Signal: The Google Antitrust Nuance 📧
Ask and ye shall receive... Just yesterday, I used this area of the newsletter to wonder out loud where those remedies were in the Google Search antitrust case – might they be about to drop? Sure enough, a few hours later, they dropped.
I wrote up some initial thoughts last night, but thinking and reading about it more today, it's even more apparent just how big of a win this was for Google. Yes, they have to give up some search data to rivals, but they're undoubtedly going to fight that aspect – if nothing else, that seems like it will be a logistical nightmare to try to handle. Probably far more so than "simply" filing an appeal and potentially pushing out any implementation.
In fact, the only bigger winner than Google in their antitrust loss (lol) was Apple. Because no one wants to lose $20B+ in profit a year overnight. And especially not when Services are such a big part of your growth story going forward. That would have been a massive hole in Apple's balance sheet. Now it's more money they can, but won't, spend on AI.
Sorry, the biggest winner is Mozilla. In that now they won't suddenly drop dead.
In all seriousness, reading over Judge Amit Mehta's remarks, it seems pretty clear that he understood both the nuance of the various situations (such as with Apple and Mozilla – removing Google's payments wouldn't have changed Google's status, it just would have saved Google a ton of money) and recognizing his own limitations in trying to extrapolate out what would happen in AI. No one knows what will happen, not even the experts, it's all moving far too fast, as he notes.
And as much as Tim Wu may wish that the Justice Department had a Pre-Crime division, you sort of have to litigate in the world that exists, not the one you fear will exist. The best Judge Mehta could do was put in place controls to make it easier to see and take action if Google does indeed leverage the Search monopoly to take control of the AI market. But as of now, it seems like the market is doing its job in that regard. As much as competitors and opponents may not like that, he made the right calls.
M.G. Siegler
I Quote...
"The first Trump administration sued Google to restore competition for millions of Americans subjected to Google’s monopoly abuses. Today, the second Trump administration has won a remedy to do just that."
– Gail Slater, the current DoJ antitrust chief, taking a victory lap in her statement on the Google antitrust ruling. Never mind the remedies or, you know, that the actual trial and ruling happened under that other guy.
I haven't seen so much retconning since the last Star Wars trilogy.
Couple Thoughts...
💰 OpenAI Buying Statsig – Look at that, an actual acquisition of an entire company! Well, sort of. It still looks more like an "acquihire" of sorts – the $1.1B price tag is flat to the last round, giving those investors their money back (with upside potential as it's all in OpenAI stock) – but at least it's not a "hackquisition" where they're pretending like the startup will be just fine without its founder and other key talent – they're all coming over to OpenAI (pending regulatory approval). And that's good because it sure seems like a lot of Statsig's business beyond OpenAI was their chief rivals, and we know what happens in those situations – the same thing that's happening to Scale.ai and what was happening to Windsurf. (Related, there's also undoubtedly a strategic reason for doing this deal if, say, Anthropic and Meta can no longer use Statsig...) Anyway, you don't have to read between too many lines to see that this was also largely about bringing in Vijaye Raji, a longtime Facebooker who worked alongside OpenAI's new "CEO of Applications" Fidji Simo. He'll now be her "CTO of Applications", continuing the build out of OpenAI, the product company. To make way for that, Kevin Weil, the Chief Product Officer, is shifting to work on a new group focused on science applications of the tech. [Verge]
📽️ A Studio/Theater Deal in France – Canal+ buying a one-third stake in UGC, one of France's largest movie theater chains, with an option for a full takeover, is the latest and probably inevitable move towards saving cinemas. To say the world has changed since the Paramount Decree – which obviously had no bearing on France anyway – broke the studio/theater relationship is an understatement. Movie theaters are no longer the dominant form of distribution, streaming services are – and basically every studio now owns one of those. Besides Sony – which recently bought the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain! That was smart as the footprint is relatively small, but trying to buy something like AMC would be a nightmare. They just have way too many screens for the modern age. That's why it makes more sense for, say, Paramount to buy someone like, say, IMAX. Netflix has bought a few individual theaters (to help ensure their films get Oscar consideration), but might they make a bigger push here? They'll say "no" but they always say "no" before they say "yes". They're already building their 'Netflix Houses' in the carcasses of malls, and most malls have movie theaters... [THR]
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• Anthropic's New Round
• Tesla's Flaccid New 'Master Plan'
• Gemini Coming Home
• Yet More Apple AI Defections
• and more...