2025.17: Where Will Apple Be in 2035?
The best Stratechery content from the week of April 21, 2025, including Tech History and Apple's Future, Dithering on Google, and Hamsters and Antibodies.


Welcome back to This Week in Stratechery!
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On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week.
- Tech History and Apple’s Future. In the maelstrom of current news its easy to lose sight of the long-term, but in tech it is the long-term that matters most. For example, we talk about Intel’s struggles today, but the decisions that matter happened a decade ago. With that in mind I wanted to step out of the news cycle and apply that lens to Apple: where is the company going to be in 2035, and what decisions need to be made today to ensure that is a good place? The best place to start is to look to the past and companies that got it wrong, which is what I did on Stratechery and Sharp Tech. — Ben Thompson
- Dithering on Google. As someone who hosts podcasts for a living, I never stop being amazed by Dithering’s ability to deliver comprehensive tech coverage in only 15 minutes. And by “comprehensive,” I mean there is solid riffing between the hosts, callbacks to tech history, and incisive takes on the issues of the day. A perfect example was Ben and John’s breakdown of Google’s latest antitrust loss, where they explained the multi-sided ad market, the trouble with tech antitrust questions, and a potential path to the Supreme Court to determine the scope of the Trinko exception in future antitrust cases. — Andrew Sharp
- Hamsters and Antibodies. For anyone who needs a refreshing departure from the the weekly news cycle, let me recommend this week’s Asianometry episode on Chinese hamsters and breakthroughs in modern medicine. In just 20 minutes, Jon traces 75 years of pharmaceutical history as a foundation for what antibody drugs are making possible (and massively successful) today. Come for an early citation to The Magic Schoolbus and stay for the dramatic story of hamsters being shipped to the United States during the Chinese revolution. Stratechery subscribers have access to the podcast here, and the video is available to everyone below: — AS
Stratechery Articles and Updates
- Google Loses Ad Antitrust Case, Market Definitions and Tying, The Trinko Exception — Google lost its ad antitrust case; if the case is upheld, it has important implications for all Aggregators.
- Apple and the Ghosts of Companies Past — Apple is not doomed, but for the first time in a long time its long-term fortunes are cloudy; the time to make change is now.
- Netflix Earnings, Netflix’s Growth Plans, Ads and Price Segmentation — Netflix’s earnings and 2029 goals show new avenues of growth that are downstream from increased segmentation.
- An Interview with Eric Seufert About Digital Advertising During Political Uncertainty — An interview with Eric Seufert about the impact of the trade war on digital advertising, the Google Ads antitrust case, and why the biggest platforms keep on winning.
Dithering with Ben Thompson and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber
Asianometry with Jon Yu
Sharp China with Andrew Sharp and Sinocism’s Bill Bishop
Greatest of All Talk with Andrew Sharp and WaPo’s Ben Golliver
- A Feel-Out Game Gets Ugly, The Rockets Offense Traumatizes the Nation, The Grizzlies Enter the Darkness
- Stock Picks on the Way into the Playoffs, Giannis at a Crossroads, Wolves Against the World
Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson
- What Memory Can Do for ChatGPT, OpenAI’s Future and Google’s Circles Past, What College Football Can Teach Us About Tech
- Apple and the Ghosts of Companies Past, Privacy at the Expense of Performance, The Cook Question
This week’s Stratechery video is on American Disruption.