Apple's Half-Trillion Dollar Deal

Anthropic's Knees • Hollywood's Windows • Microsoft's Stargate • Netflix Buys Ben Affleck's AI • Everyone Comes for OpenClaw • Apple at 50

M.G. Siegler

Mar 13, 2026

Would Apple do a $400B+ deal? I mean no. But maybe they should think about it. And perhaps so should Anthropic…

🙏 Apple’s Hail Mary, Anthropic’s Savior

It sounds crazy, but hear me out...

The Inner Ring…

😔 When Knees Buckle, then Bend, then Break

On Anthropic’s war with the Department of War...

🪟 Fixing the Windows in a Broken Home

Theatrical windows are back in place. Hopefully more open this time...

🌌 Meta (or Microsoft) Steals a Stargate

What choosing Texas (or not) says about the state of data centers...

I Note…

🎞️ Netflix Buys Ben Affleck’s AI Startup

Now perhaps we know a bit more why Affleck seemed so wicked smaht about AI (certainly relative to others in Hollywood) during a podcast a few months back. Unlike most of his industry, he seems to understand that technology has always been along for the ride with the movies. In fact, filmmaking itself is technology. So it’s sort of silly how the fears within that industry are always overblown. That said, it’s obvious why AI in particular is causing panic. But beyond copyright, Hollywood has historically operated in almost a comically bloated manner when it comes to costs. And with the business in decline… So Affleck chose to try to leverage the technology to help get the industry back on actual footing. And now Netflix will try to leverage that. One fun aside: the main backer of InterPositive (they couldn’t come up with a better name?) is RedBird Capital. You may know them as the other key backer in helping Paramount wrestle Warner Bros away from Netflix… This deal is a totally different scale, of course. Still, $600M is a historically big deal for Netflix! [Bloomberg 🔒]

🦂 Claws Out for OpenClaw

NVIDIA. Perplexity. Anthropic. Soon, it seems like everyone will have some sort of OpenClaw-like offering/solution. And, I suspect, many users will jump at the trade-offs of being a bit less "open" in favor of being more secure — or simply being a better product thanks to a more tightly integrated approach. To be fair and clear, NVIDIA’s 'NemoClaw' offering is also said to be open source, but obviously they will have their own agenda for it. Meanwhile, Perplexity already now has two versions of their 'Computer' offering with a 'Personal' one in testing to run on your own machine on top of their 'Perplexity Computer' in the cloud. I would guess that within a month we have offerings from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and yes, OpenAI, undoubtedly with Mr. OpenClaw himself, Peter Steinberger. Oh, and Meta, which obviously tried to hire Steinberger, but had to settle for Moltbook, the bot network (with an already outdated name given the shift to 'OpenClaw' from 'Moltbot') named for Facebook but built like Reddit. Maybe Manus helps? [Information 🔒]

🎂 Apple Closes in on 50

While the actual birthday is April 1, ahead of it, there has already been a lot of celebration and looking back. A couple nights ago, the Computer History Museum held a 90-minute event which is now online. It was hosted by David Pogue who just published his (massive) book around Apple’s milestone. CHM also has a fun video with some early Apple folks walking around their first offices. Tim Cook has published his birthday note on Apple’s site invoking "The Crazy Ones" and noting it’s rare moment of reflection for the company. That just reminds me of one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes, which I believe he said to my friend Steven Levy, though that particular article in Wired now appears to be offline (but I saved the quote long ago):

"When I got back here in 1997, I was looking for more room, and I found an archive of old Macs and other stuff. I said, ‘Get it away!’ and I shipped all that shit off to Stanford. If you look backward in this business, you’ll be crushed. You have to look forward."

🦞 The Lobster

It feels like we’ve seen the OpenClaw movie before, many times...

I Quote…

Sometimes the agents, when they see they have so many coworkers, become lazy and underperform — just like humans.

— Anna Tong and Rashi Shrivastava closing out their cover story for Forbes about Cursor with one fun AI dynamic they learned from the company.

Asides…

Apple cutting the App Store cut in China to 25% is seemingly another data point that this wall is about to fully tumble. Famous last words… [Bloomberg 🔒]
One of the humorous/weird angles of the whole no-chips-to-China situation is that the companies there can and do just rent space on clouds outside of China to use NVIDIA’s chips. Case in point: ByteDance. It’s certainly more circuitous and more expensive but seemingly not that complicated? [WSJ 🔒]
Honda just posted their first annual loss since… 1957! As a result, they’re the latest to pull back from EVs, which seems like also poor timing given the situation in the Mid East… [NYT]
- Not pulling the plug on EVs? Rivian. The R2 is here and a bit more expensive than anyone would hope ($58k), but as expected, looks great. [TechCrunch]
- And yes, there’s an R2-D2 version out there… [Reddit]
Not only do the new Studio Displays have an A19 chip (an A19 Pro in the XDR model!), but they also have 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. They’re full computers in disguise. With better specs than the new MacBook Neo — albeit at many times the price! Still, it’s a monitor! [MacRumors]
Is the Iran War about to imperil some AI spend? Certainly many in the Middle East now have more important things to focus on, but the downstream effects of even small shifts could be massive… [Information 🔒]
- Speaking of, a recent poll suggests the only thing American’s currently like less than AI is Iran (well, and the Democratic Party). That seems like a major perception problem… [Fortune]
With two more co-founders apparently leaving xAI, they’re now down to just 3 of the original 12 remaining. And one of those is Elon Musk. [BI 🔒]
- But Musk was also able to poach two key people out of Cursor — obviously to work on xAI’s own "vibe coding" tools — so there’s that. [Information 🔒]
- Tesla and xAI are also going to work closer together on AI for "Digital Optimus" (is that the new "Macrohard"? Unclear…), as you’d hope before they’re all merged together anyway. [BI 🔒]
- Ah, I see, this is all related… Maybe you can’t just throw money at such problems after all… [FT 🔒]
I’m not saying Shantanu Narayen was a victim of the SaaSpocalypse, but it couldn’t have helped. CEO of Adobe since 2007 who reinvented it for that SaaS era, weathering the Flash fiasco, hell of a run. [CNBC]
- Microsoft also keeps losing longstanding executives. (As does Apple, of course.) Now Rajesh Jha is leaving after 35 years. [Verge]
- The next Xbox — "Project Helix" — aka: Xbox + PC games — don’t hold your breath until it starts alpha testing… in 2027. [Verge]
Kate Winslet has apparently been cast as the female lead in The Hunt for Gollum, adding more firepower to what sure seems like The Lord of the Rings band fully getting back together… [Deadline]
- Also buried in here: news that talks are progressing about a second season of the excellent Mare of Easttown — come on, crossover with Task!
Quentin Tarantino is ready to announce his next project. No, not his 10th (and supposedly final) film, but a play that he’ll write and direct in London. [NYT]
YouTube’s revenue now estimated to be higher than that of Disney (well, their media business at least). But not to worry, they’re not competing with media — snicker. They’d probably be a $500B+ company if a standalone business. [THR]
Are they really going to go with Paramount+HBO as the name of the combined streaming service? Guys, just call it 'Showtime'! [Lightshed]

I Spy…

Oh hello there adorable little Mac Finder Friend… Is Apple getting good at social to entice the youth to buy their new device?

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