (See also: Charter-Disney Winners and Losers).

Regulation

It is, for better or worse, impossible to cover technology without discussing regulation, and 2023 was no different.

• Amazon, Friction, and the FTC — The FTC’s Amazon complaint raises some fair points in isolation, but misses the bigger picture, both in terms of Amazon specifically and the Internet generally.
• FTC Sues Amazon — The FTC is suing Amazon, and some of the complaints are compelling, but ultimately not convincing.
• China Chips and Moore’s Law — Moore’s Law is not yet dead, nor is Moore’s Precept, even if AI computes differently. Addressing both is the key to succeeding with the China chip ban.
• Attenuating Innovation (AI) — Innovation required humility about the future and openness to what might be possible; Biden’s executive order proscribing AI development is the opposite, blocking progress and hindering the solutions to our greatest challenges.

Stratechery Interviews

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

Public Company Executive Interviews:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang | Adobe CSO Scott Belsky | Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon | Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar | Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger | Roblox CEO David Baszucki

Startup/Private Company Executive Interviews:

Artifact founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger | Deel founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz | Ringer founder and CEO Bill Simmons | Replika founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda | DNVR founder Adam Mares | Vercel founder and CEO Guillermo Rauch | Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl | Anduril founder and CEO Brian Schimpf | Former TechCrunch editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino | WFAN’s Spike Eskin

Analysts:

Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman on AI in March, August, and December | Eric Seufert on digital advertising in February, May and October | Michael Nathanson on Hollywood and streaming in January and December | Gregory C. Allen about the China and Chips in May and October | Jon Ostrower on the airline industry | Matthew Ball about streaming and the metaverse | John Kosner about sports | Chris Miller about Chip War | Marc Andreessen about AI | Eugene Wei about social media | Lisa Ellis about payments | Doug O’Laughlin and Dylan Patel about semiconductors | Craig Moffett about telecommunications | Bill Bishop about China

The Year in Stratechery Updates

Some of my favorite Stratechery Updates:

• March 20: Microsoft Office AI, Copilot and Tech’s Two Philosophies, Business Chat and Appropriate Fear
• March 28: The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs
• April 10: Substack Notes, Twitter Blocks Substack, Substack Versus Writers
• May 1: The Phoenix Suns Go Over-the-Air, Fans and Franchise Valuation, Attention and Customer Acquisition
• May 8: Shopify Exits Logistics, The Shopify Logistics Side Quest, Whither Buy with Prime
• May 10: Meta Open Sources Another AI Model, Moats and Open Source, Apple and Meta
• June 12: Reddit Revolt, Apollo and Reddit’s Changes, Complement Complaints
• June 21: EV Charging Standards, Tesla’s Strategy, Tesla’s Reward
• June 28: Starlink Solution, Starlink Experience, Starlink Implications
• July 12: Microsoft Can Acquire Activision, The FTC vs. the Record, The FTC’s Failed Vendetta
• August 21: Adyen Earnings, Adyen’s European Context, Adyen vs. Stripe
• September 6: Amazon and Shopify, Shopify and Its Merchants, The Payments Question
• September 11: The Huawei Mate 60 Pro, 7nm Background, Implications and Reactions
• September 18: Unity’s Business Model Change, Unity’s Strategy, Unity Leadership Questions
• October 4: Spotify Subscription Audiobooks, Casual Fans and Bundles, Spotify’s Goals
• November 8: Realtors Lose in Court, Zillow and Real Estate Aggregation, From Franchises to Businesses
• November 13: Disney Earnings, Disney 3.0, Streaming and Sports
• December 4: The College Football Playoff, Events Over Inventory, NASCAR’s New Deal
• December 12: Google Loses Antitrust Case to Epic; The Differences Between Apple and Google, Revisited; The Tying Question
• December 13: Netflix’s Data Drop, Power Laws, Netflix’s Motivations

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 2024!