Welcome back to This Week in Stratechery!
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On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week.
- The Shocking Demise of Jensen Huang. This week’s coverage was dominated, unsurprisingly, by the shocking and sudden end of Jensen Huang’s 32 year tenure as CEO of Nvidia. The end came on Thursday morning, and just a few hours later, we recorded a Sharp Tech episode recounting Huang’s legendary history, figuring out what happened, and looked forward to what this might mean for Nvidia, the tech industry, and America going forward. Also see Andrew’s view from DC, Jensen Huang Was Always Going to Lose, and listen to Wednesday’s episode of Sharp China about the geopolitical angle, and Thursday’s Dithering about both the parallels and differences between Steve Jobs and Apple. — Ben Thompson
- Enterprise, Consumer and Intel. The more things change, the more they stay the same: Intel remains on the back foot in the AI era, and the foundry dreams continue to flounder. On the heels of disappointing earnings and 2027 guidance that promises yet more letdowns, Ben’s Update on Wednesday examined the state of America’s would-be national champion by drawing comparisons to AMD, an Intel peer that’s red-hot right now. To understand why one company is capitalizing on skyrocketing enterprise demand while the other confronts flatlining consumer sales, the answer starts with
chipschiplets and leads to more profound questions about culture, Intel’s nature, and its bifurcated strategy for the long-term (and, for subscribers, look forward to more on this topic in Sunday’s Sharp Tech mailbag episode). — Andrew Sharp - And Then There’s Professional Basketball. As a palate cleanser after a week of Jensen drama, this week’s Greatest of All Talk was a look at the top and bottom of the NBA after the first three weeks. On the euphoric side of the ledger we have Warriors fans (pre-Steph injury), Lakers fans, Spurs fans, and on the other end spectrum there is nothing positive to say in Brooklyn, a familiar malaise in Cleveland, and precisely one silver lining in Salt Lake City. All of it was a great time; we also hit Adam’s experience with the NBA in Mexico City last weekend, the hardest working players in NBA history, and an anxiety-inducing conversation about the number one pick, AJ Dybantsa. — AS
Presented by
Agentic commerce purchases with Link, Stripe’s digital wallet that works surprisingly well for agents, grew 38x in September. The catalyst was consumer agents like Muse and Instinct.
Filling out a web form is not a value-add activity for anyone. No one chooses to fill out web forms in their spare time. That’s why these agents have been particularly useful.
I’ve written about how these platforms are giving ordinary people an AI agent with a computer, enabling agents to do genuinely useful things on our behalf. When one of those things is spending money, it needs a wallet that knows what it is, and isn’t, allowed to do.
Stripe has learned that’s really about deciding how much freedom to give it. You might approve one purchase, or give it $500 for flights this week, and let it figure out the rest. The wallet’s job is to keep it within those lines while handling everything between “go buy this” and the purchase actually happening.
That’s what Stripe is building with Link: You approve what it spends, it can come back to you if the final price changes, and eligible purchases can even come with protection if the agent makes a mistake.
You can use Link on Muse, Instinct, as well as many other of the agents you might use already.
Stratechery Articles and Updates
- Jensen Huang’s Affair, The Culper Report, Huang’s Righteousness — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted to an affair with a Chinese spy, and that might not be the end of his troubles. I hope he survives, but his influence will never be the same.
- The Jensen Huang Story Gets Worse, Washington vs. New York, Silicon Valley — The Jensen Huang story got worse for him on Monday; the real risk for Huang is governance, even more than national security. Who benefits?
- Intel Earnings, AMD Earnings, Intel and AMD’s Divergence — Intel and AMD’s diverging earnings point to fundamental historical differences, and make me wonder if Intel needs to find a new (old) path.
- An Interview With Roblox CEO David Baszucki About Aggregating Play — An interview with Roblox CEO David Baszucki about how AI is transforming game creation, and why that opens up huge opportunities to both enable developers and make Roblox both an Aggregator and a platform.
Sharp Text by Andrew Sharp
- Jensen Huang Was Always Going to Lose — Jensen Huang spent four years substituting his own judgment for that of the U.S. government. His downfall was inevitable, and probably isn’t over.
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
- Subscriber Mail: Twitter, Microsoft, Bending Spoons, Movie Reviews
- Nvidia After Jensen Huang, What Huang Meant to the AI Ecosystem, Washington Gets Its Revenge
This week’s Stratechery video is on AI on the Ballot.