Big Tech Summer π§
Are you planning any "hackquisitions"? Come on, Meta clearly has to get on this train, everyone else is already on board. Even those who are losing antitrust cases. No, I'm not talking about Microsoft, this time is different. And Apple hasn't lost their case yet, but they're also not "hackquiring" yet because they're too busy trolling the EU.
Amazon did their deal and now they're on to dunking on Warner Bros Discovery. The company, beyond losing NBA rights in rather pathetic fashion, also seems to be bungling their crown jewel: House of the Dragon. Come on, HBO already made the same basic mistakes with Game of Thrones, do we really need to do this again? Or do we need Apple to step in? We may need that regardless (more on that below)...
Apple is still trying to make premium podcasts happen. While Google is still trying to make their living room strategy happen. And Meta is still trying to make celebrity AI bots happen, even though they just cancelled their first batch. But this time they have a secret weapon: Dame Judi Dench! OpenAI is stilly trying to make... it one week without some sort of drama happening.
I also randomly wrote about flights/flying/airplanes/airports twice this week.
But really, amazing comeback win by Team USA over Serbia yesterday to reach the gold medal game in men's basketball. Ideally they wouldn't back themselves into a crazy corner against one of the, if not the, current best player in the world. But it was pretty awesome to see a half dozen of the other best players in the world turn it on in an instant and come roaring back. I did not write about this. Except here.
Anyways, enjoy the last few drips of summer, talk soon,
M.G.
Remains of the Week
β¨οΈ Appleβs Mac Mini With M4 Chip Will Be Its Smallest Computer Ever β This makes sense as the computer hasn't been redesigned in over a decade β Steve Jobs announced it! With the move to Apple Silicon, clearly they can shrink this further now. And Mark Gurman is reporting it will be tiny, like Apple TV hockey-puck tiny. Makes me wonder if Apple wouldn't/shouldn't one day just put a Mac in an external keyboard? Take it with you and use an iPad as a monitor, perhaps? Maybe I just keep stretching to find a way to run macOS on a iPad? [Bloomberg π]
π€ How Intel Spurned OpenAI and Fell Behind the Times β This report states that in 2017/2018, Intel was in talks to buy upwards of 30% of OpenAI. This was before Microsoft's initial investment. Wild to think if they would have been the AI company's main backer instead β perhaps like a SoftBank/Alibaba relationship, where the latter ended mattering far more and saved the former. But more realistically, OpenAI probably would not be where it is now without Microsoft's cloud computing coverage (and credits) and NVIDIA's chips. [Reuters]
π Peacock's Baffling 'Battlestar Galactica' Reboot Has Been Cancelled β Hard to see what the upside would have been here since the last reboot did what anyone doing a reboot would hope for: take the original concept and make it so much better. The 2003-2009 era Battlestar was truly excellent sci-fi television. It wavered a bit in the end β "All Along the Watchtower"?! β but as Ronald D. Moore put it, "In all modesty, we set a very high bar for what that show is." So say we all. [Inverse]
π DOJ Asked to Investigate Disney, Fox, Warner Over Venu β Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joaquin Castro are all over this. I get why on paper, but when you actually look at what they're offering here β and at what price β I wonder if Venu isn't going to bellyflop out of the gates. In other words, I'm not sure we can't let the market decide on this one and let the politicians spend their time elsewhere. [The Athletic π]
π Warner Bros Discovery Writes Down Television Channels by $9B β It's also perhaps worth wondering if WBD is even going to be a stand-alone entity by the time Venu launches in the fall. They're clearly in trouble β and why exactly does a sports streaming service want a partner that just lost their most important sports streaming offering? Losing those rights are what led to this write-down. [Financial Times π]
π X to Close Flagship San Francisco Office β This truly feels like one of those "end of an era" moments. I recall very well when they opened that massive space in the previously dilapidated (to put it nicely) "Mid Market" area of SF and it was meant to usher in an era of prosperity for the entire city. It really felt like that for a while, then everything came crumbling down, including Twitter itself. [NYT]
βοΈ The Inner Ring βοΈ
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M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
Potent Quotables
"It is more likely that the sun evaporates tomorrow than this term paper wasnβt watermarked."
-- John Thickstun, a Stanford researcher who is working on a technology to digitally watermark text created by AI in an attempt to curb cheating in schools, among other things. Though such technology is being slow-rolled...
The Quick & the Read
- I'm shocked β SHOCKED β that Epic and Spotify came out against Apple's proposed new link-out changes to try to get in line with the DMA. I'm sort of surprised they didn't release their outrage before Apple released their changes. Though that doesn't mean they're wrong in calling them "confusing" β we'll see about "illegal". [TechCrunch]
- It sounds like the returns of the Humane AI Pin are outpacing the actual sales of the device now. The yikes just keeps getting yikes-ier. [The Verge]
- Cathie Wood just went on a stock buying-spree, which means you should probably stay away from Amazon, AMD, Roku, Reddit, Meta, etc... [Mint]
- Speaking of Roku, they're launching their own new sports-focused FAST (free, ad-supported) channel. Sort of the anti-Venu, I guess? [Hollywood Reporter]
- CNET is being sold to Ziff Davis, which feels perfect since Ziff Davis once bought CNET. Not so perfect? The reported $100M price (down from $500M in 2020 and $1.8B (!) in 2008). [Axios]
- Barnes & Noble is buying Tattered Cover, an important Denver-based small chain of bookstores. It continues to be under-reported just how well James Daunt is doing at turning around B&N β running the same game plan that he did with Waterstone's here in the UK. Maybe he should take over Starbucks next? [Publisher's Weekly]
- In other anti-trust news, Xitter is suing an advertising body and its members for refusing to advertise on Xitter, which is only something that happens when things are going really well, obviously. [Axios]
- But the suit seemingly did bring down the coalition, GARM, which is just going to make everyone feel even better about Xitter, clearly [Business Insider]
- The report that NVIDIA's new AI chip was being delayed not only rippled through all of tech, it seems to have fed at least part of the stock market plunge earlier this week β that's how vital the company has become to both the tech sector and, terrifyingly, the market overall [The Information π]
- Related, the hedge fund Elliott Management is telling investors that NVIDIA's stock is a "bubble" and the price is "overhyped", all adding to the whiplash the stock is experiencing... [Financial Times π]
- Also contributing to the market plunge, Warren Buffett, who sold down half of Berkshire Hathaway's stake in Apple β their largest holding. [Financial Times π]
- Is Burning Man over? No, but we may be past the peak. [Bloomberg π]
- Is Windows on ARM ready for gaming? No, but we're going to find something these laptops are good for soon, right? [The Verge]
- Is the Google antitrust verdict good for Mozilla? No. Just no. [Fortune]
- Will Google be shut down? No, but some people are saying... [The Verge]
- Back to the topic of AI spend, basically all of Big Tech said it was "full steam ahead" this week during earnings and pushed for patience in terms of pay-offs [NYT]
- Erin Griffith and Cade Metz were able to track down some more details in terms of money spent on the "hackquisitions" recently done by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google (and where the money is actually going) β [NYT]
- "Bailout" is another interesting way to frame it β especially given the above reporting about the money being used to make investors whole [WSJ π]
- Many non-AI late-stage startups could use a bailout too, sadly as growth has slowed to the point of closing the IPO window for many previous hopefuls [The Information π]
- Speaking of Amazon, the UK has opened a probe into their investment in Anthropic β similar to what is being looked into with Microsoft and OpenAI β Amazon is not happy about it, obviously. [Financial Times π]
- Meanwhile, OpenAI itself is leading an investment in Opal, which is best known for making a web cam β it sounds like this will be related to new hardware that can leverage the GPT-4o multimodal tech β in particular voice. [The Information π]
One Bing Thing...
"I donβt believe thereβs a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us. They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company."
-- Eddy Cue with the most ruthless insult of Microsoft's Bing search engine that I've ever heard (and I've heard a few).