Napkin Math

Profit and power in technology.

Feb 2, 2023

AI Looks Like a Bubble

Investors need to take a cold shower

Aug 3, 2023

Devote Yourself to the Cause of Your Life

Your to-do list can wait

Apr 23, 2024

Some Things I Know (And Some Things I Don’t)

What have I learned from two years of writing?

Apr 16, 2024

Distribution Is King

What video games can teach us about building billion-dollar companies

Jun 4, 2024

AI Is Transforming the Nature of the Firm

By reducing transaction costs, AI will reshape how companies operate and interact

Feb 27, 2024

What the Media Is Getting Wrong About AI

The future must be built on truth

Dec 1, 2022

The House of the Bloody Mouse

Where does Disney go from here?

Nov 16, 2023

COGS: How I Bankrupted MoviePass

An intuitive explainer for how to lose money and win anyway

Mar 23, 2023

How AI Changes the Media Business

Why community and social network effects will be key to winning the future

Jun 6, 2023

The Bugman Cometh

My sick, unexplainable desire to buy a face computer

May 7, 2024

The Right Kind of Asshole

A founder’s personality can differentiate them—or destroy them

Jun 21, 2024

You Can’t Math Your Way to Success

Whether in art, startups, or parenting, you can only control so much

Dec 5, 2023

Death of a Flywheel

Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway got really big. Here’s why it might kill them.

Jul 13, 2023

OpenAI’s Code Interpreter Is About to Remake Finance

Get in, loser—we’re disrupting Oracle

Apr 3, 2024

The One-person Billion-dollar Company

Can AI agents make you a billionaire?

Sep 12, 2024

The Button Problem of AI

What’s the real reason AI hasn’t yet delivered on its hype?

Feb 22, 2024

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

Software that drives hardware adoption is rarer than you think

Oct 26, 2023

Live Fuller, Not Bigger

You must escape the shallow joy of more

Feb 28, 2025

Playing ‘Civilization 7’ Is Like Being a Ruthless Corporate Consultant

Let’s talk about the tech world’s relationship with video games

Dec 15, 2022

Should You Fire This Newsletter?

In which I analyze whether I’m good at my job

Jul 15, 2022

Has Venture Lost Its Soul?

A Book Review of The Power Law

May 11, 2023

Why Are Republicans Better at Making Money on the Internet?

What consumer tech and media got wrong

May 2, 2024

The AI Hardware Dilemma

Why new devices are flopping—and how they might succeed

Feb 29, 2024

Reddit: The Internet’s Bellwether

Is AI training a sustainable business model for the future?