The quarter's other big thesis: AI-written code collapses the cost of software the way the internet collapsed distribution — which dooms the siloed SaaS land-grab even as it makes software companies the chief beneficiaries. “Microsoft and Software Survival” is the anchor the earnings pieces and interviews orbit; the model-plus-harness integration argument explains where the margin actually accrues.
TIER 5
Feb 3, 2026
Using Microsoft's $357B post-earnings rout as the entry point, Thompson lays out the quarter's defining thesis: AI-written code is collapsing the cost of software the way the internet collapsed distribution for publishers, which dooms the siloed SaaS land-grab even as it makes software companies the chief beneficiaries of AI coding. He reframes Microsoft's Azure 'miss' as a correct capacity-allocation choice (favoring higher-LTV first-party Copilots and R&D over third-party cloud) and introduces durable framings — 'Work IQ'/identity as the agent layer, the shrinking value of per-seat licensing, and 'token foundries' (pure-play neoclouds vs. self-prioritizing hyperscalers). This is the anchor argument the rest of the quarter's earnings pieces and interviews orbit.
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TIER 5
Feb 5, 2026
A wide-ranging, framework-dense conversation that is arguably the definitive articulation of the 'is software dead?' question: Evans argues software's real value was never the code but the institutionalized workflow, route-to-market, and 'throat to choke,' so AI lowers code cost without killing software companies — while the 'middle managers will roll their own' thesis is delusional. The pair build several reusable lenses: AI as a new kind of unbundling (separating the work from the product), AI possibly collapsing coordination costs (the Gosplan/central-planning analogy) toward larger firms, the OpenAI 'cargo cult' (importing app stores/ads/dev conferences that solve no real problem), LLMs as a pre-baked mechanical turk that could know things without a user base, and the recurring point that paradigms (the feed, native mobile) take a generation to emerge. Lasting reference value across AI strategy.
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TIER 4
Mar 11, 2026
An earnings analysis using Oracle's blowout quarter (84% infrastructure growth, $553B RPO, customers self-funding GPUs, 531% Multicloud Database growth) to argue the null hypothesis on AI infrastructure demand is that it's real and accelerating. The more interesting thread is Oracle's 'software defense' case against the SaaS-apocalypse thesis: AI coding lets incumbents expand into adjacent products and embed agents in mission-critical systems no one will rip out — the same survival pattern Thompson laid out in 'Microsoft and Software Survival.' Reality-checks the bear case with concrete data.
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TIER 4
Feb 18, 2026
Against the indiscriminate 'SaaS is dead' panic, Thompson makes the affirmative case that Shopify is a prime AI winner, enumerating a reusable checklist of AI advantages: exclusive commerce data plus a way to leverage it (Shop Campaigns, Product Network), AI-driven long-tail market expansion (orders from AI search up 15x), interaction with the physical world, ownership of high-risk payment workflows, a pre-existing transaction-based business model, and horizontal coverage of the entire commerce stack. He also clarifies that under UCP, LLMs run the front end while Shopify still runs checkout's back end. The six-factor framework is the load-bearing contribution, reused two issues later for DoorDash.
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TIER 4
Mar 10, 2026
Analyzes Microsoft's Copilot Cowork launch to surface a key structural point: while Microsoft pursues a model-agnostic 'commoditize your complements' strategy, Cowork runs only on Claude because the agent differentiator is the model-plus-harness integration that Microsoft can't yet replicate — so Anthropic captures real margin even as Microsoft brings unmatched cloud-grounded distribution (Work IQ, identity, E7's $99 bundle). The piece crystallizes why distribution and integration both matter in the agent value chain and previews the anti-commoditization argument developed further in 'Agents Over Bubbles.'
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TIER 4
Feb 24, 2026
Thompson dismantles the viral Citrini 'AI doomer' report, identifying its fundamental error as a lack of belief in dynamism, human choice, and markets — it treats incumbents like DoorDash as static rent-extractors rather than companies that built markets by delivering value, mirroring the flawed worldview of anti-monopoly activists. He notes the real-estate example actually disproves the thesis (the internet already removed information asymmetry, yet agents persist) and applies his Shopify six-factor checklist to show why DoorDash's three-sided network effects make it an AI winner, not casualty. A useful articulation of the analytical posture (markets are dynamic, not linearly projectable) behind the whole quarter's anti-doom stance.
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