This article is a bit of an annual tradition: in mid-December I summarize the state of technology,1 and appropriately enough, this year's edition coincides with a tech …

… really quickly. The Problem with Processor Vulnerabilities Last week the technology world was shaken by the disclosure of two vulnerabilities in modern processors: Meltdown and Spectre. The announcement was a …

… an article summarizing the state of technology. In 2014 I described the three historical epochs of consumer technology — the PC, the browser, and mobile — and the outline of the fourth …

Last December I wrote an article entitled The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014. That article was more than a year-in-review though: in it I …

… epoch has had four distinct arenas of competition that emerge in order:

The core technology The operating system (i.e. the means by which the core technology is harnessed) The …

… the past.

Box was obviously not it; my next thought was Slack. From Slack and the State of Technology at the End of 2015:

I think, in retrospect, I outsmarted …

… as I wrote last year in The State of Technology at the End of 2018, the frictionless nature of the Internet has led to centralization and gate-keeping in the …

… the App Store isn't a monopoly — and that Apple isn't increasingly predicated on rent-seeking. The State of Technology at the End of 2018 — The State of Technology …

… the latest episode of Exponent we discussed Aggregators and Jobs-to-be-Done and The State of Technology at the End of 2018. Listen to it here. On to the …

On Exponent, the podcast I host with James Allworth, we discuss Aggregators and Jobs-to-be-Done and The State of Technology at the End of 2018. Listen to it …

… The State of Technology at the End of 2018; I appreciate your forbearance. On to the update. Distinguishing Regulation There is a point I have made several times in the …

… an old one, and the combination of Qualtrics and SAP, uniquely enabled by the state of technology today, gives businesses an opportunity to do just that.

The potential of the …

On Exponent, the weekly podcast I host with James Allworth, we discuss Meltdown, Spectre, and the State of Technology . Listen to it here.

… long-term goal of Microsoft 365.

Another contender is Slack; I wrote in Slack and the State of Technology at the End of 2015:

The way in which cloud and …

… much fits in the category of companies that I wrote about in The State of Technology at the End of 2016:

To that end the most exciting companies in technology …

… particularly compelling candidate in Slack and the State of Technology at the End of 2015, where I concluded:

What matters — what always matters! — is what actual users want to …

… as accessories leaves no room for a non-Apple branded offering, but neither Fitbit nor the state of technology was in a state to create wearables that were standalone devices …

… a way in (probably not), and in last year's discussion of the state of technology put forward Slack itself as a candidate. After all, the most unifying function of …

… or, in the case of WeChat, already is) a meta-platform that sits on top of Android and iOS; in Slack and the State of Technology in 2015 I called …

… is positioning itself to win an outsized share of television's brand advertising Slack and the State of Technology at the End of 2015 — Slack has announced the Slack Platform …

… Update: Slack Follow-up Someone on Twitter said that yesterday's article about Slack and the State of Technology in 2015 was “a lot of obvious stuff, and quotes”. Totally …

… overestimate just how big the online-to-offline (O2O) space will be. I wrote in The State of Technology at the End of 2014:

By virtue of being, well, mobile …

For the first several years of Stratechery I would write a year end article about "The State of Consumer Technology"; the last one I wrote, though, was in 2018, because …

… anthropomorphizing virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Alexa is very problematic given the current state of technology. It sets expectations that can't be matched, leading to an uncanny …

… Internet Epochs I wrote last year in The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014 that there have been three epochs in consumer technology: the PC, the Internet …

… Killer App and The Social Conglomerate. I think the most pertinent paragraph, though, comes from The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014:

Messaging is compelling not just …

… is Mobile First. As I noted in The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014, individual as service endpoint is an essential characteristic of one of the most …

… working through the implications of smartphones being with everyone everywhere. I alluded to this in The State of Consumer Technology in 2014:

If the PC epoch was about being omnipotent …

… half, and the changes wrought by technology - including social media and e-commerce - are why The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014 - The three epochs of computing …

… the country’s technological success, even though their interests have not always aligned with the state’s goal of strengthening domestic technology. Beijing has, for example, recently begun cracking …

… New York, and so would Bezos… Bezos chose to start his company in Seattle because of the city’s reputation as a technology hub and because the state of Washington …

… to Seattle in the first place:

Bezos chose to start his company in Seattle because of the city’s reputation as a technology hub and because the state of Washington …

… it appeared the phones had not received approval from Chinese regulators to go on sale. The Chinese leadership and the state-controlled news media grew wary of foreign technology providers …

… push back on this narrative if you like, which is this increasing dominance of the state sector in China and the increasing control by the state of not just state …

… I was there. But then at the same time, you have this massive new centralization of government control over technology and the use of technology to control people and along …

… the way today and through the week. I think that reveals a few things about the state of the consumer electronics industry. Especially when you look at the specific kinds …

… apologize that the first two items are U.S. centric (yep, TV again). On to the update: The NBA and the State of TV The NBA's ratings have been …

… whether to have a single agency responsible for the Anti-Monopoly Law - currently enforced by the NDRC, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) and the Ministry of Commerce …

… why Microsoft would be helpful: Meta is investing over $10 billion a year to push the state of the art in virtual reality, and there is no way HTC can …

… and augmented reality existing, but it getting built out in a way that really advances the state of human connection and enables people to be able to interact in a …

… so it definitely prefers individual-level data). Unfortunately for the social media giant, this is the state of the privacy debate: Google can own over half of the digital advertising …

… sense of infinite content — Aggregators focus on discovery, not distribution — meant that their responsibility for the state of news, to the extent it exists, is exactly what they say it …

… sense of infinite content — Aggregators focus on discovery, not distribution — meant that their responsibility for the state of news, to the extent it exists, is exactly what they say it …

… in the very long run than people appreciate today. Tech's Costs First and foremost, the state of the world I described in The End of the Beginning was going …

… in the very long run than people appreciate today. Tech's Costs First and foremost, the state of the world I described in The End of the Beginning was going …

… saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies. “The chancellor sees the complete closing down of the account of an elected …

… it is the attempt to preserve the unsustainable that is radical. Third, it should be the default to move fast, and value experimentation over perfection. The other opportunity cost of …

… drivers. The campaign was the most expensive for any ballot measure in state history. With more than 60% of ballots counted, the vote was running 58% in favor of the …

… Monopolies, which significantly constrained the ability of the King to grant exclusive privilege; colonial and state legislatures similarly passed laws restricting grants of exclusive power by governments, and while the …

… Silicon Valley. Alex Karp's Letter CEO Alex Karp opened the S-1 with this:

The construction of software platforms that enable more effective surveillance by the state of its …