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The Diff

Byrne Hobart

The Diff is a newsletter exploring the technologies, companies, and trends that are making the future high-variance. Posts range from in-depth company profiles, applied financial theory, strategy breakdowns and macroeconomics.

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21 episodes
weekly
Avg 12 min
English

Episodes 21

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Monday · 13 min
Ad-Supported Platforms are a Unique Antitrust Problem
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Ad-Supported Platforms are a Unique Antitrust Problem (08:38) - Brittle Buyers (09:17) - Rates (10:32) - Substitution Effects (11:12) - Demand (11:50) - Trades
- Transcript
- Chapters
August 17 · 12 min
Financial Entrepreneurship in the Indexing Era
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Financial Entrepreneurship in the Indexing Era (07:24) - Easy As (08:27) - Missing Estimates (09:18) - Oil (09:58) - Off-Balance Sheet (11:07) - Turnover
- Transcript
- Chapters
August 10 · 15 min
FP&A as the Telemetry and Counterespionage
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - FP&A as the Telemetry and Counterespionage (09:21) - 0.5x AI (11:46) - Media Incentives (12:31) - Infrastructure (13:23) - Perks (14:02) - Externalities
- Transcript
- Chapters
August 3 · 12 min
Who Hedges Where?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Who Hedges Where? (06:49) - Ads for Bots (07:43) - Authenticity (08:35) - The AI Race (09:32) - Priority Disputes (10:48) - Mission
- Transcript
- Chapters
July 27 · 18 min
What We Periodically Relearn About Rent Control
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - What We Periodically Relearn About Rent Control (12:54) - Backstops (14:42) - Complements and Substitutes (15:36) - Personality Hire (16:29) - Commoditization (17:04) - IPOs
- Transcript
- Chapters
July 20 · 10 min
The Lots-of-Low-Satiety-Calories Business Isn't What it Used to Be
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Has AI Art Been Tried? (04:38) - Pricing (05:17) - Rewrites (06:46) - Distribution (07:35) - Trading Your PA (08:44) - Managed Markets
- Transcript
- Chapters
July 13 · 10 min
The Bad Apple Problem
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Has AI Art Been Tried? (04:38) - Pricing (05:17) - Rewrites (06:46) - Distribution (07:35) - Trading Your PA (08:44) - Managed Markets
- Transcript
- Chapters
July 6 · 14 min
Cultural Stasis? Or Just Rising Budgets, a Limited Supply of Good Movie Release Dates, and the Kelly Criterion?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Cultural Stasis? Or Just Rising Budgets, a Limited Supply of Good Movie Release Dates, and the Kelly Criterion? (09:20) - MTurk, RIP (10:42) - The Economist Cover Indicator (12:15) - AI Cycles (13:13) - Narratives (14:13) - Intrusions
- Transcript
- Chapters
June 29 · 12 min
The Mythical Agent-Minute
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - The Mythical Agent-Minute (07:08) - AI, Globalization, and Comparative Advantage in Lobbying (08:16) - Media M&A (09:41) - Retaliatory Tariffs (10:15) - Capex (10:52) - Pivots
- Transcript
- Chapters
June 22 · 14 min
Blind Extrapolation as a Powerful Force in Finance
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Blind Extrapolation as a Powerful Force in Finance (07:50) - Midjourney Medical (11:10) - Chips (12:02) - Financial Engineering (12:39) - Rigged Games (13:30) - Reality is the Complement
- Transcript
- Chapters
June 15 · 17 min
What Does it Mean to Have a Trillion Dollars?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - What Does it Mean to Have a Trillion Dollars? (09:47) - Anthropic (11:04) - Mean and Variance (12:17) - Fragmentation (13:37) - Guidance (15:58) - Slightly-Heterodox Center-X
- Transcript
- Chapters
June 8 · 11 min
It's Maturity Transformation All The Way Down
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - It's Maturity Transformation All The Way Down (06:17) - Weather (07:19) - Adverse Selection (08:33) - Compute, and P/S Ratios (09:46) - Software PE (10:48) - Automation and Utilization
- Transcript
- Chapters
June 1 · 10 min
Using AI for Writing like a Responsible Adult
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Using AI for Writing like a Responsible Adult (06:25) - Granular Price Discrimination (07:04) - ETFs (07:52) - Form Factors (08:41) - Training Data
- Transcript
- Chapters
May 26 · 13 min
The Rocketship
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - The Rocketship (08:52) - Unit Economics (10:01) - Rearrangements (10:42) - Vibeslop (11:35) - Mindshare (12:08) - Consumption Equality
- Transcript
- Chapters
May 18 · 13 min
What Can You Learn from a Deterministically Chaotic Market Simulation?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - (07:19) - Prediction Markets (08:18) - Exotics (09:34) - Binning (10:38) - Unpopular AI (11:51) - The Rebalancing Trade
- Transcript
- Chapters
May 11 · 13 min
Why does Resource Extraction Produce Such Concentrated Wealth?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Why does Resource Extraction Produce Such Concentrated Wealth? (08:30) - RLHF (10:17) - When Will AI Show Up in Labor Market Data? (11:16) - Aligning Incentives (12:00) - Local Volatility (12:41) - FDE Shortage
- Transcript
- Chapters
May 4 · 9 min
Dead Airlines
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Dead Airlines (04:46) - Synergy (06:02) - Indexes (06:58) - Warehousing (07:53) - Capacity (08:43) - Defense
- Transcript
- Chapters
April 27 · 11 min
Are the AI Labs Ready for the AI Backlash?
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Are the AI Labs Ready for the AI Backlash? (06:27) - Barter (08:06) - State Hypercapitalism (09:05) - AI Pricing (10:05) - Reflexivity (10:48) - Complements
- Transcript
- Chapters
April 20 · 13 min
Ad-Based Platforms Have Mostly Solved Optimal Taxation
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Ad-Based Platforms Have Mostly Solved Optimal Taxation (08:06) - The Infrastructure Put Option (09:14) - Monetization (10:03) - Headless SaaS (11:36) - Gazumped! (12:49) - Bits and Barrels
- Transcript
- Chapters
April 13 · 14 min
Ring, Cloudflare, and the Supply Chain of State Capacity
This is an audio version of the free newsletter. Read the newsletter at thediff.co, and subscribe for an additional 3 posts (and podcasts!) per week. (00:00) - Ring, Cloudflare, and the Supply Chain of State Capacity (08:32) - Work Trials (09:43) - The Mezzanine Tranche (10:29) - Politics by Other Means (12:51) - Lawyers (13:51) - Token Shortages
- Transcript
- Chapters

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