Signal: Grabbing the Popcorn 📧
Hard to believe we're only a week removed from Netflix announcing the acquisition of Warner Bros. Feels like a lot has happened since then, because it has. Notably, a move to go hostile by Paramount Skydance, with David Ellison pitching WBD shareholders directly, via "lengthy letters". He's clearly big mad. BOLD mad, no less.
A couple fun tick-tocks reveal why: they clearly thought they had this deal in the bag – I mean, they got Jared Kushner's fund involved, when Netflix swooped in, leading David Zaslav to ghost Ellison. Ouch. WBD was clearly worried about the foreign money components of the financing as well as the financing itself. It certainly can't help that Oracle's stock is down nearly 35% in the past few months – and nearly 15% this week alone – given that Larry Ellison is backstopping the deal.
Unless Paramount pulls out, it feels like this is going to go on for months. As such, the deal may not actually close for years. History – both Barry Diller and Sumner Redstone back in the day battling for Paramount (more on that at the bottom of this newsletter), and more recently, Disney and Comcast battling for Fox – would seem to indicate Netflix is still the likely victor, but it will probably cost them a lot more money to get it done. But history also didn't have this particular administration in power so... Who knows.
One big signal coming in January will be when Comcast spins off Versant (their TV channel cruft) and we'll see how that's valued, which will dictate how WBD's channels (not part of the Netflix deal but part of the Paramount deal) should be valued.
Anyway, I've gotten two takes out of this fiasco so far – that Hollywood is silly to fear Netflix here, relative to the alternative at least! And wondering if Netflix truly has found religion with movie theaters, or if they're just saying that to try to woo Hollywood and seal this deal – and I look forward to months more of good fodder in the form of popcorn.
The Inner Ring...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
Thoughts On...
💰 Anthropic is Broadcom's $10B Mystery Partner – to Buy TPUs – In last quarter's earnings, Broadcom disclosed a new $10B deal with a partner they refused to name. This led to speculation that it was either OpenAI – which was subsequently shot down as they have their own, other massive deal with Broadcom – or one of the Big Tech players. Will, it's sort of tangential to one of them, with Anthropic now confirmed as the partner – to buy TPUs from Broadcom. This is obviously an offshoot of Anthropic's own recently announced deal with Google, but it's also bigger than that because it further confirms that Google is now clearly competing with NVIDIA in selling XPUs – this isn't just talking to Meta about the chips, this is Anthropic committed to buying them. Oh, and apparently $11B more on top of this. And they're presumably buying them to put in data centers they're building (or why not let the data center operators buy them – exclusive access, maybe?). And it probably led to NVIDIA cutting their own direct deal with Anthropic to try to combat a full shift (on top of the shift they already have done to Amazon's Trainium chips). Also, amazing call by @Zephyr, who nailed this two months ago. [CNBC]
🤖 GPT-5.2 – The strangest thing to me about the latest model is how little people seem to be talking about it. After the flurry of press when it was announced, the actual chatter seems almost non-existent, at least relative to 5 and 5.1. But that's probably a good thing! As those were being talked about for the wrong reasons. This is just more of a "yeah, it's good" release, coming less than a month after 5.1, perhaps to push ahead of Gemini once again to end the year. Or perhaps to get it out the door ahead of a true heads-down "Code Red" sprint towards the next release – maybe the one including sexy time? [Verge]
🏡 Apple Home Products Come More Into Focus – Leaked internal Apple code seemingly confirms not only the impending arrival of the long-rumored "HomePad" device, but features including a camera that can be used not just for FaceTime, but also FaceID, and which notably may give the device multi-user support. Apple TV and Macs have long had such functionality, but iPads, famously, have not – which has long been annoying for households with, say, families. The code also suggests one other accessory is coming alongside the new home device and is sure seems like a security camera. All of it should finally hit this Spring. [MacWorld]
📲 2025's Top Downloaded Apps – ChatGPT takes the top spot for the first time in Apple's year-end charts – up from 4th place last year. Meanwhile, Meta has three apps in the Top 10 (Threads, WhatsApp, Instagram) – but far more impressive is Google with five (Google, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, Gemini). Yes, Google controls half of the top apps on Apple's App Store. The only other player is TikTok. (Notably, Facebook missed the cut this year at number 11.) Though things have been shifting of late as AI takes over, with OpenAI's Sora and even xAI's Grok charting last month, pushing out every Meta app aside from Threads, and TikTok – where's that sale, by the way? [TechCrunch]
☄️ Data Centers in Space – Such a prospect certainly sheds new light on the private space race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (and why Sam Altman might want OpenAI involved in a rocket company). While I don't think either started with that goal, it could be a nice, and extremely lucrative offshoot, just as the satellite internet service has been with Starlink – and soon Amazon Leo? At the same time, this is obviously a lot harder than just throwing some data center-equipped satellites into space. Even the notion of cooling such devices is not as straightforward as you might assume – yes, space is technically cold, but it's also, as it turns out, a vacuum. The kind of environment that doesn't dissipate heat well. You have to glow it off! Still, solar power will certainly be more abundant! But will that be more efficient than land-based power plants? Probably not for a long time. And let's not even bother with data transfer speeds. Are these going to be giant tape back-ups in the sky for a while? Still, undoubtedly the future at some point! Regardless, good narrative for SpaceX share sales taking place at $800B, leaping back in front of OpenAI. Oh yes, and an IPO, leaping back in front of... OpenAI. Total coincidences, these narratives are. [WSJ 🔒]
I Quote...
"They thought they were playing 5D chess and they were playing tiddlywinks."
– A "person close to the administration" commenting on how Paramount has been misplaying their hand with President Trump, assuming they'd have a leg up in the race to buy Warner Bros. To quote a character from a Warner Bros film, as one must in such situations, "Do you feel in charge?"
I Wrote...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
Asides...
- Happy 10th birthday OpenAI. If that seems old to you, it's because ChatGPT itself only came about 3 years ago. Before that, it was a lot of research and other experiments. The Wild Ride continues. [OpenAI]
- Oh look, Gemini finally baked into Chrome on mobile... [9to5Google]
- Given all the new deals Anthropic is cutting – Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, etc – seems fair to wonder if their relationship with Amazon, their largest shareholder is a-ok. There are some faint OpenAI/Microsoft echoes... [Information 🔒]
- Amazon playing hardball with the US Postal Service feels a bit like the Dodgers playing against the kids from The Sandlot. [WaPo]
- Good news for NVIDIA, their H200 chips are back on the menu in China! [Semafor]
- Well, not so fast, says China. [FT 🔒]
- But maybe, says China, after talking to tech companies in China. [Information 🔒]
- Does this mean these players will stop using the banned, more powerful NVIDIA chips? Undoubtedly not. How? AI, uh, finds a way – allegedly smuggling chips using a fake "Sandkyan" brand. [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Note the term "Sparse Attention" as one imagines it will be coming up more in 2026. And NVIDIA's Blackwell chips may be the key to make it work... [Information 🔒]
- Did the notion of Huawei catching up with their AI systems despite (or really because of) the bans sway Trump? [Bloomberg 🔒]
- All of this for the low-low price of 25% of sales to the US government. As the 15% deal was clearly altered further, despite prayers. Doesn't matter, this was a "break glass" situation for NVIDIA. [CNBC]
- Why can't Russia (and other countries) block iMessage (while they're busy blocking FaceTime)? It's all about the design of how it works with push notifications. [Daring Fireball]
- Jeff Williams, fresh off his retirement from Apple is up for a plum new (part-time) position: board member at Disney. [THR]
- If Salesforce really rebrands into 'Agentforce'... I mean, my god. [BI 🔒]
- Look, I'm not saying it's a bubble, but NeurIPS, a 39-year-old conference devoted to neural networks, had 26,000 attendees this year. [NBC News]
- Not really sure why Google did a full-court press preview of the range of AI glasses coming next year, but they seem to be okay? Enough with the show and tells, just ship them or not? [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Meanwhile, Meta is apparently delaying the release of their own next-gen glasses (one of many headsets they have in the pipeline, including still some VR ones, despite the cuts) codenamed "Phoenix" into 2027. [BI]
- Speaking of, I was surprised by the relatively muted response to Meta buying Limitless, given that they make an always-on AI wearable. But they're also shutting that product – too bad, it was cute! – so it seems more just an acquihire ahead of getting Allen Dye to try to combat whatever OpenAI/Jony Ive have cooking up. [TechCrunch]
- YouTube TV is finally going more granular with their offers – 10 genre-specific and, importantly, cheaper packages – one might even call them "bundles" – are inbound. Feels like they had to do this before they inevitably raise the full price to $100/month next year. [Variety]
- AMC Theaters is selling most of their stake in the gold and silver mining companies they bought into in 2022 to raise cash. The movie theater business is just fine. Why do you ask? [THR]
I Spy...
The parallels between the Netflix/Warner Bros/Paramount battle and 30 years ago when Barry Diller fought Sumner Redstone for control of Paramount are fun. Redstone would be Netflix in the equation, and he obviously eventually won the deal for Viacom. Diller, in losing, famously said, "They won. We lost. Next." And so Redstone/Viacom responded with the following swag. Ice cold.
Might I suggest that either Ted Sarandos and/or David Ellison get on eBay to rock this depending on who wins this battle?
