👋🏻 Welcome to Newsletter Examples, where I highlight cool sh*t I’m seeing in newsletters that you can borrow for your newsletter.

This week, I’m highlighting Paul Armstrong’s unique approach to covering Amazon, Google, and OpenAI, and how it could be applied across industries. Reading time: 3 minutes.

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🧊 Look under the iceberg

The so-called “Magnificent Seven” companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—have ballooned in value in recent years.

• At the start of 2023, they made up 20% of the S&P500

• At the start of this year, they accounted for ~33% of the value of the benchmark index

As the value of those companies has exploded—growing some 800% in the past decade—so has coverage of the companies.

But few people cover those companies the way Paul Armstrong does: by telling you all you need to know about them, one company at a time.

His weekly reports—What did Amazon do this week?, What did Google do this week?, and What did OpenAI do this week?—break down the most important news about each company in a smart, easy-to-digest format.

Armstrong, a London-based tech advisor and strategist, has written for all kinds of tech pubs, from Reuters to TechRadar to The Information.

And he has amassed a following of his own, with 50k+ subscribers to those three newsletters, including 1,500 who pay him £99/yr (~$120/yr).

His goal is to take a more nuanced view of emerging tech than what you see in the mainstream media, revealing the breadth of those companies’ actions and the specter that they are.

He likens big tech to an iceberg, with most of the action happening underwater. By focusing on one company and everything it did that week, he hopes to bring more of their actions into view.

The thing subscribers like most? His analysis of the week’s news:👇️ 

🧠 Show why it matters

There’s so much news happening in big tech every day, it can feel overwhelming. But by packaging it in one weekly email about one company, with a summary of why it matters, Armstrong has set himself apart.

Here’s my favorite part of his email👇️ 

But he also links to dozens of other pieces, summarizing company news and related developments in one place.

It’s so simple and effective, I don’t know why more people don’t write newsletters curating weekly highlights of single companies.

🔮 Show what’s next

What did Amazon do this week?—the first newsletter he launched in the series, in April 2020—is the biggest of the three, with over 21k subscribers.

Many of those subscribers work in e-commerce and want to understand where it’s headed; others are tracking Amazon’s AI strategy, or looking for the latest news about Alexa.

But some 40% of subscribers come from inside Amazon—“which tells you something about their internal comms,” Armstrong jokes.

Armstrong says influential people, including members of Congress, read all three publications, with increasing interest in What did OpenAI do this week?

That newsletter, which he started last May, already has 17k+ subscribers and has become an essential read for anyone interested in AI.

Up next? A weekly email about another member of the Magnificent Seven—Meta—which he plans to launch soon.

All of Armstrong’s newsletters (he also has one called C_NCENTRATE, which has 34k subscribers) ladder up to TBD+, a paid community where Armstrong and other big thinkers riff on the future of technology.

TBD+, which grew out of a book Armstrong wrote about disruptive technologies and the in-person conference it spawned, may be his most unique offering.

It’s also—ironically—the one place to keep up with the vast amount of writing Armstrong does every week.

Something else I liked: This visual

Lenny’s Newsletter, one of Substack’s top business newsletters, profiles interesting people in the product space. His write-ups are legendary, and his graphic treatment is next-level:

Hope you enjoyed this week’s examples. I’ll be back next week with a new set!

☮️ -Brad

P.S. Let me know what you thought about today’s issue—hit reply and tell me, or click the links at the bottom!🙏 

ICYMI: Links to recent issues

🆕 A new model for newsletter launches
🔮 6 newsletter predictions for 2025
📧 What I learned taking Sam Parr’s email copywriting course
📨 The 5 coolest things I saw in newsletters in 2024