Welcome back to This Week in Stratechery!
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On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week.
1. The Market Speaks. Anthropic released Fable 5.1 this week, and the most interesting part of their announcement had nothing to do with the model or its capabilities, but rather its terms. Anthropic is walking back their controversial data retention policies that sparked a huge backlash earlier this year. The reason? The company needs to make money, and OpenAI is competing hard (and OpenAI had a model release of their own, which I talked to OpenAI President Greg Brockman about in the Stratechery Interview). — Ben Thompson
1. Apple Finds Religion. Dedicated readers and listeners are no doubt familiar with Ben’s crusade to fix the Vision Pro, and specifically Apple’s approach to producing live events in immersive video. Well, Apple nailed it with their immersive broadcast of Friday Night Baseball. Come to Monday’s Dithering episode to hear John’s experience with the Red Sox and Yankees, and stay for Ben’s smug satisfaction (and don’t worry, he registers a few additional complaints for good measure). — Andrew Sharp
2. Society Loses Friction. Meta announced last week that as part of a settlement with 29 states it will make sweeping changes to restrict the use of Instagram and Meta among teens. Ben had conflicted reactions to the news on Monday, and on Thursday’s Sharp Tech we went deeper on the libertarian vs. conservative tensions that will inform a variety of these regulation questions going forward. That conversation ultimately echoed a very early Stratechery riff on the society-altering implications of tech that removes friction; 13 years later, our generation is still catching up. — AS
Stratechery Articles and Updates
- Meta Settles, A Framework For Regulating Content, The Rest of Big Tech — Meta’s settlement makes sense for all parties, but the entire sage highlights why any solution to regulating technology feels off.
- Nvidia Earnings, Dollars Per Gigawatt, Open and Hugging Face — Nvidia’s earnings were remarking and boring — two sides of the same coin. Everything the company does is about avoiding a consolidated world.
- Fable 5.1, Enterprise Frontier Safeguards — Fable 5.1 is out, and the hated Fable data retention policy is not just being altered, but entirely removed in the meantime. Plus, why increased caching is a win-win.
- An Interview with OpenAI President Greg Brockman About Astra and Alignment — An interview with OpenAI President and Co-Founder Greg Brockman about the history of OpenAI, Astra and alignment, and the weight of building the future.
Sharp Text by Andrew Sharp
- The War and Reasonable Doubt — Checking in with the Iran War after six months of widespread criticism and recent signs of American success.
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
Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson
This week’s Sharp Tech video is on how Apple’s App Store drama looks irrelevant next to AI.https://stratechery.com/2026/friction-and-feedback/
