The Netflix Football League
Amazon + Globalstar? • OpenAI's Round • Microsoft's AI Pickle • Microsoft's New AI Models • SpaceX IPO • Can He-Man?
While it’s a bit like watching the action in slow motion, you can clearly already see where this is all heading with regard to sports and streaming. And the NFL, unsurprisingly, is setting the pace and timing of it all.
🏈 The NFL Will Bleed Cable Dry Before Tech Takes Over TV
Amazon, Apple, ESPN, Netflix, and YouTube will clearly eventually control the NFL rights...
I Note…
💫 Amazon May Buy Globalstar
While at first glance, this may seem like bad news for Apple, which owns 20% of the company as part of a 2024 deal to launch their satellite backup services, they actually might very much welcome this deal – assuming they can work out an arrangement with Amazon to maintain the connectivity agreement in place. While the stock has been bolstered (still just a $9B company) by positioning versus Starlink and the lead-up to the SpaceX IPO, Apple has also clearly been propping up the company without wanting to buy it outright due to regulatory (and undoubtedly, logistics) headaches. Amazon, on the other hands, needs such a service to bolster their tiny "Leo", which is having a hell of a time meeting satellites-in-space requirements (even when mandated) because of launch backlogs. Obviously, Starlink has no such issues... Speaking of, you-know-who will not like this deal, not only because SpaceX had discussed buying Globalstar, but because he’s wanted Apple’s business from the get-go. And it was starting to seem like he might get it if Globalstar couldn’t match Starlink. But Amazon might be able to help with that... [FT 🔒]
💰 OpenAI’s $122B Round
On one hand, this is just an insane amount of money. Truly. As I noted when they raised their mere $40B round, it was more than had ever been raised in any IPO. This is more than 3x that amount. (That round felt like five years ago – it was a year ago.) Even if and when SpaceX shatters the record raised in an IPO later this year, this round will undoubtedly still be far larger than that amount. That said... There’s a weird vibe around announcing the $110B amount and the re-announcing the $122B amount – especially playing up the demand when many knew it was going to be upsized. I mean, it’s funny to point out because that extra $12B itself is more than almost anyone has raised ever. But still, OpenAI’s whole blog post on the matter feels... almost defensive? I know that’s wild to say, but well, they’re under attack and pressure at the moment. It feels like this is a message to the market: never mind the bollocks, here’s the validation. And... fair enough? Not everyone is sold, but is anyone selling? Just a whole bunch of strange/mixed signals at the moment as OpenAI tries to pivot from their massive perch in consumer AI to take on Anthropic. [CNBC]
🥒 Microsoft in an AI Pickle
It’s fairly wild that the company had their worst quarter since 2008 – the financial crisis! – given the overall state of the markets holding up – despite, you know, war and whatnot. And the 23% drop was registered just as OpenAI, a company in which they have a 27% stake, has raised a round valuing it at $850B+. That stake, by my quick math, is currently worth around $230B. Even with the inevitable dilution of the new round (though, notably, Microsoft did end up participating, in the last $12B slug), it’s worth over $200B. It’s one of the greatest investments of all time, certainly at that scale. $13B+ in $200B+ and growing... And yet here’s Microsoft, dropping like it’s no longer hot. Obviously they’re wrapped up in the “SaaSpocalypse” narrative, but really they have a broad AI narrative challenge as the various Copilot initiatives aren’t working (perhaps even in enterprise). Certainly not relative to their peers. It sure feels like they made a mistake in hedging so quickly away from OpenAI after “The Blip” and picked perhaps the wrong partner to lead their efforts to go it alone (which has now been rectified). Did Satya get too cocky? [CNBC]
🤖 Microsoft’s New AI Models
Speaking of... stop me if you’ve heard this before: Mustafa Suleyman is back doing the press rounds. Seriously, it has been a full-blown interview epidemic for the past year or so with no cure in sight. This latest barrage is around a few new MAI models, though, notably, not one LLM to rule them all from Microsoft – not yet, at least – but instead, smaller models focused on transcription, voice, and images. They may look impressive on paper, but will anyone care? What is the actual strategy? I’m just seeing a bunch of 180s around how frontier models are all that matter after not mattering at all and how enterprise is all that matters after all the talk being about consumer engagement. Suleyman declares Microsoft is now “a top three lab just under OpenAI and Gemini”, but beyond (Microsoft-backed) Anthropic having something to say about that (and his humorous use of “Gemini” instead of “DeepMind”, the the company he famously co-founded), I imagine there are a few others out there, notably in Asia, but also what about (Microsoft-backed) Mistral? He seems to suggest the only reason they’re not at the top right now is simply time – because of the OpenAI restrictions, they were late to the frontier game. But throwing money and resources hasn’t worked to get xAI or Meta back into the game so far, so why will Microsoft be different? [VentureBeat]
I Quote…
"Elon is saying, 'I have this window to fund all this craziness for a good period of time based on the SpaceX hype.' By merging the two losers with one winner, he keeps all the balls in the air. He keeps everything afloat."
— Ross Gerber giving an assessment of the SpaceX IPO. Sounds about right.
Asides…
Oof, this Claude Code harness leak (no weights) is rough. But I am excited for my Tamagotchi-like “Buddy”. [Cyber Security News]
Naturally, Elon Musk chose April 1 to file for SpaceX’s IPO... [Bloomberg 🔒]
E-Trade potentially being the key partner for the retail side of the listing seemed somewhat surprising – a Dot Com throwback? – then I remembered one of the lead underwriters, Morgan Stanley, bought them. As perhaps did many people since it was just a few weeks before the COVID pandemic was declared... [Reuters]
I mean, I would sure hope that the “New Siri“ powered by Gemini would be able to handle multiple requests in a single query? [Bloomberg 🔒]
Open, open, open – until it comes to actually becoming cutting edge and/or making money. Then closed is still the way, even in China, it seems, with Alibaba switching their stance of their AI models... [Information 🔒]
Being able to switch your original Gmail email address feels long overdue since it feels like many people who picked their name – um – 22 years ago may be in a different place now. Still, better late than never! [Engadget]
Google also jacked up the storage on the ‘AI Pro‘ plan from 2TB to 5TB, a move that almost felt like when Gmail itself launched all those years ago on April Fools Day. (Though Google Photos undoubtedly takes up a lot more storage for many of us these days!) [9to5Google]
Allbirds sold for a song – $39M. The shoe startup had raised $348M before their 2021 IPO which valued them at $4B. Yikes. [Bloomberg 🔒]
No idea if “biological computers“ built to leverage neurons grown from stem cells can possibly work and/or scale, but might they teach us something about power efficiency? [Economist 🔒]
I Spy…
I’ve probably posted about this enough — forgive me, He-Man was a huge part of my childhood — but with each new glimpse, I get a little more worried that this isn’t going to be good. I mean, should we really expect it to be? No, but they’re clearly also trying to ride the Barbie momentum here. Unfortunately, this, at least from these trailers, looks a bit too much like a knock-off of Thor (Idris Elba being in both doesn’t help). It’s just way, way too CGI’d up.
Give the 1987 movie all the shit you want, but it somehow felt more authentic. Again, this is a trailer. And I realize I’m writing this about a franchise where the villain is a skeleton man. He remains the wild card here as well. I hope I’m wrong!