2026.30: The Copium Wars

(Photo by Ng Han Guan-Pool/Getty Images)

Welcome back to This Week in Stratechery!

As a reminder, each week, every Friday, we’re sending out this overview of content in the Stratechery bundle; highlighted links are free for everyone. Additionally, you have complete control over what we send to you. If you don’t want to receive This Week in Stratechery emails (there is no podcast), please uncheck the box in your delivery settings.

On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week.

1. Chinese Models and Frontier Futures. Kimi K3 is a very good model — so good that everyone from Wall Street to the U.S. government is suddenly worried about the U.S.’s position in AI. In fact, the threat isn’t new — and the frontier labs advantage is still real. In this week’s Stratechery Article and Sharp Tech episode I break down what has and hasn’t changed in AI, and explain why the biggest danger is U.S. policy around cybersecurity. Solving that problem will require understanding and accepting the reality and nature of Chinese competition, even if that leaves OpenAI and Anthropic to fend for themselves. — Ben Thompson
   
   
2. What Happened to Hugging Face? As Sharp Tech’s resident normie I’m often baffled by the lingua franca of frontier technology, and this week’s controversy around OpenAI and its cybersecurity snafu introduced several terms that have amused and confounded me for years: everything centered the “Hugging Face” platform and the concept of “sandboxing,” and we were revisiting “the paper clip problem.” Thankfully, Wednesday’s Update synthesized the story in a way that was a bit more legible for the rest of us. Come to understand what happened, and stay to learn where OpenAI appears to have erred and why this mess is arguably reassuring with regard to alignment fears around LLMs.  — Andrew Sharp
   
   
3. The NBA And Its Second Apron Bet. If you’ve been online for the past month and even half-paying attention to the NBA, you’ve probably encountered complaints about the league’s imposition of a “second apron” salary threshold that’s effectively functioning as a hard salary cap. Contenders are being forced to part ways with homegrown stars, others teams have limited room to improve, and fans almost unanimously hate these changes. With the offseason winding down (still waiting on LeBron though!), this week’s Sharp Text explains precisely what the NBA is trying to accomplish, why I hate it, and the stakes for the league as it bets on parity in the shadow of shrinking local TV money, slowing growth, and heavy reliance on national TV revenue. — AS

Stratechery Articles and Updates

• Who’s Afraid of Chinese Models? — Everyone is worried about Chinese models, but the frontier labs will be fine; we need to enable open U.S. alternatives.
• Netflix Earnings, Is Netflix Washed?, Additional Notes — Netflix’s earnings were fine, and befitting a mature company whose most exciting days are likely behind them.
• OpenAI Hacks Hugging Face, What Happened, Alignment and Paper Clips — OpenAI accidentally hacked Hugging Face, but the takeaways are more encouraging than people realize.

Sharp Text by Andrew Sharp

• Two More Cents on the NBA’s Second Apron Era — The problem with the second apron is that it’s working. Plus: July reading recs!

Dithering with Ben Thompson and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber

• DST and Kimi
• Android, AI, and the EU

Asianometry with Jon Yu

• France Sold Its Nuclear Steam Turbine Champion. Then Bought It Back.

Sharp China with Andrew Sharp and Sinocism’s Bill Bishop

• Kimi Madness; Xi’s AI Vision and US Questions; Trump’s Election Data Claims; The Connected Vehicle Security Act

Greatest of All Talk

• Summer Top Fives: Coaches or GMs to Get a Beer With and State Flags

Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson

• An OpenAI Model Escapes Sandboxing, Intelligence Will Be a Commodity Market, The Chinese Model Conundrum

This week’s Sharp Tech video is on Meta’s maddening messaging.