Ben Thompson is an American business, technology, and media analyst who lives in

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

, where he founded ''Stratechery'', a subscription-based

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...

/podcast featuring commentary on tech and media news, and cohosts tech podcasts ''Sharp Tech'' with Andrew Sharp, ''Dithering'' with John Gruber and ''Exponent'' with James Allworth, respectively.

Education

Thompson's undergraduate education was at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, and his graduate education at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

, where he received a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from the Kellogg School as well as a Master of Engineering Management from the McCormick School of Engineering.

Career

Thompson's career includes stints at

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, where he interned at Apple University;

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, where he worked on its

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Apps team; and at

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

developer

Automattic Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company most notable for WordPress.com and its contributions to the WordPress system. The company was founded in 2005. Automattic's brands and products include WordPress.com, Akismet, Gra ...

as a growth engineer. 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 Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ( ...

" subscription model. He has stated his primary inspiration was John Gruber, author of the site Daring Fireball. As of April 2015, Thompson had more than 2,000 paying subscribers. By 2017,

Recode ''Recode'' (stylized as recode; formerly ''Re/code'') was a technology news website that focused on the business of Silicon Valley. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher founded it in January 2014, after they left Dow Jones and the similar website ...

described Stratechery as having pioneered the paid newsletter business model. The founders of

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...

, a newsletter platform launched in 2018, called Thompson a major inspiration for their project.

Aggregation theory

Thompson 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: # direct relationship with users; # zero marginal costs for serving users; # and demand-driven multi-sided networks with decreasing acquisition costs.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Ben American business writers American technology podcasters Kellogg School of Management alumni Northwestern University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American technology writers Technology commentators WordPress