Dispatch 014
I'll keep this brief as it's freezing cold (literally) in London at the moment and my basement office heat leaves a bit to be desired... More when I thaw...
I Think...
🦚 Comcast Will Issue its Cable Spinoff a Hunting License – While most spin-offs become acquisition targets, it does seem like Comcast is setting up "SpinCo" to be a buyer in a market that is seemingly about to get quite acquisitive. Some of Paramount's properties feel obvious as that company works through their merger. Warner Bros Discovery can always use more cash, but they may also want to be a buyer to continue to bulk up Max. Everyone clearly wants to partner – including Comcast itself with the left-behind Peacock – which would be cheaper, so the market dynamics will be interesting. Remember too that beyond the cable channels, this new company has tangential properties like Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes, so they could buy more of those types of things. I'm still confused by the cleaving of MSNBC and CNBC from NBC itself – "Microsoft NBC" now is no longer Microsoft nor NBC – and I'm seemingly not alone there. But some think it will be good for those properties as they'll get more resources. [Semafor]
💰 NVIDIA Doubles Profit as A.I. Chip Sales Soar – Good news everyone, Jensen emerged and saw his shadow; AI's season of exuberance will continue for at least another quarter. While the stock is down a bit in pre-market trading, that mainly feels like a law of large numbers problem: NVIDIA thinks they'll grow revenue a mere 70% this quarter, versus the 94% last quarter. These remain staggering numbers for a company at this scale. And profit is even more impressive – that grew 106% y/y and the company passed both Amazon and Meta in that regard on a quarterly basis. The company, once again the most valuable in the world, makes up nearly double the percentage of the S&P 500 than what Cisco did at their in their Dot Com Bubble peak 2000 – but profit and earnings are also far stronger than Cisco saw back then. Meanwhile, any sort of AI training "slow down" (much contested in recent days) doesn't worry Jensen as he believes they're also perfectly primed for a shift to inference (versus the chip upstarts more focused on that element of AI compute). He, of course, would say that. But he's given people – and certainly Wall Street – no reason not to believe him yet. [NYT]
⚖️ DoJ Asks Court to Force Google to Spin Off Chrome – With the official filing now out there, there's not too much to add beyond the initial reports, but there are a few more details and nuance. Notably, the DoJ did consider also asking for the spin off of Android, but thought that might be a bridge too far here, for now – they're keeping the option on the table for a later date were these remedies not to work (or not to be implemented). There are asks to decouple Android and Search and Play Store. Google, naturally, is not happy with any of these "staggering" and "radical" proposals. In particular, the data sharing/licensing concepts have them bringing up the security and privacy angle – how very Apple of them! And they really can't be happy about the elements that would "chill" their AI work. Interestingly, though as expected, they also signaled being open to talking about the default search deals. Their proposal will be due on December 20. [CNN]
📺 Amazon’s new Echo Show 21 – I can't decide which is more likely: 1) If Amazon was sitting on these waiting to debut them alongside 'Remarkable Alexa', but since she's been delayed now multiple times, they still wanted to get them out for the holidays. 2) Amazon knows Apple's similar-sounding home hub thing is coming early next year and again, aimed to get these out now to get a nice install base with the holidays when Apple's device hits. In the immortal words of the meme: why not both? I will say, a 21" screen seems pretty large, at what point do we just call this a TV? Perhaps another question for Apple too at some point... [Verge]
⚾️ Around the Horn ending in 2025 after 23-year run on ESPN – This hasn't been confirmed by the network yet, but The Athletic also corroborated it so it seems like a done deal. Which sucks. I've been watching the show since it started 22 years ago. I started watching as a college kid and continued over 5 cities in 3 states and 2 countries. Now I'm a father of two in London, still watching it. While I also enjoy PTI, there's something about ATH that I just find so comforting and enjoyable and entertaining. In fact, my first ever tweet was about the show. And, coincidentally, last night I sent out a skeet because the show itself wrapped with Mina Kimes using her 'Face Time' to talk about Bluesky. [New York Post]
I Wrote...
Just a few thoughts today on writing/blogging platforms and owning your home on the internet...
M.G. Siegler
I Link...
- A fun anecdote of the time John Gruber met Dr. Oz at an Apple Event. "A staggeringly uninteresting and uninterested man." [Daring Fireball]
- One of the key ad tech players, The Trade Desk, is now building their own OS for connected TVs to combat Google, Amazon, etc (they partner with Roku, but still this will ultimately be competitive to their boxes). Sonos sounds like a likely partner for their (rumored) set top box. [Axios]
- The ability to stream your own Xbox games from the Microsoft's cloud has started to roll out (just 50 titles to start) – essentially their "iTunes Match" feature until every game moves to the cloud, one day. [Verge]
- As Bluesky soars, Threads rolls out custom feeds – in testing for roughly 15 minutes – what a coincidence! [TechCrunch]
- Oh and look, they're also "rebalancing" their main feed to try to emphasize accounts you follow more. But no, they still won't let you default to the following feed. Which is beyond stubborn. [Verge]
- The xAI valuation has crept up to a nice, even $50B – basically, one-third OpenAI – with a new funding round. And that could jump again soon as Elon Musk raises massive amounts of capital to double the size of their AI supercomputer. The "Trump Bump" has undoubtedly helped too. A new space race – complete with political intrigue – is on. [WSJ 🔒]
- Apple, meanwhile, is still making the case that their own antitrust case brought by the DoJ should be thrown out for making up market segments. [Verge]
- While Apple may not want the headache of regulation that they'd get by becoming a bank, they're getting some of it anyway, thanks to the success of Apple Pay. [Bloomberg 🔒]
- In a jarring move, Nick Pickles jumped from Xitter to World Network – aka: the artist formerly known as Worldcoin – aka: that other startup founded by Sam Altman – aka: his former boss' foil. They certainly could use his services but the, um, optics here... [Reuters]
I Quote...
"The titles, numbers, they’re there. People probably know that. The way I’d like to be remembered more is like a good person from a small village in Mallorca."
-- Rafael Nadal, speaking after his final match as a professional tennis player. One of the three best ever. Best ever on clay, period.
I feel lucky to have seen the primes of Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer as they battled each other to win nearly every single Grand Slam final every year, for basically 20 years.