Napkin Math

Profit and power in technology.

May 25, 2023

Dying Whales and Dying Billionaires

A note about power

Jul 28, 2022

Snapchat’s Probably Screwed

Apple's ATT Fallout Continues

Nov 2, 2023

How to Win Arguments and Manipulate Managers

Make your spreadsheets shape strategy

Mar 30, 2023

Tinder Is Way More Important Than You Think

Forget AI, the people want to bone

Jun 15, 2023

OpenAI’s Code Interpreter Is About to Remake Finance

Get in loser, we’re disrupting Oracle

Aug 10, 2023

The Futility of Utility

Why do I choose to do things that aren't in my best interest?

Oct 19, 2023

Every Software Business Has the Same Playbook

The strange contradiction at the heart of B2B SaaS

Apr 20, 2023

You Probably Shouldn’t Work at a Startup

It’s overrated—both financially and emotionally

Jan 26, 2023

How Technology Giants Die

GE, Amazon, and the flywheel of death

Sep 15, 2022

When Creation Goes To Zero

Skynet Who?

Oct 27, 2022

Venture Capital Is Ripe for Disruption

A world where a billion is a drop in the bucket

Feb 9, 2023

The Meditations of Vinyl Jesus

Music producer Rick Rubin explores the creative process

Dec 15, 2022

Should You Fire This Newsletter?

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

Nov 3, 2022

How Elon Wins

Twitter needs to pursue the algorithmic feed

Apr 27, 2023

Death of a Flywheel

How Amazon and Berkshire got too big

Aug 8, 2024

The Horny Truth About AI Chatbots

What our digital companions reveal about human loneliness

Nov 22, 2022

6 New Theories About AI

Software with superpowers

Dec 14, 2023

Want to Build? Technical Excellence Won’t Be Enough.

This new era of startups requires a founder baptized in the humanities

May 18, 2023

Meet Your New Finance Intern: GPT-4

How AI will reshape what finance professionals do

Feb 23, 2023

When Content Creation Goes to Zero

AI is making a world where it costs nothing to produce anything. What happens next?

Sep 18, 2020

How Chegg Grew Their Share Price 20x In Four Years

Chegg grew their stock price from under $10 to over $85. They did it by changing their business model from the ground up and investing in digital media content.

Jun 2, 2022

The Inventor of the iPhone Has Some Thoughts

Build by Tony Fadell: A Review

May 30, 2024

The Art of Scaling Taste

How MSCHF turns irreverent ideas into a real business

Mar 13, 2023

A Dearth of Secrets, an Excess of Capital: SVB’s Explosion

We may be entering a more ruthless era in tech