Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson Facebook is Dead; Long Live Meta, Does OpenAI Need to Log Off?, Questions on Bubbles, Blackberry, and Bell Labs
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Aug 15, 2025 The discussion kicks off with Meta's impressive earnings report and its newfound investor trust. Conversations shift to OpenAI's GPT-5, the challenges of user experience, and the ongoing AGI race. Nostalgia strikes as they explore Blackberry's comeback and intriguing tidbits about Bell Labs. Finally, they tackle the historical context of tech bubbles and Apple's corporate strategies, contemplating the balance between innovation and financial maneuvers, alongside a quirky analogy comparing Google's structure to slime mold.
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The Perils Of Being Too Online
- Consumer products face huge public pressure because tiny percentage changes affect millions of users who can be very vocal.
- Founders must balance online feedback with broad user data to avoid being hijacked by a small loud minority.
Historic Backlash Over News Feed And Timeline
- Ben and Andrew recount early social-media backlash stories like News Feed protests and Instagram algorithm shifts.
- These anecdotes show how companies ignored loud critics and relied on engagement data to move forward.
Auto-Routing Models For Mainstream Users
- GPT-5 aimed to simplify model choice by auto-routing models and making reasoning available to mainstream users.
- That default-simplify design was user-friendly for normies but threatened power-user expectations.