Napkin Math

Profit and power in technology, every Tuesday and Thursday.

Sep 28, 2023

The Double Bind Theory—Or Why Sensationalism (Unfortunately) Works

If you want to win, you gotta spike

Feb 6, 2024

Profit, Power, and the Vision Pro

Will Apple’s new headset change everything?

Aug 24, 2023

A TikTok Competitor Is About to IPO—And It’s Deeply Suspicious

Triller's S1 raises questions about its numbers

Jul 16, 2021

How Free to Play Video Games are Forced to Make Addicts

A Case Study on Market Structures and Harm

Jun 13, 2024

The AGI-in-2027 Thesis

Some researchers are convinced that we are on the cusp of superintelligence. Are they right?

Sep 9, 2021

Tech stocks’ favorite lie to investors

How the LTV/CAC ratio is manipulated to take advantage of retail investors

Jul 22, 2021

Snowflake: How a Revenue Retention Behemoth was Built

TL;DRThis is the second post on a deep dive in GTM metrics with a focus today on Revenue RetentionSnowflake is a software Dracula. It latche

Aug 5, 2020

Intangible Assets: The Invisible Value Driver

Book review of The End of Accounting: there are four problems with current financial statements and intangible assets are the biggest reason why.

Oct 6, 2022

The Face That AI Built

My explorations in image generation

Jul 13, 2023

OpenAI’s Code Interpreter Is About to Remake Finance

Get in, loser—we’re disrupting Oracle

Aug 13, 2021

Is Facebook Fixable

A Review of An Ugly Truth

May 9, 2024

Patreon Should Buy Substack to Save Creators

The solution to the problem of social media is to build something better

Jun 11, 2024

Apple’s AI Evolution: Built-in AI, Supercharged Siri, and Ecosystem Lock-in

Maybe the new world is the same as the old

Feb 22, 2024

AI and the Vision Pro Don’t Need a Killer App

Software that drives hardware adoption is rarer than you think

Apr 14, 2022

The Race for New Payment Rails

Who is building the next Visa?

Jun 3, 2020

Curated: Expert Shopping Advice, Online

A three-sided marketplace to bring specialty retail to the internet

Jan 27, 2022

Will Tokens Replace Equity?

The Weird Future Ahead

Jun 22, 2022

Are We Really Addicted?

An interview with Nir Eyal

Aug 13, 2024

The Addiction Economy

Addicted, overwhelmed, oversubscribed: How technology hooked the world

Feb 29, 2024

Reddit: The Internet’s Bellwether

Is AI training a sustainable business model for the future?

Apr 5, 2022

Twitter’s Shot at Becoming a Meme Stock

It’s Musk's world and we’re just tweeting in it

Jul 8, 2020

The Future of Fitness: lululemon Buys Mirror

Why subscription hardware is better than hardware, the cross-selling opportunity, how Mirror could lead to a connected home, and why Mirror is a call option for Lululemon.

Jun 23, 2022

Facebook’s Capitulation

Abandoning a Trillion Dollar Advantage

Apr 21, 2022

Microsoft should buy Netflix

Netflix and Bill