On a String 📧
Some quick words today on bias and aspiring to remain a step removed. And some small takes on the surprise new iPad mini.
A lot more thoughts and links below...
Some Thoughts...
🕵️♂️ I Will Honour the Steve O'Hear – The longtime reporter (and entrepreneur, filmmaker, musician – man of many hats) passed away far too soon at the young age of 49. Steve and I had a very similar initial tenure at TechCrunch in those truly wild and chaotic days from 2009 to 2011, but he later boomeranged back and stayed until 2021. Going through my emails, we had some fun back-and-forths over the years, but my favorite was around a video he made in 2010 that went viral about the PR industry (our natural bonding point) called I Will Honour The Embargo. It holds up. As I wrote at the time (my post on the matter is lost to the ether for some reason, but Steve captured my quote), "If you’re a blogger, the following is perhaps the greatest piece of Internet video ever produced." Here are the memorials from many at TechCrunch who worked closely with him. Rest in peace, Steve. [Sifted]
🪖 Microsoft Lost Billions of Dollars on HoloLens – While the $5B+ lost over the years may be a drop in the bucket compared to what Meta has been spending in the space, at least Meta is getting some ROI from their money spent. Microsoft? With the user-facing HoloLens now officially dead, all they have is a government contract, which seems to be in varying degrees of disarray per multiple reports over the years – including this one: "The devices would have gotten us killed" is not an ideal quote for military tech... Palmer Luckey's Andruil stepping in to help is obviously a huge shot in the arm given his background, but perhaps he should just take the entire thing over and let Microsoft fully cut those losses? I also had forgotten that the device originally sold for $3,500 – the exact same price as you-know-what. [BI 🔒]
📝 How Microsoft’s CEO Avoids Getting Disrupted — An interesting look into how Satya Nadella operates. Notably, he seems to be a fairly extreme information gatherer and his process for doing so sort of strikes me as similar to that of a reporter. Of course, his “sources” are different and pretty much the most well-connected people in the world — aiming to talk to two CEOs of other companies a day. And while he’s not aiming to report publicly on their companies, he clearly uses this information to inform his own thinking and it may or may not lead to direct action on Microsoft’s part. This story also ties such conversations directly into why Microsoft acquired hackquired Inflection — in particular, his chats with CEO Mustafa Suleyman. Still curious to see how that one plays out, but overall, this level of hands-on — notebooks and all! — information triangulation seems savvy for the head of a $3T company. [The Information 🔒]
🥽 Meta Quest 3S: Impressive VR for $300 – While the device sounds far from perfect, it's pretty clear from Devindra Hardawar's review that Meta made the right trade-offs it getting the headset down to the key price point. In a world where everyone is buzzing about both Meta's Ray-Ban sunglasses and their Orion AR glasses, keeping VR accessible and somewhat approachable is going to be critical in these next couple of years, lest it all go the way of HoloLens, once again. The "Honda Accord" for VR sounds like the device that maintains the pulse... [Engadget]
☕️ How to Save Starbucks – A lot of good thoughts from Dan Frommer on what has gone wrong with Starbucks from a store/product perspective and what new CEO Brian Niccol should perhaps focus on to turn things around. First and foremost – and perhaps counter-intuitively given current trends – reverse the god-awful sugar surge in their drinks. Starbucks seems more like a patisserie then a cafe these days. But even that sounds romantic. It's more like a candy store. Also, can we make these stores nice to hang out in again? Most of the ones I've been to in recent years seem more oriented around people using them as literal pit stops. I would enable the local teams, James Daunt-style, to make these actual neighborhood hangouts. With yes, great coffee. And beer/wine in the evening. They were seemingly on the right path with 'Reserve', and then gave up to make those weird tourist destinations. [The New Consumer 🔒]
Some Housekeeping...
M.G. Siegler
Something Mini...
M.G. Siegler
Some Links...
- There is responding to your critics, then there is dousing them in gasoline and dropping throwing them into a volcano. Matt Mullenweg has chosen the latter in response to David Heinemeier Hansson (who himself has a history of doing such things) as the WordPress saga enters week four... [ma.tt]
- Google puts in an order for nuclear reactors. Unlike Microsoft's Three-Mile Island deal, this is with a startup, Kairos, aiming to build new (small) reactors by 2030. Given that the US has only brought three new reactors online in the past 20 years, this is obviously a big – and good – deal, if they can make it a reality. And it's a reality AI seems to need. [FT 🔒]
- One more thing: the new iPad mini now says 'iPad mini' on the back, so you know it's an iPad mini [@ParkerOrtolani]
- Is this awkward? A key Microsoft AI researcher, Sebastien Bubeck, is leaving to join... OpenAI. While it seemed inevitable that he would leave in the wake of the Mustafa Suleyman shake-up – especially if the Phi models are really on the outs – that's certainly an interesting place to land given the relationship between the two... Maybe it's a good thing? Better than joining a full-on rival? [The Information 🔒]
- Hearing Things, a new music publication from a group of ex-Pitchfork folks looks and sounds interesting (powered by Ghost as well, like this site) [NYT]
- The New York Times is already suing OpenAI, now it has sent a cease and desist to Perplexity (the story seems oddly fixated on the fact that Jeff Bezos is an investor – maybe because of The Washington Post?) [WSJ 🔒]
- I'm not quite sure what to read into the fact that Disney is going to simulcast a lot of Monday Night Football games on both ESPN (where it normally airs) and ABC (where it used to air) other than the fact that traditional TV continues to die and everyone wants to squeeze every last bit out of it... [Variety]
- New Kindles keep leaking out of Amazon, which indicates we're closing in on some updates – nothing in the style of color e-ink though yet... [Verge]
A Non-Dramatic Dramatic Ad...
Well played, Anthropic.
A Dramatic Quote...
"I said, 'OK, if I do one big sci-fi movie, and I risk everything, that’s beautiful. To make a sequel to my favorite film is a beautiful way to end my career.'"
-- Denis Villeneuve, in a conversation with Brett Goldstein (yes, Roy 'Fucking' Kent in Ted Lasso) at a BFI London Film Festival event. He was speaking specifically there about Blade Runner 2049, which, in fact, did not end his career and was actually very good. As has been every movie that he's done, many of which are now "big sci-fi" thanks in no small part to a little series called Dune...