Tricking, Treating 📧
Back home and nearly caught up, though after a lot of reading, I have about five columns I'm working on in my head concurrently. Also, Apple and Amazon close out Big Tech™ earnings later today (well until NVIDIA, at the end of the month). Also today: Intel 😬.
But first, trick-or-treating. Happy Halloween and Diwali. 🎃🪔
I Think…
📉 Microsoft Revenue Rises on AI Boom but Softer Outlook Weighs – Continuing the Big Tech Gravy Train, Microsoft beat their numbers across the board. But Wall Street isn't thrilled with the immediate projections from here – with the stock down around 6% today. On the earnings call the company tried to talk up how much AI is driving their revenue growth, with Satya Nadella (nebulously) noting that AI products will add $10B to annual revenue faster than any other business in Microsoft's history (of course, that's a lot easier to do when you can piggyback on already massive businesses). Most interesting, of course, were the bits around OpenAI. Both Nadella and CFO Amy Hood gave statements that almost sounded defensive. And they disclosed the (well reported) size of the investment for the first time at $13.75B, perhaps because they also showed a $683M loss for the quarter on their investments. The FT thinks this may be tied to OpenAI's own sizable losses, but this isn't clear to me – it may just be markdowns from other investments? Certainly, the OpenAI investment itself has been marked up quite a bit, but I'm also not clear how they account for that given that it isn't yet an actual equity holding – so perhaps that's why they might need to take into account some of OpenAI's losses (the downside of profit share?) – I'm just thinking out loud here, people. [FT 🔒]
📉 Meta’s Profit Rises 35%, Even as Spending Spree Continues – And another one. Beat, beat, beat. But as with Microsoft, Meta's stock is also getting beat today (not as badly – down around 4%) seemingly on AI expense concerns. This is not the first time Meta has gotten hit with this stick, but it also seemed like we may have been past it given the rebound in results (and yes, the 'Orion' unveil to showcase that the metaverse spend over the years hasn't all been for naught). In part, it's likely because Meta keeps tweaking their expected spending ranges, this time raising the floor once again. And while Google and Microsoft have more straight-forward paths to monetize the AI boom, Mark Zuckerberg has previously said such bets would take a long time to pay off and has only just now started trying to play up the short-term benefits for its still core business: advertising. [NYT]
🤖 Meta AI Has More than 500 Million Users – To that short-term benefit point, yeah that headline number sounds amazing, but these metrics are getting out of control. Meta now has 3.25B active users across their suite of products, if it's an exaggeration to say that they can get 500M people to do anything, it's not by much. We're going need more granular metrics to know how people are using it – and if they're doing so intentionally. Right now, this sounds a bit Google+-y for my taste. Next up: will Apple tout over a billion users of Apple Intelligence when that roll-out is complete next year? I mean... probably? But it's all the same nonsense. This is being shoved in users' faces. Do they really want this? If so, what for? But really, what on Earth is the US government using it for? Are they also getting those annoying pop-ups in WhatsApp to try it out? [Engadget]
📲 The Samsung Squeeze – The company was the only one of the top 5 smartphone makers to see declining shipments last quarter and as such, Apple is about to overtake them once again as the world's top smartphone maker. While the iPhone is hitting Samsung from above, a range of Chinese phone-makers are now hitting them from below (while also leaping them in foldables from all sides). And their own internal issues producing chips has led to a perfect storm which has wiped out over $120B in market value in recent months. Which had led to a public apology. So what's next? AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, of course – but also perhaps moving on from the increasingly stale/generic 'Galaxy' branding, at least at the high-end? [FT 🔒]
I Link...
- With the new iPad mini just released, let the rumors begin anew: an OLED model is next, the question is if it's next year or the year after or the year after that? [MacRumors]
- Nintendo isn't done with their sort of strange/sort of fun tangential releases – here's Nintendo Music, a music streaming service for iOS/Android that focuses on, yes, music from Nintendo games. You need to be a Switch Online subscriber to get access to it. [Verge]
- Wait, how did I completely miss that 'Paramount+ with Showtime' (lol – hopefully Skydance kills this branding, fast) has a new spy series, The Agency, starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, and... Richard Gere?! It's sort of feels like Fassbender-as-James-Bond meets Fassbender-as-The-Killer meets Fassbender-as-Jack-Ryan. Wait, it's based on Le Bureau des Legendes?! Which is to say, I'm signing up for Paramount+. With Showtime. I guess. [THR]
- Speaking of Jack Ryan... John Krasinski will become the fifth actor to play the character in a movie, following four seasons of playing him on Amazon's Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan streaming show – which was solid! Aside from Amazon/MGM, this is also another big win for David Ellison as Skydance produced the show for Paramount (for it to stream on Amazon Prime TV) – now it may be one of the first films released under the merged company. It has to beat the last one a decade ago. [THR]
- Speaking of David Ellison... he and not his father, will be the controlling shareholder of 'New Paramount' after the Skydance merger, and yes, he will be in control of the board. This was disclosed because the entities had to file to apply for the transfer of the CBS network TV license. [Variety]
- At first, I was confused by the headline noting Peloton was turning to a Ford executive as their new CEO – but actually Peter Stern was only at Ford for about a year, before that, he spent nearly 7 years at Apple as VP overseeing a range of Services (Peloton is calling him a "co-founder" of Fitness+ which seems like a sort of silly title for service that's a part of a service within a company). That makes a lot more sense. Does that make it more likely Apple would buy the beleaguered fitness company? Probably not, but they should have an easier time working more closely together now... [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney selling a minority stake in Wrexham FC is interesting. Doing so to help an old beer/brewery, Wrexham Lager, which they're also buying into is even more interesting. The notion that this beer was available on the Titanic is the most interesting. [THR]
- In yet more Netflix-is-the-new-cable news: Comcast struck a deal to put Universal movies on the streaming service during an exclusive window – one that's after the theatrical window, and also after a window on their own Peacock service, but no later than 8 months after a movie first opens. It will run on Netflix for 10 months before returning to Peacock. So yeah, it's basically like a movie going from theaters, having an exclusive HBO/Showtime window, then going to cable. Netflix is the new cable. (And, notably, they stole this deal from Amazon.) [Bloomberg 🔒]
- Following OpenAI and Perplexity, Anthropic is also launching a Claude Mac (and Windows) app to break out of the browser. Notably, this software (in beta), doesn't include their new use-your-computer-for-you AI. [TechCrunch]
I Quote...
“I’ve been doing AI for 15 years, people, I’m not just spouting shit — I’m not Sam Altman, okay?”
-- Tony Fadell, firing shots on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt. It's interesting how many people go directly after Altman – including Geoffrey Hinton in his remarks immediately after winning a Nobel Prize (!) for his work in AI.
I Spy...
Speaking of the Nobel Prize... I've stayed at hundreds of hotels in my life, something like 99% of them terrorize you with their shower set up. I've been to one or two in my life that have a set up like this. It is truly revolutionary design. Nobel Prize-worthy as Edlynne Laryea notes...
