Dispatch 008
Bluesky is current blowing up (in a good way) and it's no surprise given both the sentiment around Xitter post-election and Threads continuing to drop the ball with regard to being a real-time information network. Can it scale gracefully, both technically and with a user base that isn't too extreme in its biases? Right now, it looks good and seemingly has a good mixture of features to put it in a good spot to become what Twitter used to be. What happens when they need to monetize?
As an aside: a few hours after I published this post, I was suspended from Threads/Instagram – for a second time. No conspiracy theory here, but this remains one of the many issues Threads can't seem to deal with, or doesn't care to. Meanwhile, when I noted this problem on Xitter, every response was ridiculous spam. So the issues I brought up with both networks were highlighted quite succinctly.
M.G. Siegler
I Think...
📽️ AMC Theatres Announces Multi-Year $1.5B ‘Go Plan’ – Upgrading the movie-going experience is a good thing and the right idea, of course. But it's also so obvious that it's mildly disturbing that AMC didn't institute the 'Go Plan', I don't know, a decade ago? Instead of, say, shitcoins? Maybe they couldn't have paid for these upgrades without that nonsense, but that's a (mis)management problem. AMC remains in trouble as their footprint is simply much larger than needed in the go-forward movie theater market. Perhaps they can whittle it down while partnering with IMAX for their needed expansion. Theaters should be movie palaces. AMC unfortunately has the opposite track record to date. [BoxOfficePro]
🚙 Volkswagen and Rivian Form Joint Venture, Deepening Alliance – I liked this tie-up when it was first announced in June and it's interesting to see it expanding this quickly. In a way, it's almost framed like the narrative of the AI startups with close (and financial) ties to the Big Tech companies – i.e. OpenAI and Microsoft, Anthropic and Amazon, etc. Those AI players do something really well and nimbly, but can't possibly profit from it any time soon. Big Tech does nothing but profit, but can't act nimbly. Rivian is the AI startup. Volkswagon is Big Tech. (Though yes, this is structured differently as an actual JV.) VW may very well end up buying Rivian in the long run, but Rivian's largest shareholder may have something to say about that: Amazon. I wonder if Apple might as well, though that's just a wild thought. VW is currently a $45B company – in terms of market cap, it's now outside the top 10 car makers. Rivian is even further off their highs as a $12.5B company. Tesla? Post-Trump re-election, they're back in the trillion-dollar club. Of course, they'd say they're not a car company... [NYT]
🦾 How Elon Musk’s Supercomputer Freaked Out AI Rivals – A great read from Anissa Gardizy which starts with spy planes (seriously!) and ends with Oracle and OpenAI teaming up after xAI spurned the tech giant and built their massive AI datacenter alone when Oracle worried about not being able to move fast enough. It all reads like an Elon Musk playbook you hear about time and time again, but at a speed and scale that stunned his rivals. So how did he do it? Seemingly a combination of will (refusing to take "no" – from Oracle, for example) and cutting corners in ways he deemed acceptable risks. As the article notes, Microsoft and others would never be able to take such risks. No wonder OpenAI and everyone else aims to increasingly do things independently. [Information 🔒]
I Wrote...
Color me skeptical about Apple's rumored next new device. Obviously it's dangerous to read too much into how Apple may roll such a device out this early. But I have a hard time imagining where it fits in peoples' homes at a scale that would be meaningful to Apple. Unless they buy this instead of iPads?
M.G. Siegler
I Link...
- Ah yes, the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency leads to a spike of Dogecoin. This is the dumbest fucking timeline. [CNBC]
- On the department itself, hopefully they can cut down on some bureaucracy to streamline operations without completely destroying vital functions. Of the country. It's true that cutting Twitter to the bone didn't kill it, but it also certainly hastened the crippling of the business and now the place is totally overrun with ridiculous spam. Also, maybe Twitter shouldn't be the model we're following to fix any governmental bloat? Just maybe. Do the department heads last until July 4, 2026? [FT 🔒]
- Mark Rylance seems like a great pick to play Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter streaming show. But he would be a great pick to play anything as the return of Wolf Hall makes abundantly clear. [Variety]
- Greg Brockman is back at OpenAI, which is seemingly the first positive personnel news in a while. There was naturally some skepticism that he would return from his leave of absence – warranted given that 8 of the 11 co-founders of the company are now gone – but there was also chatter that the leave pushed on him before a time of even more recent departures which may or may not have made it easier to come back. Albeit in a new, undefined role... [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Definitely not coming back? Mira Murati, who keeps siphoning off OpenAI talent to her new company, whatever it may be... [Information 🔒]
- Apple and A24 are adapting Michael Lewis' book about Sam Bankman-Fried into a movie – with the screenplay being written by... Lena Dunham. That lead role will certainly be sought-after... [Variety]
- Amazon is shutting down Freevee which, aside from a dumb name (slightly better than the original 'IMDb TV', which made no sense – Internet Movie Database Television?), was made redundant when Amazon Prime TV launched their ad tier. [THR]
- A new art exhibit in London ties together Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael's time in Florence. The obvious question of why not include the purple Ninja Turtle as well has an equally obvious answer: Donatello was already deceased when the other three were together. [NYT]
- The previously very opaque App Store featuring process is seemingly getting a little less so with the ability to nominate apps to be featured. [TechCrunch]
- Somehow, John Malone returned. As (interim) CEO of Liberty Media. How very Bob Iger of him. But he's also 83 years old. Gentleman, start your M&A engines! [NYT]
I Quote...
"Whoever can get their [supercomputer] faster…could pretty much rule the world."
-- An unnamed guide on a tour of the Abilene site where OpenAI and Oracle are in the midst of building a new AI supercomputer datacenter to rival xAI's in Memphis. It's the closing quote of the story linked above.