# Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money - [Invest Like the Best, EP.487]

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/invest-like-the-best/ben-thompson-on-big-tech-china-and-the-ai-boom-running-out-of-money-invest-like-the-best-ep-487
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/invest-like-the-best/ben-thompson-on-big-tech-china-and-the-ai-boom-running-out-of-money-invest-like-the-best-ep-487.md
Podcast: [Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/invest-like-the-best)
Published: 2026-08-18T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://colossus.com/episode/winners-losers-ai-era/
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/CLS4584299095.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/invest-like-the-best/episodes/ben-thompson-on-big-tech-china-and-the-ai-boom-running-out-of-money-invest-like-the-best-ep-487
Duration seconds: 4576

## Resource

My guest today is Ben Thompson, the founder and author of Stratechery. Ben is one of my favorite business thinkers and I love talking to him about everything happening in markets and technology.  We go through every important company, including OpenAI, Nvidia, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. We also discuss why he thinks it would be dangerous for the United States to win the AI race outright, what container shipping and the railroads of the 1870s tell us about the buildout, and why the binding constraint on all of this may be capital rather than compute.  Please enjoy my conversation with Ben Thompson. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at ⁠colossus.com/subscribe⁠. ----- ⁠Ramp’s⁠ mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ramp.com/invest⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, ⁠Vanta⁠ continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Invest Like the Best listeners get a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta when you go to ⁠vanta.com/invest⁠.  ----- WorkOS⁠ is the infrastructure B2B and AI-native companies use to sell to enterprise. It covers everything enterprise security requires: SSO, SCIM, RBAC, Audit Logs, AI governance, and more. Trusted by 2,000+ fast-growing companies, including OpenAI, Anthrop…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/invest-like-the-best/episodes/ben-thompson-on-big-tech-china-and-the-ai-boom-running-out-of-money-invest-like-the-best-ep-487/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/invest-like-the-best/ben-thompson-on-big-tech-china-and-the-ai-boom-running-out-of-money-invest-like-the-best-ep-487.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.