> “...pay him for the rest of the content (which is pretty good, consistently).”

having read this free piece and a number previously posted here, the analyses tend to be fairly average in comparison to mba-level work. perhaps you can enlighten me—who pays, and why? who has interest but also doesn’t otherwise have access to mba-level analyses or analytical tools?

a solid position, line of reasoning, or conclusion is difficult to draw from this article. he seems to want badly to say something, anything, insightful about apple’s new silicon to not miss the short window of opportunity afforded by the recent announcement. but what did he say other than repeat some numbers from anandtech and sidetrack onto sketch vs figma?

apple‘s strategy isn’t new or surprising, and this chip is one (comparatively small) part of jobs’ original vision of ubiquitous consumer computing, with apple at the center of it. the switch to arm isn’t even a strategic surprise. they wanted ever smaller and more powerful chips (which intel could have owned but f-ed up) to drive that ubiquitousness and be at the profitable forefront of it (that’s also why they’re so obsessed with thinness). apple has always wanted to own consumer computing. that’s it. that strategy is not that hard to make sense of. but somehow this article badly flubs that low hurdle.

First define for me what you mean by 'average in comparison to mba-level work'? What analytical tools are you referring to?

As to who pays? People who have things to do, and don't have the time to do the 'mba-level' work it takes to track all these different trends and such, and want just a short overview of 'whats important' and "who's moving where".

And your 'obvious' take is not obvious if you look at where apple is spending money, effort and hiring, etc.

And another aspect of this is that he's been talking about some of this stuff for many years, which isn't at all obvious from one of his pieces stand-alone. The weekly updates blend together and consistently reference stuff he's previously discussed, and he also has no problem calling out where he's gotten it wrong.

it's average in comparison to the many similar papers i read (and wrote) during my mba program. he's doing the same thing, except instead of turning papers in to professors, he's blogging about them. some are better than others, but this one is certainly below average. any manager for whom such information is critical will either have an mba, or have access to similar (and likely much better) strategic analyses (e.g., the strategy group at any mid-size or larger company).

You still haven't given me an idea of what you think is 'lacking' in these 'strategic analyses' that would be appropriate for something like this writing?

As to strategy groups, I've worked with strategy teams from a big chunk of the Fortune 100, did time at a Big 4, and I think your expectations of levels of critical analysis are ....overshooting reality :)

Ben's definitely not some strategy messiah, no question - I doubt he'd even claim to be in the top percentage. But he's consistent, thoughtful, and lets me just not think chase tons of other sources on a regular basis.

in this particular case, it'd be great if there was a recognizable thesis and supporting points backed up by discernable research (even cursory).

i'm not suggesting he's a crank, but that adoration should be tempered. we humans tend to get wrapped up in popularity rather than substance. the evaluation of analytical stances should be heavily tilted toward substance.