HN Explorer

Ask HN: What hyper-focused industry newsletters do you enjoy?

289 points by vwcx ↗ HN
In my experience, HN users tend to have incredibly specialized interests. I'm curious about what newsletters are out there that deliver a depth of specialized knowledge?

For me, it doesn't get better than 'The Prepared' and the 'Future of Trucks' newsletters. Both provide a window into technicalities that I wouldn't otherwise think about in fields that I'm broadly interested in.

https://theprepared.org/ https://www.trucks.vc/newsletter

155 comments

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smabie
Not sure I would call it "hyper" specialized, but Matt Levine's Money Stuff newsletter is probably the best thing I read everyday.
dorkwood
I want to know how he writes so much every day. Matt, if you're reading, give us some tips.
skippyboxedhero
Practice. Conversational style of writing. Audience that is used to long posts with minimal editing (Dealbreaker had shorter articles but his posts grew in length, references added, and the audience grew into that style...old Dealbreaker was hilarious, I seem to remember Matt did the CFA Level 1...he was going to hit the strip club for lulz during the lunch break, didn't but went to a Mexican cafe and got drunk...Dealbreaker 2008-2012 was pure gold, nothing like it today).

I wouldn't try to replicate his style. Lots of people try, but it is like a virgin turning up to a BDSM orgy: you can't hang, don't try, find your own path.

EDIT: wow, that Dealbreaker story was over 10 years old...what have I done with my life.

audiometry
I was going to post this too. He's exceptionally skillful in explaining, lucidly, the small wonkish details of financial market matters that make the gem of the story. I'm also impressed by the breadth of markets that he's able to cover with that clarity.
[dead] swimmerboy60
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pxeger1
This comment and the reply look highly inorganic to me, so take their recommendations with a pinch of salt.
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bckr
three+ green accounts posting the same link... feels off to me too
comrh
As an aside is there a better way to consume these newsletters than email or unroll?
enigmatic02
Ya I sometimes just keep track of newsletters I like in a doc, then make the rounds when I'm in a reading mood
a_lanfranco
I read them in Feedbin. It provides me with a dedicated mail address and allows me to read newsletters as if they were RSS feeds.
etalian
Edit: nevermind, I might promote it when it's more generally available.
jacobd11
would love to download this service, what's the name?
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killingtime74
My dog Walker publishes a WhatsApp thread with videos of all her dog walks on it
bricemo
Can’t get much more hyper focused than this!
ketzo
That would be so.. oddly comforting to me as a dog owner. I dig that.
jamesfisher
Your dog is called Walker and you taught her how to use WhatsApp? :)
dmichulke
You should ask OP about how he once helped his uncle Jack off a horse
loufe
I'm usually against quick jokes on this site but this one got me.
exikyut
I would like to subscribe to your dog's newsletter!
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pinky1417
Scuttleblurb, David Kim's SubStack, sends out in-depth write ups of companies. It's technically an investing newsletter, but it's really more about the mechanics of a given industry and how a particular company or group of companies operates within that industry. Similarly, and these aren't newsletters but they do come out at newsletter-like frequencies: the Company Man and the Wendover Productions YouTube channels.

Granted, these aren't specialized in terms of a single industry or single tech field, but, if you're a business enthusiast / love learning about industries you previously didn't know about, these are excellent.

https://www.scuttleblurb.com/ Company Man: https://youtube.com/channel/UCQMyhrt92_8XM0KgZH6VnRg Wendover Productions: https://youtube.com/c/Wendoverproductions

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srvmshr
I greatly enjoy the in-depth articles surrounding Linux ecosystem from LWN.net
skippyboxedhero
I think there will be a lot of money in focused industry newsletters over the next ten years or so.

This will be basically identical to the corporate media business of yore: start in publishing, build audience, use that to sell events/training (and then, eventually, someone comes along and consolidates all of them). There will be a twist, but...basically.

We aren't even at the start of this trend imo (a lot of the industry news is still distributed physically, I don't think current publications have really "cracked" the format/content organization yet either) as the replies kind of demonstrate.

modeless
For AR/VR, https://youtube.com/c/SadlyItsBradley is cringe, but he has solid supply chain info leaks about upcoming products and a surprisingly good understanding of the technology. Meanwhile, https://kguttag.com is by far the best place to learn about the many fundamental unsolved problems that are preventing the grand vision of metaverse AR glasses from being realized anytime soon, and the reality of what upcoming products will be like as they work around those problems in various ways.
aghilmort
trucks.vc is definitely a better vertical newsletter than most, have read for years!
culi
It's weird how few people seem to be aware of this but the whole field of economics seems to be undergoing some pretty big transformations. One of the best sources for keeping up with this shift has been Evonomics:

https://evonomics.com/

jhanschoo
As an outsider, how can I evaluate the credibility of your two main claims?
ragebol
Not being an economist: what's going on there and what transformation is going on?
interpenetrate
What is emerging? All I see is a scholarly rejection of neoclassical policy. Since 2007 we've seen the frightfully predictable upsurge in Keynesian ideas. The articles on that site don't seem to go beyond Keynes whatsoever.

Since 2007 there's also been a surge of interest in classical political economy, as forwarded by Anwar Shaikh and Michael Roberts. But there's no paradigm shift in this work, and I don't see any influence of this trend on that site anyway.

astrange
A newsletter is the same thing as a blog post, right? In that case I think this one about the satellite imagery industry is interesting:

https://joemorrison.substack.com/

The main thing you learn is that outside of governments there isn’t much of a satellite image industry. Which is why there aren’t that many posts.