BusinessInvestingTechnology

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.

Play

Open in

25 episodes
weekly
Avg 14 min
English

Episodes 25

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

Monday · 43 min
Forward Deployed
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) - Forward Deployed (37:12) - Felonybench (38:59) - Frontier Capabilities (40:10) - SEO (41:06) - Company Demographic Pyramids (42:17) - Fighting for Inference
- Transcript
- Chapters
September 14 · 14 min
The Economics and Politics of Pacing the Frontier
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 Economics and Politics of Pacing the Frontier (06:37) - Reflexive Funding (07:57) - Insider Trades (08:56) - Reference Implementation (10:40) - Margins (12:47) - Law Enforcement
- Transcript
- Chapters
September 8 · 13 min
Staying Calibrated
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) - Staying Calibrated (07:16) - Transparency (08:35) - Disclosure (09:20) - Credit Ratings (10:58) - AI Jobs (12:15) - Branding Inference
- Transcript
- Chapters
August 31 · 10 min
The Surprisingly Weak IPO-Housing Effect
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 Surprisingly Weak IPO-Housing Effect (06:28) - Bottlenecks (07:32) - More Bottlenecks (08:22) - Disjoint Models (09:06) - Aligning Incentives (09:40) - Momentum
- Transcript
- Chapters
August 24 · 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

Showing 1–20 of 25 episodes