From Afar

The Spyglass Column

Thoughts and analysis on various topics. Columns which are exclusive to paid members are denoted below, outlined in SEA GREEN.

Members of The Inner Ring will get the full access:

š‘— Sign up for Spyglass š‘—

⌾ Upgrade to The Inner Ring ⌾
December 2025
The AI Chaos Ladder
Where do the leaders in AI fall?

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

YouTube Hands the Best Acquisition Oscar to Netflix
With YouTube poaching The Academy Awards, it sure feels like Netflix is going to be allowed to buy Warner Bros now…
Conflicts & Interests in AI
*Of course* Amazon is investing in OpenAI, next up…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Congrats Regulators, You Killed Roomba
Actually, you just put a Chinese robot in every home…
The Grand Netflix Hollywood Unification Theory
Warner Bros/HBO is phase one of Netflix’s bigger play here…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

The Trillion Dollar Business Staring Apple in the Face
Apple needs a new hit product. Well, needs is relative. They want a new hit product. And Wall Street clearly wants them to have it. The new iPhones are a hit. But eventually Apple needs that new product. Services are doing great, but that’s not a singular sexy product. The

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

OpenAI Strikes Back
OpenAI’s deal with Disney deals a blow to Google…
Meta Bought a Headache
Is the internal AI pain ultimately going to be worth the price?

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Has Netflix Truly Found Religion in Movie Theaters?
They’re *saying* the right things, will they follow through…
Apple Turnover
The recent executive and talent exits at Apple are both ordinarily orderly and completely chaotic…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Oh No, a Tech Company is Buying a Movie Studio
This is the end of Hollywood? Come on.
The Albanian Army Closes in on Warner Bros
In a stunning turn, Netflix enters pole position to take over Warner Bros and HBO…
Drop the ā€˜Meta’. It’s Cleaner.
Meta contemplates a step back from the Metaverse…
Live and Let Dye
The exit of Alan Dye augurs another Apple shift in UI
OpenAI’s One Battle After Another
Beyond the Google threat, if Anthropic were to IPO before OpenAI…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

The AI Snow Globe is Shaken
2025 is ending with ā€œCode Redsā€, ā€œretirementsā€, new models, worries about old models, new chips, worries about old chips, crushed earnings, stock shorting, oh my…
November 2025
DeepMind Should Make the UK Proud and Embarrassed
A growing sense that growth will never return to the UK…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

NVIDIA’s ā€œDelightā€
Passive-aggressive tweets aside, NVIDIA has a point, but also a potential problem…
Big Tech’s Wild Market Cap Ride
3 different leaders of the 6 this year, Google soon to be a 4th?
NVIDIA Evokes the ā€˜E’ Word
Because they invoked it! Multiple times! In a memo!

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Failing to Realize Why Modern Antitrust Keeps Failing
Tim Wu is back with another misguided op-ed…
ā€˜Pluribus’ as AI Allegory
Not sure that was the intent, but it feels like a commentary on LLMs…
Google Starts to Bridge OpenAI’s Product Moat
Gemini’s ā€œDynamic Viewā€ is a terrible name for a profound product…
Big Tech Cash Was a Hammer Seeking an NVIDIA
How do you become a $5T company? It’s simple, really…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

When Steve Jobs Fused Silicon Valley & Hollywood at Pixar
ā€œIt’s the story, stupid.ā€ Well, and the talent.
Judge Rules FTC Wasted Everyone’s Time with Meta Case
Highlighting how Big Tech antitrust is broken in our current era…
Collect Them All (AI Edition)
An ongoing list of the tangled web of Big Tech investments in Big AI…
The Small NVIDIA Short
The stakes keep rising for NVIDIA’s earnings as bears & bubbles loom…
LLMs vs. the World (Models)
A key schism in AI heading into 2026…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Let Tim Cook
Might Tim Cook retire as CEO of Apple in early 2026? There are signs…
Group ChatGPT
OpenAI has a shot at layering social on top of their AI…
Why Microsoft Pushed OpenAI Aside
Satya Nadella’s vision for the future of computing makes it pretty clear that they feel the need to fully control their own AI destiny

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Meta AI vs. the World (Models)
The writing was on the (Facebook) wall for Yann LeCun; now can he run an end run around Zuck to AGI?

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

The Wearable iPhone
The ā€˜iPhone Pocket’ continues a trend…
Two AI Roads Diverged...
Anthropic goes for profit as OpenAI goes for broke

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

ā€œHey, There’s a Bubble.ā€
Yes, it’s a bubble. Yes, that may be a good thing. Yes, it will hurt.
IPOpenAI
What might an OpenAI IPO look like? Can the market hold to get them there? What if it doesn’t? Backstops? Government guaranteed loans?
OpenAI’s Local AI Device Dreams
What if their would-be AI device doesn’t require a connection…
Apple Finally Agrees to Fix Siri
They’ll swap Google billions for Gemini trillions (of parameters)…
Google’s Epic Play Store Trade Puts More Pressure on Apple
Is 80/20 (86/14 or 91/9) the new 70/30 (85/15)?
AI is Breaking the Browser’s Back
And it may fragment web usage across different tools depending on BD deals in place…
How Low Will Apple Go?
With regard to the price of a lower-cost MacBook…
October 2025
Buyer Beware Big Tech Gains (and Losses) Boosted By Big AI
On paper gains from valuation markups and paper losses from burn…
OpenAI Gets Their Cake and Microsoft Gets Their Stake
Microsoft signs off on OpenAI’s PBC conversion in exchange for some more clear-cut and friendly terms
Microsoft’s Halo Mary
It’s starting to feel like Xbox is dead, and Microsoft’s pricey gaming buys were huge blunders…
Netflix Thaws Their Theatrical Stance
Stranger Things. Frankenstein. KPop. Narnia. AMC. Oh my…
Some Thoughts on ChatGPT Atlas
OpenAI’s web browser enters the AI Browser Battle…
AGI or Bust
Forget a ā€œBubbleā€, OpenAI has made this all a very binary bet…
Apple’s AI Brain Bleed
Meta keeps poaching Apple’s AI talent and that’s a real problem…
Spotify & Netflix Gun for YouTube’s Eyeballs
The video podcast partnership may portend a bundle…
Apple TV+ Minus the Plus
A simple solution to confuse more people…
OpenAI’s Rising Tide Strategy
Betting on virtuous cycle financing during a boom time…
OpenAI’s Digital Assistant Device
Obvious challenges aside, it’s starting to come into focus…
Sora’s Slop Hits Different
It’s about creative comedy creation, stupid
Apple Confronts the Vision Pro Mistake
By fully shifting focus to smart glasses…
Sora Soars
Another viral product hit for OpenAI, this time in video…
September 2025
Thoughts on New Apple Things
A trip to the Scottish Highlands with a very orange iPhone 17 Pro Max (and Apple Watch Ultra 3 and AirPods Pro 3)…
Grading Alexa+ on a Curve
Hopefully new devices bring a better version, because Alexa+ sounds like a miss for Amazon thus far…
One Box Office Battle After Another
ā€˜One Battle After Another’ is by all accounts fantastic. The marketing hasn’t been.
The Mysterious ā€œNew Ideasā€ for AI Data Center Build Outs...
Perhaps not that mysterious, maybe more circular…
TikTok’s American Dream
As investors take over a hot consumer product: what, me worry?
OpenAI Sells Its Stake to Win AI
They need NVIDIA to beat Google, and Microsoft may live to regret it…
NVIDIA (Intends to) Invest (Up to) $100B in OpenAI (Over Time)
Look, it’s a massive deal. But right now, it’s all about the optics…
Meta Reframes Their Reality
They’re trying to back AI and Smart Glasses into the ā€˜Metaverse’…
Apple’s Flight to Safety
A refocusing on design and hardware might be a good sign…
Meta Looks to Overcome the ā€˜Glasshole’ Stigma
With Ray-Ban, they can keep the pressure on in the ā€˜smart glasses’ space as it shifts back to screens…
OpenAI & Microsoft Agree to Agree, Tentatively
An important step – but one of many – as they clearly try to race towards PBC conversion…
Paramount Skydance’s Blockbuster Bid for Warner Bros Discovery
One good idea, so many names…
Apple’s ā€˜Plateau’ Event
Some no-brainer upgrades to AirPods, Apple Watch, and iPhone…
Sony’s ā€˜KPop’ Gift
It shows them a path forward for a new flexible distribution deal…
OpenAI Needs to Build Google Cloud Before Google Can Build ChatGPT...
Or: how to burn $100B+ in real time…
A Cynical Read on Anthropic’s Book Settlement
$1.5B. Damn. Who can afford to pay that?
Apple and Google Are So Back
The famous frenemies seems awfully aligned again…
Instagram is No Longer Instagram
The iPad app – 15 years in the making – makes the priorities clear…
Google, Apple, and Mozilla Win in the Antitrust Case Google Lost
Chrome stays. Payments stay. Exclusive placement goes. Some Search data goes.
A Standing Ovation Epidemic Breaks Out in Venice
There is no known cure…
August 2025
My Expensive Streaming Bundle
It’s less than I thought, but still completely untenable…
Apple Weighs the Voting Machine
Will they do a big AI deal? Should they?
Google Lost a Search Antitrust Case. Will Gemini Take the Blame?
As the remedies loom, AI is top of mind…
The 3 iPhone Problem
An interesting dilemma coming soon to iPhone users: choice.
KPopping Netflix’s Theatrical Stance
Netflix just had the number one movie at the box office – yes, Netflix.
Peering Back at the OpenAI ā€œConstellationsā€
The aggregate valuation looks to surge past $400B…
Google’s Distractingly Smarmy Pixel Event
Next time, let’s not use the talk show host or infomercial set?
The Scale is New, the Idea Isn’t
A fictionalized movie about BlackBerry feels familiar…
Meta Shoves More Shit Into IG
Reposts and Snap-ish Maps add new problems & cruft to Instagram…
M.S.N.O.W.
MSNBC, peacockblocked from the ā€˜NBC’ bit, goes acronym wild…
I Decree: Paramount Should Buy IMAX
A new idea for a new company looking to double-down on theatrical…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Perplexity’s Perplexing and Positively PR Offer to Buy Chrome
Why not offer a quadrillion dollars?
OpenAI Moves Fast and Breaks ChatGPT
The GPT-5 roll-out backlash is a product story as old as time…
The Art of the Quid Pro Quo
Forget tariffs, Trump gets a direct taste of NVIDIA & AMD Sales…
The Captains of CapEx
...and then there’s Apple.
Tim Cook’s Golden Gift
The fealty payments get more ridiculous – and embarrassing…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

OpenAI Figures Out Their Path Back to ā€œOpenā€
The open weight model is important but also a bit subversive…
ā€œOpenā€ Comes Back to Bite Google
As badly as I now want to bite into a Chick-fil-A thanks to the judge…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Marvel, We Have a Superhero Problem
The fantastic fall of ā€˜The Fantastic Four’ at the box office…
Meta’s ā€˜Anti-Godfather’ Offers
As we cross into ten-figure territory, people keep turning them down…
Apple Backed Into an AI Corner
Tim Cook tries to rally the troops. Can he?
July 2025
A Personal Read of ā€˜Personal Superintelligence’
Ahead of Meta earnings and with mega offers being turned down, Mark Zuckerberg aims to change the conversation around AI…
IMAX is More than Just a Bigger Screen, You Morons
Movie theater chains aim to slaughter their last remaining cash cow
Marvel’s ā€˜Fantastic’ Path Forward
...which they’re seemingly *not* taking with the new ā€˜Avengers’ movies
The Have Lots & the Have Nots
A time of $100M+ job offers and also layoffs at the same companies…
A Mere Thought of a Flick of the Wrist
With an AI assist, Meta nears the productization of CTRL-Labs gesture (and non-gesture) interface wristband
Big Tech’s Big Hedge with Big AI
Large investments means sizable stakes for the last wave of technology in the next wave of technology…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

ESPN Looks to Ride the NFL to Streaming Success
There was one key partnership to make the new ESPN streaming service a must-have on day one…
AI Can Reproduce Writing, But Not the Process of Writing
And that’s the most important part…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

ā€˜Stargate’ Gazing
With the original partnership slow to start, OpenAI shifts the goalposts…
The Endless Rebranding of AI
From AI to AGI to Superintelligence to... brands trying to make Granular Superintelligence happen
The Killing of a Sacred Late Show
The message sent by the end of ā€˜The Late Show’ was obviously always going to be political even if it was driven by financial reasons…
The Great Okay Part II
Netflix continues to churn out decidedly mediocre hit movies
Meta’s AI Relativity Theory
Mark Zuckerberg defends his shift in strategy with AI…
Open Source AI was the Path Forward
...until it wasn’t for Meta
We’re Seemingly Still in the ā€œThrow Money At Itā€ AI Era...
...and that’s great news for xAI, Meta, and maybe Apple!

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

An OpenAI Acquisition Turns Into a Google ā€˜Hackqusition’...
A rough few weeks may signal some real talent trouble for OpenAI – at the worst possible time
Escalated, the AI Browser Wars Have – Quickly
Right after Dia, Perplexity’s Comet is here – with OpenAI inbound…
Apple is Ripe
...for change, as their COO steps down. Can they avoid rot?
Apple’s Formula for F1
The movie is good, will the actual rights to the sport be for Apple?
iPadOS 26 Turns the iPad Into a Sort of ā€˜Mac Jr.’
It’s not bad, but it’s also not really for me. Maybe that’s the point.

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Taking a Bite Out of the Latest Box Office ā€œRecordsā€
With ā€˜Jurassic Park 7’ and ā€˜F1’, the goalposts keep shifting as the reporting around recent box office numbers remains ridiculous…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Can Meta Buy the Future of AI?
No.

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Meta’s ā€˜Godfather’ Offer
Which, amazingly, everyone has seemingly refused – so far…
Zuck’s Eleven
7 from OpenAI, 2 from Google, 1 from Anthropic, 1 from Sesame... But just as interesting, what’s *not* mentioned.
June 2025
Hey Siri, Time for that Lobotomy
As predicted, Apple may outsource Siri to ChatGPT (or Claude)!
Meta’s Open Source AI Mistake
The writing isn’t just on the wall for Llama, it’s on the new paychecks…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Apple Finally Has a Hit Movie, But at What Cost?
I mean that both literally and figuratively as ā€˜F1’ was beyond expensive to make and beyond in-your-face to market
$100M AI Signing Bonuses
Exaggeration, conflation, a game of Telephone, directional accuracy, brinksmanship, or all of the above?
Apple’s Pitt Stop
The drive to survive the theatrical box office starts anew…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Dr. Yes
With Denis Villeneuve, James Bond enters his Auteur Era…
Begun, the AI Browser Wars Have
Dia ushers in a new day for the web browser…
Apple Lives Long Enough to Become the Ad Villain
Apple pushes too far in their need for ā€˜F1’ to be a hit…
Whittling Down Apple’s Big AI M&A Options
I’ll bring my list of five down to four…
Pixar Peters Out
It has less to do with quality and more to do with our current reality…
Meta Hackquires a VC Fund
ā€œTeam Superintelligenceā€ continues to assemble at Meta, but it’s getting even more awkward…
Does Emo AI Dream of Mundane Tasks?
Is an emotional Alexa setting our timers really what we want here?

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

You the User
2012 WhatsApp just eviscerated 2025 WhatsApp
OpenAI and Microsoft Risk Open War
Forget biting hands and back-stabbing, this fight keeps escalating…
Big Journalism Is Finally Losing... It
Big Tech Is Finally Losing A technology landscape we deserve is finally within reach. The New York Times Julia Angwin There are many ongoing investigations into Big Techā„¢ and Julia Angwin is excited: It’s easy to miss it amid the nonstop avalanche of news, but we are on the
Hackquisitions & Hackquihires
A look at Meta’s Scale deal in relation to other such deals…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

The Mind-Blowing Mac-ness of iPadOS 26
Apple embraces the blurring lines between iPad and Mac. Finally.
Liquid Glasslighting
There are no issues with AI within Apple, why do you ask?
Apple Tries to Hide AI Under Liquid Glass
WWDC 25 certainly wasn’t six out of five stars…
Meta’s $10B+ AI Reset
Zuckerberg recruits a band of pirates to shake up and wake up their AI efforts – including a new don’t-call-it-a-deal for Scale AI talent…
Reasoning About the Reasoning of Reasoning Models
Did Apple just nuke the AI industry? Lol, no.

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Atlas Would Have Shrugged at ā€˜Mountainhead’
Playing it straight would have been a better absurd commentary on our current times than this absurdity
Can Meta Make Headsets Happen?
Can Apple? Can anyone?

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

App Store Changes Here to Stay with the Denial of Apple’s Stay
At least for the foreseeable future, and potentially forever…
Alphabet is Literally Worth Less Than the Sum of Its Parts
Forget the DoJ, this is the best case for a ā€œbreak upā€ of Google, which won’t happen…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

The Washington Post’s Plan to Become Forbes, or HuffPo, or Substack, or Something
Using AI to improve the quality prospects, naturally…
A Samsung Deal Makes An Apple One More Complex for Perplexity
But it still makes a ton of sense for the AI company, obviously…
Around Many Horns
At the end of ESPN’s ā€˜Around the Horn’
With AI, Email May Actually Morph Into a Task List
The end of email might look like bots emailing other bots for you…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

May 2025
Profiles in Courage: Apple Edition
When an event decline is sign of decline…
Apple Veers Into Microsoft Branding Territory
ā€˜iOS 26’ will naturally follow ā€˜iOS 18’ in 2025…
Might Apple’s Gaming Ambitions Have a Hidden Quest?
A new gaming-focused app could solve one big problem for Apple…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Apple’s Star Wars with Elon Musk
Tim Cook didn’t want to build a Starlink, but they sort of backed into a weird, weak competitor…
A Cook In Trump’s Doghouse
One missed roadtrip cost Apple hundreds of billions…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

Burning the Browser Boats
The Browser Company aims to move on from Arc to fully embrace AI…
Apple Still Searching For the Fountain of Good Movies
ā€˜The Fountain of Youth’ is the latest Apple TV+ mediocre movie…
Apple’s No Good, Very Bad Week
Hard to recall such a series of bad beats for one company…
Out of Pocket
Mozilla fails to save the beloved read it later service…
The Anti iPhone
Jony Ive’s antidote to the smartphone obsession he helped usher in…

THE INNER RING šŸ”’

OpenAI & IO
Sam Altman & Jony Ive aim to take the AI race into the real world…
Google Slams on the AI Gas
Does it leave Apple in the dust?
An Epic Game
5 years after Tim Sweeney went to war with Apple, he won. For now.
There’s No Free Lunch at Apple
The culture and history have naturally doomed their AI aspirations…
Epic’s Feigning Floundering to Keep Apple Under Pressure
Tim Sweeney’s insanely expensive pressure campaign continues…
Microsoft Zoom, Zoom, Zooms to the Defensive About AI
This is not such a great look and posture for the company…
Goo Goo Google
Apple ceding the education market to Chromebooks gives Google a unique counterposition in the age of AI... (And it may help square the Apple falling searches circle...)
On the Road to Airbnb’s Reinvention
Yet again, they’re trying things that historically don’t scale. But AI! Maybe!
ā€œNot a Normal Companyā€
But OpenAI may finally be making moves towards becoming one…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Digital Skeletons in the AI Closet
I don’t think we want our AI to know us before we knew it…
Hollywood’s ā€˜Black Bag’ Problem
When it comes to more subtle adult fare, good luck…
Just Jony
A couple takeaways from Jony Ive’s Stripe Sessions chat
Apple Hits Google’s Battleship
Eddy Cue’s comments on the witness stand may have been meant to be a shot across the bow – whoops
ā€œGet Bookā€
A button to buy something within the app you’re using. Imagine that.
Microsoft’s OpenAI Equity Jigsaw Puzzle
With the non-profit maintaining a controlling stake and an FMV floor set by Elon Musk, OpenAI still has a hell of a challenge…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

OpenAI Attempts to Have Their For-Profit Cake and Eat It Too
OpenAI leaves the for-profit path, maybe, with a trail of questions…
Big Tech’s Big Stakes in Big AI
As the valuations get bigger, the stakes go higher, quite literally…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Tim Cook Chose Poorly, Now Apple Can Choose Wisely
Tear down the App Store wall
Apple’s Low Energy Earnings
I guess boring is good in this environment, but that was rough…
Epic Won Because Everyone Won, Because Apple Lost
And Tim Sweeney continues to poke the bear…
Tim Sweeney’s Last Laugh
A federal judge just dismantled Apple in the most Epic way possible…
April 2025
Meta’s Sloppy AI Social Network
The new ā€˜Meta AI’ is exactly what you’d expect, in ways good and bad…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Hey Jealousy
Are OpenAI and Microsoft back bickering yet again?
In the Chat Where It Happens
These high-profile group chats are probably decidedly less interesting than you think they are…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Buy, Build, or Bury
The strategy permeating the Big Tech antitrust trials will go into overdrive in the age of AI

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

HBO Became HBO Before HBO Could Become Netflix
Well, technically ā€˜Max’, but you get the quip…
Why Buy the Llama When You Can Get the Model For Free?
Meta would like their rivals’ help in offsetting their AI costs. Good luck.

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

OpenAI Open to the Idea of Buying a Browser with a Few Billion Users
But really, it highlights that they should (and will) build a browser
Antitrust’s Hindsight Problem
The government keeps trying to litigate problems that are already being naturally disrupted…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

The Dumbfounding Dropping of the ā€˜Google Domains’ Ball
Google’s web registrar was great, so obviously they had to ruin it
o3, o4-mini, o4-mini-high, o My
Introducing OpenAI o3 and o4-mini Our smartest and most capable models to date with full tool access OpenAI Blog OpenAI I know that OpenAI knows that this naming scheme is ridiculous. No less than Sam Altman has tried to front-run everyone making fun of this. And I know that they’re
The Meta Points of Meta’s Trial
The FTC’s weak case collides with Meta’s miscalculations…
Apple’s ā€œFaster Horsesā€ Fallback Strategy
The Vision Pro and iPadOS may be going down this path…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Terminating the AI vs. Hollywood Tropes
James Cameron has some interesting – and some refreshing – and some controversial – thoughts about AI…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Failure Has Many Fathers at Apple Right Now
The dysfunction seemingly runs deep at the most valuable company…
An iPhone, Swiped
The iPhone was right there in my hand and then it was gone…
A Call to AI
Shopify goes all-in on AI – other companies are sure to follow…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Trump Throws Apple Under the Tariff Bus
I’m sorry for your margins, Tim, we have a trade war to win…
Terror Riffs
Trying to apply Occam’s razor to the Trump Tariff situation…
March 2025
The Debt of Damocles
A sword hangs over Elon Musk, CoreWeave, and OpenAI…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Netflix’s ’Electric’ Mistake
Which simply doesn’t matter for Netflix, but would sink any other studio…
A Spirited Debate Around AI
There are fundamental questions likely without good answers; let’s focus on how this needs to work for everyone
Artificial Iconoclasts
A foil might be needed for artificial intelligence…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

That Loving Feeling
OpenAI’s product launches are stirring something which Apple hasn’t in a while
Whittling to Perfection
A few thoughts on the new (and blue) M4 MacBook Air…
The Vibe Shift Amongst Apple Developers
User-facing AI is still a debate, developer-facing AI is not. And Apple might be in *real* trouble here without some changes.
Five ā€œGame Changeā€ AI Deals for Apple
A few ideas for how they might (but likely won’t) change the AI equations, fast…
It Wasn’t the Apple TV+ Spend, It Was the Apple TV+ Strategy
And the hope is that they’ve now corrected it…
The Case for Twitter Going Public — Again
It takes some squinting, and quite a bit of adjusting, but it’s there — thanks mostly to xAI…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

My God, It’s Full of Stargates
xAI and NVIDIA join another $100B AI data center initiative…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Hollywood vs. AI: The Movie
My god, the open letter is full of stars -- especially Cate Blanchett

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Enter Vision Pro
Metallica’s ā€œApple Immersiveā€ concert is... stunningly awesome
Apple Joins the Navy
They need to find the pirate mentality again…
The Curious Case of Amazon’s Anthropic Stake
Using Google’s stake to back into Amazon’s likely much larger stake…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

WeaveWork
CoreWeave stumbled upon a model that works well in a certain type of market…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Bing When You’re Winning
Microsoft had a window to win consumer AI — and perhaps the future of search

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Did Apple Flub an AI Feature, Or Are They Blowing the AI Moment?
Sometimes a delay is just a delay. Sometimes it’s not…
It’s the End of the Web as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
AI is disrupting web search and publishing, perhaps for the better…
Thin Is In Before a Foldable Is Out
Gaming out some ā€˜iPhone Air’ and ā€˜iPhone Fold’ options…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

The OpenAI Constellations
The out-of-this-world funding numbers in OpenAI’s orbit
Is Amazon Writing Checks that Alexa+ Can’t Cash?
There’s a lot of vagaries and obfuscation around this launch…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Apple Should Swap Out Siri with ChatGPT
Not forever, but for now. Until a new, better Siri is actually ready to roll — which may be *years* away…
February 2025
OpenAI’s EQ Upgrade to Hold Us Over to the IQ Upgrade
They’re clearly angling GPT-4.5 as being an emotionally intelligent update about getting the ā€œvibesā€ right

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Meta Is Unbundling... Again
The strategy behind the stand-alone apps for Reels and Meta AI…
Alexa, I’m Skeptical
Alexa+ brings a lot of table-stakes stuff to the table in 2025…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Early Provocative AI Chatbots, Revisited
Two years ago, we were up in arms over Bing’s AI ā€œSydneyā€ā€¦
Rewatching ā€˜A.I.’ in the Age of AI
The 2001 film holds up intelligently on some points, artificially on others
Somehow, Star Wars Returned
With Kathleen Kennedy set to retire, the Force awakens again…
The Art of the Old Deal
Tim Cook calls up some old plays to deflect Trump’s tariffs…
Microsoft Outsources OpenAI’s Ambitions to SoftBank
There’s a new capital partner in town as they march towards ā€˜superintelligence’
ESPN Balks, MLB Walks
And it’s partially Apple’s fault!

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Live and Let Buy
James Bond now fully works for Amazon. Die Another Same Day Delivery?
Majorana’s Mask
A tale of two trillion-dollar companies…
Apple Sherlocks the iPhone 16
The new iPhone 16e sounds great -- at a far cheaper price…
Oh, the Humane-ity
Humane’s bad strategy exacerbated their bad timing with the Ai Pin

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

The One AI to Rule Them All
Trying to grok the outlook for general-purpose consumer AI…
The AI Will Come Out Tomorrow
Alexa and Siri struggle to get out the door in the Age of AI…
The Age of Ultracrepidarians
Right or wrong, just say it loud, with conviction — just like AI
The Great AI UI Unification
ChatGPT starts cleaning up the cruft…
Amazon & ESPN’s Sports Streaming Collision Course
With Netflix drafting behind them…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Liquidity Now
A new standard model for VCs and secondaries…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

What You DeepSeek Is Seeking You
Two weeks after the latest AI panic, has anything really changed?
Observations About Sam Altman’s Observations
He’s seeking for something deep…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Apple’s Elegantly Expressive Pixar Lamp
Forget glasses, Apple’s Next Big Thingā„¢ may be a robot…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Earth to Lina Khan
Nearly every point in her NYT op-ed is wrong
Growing Up AI-First
Pondering how kids might navigate the world post-ChatGPT
FaceFeed
How Mark Zuckerberg might rejuvenate Facebook with a feed of Meta content, a Fediverse twist, and a splash of AI

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

The IPOpenAI
A step-back way to frame OpenAI’s rumored mega raise…
January 2025
Apple’s Record-Breaking Quarter Was SO BORING
Apple wins as the AI tortoise in a field of scared hares -- for now…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

SoftBank, Indeed
10 thoughts on OpenAI’s would-be new massive funding round…
Post-Explosion, Seeking the DeepSeek Fallout
A guess: DeepSeek itself will matter less than the reaction to it…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Should Apple Switch Off Siri?
In our Age of AI, Siri continues to embarrass Apple…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

AI, Uh, Finds a Way
Has DeepSeek changed the AI game or just some equations?
OpenAI’s ā€˜Operator’ Shows Why They’ll Build a Web Browser
To me, the most interesting aspect of OpenAI’s new ā€˜Operator’ product – their first real agent – is not what it can do, but how it does it. Unlike the early iterations of similar products from Anthropic and Google, ā€˜Operator’ doesn’t take over your computer, it outsources the work you want to
Meta’s March to Make the iPhone ā€˜The Thing That Gets Us to the Thing’
The company will build anything and everything to end the smartphone era…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

One Year Undercover
Onwards to year two of Spyglass…
ā€˜Stargate’ Squares Some AI Circles
OpenAI, Microsoft, SoftBank, Oracle, Trump, MGX, ARM, and NVIDIA all get double-dip wins in the announcement
My 2025 iPhone Homescreen
Some actual shifts thanks to AI and social stratification…
TrickTok
With the TikTok ban, the Trump administration starts dealing…
2 Switch 2 Similar?
Nintendo’s Switch 2 strategy seems conservative, perhaps smartly
With the Tok Tikking, Twitter Talk Makes Some Sense...
China selling TikTok to Elon Musk would be quite the deal. You know who loves deals…
May Your First Startup Be A Masculine Startup
Mark Zuckerberg’s heel turn this past week has been all sorts of fascinating.1 For one thing, I don’t think it’s all an act. I think it’s likely a short-sighted and misguided maneuver born out of years of various frustrations, but I don’t think it’s just to curry favor with

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

About-Face(book)
Mark Zuckerberg’s new stance on speech can be both real and really political
Venu, Vidi, Vici
Disney aims to conquer streaming sports with endless confusing options
The Witching Hour
ā€˜Dune: Prophecy’ fails to live up to its legacy
$1M Knee Pads
There’s a cost to be the boss -- and to bend the knee…

The Inner Ring šŸ”’

Meta’s Next Big Blunder
Social AI ā€œcharactersā€ are so obviously and hilariously going to fail
Apple Comes to Google’s Defense, But the Opposite
Eddy Cue does declare that Apple must intervene in Google’s antitrust case