Ben Thompson is an American business, technology, and media analyst who lives in Taipei, where he founded Stratechery, a subscription-based newsletter/podcast featuring commentary on tech and media news.,[1] and cohosts tech podcasts Exponent with James Allworth and Dithering with John Gruber, respectively.[2]
Ben Thompson | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Thompson in 2016 | |
| Occupation | Business, technology, and media analyst |
| Alma mater | |
Education
editThompson's undergraduate education was at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his graduate education at Northwestern University, where he received a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School as well as a Master of Engineering Management from the McCormick School of Engineering.[3]
Career
editThompson's career includes stints at Apple, where he interned at Apple University;[4] Microsoft, where he worked on its Windows Apps team;[5] and at WordPress developer Automattic as a growth engineer.[6]
Thompson launched Stratechery as a blog while still a Microsoft employee, and in April 2014 devoted himself to the site full-time, operating on a "freemium" subscription model.[7] He has stated his primary inspiration was John Gruber, author of the site Daring Fireball.[8]
As of April 2015, Thompson had more than 2,000 paying subscribers.[9] By 2017, Recode described Stratechery as having pioneered the paid newsletter business model.[10] The founders of Substack, a newsletter platform launched in 2018, called Thompson a major inspiration for their project.[10]
Aggregation theory
editThompson is a proponent of aggregation theory, which describes how platforms (i.e. aggregators such as Google and Facebook) come to dominate the industries in which they compete in a systematic and predictable way. Aggregators have all three of the following characteristics: 1. direct relationship with users; 2. zero marginal costs for serving users; 3. and demand-driven multi-sided networks with decreasing acquisition costs.[11]
References
edit- ^ Felix Salmon (February 6, 2015). "The ingredients of a great newsletter". Fusion. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ Jordan Novet (April 3, 2015). "10 tech podcasts you should listen to now". VentureBeat. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ "Postmodern Computing Summit". Pixxa / Asymco. June 2014. Archived from the original on July 17, 2016. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ Josh Horwitz (April 16, 2014). "Stratechery goes solo: Ben Thompson on Asia, Apple, and the shifting tides of online media". Tech in Asia. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ Juli Clover (May 6, 2013). "Jony Ive's iOS 7 Influence Will Be More Than Skin Deep". MacRumors. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ Jonathan Libov (October 5, 2013). "Rise of the prosumer analyst: How mobile is driving a new brand of business analysis". Gigaom. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
- ^ Kara Swisher (April 16, 2014). "Ben Thompson's Stratechery Expands and Goes Freemium". Recode. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
- ^ Matthew Ingram (April 17, 2014). "Can a little-known blogger turn his site into a business by selling memberships? Ben Thompson is sure going to try". Gigaom. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ Mathew Ingram (February 2, 2015). "Ben Thompson: The one-man blog isn't dead, it's better than ever". Gigaom. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ a b Kafka, Peter (16 October 2017). "Meet the startup that wants to help you build a subscription newsletter business overnight". Vox.
- ^ Brandom, Russell (2 December 2020). "What does aggregation theory tell us about Google's antitrust case?". The Verge. Retrieved 3 December 2020.