Dispatch 022
I wrote a thousand words about the box office performance of Moana 2 without pointing out the fact that all the record breaking numbers being touted don't account for inflation – a concept the world seemingly knows a thing or two about nowadays. Well, until my footnotes, at least. 😄
Regardless, Moana 2 was clearly massive – and the point of my post is how surprising it was that Disney almost missed this reality (and payday) by making the movie for a streaming release, not theaters. It's a great example of the new hybrid – and nimble – approach needed for the future of Hollywood.
M.G. Siegler
I Think...
🫸 Intel CEO Forced Out by Board Frustrated With Slow Progress – It was obvious from the moment it was announced, just prior to markets opening on Monday, that this was not, in fact a retirement. Or at least not one on a timeline that Pat Gelsinger chose. All of the various moves and statements by Intel in recent months make that even more clear. Instead, this "retirement" is a cushion on which to land after being pushed off of a skyscraper. The cherry on top: Gelsinger technically stepped down the day before the announcement went out. In normal retirements – or even most "retirements" – the leader stays on for at least a little bit to smooth any transition. Take the recent change at Nike, for example. Here? Per the reporting, Gelsinger had no interest in helping with such a transition. So... see ya. It's too bad since there was such optimism around him when he was brought in – as everyone is well aware, he started working at Intel as a teenager. Ultimately, he couldn't juggle the dozen things Intel needed to execute perfectly in order to stage a comeback. He certainly wasn't given enough time, but the board also clearly decided that more time wouldn't help – and may actually hurt. (The incoming administration throwing the CHIPs Act into question can't help either.) And so he goes, the victim, largely of the poor decisions made before him, but some of which he was involved with. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🚪 Intel’s CEO Departure Opens Door to Fresh Deal Discussions – So what's next? Well, there are seemingly no good or easy decisions. The biggest swings – Qualcomm or Broadcom stepping in to acquire Intel – aren't likely to happen, at least not in full. Multiple companies may pick at Intel's bones if someone like ARM is able to take their heart. The sales of stakes in Altera and Mobileye seem more likely and would bring in a lot of cash, but that still leaves Intel years behind the competition. Ditto with an Apollo investment. Spinning off the foundry seemingly makes sense, but the recent CHIPs Act deal complicates that a bit. As for the next CEO, people seem to like one of the interim co-CEOs, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, in particular. But she's another Intel-lifer – would they really go down that path again? Everyone will want Lisa Su at AMD, but would she leave for their very direct competitor? Lip-Bu Tan seemed to be a bit of a canary-in-the-coal-mine when he abruptly left Intel's board in August, apparently feeling the company was too risk-averse... I still believe a real "hail mary" – a large investment and pledge of business from someone like Microsoft isn't crazy. Amazon? Everyone wants and needs to answer Apple's chip division and to diversify away from NVIDIA... [Bloomberg 🔒]
🍪 Bezos Backs AI Chipmaker Vying With Nvidia at $2.6 Billion Value – It seems like the most interesting element of Tenstorrent right now may be their CEO, Jim Keller, who has done chip work at, get this: DEC, AMD, Broadcom, P.A. Semi, Apple, Tesla, and Intel – amongst others. The last one, as you might have heard, is looking for a new CEO. Keller would seemingly fit such a mold, except that he also doesn't seem to like to stay anywhere for more than a few years. That said, he apparently resigned from Intel in 2020 over strategy... Anyway, interesting announcement timing, if nothing else. One other tidbit: he apparently joined Apple before they acquired P.A. Semi, where he had worked just prior and was reunited with that team as a result. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🕸️ Company Behind Arc is Building a New AI Web Browser Called Dia – A number of compelling ideas in here both at a high level (a web browser where AI isn't an app or button but is fully baked in) and specifically (the text-box-cursor-as-an-input-area). In a way, their video makes the same arguments I was making for why OpenAI probably needs to build a web browser. The question then is if a company working on the foundational models is better positioned than an AI startup working one level up? I'm not sure how much owning the model matters for this, unless you can very specifically tailor it for certain product needs. And that's ultimately the answer, of course: it will come down to who builds the better product. Microsoft should probably be working on similar ideas too if they truly want to try to breakthrough to consumers? Google? What if they took a page from The Browser Company playbook and kept Chrome over there, in the penalty box, as it were, and got to work on a new, AI-focused browser? It would annoy the government but being annoying isn't illegal. Yet. [Verge]
🤑 OpenAI Explores Advertising as it Steps Up Revenue Drive – Having been on both sides of this table, it seems pretty clear what happened here: the reporter was asking CFO Sarah Friar about the potential of advertising on OpenAI and she was lead down that path... pointing out how the team they've built recently, including Kevin Weil and Shivakumar Venkataraman, have a direct history of building out advertising products and businesses, perhaps not realizing that this would be the entire focus, and headline, of an article. Hence the clarification after the interview that there are "no active plans to pursue advertising". But I mean, of course OpenAI will have advertising as one leg of the business at some point. You can't just leave that scale of eyeballs and intent untapped. The real key is ensuring it's not the dominant business – and given they already have very real subscription and API businesses, it doesn't seem like it will be – and doing it in a way that's true to the product, not just ugly banners injected into queries. This will take some time and experimentation – Perplexity is starting now, it seems – as was the case with Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. [FT 🔒]
I Link...
- As the US continues to ramp the restrictions on chips being sent to China, China continues to ramp the restrictions on rare-Earth minerals used to make such chips. Who is ready for the full-on trade war? [FT 🔒]
- As their re:Invent conference kicks off later today, Amazon needs to prove their sort of "all of the above" answer to AI is the right one... [WSJ 🔒]
- One preview: a bet on liquid cooling for AI servers (both for their own 'Tranium' chips as well as NVIDIA's). [TechCrunch]
- A new leak suggest Apple will stick with Titanium for the iPhone Pro lineup – a report last week suggested a move back to aluminum was in order (which surprised me). We'll see... [MacRumors]
- The Delaware judge continues to shoot down Elon Musk's $56B pay package – which is now worth over $100B with the run-up in Tesla stock post-election. It will now be up to the Delaware Supreme Court, but given all the optics now, it will look especially bad if they overrule the judge. [FT 🔒]
- World Labs, the AI startup from Fei-Fei Li unveiled the ability to take an image and make it a 3D world in which you can move around. It's early, but looks like pretty cool tech. [TechCrunch]
- For all the bubble talk – AI, crypto, tech in general – Ruchir Sharma makes the case that perhaps the biggest bubble of all is the US itself. [FT 🔒]
- The NFL and EA Sports are turning a December 21 game between the Texans and Chiefs into a sort of hybrid of the actual game with Madden graphics overlayed for a stream on Peacock. While it's basically a giant, live ad for the video game, I'm guessing they went with the 'Madden NFL Cast' name lest it sound too close to the 'Manningcast'? [THR]
- The Apple blogosphere seems up-in-arms about HomeKit support for robot vacuum cleaners being delayed in 2025. Is Apple doomed? [9to5Mac]
- Was Scottie Pippen's strange Elon-Musk-on-the-Chicago-Bulls tweet some attempt to boost his own crypto efforts? Some people are saying... [NYT]
- A new app for tracking your Bluesky stats is called GoBlue – which feels like it's pandering to me. I'll allow it. [TechCrunch]
I Note...
📺 Showtime’s Star-Studded Push to Be Cool Again – Interesting that this profile of one of Paramount's three current co-CEOs basically frames Chris McCarthy's strategy with Showtime as a blatant way to keep a job – certainly not CEO, which will be David Ellison – once the Skydance merger is complete. The swings could not be bigger. If Apple TV+ is recreating HBO, Showtime is sort of re-creating a movie studio: McCarthy seems dead-set on getting Hollywood talent – writers, directors, and stars – to make shows for him, no matter the cost. And while Tom Hardy and Richard Gere may have originally said "no", he kept pushing. Now the latter is doing his first TV series, as is Michael Fassbender alongside him in The Agency (a remake of the famous French series, The Bureau). Guy Ritchie has been lured to direct Hardy. Etc. If we're past "peak-streaming", no one apparently has told McCarthy yet – The Agency costs $12M an episode. I still just wish and think the entire streaming service should be called 'Showtime' – not 'Paramount+ with Showtime', which is a silly mouthful. [WSJ 🔒]
I Quote...
"Agentic has got to be the word of the year... It could be a researcher, a helpful assistant for everyday people, working moms like me. In 2025 we will see the first very successful agents deployed that help people in their day to day."
-- Sarah Friar, the CFO of OpenAI, from the same interview with the FT above, but a different article (per my point about the ad element becoming its own headline). This is undoubtedly the article she thought she was getting, with more of a high-level overview of the state of the business ("not close to breaking even" – not Friar's quote, but "people with knowledge of the group’s finances" who note the spend of over $5B, as previously reported) and where it's heading into next year. Agents. Agents. Agents. Agents.
I Spy...
Oh no, Jaguar's misguided re-design now has a concept car to go along with the whole "copy nothing" thing. And once again the video seems like one of those faux AI Balenciaga ones. I swear the music is the same. Also, why is the care so long? I'm reminded of a different automotive animal: a Dodge Viper. If we want to be more generous, the Batmobile?