2026.37: Duo Threats

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 Duo Arrives. Does the world need a foldable iPhone that costs between $2000 and $3,200? It’s a fair question. On the other hand, life is short, and tech is a lot more fun when we have new and possibly-crazy hardware projects to discuss—particularly when they’re deployed by Apple. To that end, I heartily recommend cleansing your palate from a week of media-wide AI angst by reading Ben’s take on Apple’s iPhone event and pairing that with Friday’s Dithering, and John Gruber’s impressions of Duo-mania on the ground in Cupertino. Also: bonus being-right points to Gruber, who nailed the name of this device back in April. — Andrew Sharp
   

1. AI That Benefits Humanity. I loved Wednesday’s Update contrasting OpenAI’s thrilling and technically impressive Navier-Stokes breakthrough with the release of Meta’s far less sexy Muse agent. While OpenAI’s tactics may in fact chill research in advanced mathematics, what Meta has assembled is free (to consumers) hardware and software that dramatically reduces the barrier to entry for ordinary people looking to harness the power of agents, making the AI upside a lot more accessible to the masses who don’t want to buy a Mac Mini. That’s a big deal! We discussed Muse more on this week’s Sharp Tech, including tips for getting started with agents, and questions about whether people will actually take advantage of this opportunity. — AS
   
   
2. Closing the Book on a Catastrophe. Everyone’s familiar with the benefits of pro sports ownership and its ability to turn semi-anonymous rich guys into full blown celebrities, but Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer is now a living testament to the unstated risk—sports ownership fame can, in a worst case scenario, become infamy. Last week his Clippers received the harshest penalty in NBA history for circumventing the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard. We recapped all of it on GOAT this week, including successes and failures in sports journalism, why Kawhi got off easy, and the staggering amounts of evidence that sealed Ballmer and the Clippers’ fate. — AS

Stratechery Articles and Updates

• Write Things Down — Writing things down is powerful, for humans and for AI; what comes first, however, is what to write, why to do it, and actually getting things done.
• OpenAI Does Math, Reward-Hacking, Meta Launches Personal Agent — OpenAI solving one of the most famous math problems is extremely impressive, and of little impact to most people’s lives; Meta’s Muse agent launch has the potential to be the exact opposite.
• The iPhone Duo, The Intelligent Personal Hub, Apple Watch Audio Intelligence — Apple once again demonstrated the power of integrating hardware and software, but it’s biggest AI blindspot might be its belief in the primacy of apps.

Dithering with Ben Thompson and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber

• Agents and Forklifts
• iPhone Duo

Asianometry with Jon Yu

• The Flood that Wrecked the Hard Disk Drive Industry
• Did Numerical Control De-skill Machinists?

Greatest of All Talk

• Closing the Book on the Clippers Catastrophe and Early Over/Under Picks in the Atlantic

Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson

• Astra (and AGI?) Arrives, Meta’s Muse and the Agent Opportunity, Anthropic and the Revival of (P)Doom Angst

This week’s Stratechery video is on Autonomy and Innovation.