Signal: Blue Binge 📧
Happy belated Thanksgiving to those in the US (though we celebrated here in London as well). Catching up the day after with a lot packed in below. While also, of course, gearing up for The Game tomorrow. Five in a row? Seems improbable though certainly not impossible... #GoBlue 〽️
The Inner Ring...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
Thoughts On...
🗣️ Ilya Sutskever on Dwarkesh Podcast – There's a lot in here, and yes, some great memes. A few main takeaways include his notion that Safe Superintelligence can compete with his former colleagues at OpenAI (and elsewhere) despite having less capital in the bank because those guys are bogged down in the "rat race" – not only having models and products out there in the world, but also solely (or mainly) focused on LLMs (where "scaling has sucked the oxygen out of the room" when it comes to new ideas). SSI has "returned to research", trying to come up with other models and methods but at the same time, he's backing off the notion of going straight for Superintelligence and hinting they might get some work out there sooner ("gradual roll out"). Because the work might actually be around "a mind that can learn" rather than be pre-loaded with everything – which isn't natural. As always, Sutskever loves going back to human evolution and that's clearly guiding him here. Will it work? No one knows, and he's pretty honest about that – which also may be why his co-founder Daniel Gross bailed for Meta when Zuck came with a "Godfather" offer (which Sutskever directly addressed too – he didn't want to sell, but Gross clearly did). He thinks we're still 5 to 20 years away from what we would consider AGI/Superintelligence/Whatever. And perhaps more notably, that the LLM-focused folks may "stall out" on their progress, perhaps in the next couple of years. That doesn't mean some won't be good businesses, but they'll be even more squarely competing in that "rat race". That's, um, something to watch! [Dwarkesh]
😮 OpenAI's First "Jaw-Droppingly Good" Prototype – While it has long felt like you could almost triangulate what they've been working towards, the news here is that they finally have a prototype they're excited about. From what Sam Altman and Jony Ive are saying, it's not clear even if the device is actually working yet – all we have is the "beautiful cabin by the lake, and in the mountains" vibe reveal from Altman – or if they're just pleased with the form factor they've landed upon. But it's apparently less than two years away, per Ive. "I hope when people see it, they say 'that's it," says Altman. To which Ive quickly jumps in, "Yeah, they will." His short laugh appended to the end of that gives one a lot of hope. He clearly likes whatever they have! Now for the fun part: figuring out how to manufacturer it at scale. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that OpenAI is ramping up their poaching from Apple's hardware teams... [Emerson Collective]
🎞️ Could Netflix Win Warner Bros? – This report would sure like us to believe it's a two-horse race between the streaming giant and Paramount (with Comcast seemingly in a distant third). The playbook seems to be all about convincing WBD that a deal with them would go through regulatory easier because streaming is a more dynamic and competitive market than traditional Hollywood. But Paramount has their trump card, literally, so it's just hard to see how they don't win this. Unless the WBD board feels like they really should just sell the studio + streamer and let the networks spin-out in to their own entity to be sold at a later point – i.e. can Netflix make a partial deal that's better than what Paramount is offering for the whole company right now? The fact that Netflix's own investors don't seem to love the prospects of this deal is interesting too... Updated "sweetened" bids are due on Monday. [New York Post]
📺 Warner Bros Discovery Wants to Make HBO, HBO Again – Speaking of, after years of trying (and failing) to turn HBO into Netflix – doing basically everything to destroy the brand in the process (to be fair, this was mostly AT&T), including burying it in the most MAXimum way possible, WBD now seems set on reverting everything, from the branding on down. Of course, the world is quite different than when HBO rose to power – least of which because Apple and others have stepped in to fill some of the HBO-shaped hole – and it's not just streaming, but the fact that movies themselves play a different role with the brand (i.e. HBO is no longer the place you go to see movies at home first after theatrical runs and video store rentals). "Prestige TV", which HBO more or less started, has now mainly subsumed everything. All of this sounds good – including using "Max Originals" for the more regular cadence shows – but it's sort of humorous that it's happening just as someone new is going to buy the brand yet again. Will they monkey with that swing? Probably! Will it ironically be Netflix? Maybe! [THR]
📲 The iOS 'Snow Leopard' Moment – Mark Gurman says the next iteration of iOS – iOS 27 – will be more about cleaning up and streamlining the OS, just as Apple has done from time to time with macOS in the past. Feels like a good thing, but also a necessary thing as operating systems age and naturally gather cruft. It also should give Apple a way to refocus around AI, as many such features and work will presumably be under-the-hood as well (and will start rolling out with iOS 26.4 in the Spring). And though it's not mentioned, one presumes Apple also has to do some interesting work to get the OS ready for the forthcoming 'iPhone Fold'. No one is really talking about the software, but presumably it will run "straight up" iOS on the front screen and some sort of new, expanded version when unfolded. Or could it unfold into iPadOS? Would that be too jarring for people? One more thing: Gurman also refutes the FT report that Tim Cook could retire in the first half of next year. We'll see. I still think it was a trial balloon floated by someone. [Bloomberg 🔒]
I Wrote...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
I Quote...
"Let’s be very clear: What Sam does, I cannot do. There’s so much to do just on my scope that I think I have a decade or more of things that I can do just right there. And I’m telling you, we need all of us. We need Sam so badly. We need me."
– Fidji Simo, when asked directly by Zoë Schiffer for a Wired profile if she would ever "consider becoming CEO of the whole company?" It's a good answer, in that I believe it to be true and sincere. As has been proven time and again, no one can cut deals and raise money quite like Sam Altman. But it's also not a "no."
My suspicion, from the get go, is that this remains the long-term plan. If and when OpenAI goes public, who is CEO of the company?
Asides...
- Forget context windows and focus on the historical context for the current AI Bubble. [Crazy Stupid Tech]
- You know what might be slightly worse than the guy who correctly shorted the housing bubble calling your company into question? The guy who correctly shorted Enron. Yes, another Enron reference. Jim Chanos seems skeptical about some of the elements surrounding NVIDIA too... [Yahoo Finance]
- An AI-powered morning brief from Meta? I see the copiers are working again in Menlo Park. But the target has shifted from Snap to the new relevant competition (with the antitrust case in the rearview). [WaPo 🔒]
- Why did Apple yank yet another show off of Apple TV right ahead of its premiere? This time it wasn't political, it was apparently plagiarism. With the entire season already wrapped! Yikes. [9to5Mac]
- Apple may be poised to become the world's top smartphone maker again, overtaking Samsung for the first time since 2011 – 14 years! It looks like a good mixture of the iPhone 17 + natural upgrade timing for many. Look for another EU investigation to begin in 3... 2... [Bloomberg 🔒]
- The new head of feature film development for Paramount? President Trump. As he seemingly just got the Rush Hour franchise resurrected on a whim (and perhaps as a favor to director Brett Ratner). [Variety]
- DOGE? "That doesn't exist." Okay then, thanks for playing and paying everyone. Who could have known? Except everyone. [Reuters]
- A good look at the current state of the broader AI race between the US and China. The US is still in the lead, but China seems to be executing upon the fast-follower model well – with the full weight of the government. [WSJ 🔒]
- I forgot to link to the humanoid robot built by a team in Russia falling on its face during a strange demo a couple weeks back. It was too on the nose. [NYT]
- How many data centers does Amazon have out there in the world to power AWS? Perhaps over 900 in over 50 countries – some their own, some that they partner with others to give themselves extra capacity. [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Is "Aluminium OS" a sort of AI-first new ChromeOS/Android hybrid that Google is working towards in their unification push? [Android Authority]
- More smoke behind the notion that Netflix might backtrack on their anti-theatrical release strategy (something I predicted would eventually happen a year ago). If they were to win the Warner bid, Ted Sarandos might use it as cover for a bigger push, postulates Matt Belloni. [Puck 🔒]
- Speaking of, a nice, fun profile about lawyer-turned-reporter Belloni. [NYT]
- Speaking of HBO and regular cadence, after House of the Dragon season 3 and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 hit in 2026, it seems like we'll have AKofSK season 2 in 2027 and then HotD season 4 in 2028. Good to see some actual planning and spreading things out a bit more evenly... But again, an acquisition could shake up this snow globe! [THR]
- I was lucky enough to visit a Tekserve in NYC once back in 2013 (before they shut down in 2016). It was awesome. Almost an anti-Apple Store, while still being an Apple store. Amazing that founder David Lerner originally wanted to call it "Three Ring Circuits" (but his partners wouldn't let him). RIP. [NYT]
I Also Wrote...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
I Spy...
While OpenAI itself may not carry a ton of debt (they just have a relatively small credit line, which they haven't drawn), everyone is well aware that their partners are loading up to the hilt. Why? To build data centers for OpenAI.
As we've discussed, as a (highly) unprofitable startup, OpenAI would have trouble getting access to such debt – certainly not with the ease that Amazon and Meta and Google can – so they're leveraging their partners, coming up with "new ideas" for financing. That includes, by the way, the data centers OpenAI intends to operate themselves. Who is paying for that? Likely NVIDIA.
Humorously, this likely came together to combat Google, but also to prevent OpenAI from going down the TPU path with them...
Anyway, it's rather remarkable to see the partners' debt for OpenAI data centers so cleanly laid out in visual form. As is this:
The $100bn of bonds, bank loans and private credit deals tied to OpenAI are equivalent to the net debt directly held by the six largest corporate borrowers in the world — including carmakers Volkswagen and Toyota and telecoms groups AT&T and Comcast — according to a 2024 report by asset manager Janus Henderson.
Private Credit. SPVs. The race is on to get this all working – at least somewhat economically – before the inevitable burst... Also to just get them working, period. The shortages – from power on down – are starting to mount. As such, so is the pressure.