Metaverse, Chrous, Metaverse
Gemini's Comeback • AI Choice Screens • Apple Maps Ads • Prediction Market Tests • Microsoft's Ai2 Bet • ARM Chips • Windows Slop • Steve Jobs on the iBook • VW Scout
For all the talk about Meta’s bungling of their metaverse, the reality is more nuanced. And also, in some ways, worse, when you actually take a step back…
⚾️ Meta Keeps Missing
Encryption? No. Crypto? No. VR? No. Open models? No. AI? Not so far. Agents? Nothing yet. AR? We’ll see...
I Note…
💫 Google’s Gemini Comeback
Good overview of how Google fell behind and came back in the AI race by Harry McCracken. And I swear I’m not just saying that since I’m quoted a couple times in the piece. Per my quote at the end, I am genuinely curious how the company handles any macro downturn in the next few years. Everyone knows that’s typically the best time to invest, but there will also undoubtedly be immense pressure from Wall Street for everyone (not just Google) to pull back on the wild infrastructure spend. Meta and Google could be insulated far better because of the founder control (even though Larry Page + Sergey Brin are no longer in charge of day-to-day, they control the voting shares). Microsoft and Amazon could be in trickier spots, even though founders Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos will undoubtedly be on board, respectively. They’re older companies without the same levels/methods of control... [Fast Company]
🪧 OpenAI Wants In on the Choice Screens
Speaking of Google, in various countries around the world they’ve been forced to adopt a choice-screen for the default search engines on Android and Chrome. Now OpenAI wants in on that action. Certainly a case could be made that the major AI chatbots should be included as they’re replacing search for many people. But you’d think what they’d really care about is new rules that would push people to set their default AI service as well. That’s tomorrow’s big battle, I suppose. [Telegraph]
🗺️ Apple to Add Ads to Maps
Let me just definitely say: yuck. Basically the entire reason I keep Apple Maps on my homescreen instead of Google Maps (now that the two seem comparable in terms of data quality) is because Apple Maps just looks much nicer. It’s just a much nicer experience to use. Google Maps is cluttered up to no end including with yes, a ton of ads. With Apple now shoving the ads (which will undoubtedly have far worse targeting, which isn’t a good thing here) in there, I may have to switch that homescreen slot. Look, we all get it. Services, services, services. In the age of iPhone inundation, it’s the only sure avenue for growth. But there’s obviously real risks here for Apple, a company whose rhetoric over the years has clearly been against what they’re about to start doing. This feels awfully nickel and dime-y. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🏆 Lawmaker Bet Against Prediction Markets
Every day seems to bring little data points suggesting that the prediction market craze is about to face a reckoning. This is probably the most problematic yet – a bipartisan effort – by two Senators to try to steer the markets away from sports. And that’s a problem as it’s already a massive part of these businesses (for obvious reasons). That said, the MLB’s official deal with Polymarket is... interesting. Separately, Kalshi is now preemptively blocking athletes (and politicans) from using the platform to trade within their own markets. [WSJ 🔒]
🤖 Microsoft’s Ai2 Bet
This doesn’t appear to be yet another “hackquisition“ and instead is just Microsoft straight-up poaching the key team behind Ai2 – a clever play on the fact that it’s the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence – the research lab founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. But with Allen having passed away, clearly there was a mandate challenge going forward here. Meanwhile, Microsoft has an AI challenge. Now that Mustafa Suleyman has “narrowed his focus” (did Suleyman frame this?) and is focused on building frontier models (after years spent insisting Microsoft wasn’t interested in doing this) for “humanist superintelligence” (a framing which has gotten zero traction, but keeps being used), he’s clearly on the hunt for talent. The most interesting element of this may be that the team was particularly focused on “open” (read: open weight) models. Might Microsoft try to step in to the space that Meta is ceding as they push Llama aside to focus on their own, proprietary models? Also worth noting: Ali Farhadi sold his previous AI startup to Apple in 2020 focused on low-power, edge-based AI tools, which was an Ai2 spin-out. [GeekWire]
🍪 ARM Muscles Into Chip Market
It has been known for a while that they were going to make this move. But it’s still sort of wild. Obviously they’re going to downplay an tension with their partners here, but that’s easy to say when you you’re yet to ship. In the success state, this could get awfully awkward for some of these players. For now, they say they have a lane in “orchestration” – basically, helping agents do their thing. But obviously NVIDIA and the others are going to want that market too if it’s a big one. Interesting that Meta helped make the chip and that OpenAI is a key launch partner. Remember when NVIDIA tried to buy ARM?! Instead, SoftBank still owns about 90% of the company – also recall that they recently exited their NVIDIA holdings (to invest more money into OpenAI). But they still hold their stake in Intel. As does NVIDIA. Everything remains circular and intertwined. [FT 🔒]
I Wrote…
Microsoft Got Sloppy with Windows
At perhaps the exact wrong moment with AI and the MacBook Neo...
💻 Before MacBook Neo, There Was iBook
27 years ago, Steve Jobs celebrated Apple completing “the quadrant”...
I Quote…
"Americans said, 'yeah, I’m not into the whole spaceship thing. I’m just like, dude, where’s my truck?' 'Dude, here is your truck.'"
— Scott Keogh, the CEO of Scout, a car brand once popular in the 1960s and 1970s that VW acquired about five years ago to try to relaunch as an electric truck company. The cars won’t launch until 2028, but they sure look promising. Definitely some Rivian vibes, which, will be helping with the launch given their own VW partnership…
Asides…
Texas (well, Crusoe) has apparently chosen Microsoft (to pick up the Abilene site which Oracle and OpenAI put down). Yes, it was meant to be an expansion of the neighboring Stargate project. Yes, this is awkward given the history between all the parties. [Bloomberg 🔒]
Apollo is the latest to cap withdrawals from a private credit fund… [FT 🔒]
Meanwhile, SoftBank on the verge of tripping over their (self-mandated) loan-to-value ratio of 25% with their latest OpenAI investments. [FT 🔒]
Unsurprisingly, politicians are jumping all over the Super Micro executive NVIDIA chip smuggling situation. But are they really implying Jensen Huang has been misleading government officials, or even outright lying?! [FT 🔒]
The entire fate of Super Micro sure seems in NVIDIA’s hands now. If they don’t keep working together… [WSJ 🔒]
Notion swapping Cursor for Claude Code and OpenAI Codex speaks directly to the "harness" problem. Are the model makers best suited for these tasks? Or can Cursor make the "Switzerland" case? Harder when they’re clearly now going to be pushing their own models. [Information 🔒]
Out of this world opening for Project Hail Mary — $80.5M! — as Amazon finally has a hit movie on their hands. You make a great movie that people want to see, and they go see it. Funny that. Good omen for Bond? [WSJ 🔒]
In order to film Dune: Part Three, Denis Villeneuve had some IMAX lenses specially made to give the film a different look. Yes. [THR]
I Spy…
That’s a nice-looking (electric) truck. Dig the branding too.
