(Preview) Two Paths for Apple and Its Users, More on Amazon and Advertising, OpenAI and 722 Mathematical Manuscripts

Opening baseball banter

0:00Hello, and welcome to a free preview of Sharp Tech.

0:09Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp, and on the other line, Ben Thompson. Ben, how you doing? A little groggy, a little not super sharp, not super clear. Um, the only way to honor your baseball team drinking a lot of beer in the clubhouse is drink a lot of beer yourself. So we'll see how it goes, but I'm good. Groggy, but victorious, triumphant here on Sharp Tech. You know what I love? I love that there

0:42was an entire first round series played in about six days. As somebody who's been through a lot of first round playoff series that take two and a half weeks in the NBA, I like the MLB keeping it nice and tight. Well, uh, it is actually the second round because there was the wildcard round first. Um, Oh, I don't count that. What, uh, no first real playoff series. It's actually one of the craziest things about the playoffs in baseball is it is over fast and it has to, because part of the whole thing is you need to be tested on your pitching court, right? And so you need to be playing

1:14every day. That's part of the whole thing of, do you have a good team or not? And so, but the end result is the games, like you're super excited. You're there, you know, and then it's done. So my condolences to the Padres. Uh, I liked that team a lot. Uh, we have a good friend who's a big Padres fan. Alas, someone has to lose if they're good guys. You had to do what you had to do. The brew crew taking care of business. Here we go. Speaking of fast last year, uh, we lost four over the Dodgers. Uh, it was very ugly. It was over quick. Um, talk about blinking. Yes, indeed. I

1:48recall. Well, nowhere to go, but up from that performance. Uh, as for the show, we will kick

Apple disc access and AI psychosis

1:54things off with a handful of questions on Apple on Monday. You wrote about news from Apple late last week. I believe it was Friday. The company announced we will introduce additional controls to ensure that Mac users who genuinely wish to grant an app full disc access can only do so with very explicit user action. And of that news, which was sort of ambiguous, you wrote to say that I'm nervous about what Apple solution will entail is a massive understatement. And that was part of a

2:27much larger article. We're not going to spend that much time on the article, but as a reader, I was curious, why specifically are you nervous and will Apple's decisions actually affect normal people or just you and other weirdos? What do you think? It's always, it's always funny how you get feedback on what you wrote. Um, with you, it's like, we're not going to spend much time on that, but it's very technical. Um, we're not coding to the metal here on the podcast. Unfortunately, you can't control me.

2:58We're going to be talking about the article because I don't know. It's been kind of a self-reflective period over not just the last few weeks, but the last few months, I think for me and my relationship with computing and AI and agents and all these sorts of things. And the extent to which I am excited and enthused about this sort of stuff, I pretty sure it's coming across as I am very excited and very enthused. Are you getting that impression on the podcast? I am. I am. And every now and then I see tweets about guys in their forties who may have AI psychosis. And I think of you as a friend.

3:35Absolutely. Like, uh, this is, I've been trying to be very sort of, uh, Oh, self-aware and be concerned. You know, do I have an AI psychosis and maybe sometimes just the answer is yes. And being honest with yourself, but yes, lean into it. It's fun. Like for sure. It is fun in a way I've called back to this being back in the, like the nineties and building your own PC and like understanding all this stuff works. And I think it's been, I, this is my current rationalization justification is I think it's been very positive for my work because I do feel the extent to which I understand this stuff

4:10is much higher than it was even previously. And fortunately, I feel like a lot of my intuitions I had before were pretty accurate, but now just, I think the depth is definitely gotten much greater. The more you get into this, understand their strengths, understand their weaknesses, what works, what doesn't, what is going to work, what is always sort of going to be a challenge, et cetera. Anyhow, the reason why the Apple angle though is particularly interesting is when I was at Apple university, the biggest challenge that I perceived with the Apple university concept.

4:44And I was there right when it first started, Joel Padone was there. I think he might still be there, but it was, the concept was we're going to create this sort of program. Apple famously has this like top 200. It's like, they have this annual retreat. The top people in the company go there. It's not necessarily the top 200 by like, if you look at the org chart, it's like the 200 people that actually matter in terms of building stuff. There might be some random guy that doesn't report to anyone. It's like, what's he doing over there? Actually, he like understands the entire thing. It's all in his head. And, but the idea was how do you maintain culture? How do you,

5:17you know, what makes Apple Apple and how do you sort of keep that going? And my number one chief concern, which I think remains the biggest problem with something like that is once you start writing that sort of stuff down, you're going to get a certain level, like sort of ossification and like it, that becomes rigid and you don't sort of change over time. And predictably, I think Apple university in the soon years, it's still around as like a brand name, but it's like an HR program. It's like, you could do these like cool classes and trainings and stuff like that. I think there

5:50is still the, what makes Apple Apple sort of presentation and, um, and which is fine, you know, like Apple is a massive company and there's real value way larger than when I was there. Like I was there in 2010, like, like, and it already fucked, man, I can't believe how much bigger we are than a few years ago. Now it's like multiple times the size and there's value in, you just sort of have to preach to the troops, right? Like this is what the company is, but the fact that it's rigid and ossifying is just a fact of life when you're sort of

6:22as large as that may be. The other issue that I had when I was there was there were a few people, I think particularly my direct manager that I thought I had drunk just a bit too much Kool-Aid. Like Apple could do no wrong. And they were, Apple came out with some absurd product when I was there. I want to say it's some sort of like fancy charger. I don't know. Someone go back in 2010. What was the most ridiculous product Apple released that year? This person bought it first day. It was like

6:55raining about it. I'm like, relax. It's not, it's really not that big of a deal. Uh, it's like, it was, it was it a bad product or just a mundane product? It was just a mundane product. I want to say it was like a battery charger or something. Uh, I can't remember what it was. It's sort of vaguely. But this manager was all in. Well, but that was, that was sort of pervasive. And it was a bit of a wake up call for me because I was definitely an Apple fan boy. And I got my, I wasn't a lifelong Mac user. I had been a ticker building my old PCs

7:25and I finally got a Mac in around 2004. I think it was, I wanted to play with garage band. Uh, like I was, I love music and, and it was like, seemed super approachable and easy. It was so great. Like, and the experience was so good. I was sick of dealing with windows stuff. Like, does this work? Drivers troubleshooting. It just worked. Like all the cliches were there. And then on layered on top of that, you had this incredible story, Steve jobs, leaving, coming back, beautiful

7:56design, their top of the world in the two thousands, a very easy and attractive sort of train to hop on and going to Kellogg, uh, business school windows rules, the roost, which it still does. Excel on windows is still much better than anything else. But like I was the, I think I was the head. I think I created like the Mac club or something like that. Like, how do you actually like use a Mac in business school, much tougher back then than it used to be now? Like, and like, let's work together, pull all our nerd impulses here. Sure. Right. But, but the Apple nerd was like a specific type

8:30of nerd. It was like, no, we're a nerd that actually cares about design. Like, like we're, we're not, we're making fun of the people obsessed with speeds and speeds. The Apple nerd was a particularly insufferable brand of nerd way back when. Absolutely. You know what? And I wore it with pride. So, uh, that, that was, so that was, it's like, I remember I went to Apple university and it was a bit of a wake up call. Like, um, I actually decided by, and I'm glad I did this because I don't, people have gone to business. It's like this very, I think it's filtered down to undergrad. Now at this point, everyone's just thinking about what's my job, what's my job,

9:03what's my job. And it's like this very sort of dystopian FOMO sort of environment. But before I finished at Apple university, I told someone, I do not want to come back here to work, even though I thought I had my dream job, like not only was my dream to work at Apple, but also I was doing like strategy, like, uh, like all these sorts of things that are at least adjacent to that. I wasn't actually doing Apple strategy, but I was like, uh, I was actually interacting with Apple executives. Like we were actually talking like particularly the, also a pretty good company to join in 2010.

9:34If we're looking backward. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Probably much richer. Uh, but, but there was some money with that decision. Well, I'd say that with Microsoft to be honest as well, but, uh, but the, um, but the, what it bothered me at the time, I'm like, I feel this has been an amazing summer. I've learned very deeply and fundamentally how Apple works. I think in a very tangible way that augmented things that I'd known before. And also there would be no value to me intellectually to come back here. And actually I would worry. I'm just becoming a member of the choir. Like preaching

10:09the choir is not useful. I actually want to learn new things. Uh, I rationalized or framed my going to Microsoft above and beyond the, they actually gave me a job, which was great. Let's go somewhere totally different. The exact opposite. I think that actually did play out and turn out. And, and so all that to say, that's a long story. No, but an interesting personal history. I'm not mad at

MacBook Pro and hardware frustrations

10:32it. So where are we today? I've been waiting for years for this touchscreen MacBook Pro. Uh, I actually think touchscreens are cool. I was at Microsoft when they were first coming out. Uh, they're surprisingly useful in ways you wouldn't expect. OLED screens are amazing. Like the, you know, if you've seen like the Dell XPS, they're so amazing that every time I see a new OLED screen, I just want to buy the product, like the new iPads, the new iPad mini, the MacBook, like all I want all of it. And then Mark Gurman comes out and says, not only is the long awaited MacBook Pro

11:06with an OLED screen, OLED touchscreen coming out. It's also significantly lighter because they completely reworked it. All these sorts of things like this has been the computer I've been dreaming about like for years and years and years and years. And, um, I don't think I'm going to buy one. Yeah. Maybe I'll buy one eventually, but I'm going to wait and see. I have a bunch of Mac minis that I've accumulated from like channels and things like that. The experience as I wrote about that article

11:36of operating a headless Mac mini is so bad. It's like, it's one of the biggest pain points in my life. Um, like, sorry, that overstates it, but in my computing life, I bought a, I spent a significant amount of money buying a new server that runs Linux. Um, there's this whole thing like DA, you know, David, I'm enhancing this whole movement. I'm like, Oh, Margie Linux. I don't know. Oh, Margie. I can't remember what it is. I, I don't know if that's the answer, but what I know is I, the future for me

12:07is denominated by agents. Like in the, the level of capability, it gives you the things you can do. And for me, every new thing that I can do makes me want to do 10 more things. Like what, like you see, we talked about the holes in your life, that software size holes. There's like, once you start seeing them, you see them everywhere and you can fix them. You can get them done right now. And it, it is, I'm so excited and enthusiastic about it. And I feel a twinge of regret. Like I got over my love for Apple in part by being there in part by writing about them. There's a, when you write

12:42about tech, it's kind of like you talk to people who write about sports teams. They kind of where the sad effects demystifies it. Sure. Yeah. You kind of end up not really being a sports fan. I think you've done a pretty good job. Like Bill Simmons, this is actually what an underrated thing Bill Simmons has done is somehow he's been in sports media for 30 years, 40 years, and he still is a diehard fan. Yeah. Because you talk to a lot of people who you talk to your favorite podcaster that covers your local team. If you talk to them in person, they don't really care if they win or

13:14lose. It's totally, it's a real skill being able to manufacture the enthusiasm year after year, decade after decade. And your Apple enthusiasm has waned over the years. Oh no, it's dead completely. And not in a, I bought a bunch of Macs because I understood Mac OS very, very well. I was, my workflows were very highly attuned to it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I don't like messing around with that. And, but it was for years, I've been an opera, like an OS version behind. I, you know,

13:45I dread buying a new computer because it's such a pain to set up a new one, right? Like it's the, but then also just covering a company. I'm not cheering for any of these companies. I'm trying to analyze them as best that I can, but there is a bit, I was deep down in my soul, way down there. If you peel off all the layers, there is an Apple fan boy. And this is, it's not a company for me anymore. And that doesn't mean they're doing wrong. It's just, it's not you. It's me.

14:19Fair enough. Well, and the thing is they still make incredible hardware and make it at an unbelievable scale and deliver it to millions and millions of people all over the world. I, my, my, we are recording or I, all my stuff's right up to my MacBook Pro. I know everybody on this podcast is using a Mac for everything. I can't wait for the air to, and so just to be clear, this isn't an Apple is doomed. I'm throwing up the air. I'm not doing the, like, I'm going Omagi or whatever, or like, I, I actually love Linux. I, I, what you have an AI agent with Linux. It's unbelievable. Like, like, yeah,

14:53like the command line is perfect. It's great. Um, the, so no, this isn't a, it's more of the, am I going to buy this new computer? I'm going to think about it a little bit, you know, maybe I'll get it. Um, but, but also a willingness to explore other options that hasn't been there for most people, um, over the last 10 or 15 years is interesting and is a shift. And I think there's a dispassionate respect for Apple, but also mounting frustrations with various aspects

Security and third-party software risks

15:23of being an Apple user. I will, however, return to my initial question as the host of the podcast, will Apple's changes affect me or just people who are hardcore users like you? Because what I've been worried about, it seems to me, Apple could restrict access in various ways and degrade what's possible for various AI applications that we want to use over the next five to 10 years. And they could do so in the name of security, in the name of protecting data, whatever it might be, all of which

15:57would also help Apple maintain control and Apple's own primacy. And I mean, going back to the very early innings of open AI and their hardware experiment with Johnny Ive, that was one of the animating concerns that made that idea potentially not crazy. So are we worried about them potentially doing that to max going forward and changing the way agents operate on our computers? Or is that not really what the issue is? Okay. No, 100%. So they've been going down this road for a while, not with agents in

16:30mind, just in general. Like I've been complaining about this for a very long time. This isn't a new complaint. I've brought up the headless back, these stupid permission dialogues that come up that and like they all, there's a reason for them. Like apps were, can abuse sort of the access that they have. If you brought up a permission dialogue that can be accessed via software, then malware could just click okay for you. Like there's a reason why it's completely separated such that the agents on my

17:04computer don't know stuff's just not working. They don't know why. Oh, got to log in. Yep. There it is. There's a dialogue, by the way, golden gate way worse, way more dialogues. It's a big pain in the rear end. Uh, the, um, Oh, by the way, I have a, uh, sort of additional complaint. Okay. So I updated, I'm like, I may be all we have updated all the way. Um, if you update a headless Mac, even if you have the permission set that on restart, it should automatically log in, which is kind of essential because you don't want to have to go to a login screen for this computer headless Mac. Sure.

17:37Uh, once you update golden gate, it does not log in automatically. You have to go in and you have to like physically log in or have a KVM switch, which by the way, that's why I didn't have checked apply updates automatically. Now I think that doesn't cover completely new OS is like, I think it's because you went to golden gate, it was a major upgrade, but I don't know for sure. I didn't want to risk it. So I just checked update security patches. Now the other thing I want to add. Okay. It's my fault. I got hacked. I had 5,900 port 500 open. That was dumb. There there's

18:12so I, I do take full responsibility, but there's, we were in this weird middle ground where Apple is so insistent on taking care of security on my behalf that I let my guard down. I let my guard down and trusted. They were sort of taking care of it. Like when I have a Linux computer, I'm super diligent. I think very carefully about how that, like the security there, because I know I'm on the hook, right? There there's this enabling aspect to using

18:44Apple stuff where they're so insistent. It's kind of like a codependent relationship. Like let us take care of it. We will do it. Don't worry. We got it. I'm like, okay, fine. I'll, I'll, I'll leave the port open. Like, I'm sure you'll take care of it. You'll update it. And then like, right. And so, and what's interesting to me as a normie is it is indivisible from the Apple value proposition. When you look at how much better the Apple computers have worked than PC, well, then, um, windows over the last 20 years, like it is a night and day experience from what

19:18I remember. Maybe windows has gotten better. I haven't felt the need to try because Apple just works and is more secure from a virus standpoint and everything else than anything I experienced previously. Yeah. And I think the brilliant thing about the positioning of the back, just to go back to that, that program article that I cited is it also was a Unix workstation. Like you had the command line, you had full access to the entire tool set that, you know, back in the day before we got like containers and things like that, like it was the closest thing you could get to working

19:50in the same environment that was up in the server. Like it was the perfect developer machine. So they were in this sweet spot of being the perfect developer slash hacker machine and also being the best machine for normies. And what's happened over the last few years is as they have leaned more and more into the best machine for normies, which I like trying to make it more and more like an iPhone or an iPad and adding in all these sort of protections and permissions dialogues and all

20:23these sorts of things. It is making it worse and worse for a hacker or a developer or anyone who wants to use it sort of the way I want to use it. And that's where it's not you. It's me. I don't want to go down the normally road. I'm so excited about this other road. And I just don't think Apple serves both anymore there. And I don't know that it's possible to serve both anymore. And if it's possible, Apple's not doing it. Yeah. And that's why. And it's it just it is what it is. It's not

20:53it's not 2004 anymore. There you go. Well, you mentioned this other news that we had with Apple.

Smart home ecosystems and Apple strategy

20:59Mark Gurman reported Apple's upcoming push into smart home devices will include a doorbell, thermostat and other accessories developed through an unusual partnership with LG. The products will be part of an ecosystem of devices that work with Apple's new smart home hub, as well as an upgraded HomePod mini and fresh TV set top box, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And Gurman on Twitter added, the accessories are meant to outfit Apple's major new smart home ecosystem, all with Siri AI at the center. As a normie, let me just say,

21:38I don't like none of that sounds appealing to me. And I don't know whether I'm crazy, but I don't want a smartphone, a smart home. I don't want more stuff in my life that is connected to the Internet, more appliances. I don't want any of these AI assistants, like even the charms don't really have that much appeal to me. Am I wrong for feeling that way? Are you excited by the possibilities here? Is there upside that I'm leaving on the table? I love this approach by Apple. And I kind of wish I had known about this before I wrote my article, because it really is the counter,

22:11the counterpoint to what I was trying to express. I think my article comes across as too negative to Apple. When what I was trying to describe is there is a, that moment when a Mac was great for hackers and great for normie people was a weird moment in time. Yeah. The actual expectation is there's sort of two paths for computing. I am so excited about this one path of writing software for everything. Like on the frontier. Yeah. Like, and getting a 3d printer and getting certain, like soldering circuit

22:47boards and like all this, there's so much stuff. The number of ideas I have, man, let's do it vastly outweighs my time to do them. And yet even then, because of AI, I've accomplished so many cool things in the last few months that it just, it blows my mind. And so I'm so all the way down this path and that, that path doesn't include Apple products just like that's not could be because it's an insecure path. It's a dangerous path. It's a risky path. It's a fun path. That's the path I want to go down. That's not Apple's value prop anymore. And that's, Oh, that's okay. Yeah. The other path is

23:24the reason to do all this stuff is a lot of stuff is actually pretty great. Like having an actual, like a lot of the smartphone, smart home concepts are really good concepts. The reason you don't want to do it is your assumption that it just all sucks and it's going to be a pain and actually make your life more difficult. And like, I have an LG television that insists on connecting to the internet. And you finally told me just disconnect it from the internet. Cause I just want it to be a TV. I don't want it to be constantly updating its software and hitting me with all these

23:57different prompts. Just, it's a phenomenal TV, best TV I've ever owned. And the issue is that the software is a pain in the ass and I, it doesn't need to be a connected device. Right. And so that is all those are right now. The smart home ecosystem stinks. I have a bunch of stuff. It kind of works together. Like my wife, it just drives her up the wall. She can't stand any of it. I'm totally sympathetic to that. And like, this was my concern about like app, Apple's announcing

24:27a new home device. And I put in Monday's article, not really excited about this because the whole ecosystem stinks. The only way I think to get the ecosystem to work is you have to do it yourself. You write all the software, you get your agent to work. And then like, you'll get this experience that's sort of like bespoke and custom to you, but also super cool, which is not like nobody's going to do that. I do it. Cause it's a 10th of a percent. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And then this announcement drops about all these devices. I'm like, aha, actually really smart. Hmm. If there's two

25:01paths, it follows those two paths should kind of be the most opposite. They can be such that if one makes sense, kind of the exact opposite also makes sense. If one path is hack everything, write your own custom software for everything, do it all yourself. The other path is let Apple do everything. The reason why the smart home stuff stinks is everyone's trying to, I'm going to do the core piece, like the Google home thing or the Amazon thing

25:36or whatever Apple is going to propose. And then we're going to have an ecosystem where developers can plug in and do all their bits and pieces. And the problem is there's a lowest common denominator problem here. Like this, no one else does it, does it well enough? Does it good enough? We tolerate bad apps on our phone. When it comes to having a bad thermostat, you're like going to throttle someone. It's like, it's just a different. And so the opposite of wanting to hack everything is trusting one company to do everything. It's like the Microsoft

26:09approach to enterprise software. Like that for a lot of businesses, it has always made sense just by all the Microsoft stuff. It might be kind of mediocre. It might not be as good as best breed, but it all kind of has to work together. It's interoperable, which has also been an Apple specialty. If it doesn't work, you know who to blame, right? One throat to choke. This makes tons of sense for Apple. The opposite path from me is the Apple does it all path. And it doubles

26:40down on their commitment to privacy. Like the LG thing, LG TV is spy on you. Like I trust if Apple's in charge of the LG thing, that's not going to happen. Like they actually have a critical, credible sort of a story to tell there. I don't want to integrate third-party software. The end of the day, I don't want an app for my thermostat. If there's an app for these thermostats, they've failed. What I want is to tell Siri to turn the temperature down, set an XYZ. That's how there's

27:10like this whole middle layer applications have been this middle layer that is going away for almost everything outside of like where they make a ton of sense. Like if there's an app for your smart device, it's probably going to suck. I want direct from AI to the hardware. And you're only going to get that number one if you do it yourself or number two, if one company does it all. And integrated. Yeah. That's that's Apple's value proposition. Do it all. Now this is second party. They're not making their own thermostat, but I think it's a middle ground that potentially makes sense.

27:44Okay. Apple going to stand behind these, put them in their store, be on the hook for making sure their software works for it. I can see that path. Now we'll see if it works, but it makes a lot of rational and coherent. Okay. Yes. Well, and to Apple's credit, going back to you and your Apple nerd club at business school, they do still make elegant products and well-designed products. And so I'm sure this will be cool. I just don't personally feel like I need it, but maybe that's because I just haven't experienced what a good version of this

28:18could look like with a smart home, but keeping it moving another Apple initiative that we have not

Listener mail on the iPhone duo

28:24discussed at all on the podcast. Raheem says, hi guys. Ben recently said he wasn't interested in the iPhone duo as he mostly uses his iPhone one handed and that the current form factor suits him. Well, isn't the whole point of technology to see what new use cases, a new form factor might unlock with an iPhone duo, you get an iPad esque experience in places. You've never had it before waiting rooms, the food court, your kids, baseball games. Yes. Even on the can is Ben making the same mistake

28:57as Aswath Damodaran made with valuing Uber, not accounting for the new rides that would take place. Now that a convenient service such as Uber existed. P.S. If Ben got a duo and shared it and shared his experience, it would help those of us on the fence justify spending the astronomical $2,000 on the iPhone duo or 3k for those of us in Canada. Any thoughts on Raheem's push to get you on the duo bandwagon? Yeah, this is a ridiculous email for lots of reasons. Number one, as a note, I should have

29:31noted this. I was like, Oh, Apple didn't raise prices that much. Um, Apple raised prices like crazy all over the world. Like, like, uh, so in Taiwan, the iPhone duo is going to be like $500 more than it is in the U S or $400 or something like that. And, and I think that's the case in lots of places. Um, number two, uh, the, this comparison to Uber.

29:55All right. And that is the end of the free preview. If you'd like to hear more from Ben and I, there are links to subscribe in the show notes, or you can also go to sharp tech.fm. Either option will get you access to a personalized feed that has all the shows we do every week. Plus lots more great content from Stratechery and the Stratechery plus bundle. Check it out. And if you've got feedback, please email us at email at sharp tech.fm.