Keep pulling the thread on Ben Thompson.
Ben Thompson believes that ChatGPT is OpenAI's most valuable asset.
Ben Thompson argues that AI ads should be based on a comprehensive user profile, similar to Meta's model, rather than on immediate conversation context, which is closer to Google's search ad model.
Ben Thompson believes the ideal advertising strategy for Google is to use insights from Gemini conversations to improve ad targeting on other properties like YouTube and Search, without placing ads directly in Gemini.
The primary national security risk from TikTok is the potential for the Chinese government to influence its content algorithm, not its access to user data.
During the Hong Kong protests, searches for the Houston Rockets on TikTok returned no results after the team's General Manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of the protests.
The founder of ByteDance was removed from his position after the Chinese government determined the platform's content was not sufficiently aligned with party values.
Ben Thompson believes the forced sale of TikTok was a failure because China retained control of the algorithm, which he considers the most important asset.
Ben Thompson predicts that widespread use of AI agents for commerce will lead to a state of "perfect competition," which could wipe out entire product categories.
SaaS companies with seat-based pricing models are at risk because AI is expected to reduce the number of employees required for many tasks.
The primary threat to the valuation of public SaaS companies is the potential elimination of future growth, which shifts their valuation model from revenue multiples to EPS multiples.
The expansion of the AI industry is currently constrained by the manufacturing capacity of TSMC.
TSMC is conservative with its fab expansion because the financial risk of underutilized capacity is immense, as nearly all of a fab's cost is fixed depreciation.