The Diff

The Diff is a daily newsletter that focuses on key moments in finance and technology. My goal is to tackle an interesting question: in a few hundred years, when historians look back at our time, what conclusions will they draw about what was happening today?

National

English

Newsletter (Digital)

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#584735

United States

#232585

Finance/Finance

#2804

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Were Forward-Deployed Engineers Designed as the Ideal CEO Training?

1 week ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

Were Forward-Deployed Engineers Designed as the Ideal CEO Training? Plus! Funds; AI; Business and Politics; The Trade Map; The DollarThis post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
Better Filters

1 week ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

Plus! Crypto; Omnimedia; Tariffs and Competitive Advantage; The Everything App; Talent AcquisitionsThis post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
Did IT Eat Apprenticeships?

1 week ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

This post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
What Happened to Working Your Way Up from the Mailroom?

1 week ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

In this issue:What Happened to Working Your Way Up from the Mailroom?—The stories of people working their way up from a menial, unskilled job to the top of a big company are mostly old, and in a way that's a good sign about efficient markets in talent. But there are downsides to a world with better, earlier sorting—so it's good news that sorting mechanisms are never perfect.
Longreads + Open Thread

2 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

LongreadsIn Bloomberg, the real story of the great SEC EDGAR hack, in which a group of traders got access to filings, including earnings announcements, before they were made public. It's partly a reminder of how much rickety infrastructure is out there—EDGAR dates back to the early 90s, and has been iteratively patched since then, but apparently still has a fair number of vulnerabilities.
Reasoning Models Don't Really Reason, But It's Fine: Computers Don't Really Think in 1s and 0s, Either

2 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

Reasoning Models Don't Really Reason, But It's Fine: Computers Don't Really Think in 1s and 0s, EitherThis post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
Shortages Propagate to Complements

2 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

Plus! It's All Ads; Rebates; AI and IP; Mandatory AI Adoption; Systems of RecordThis post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
What's the Long-Run Elasticity of Tariffs?

2 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

Plus! Content Marketing; Growth; Forward- and Backward-Looking Hiring; Publications or Personalities?; Congressional TradingThis post is for paying subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign inJoin 50,000+ industry professionals and curious generalists by subscribing to The Diff.
Search Remains the Best Business in History

2 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

In this issue:Search Remains the Best Business in History—The search business illustrates several different kinds of scale economics at once, and many of these have positive feedback loops with one another. That doesn't mean it's an easy business, because the prize is so valuable. Equity Market Vigilantes—Are investors reacting to the prospect of Trump punishing Musk, or are they trying to help Trump do so?
Longreads + Open Thread

3 weeks ago | thediff.co | Byrne Hobart

LongreadsJane Psmith reviews Cambridge Latin Course Unit 1, in what is really a piece about learning Latin: should you? Why? And how? Latin is a fascinating language, in part because its historical role was like English, only more so: the majority of English speakers learned it as a second language, and for any given pair of people who don't share a common first language, English is the most likely default.