Google’s Best Week Ever, AI’s Rising Costs, Putin and Xi’s Immortality Quest

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-09-08

YouTube video id: 1OCKYSdSG9A

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OCKYSdSG9A

Google had the best week maybe ever,
breaking Gemini ground with Apple and
fending off the feds. AI's costs are
rising, or are they? And is immortality
within reach? That's coming up on a
jam-packed Big Technology Podcast Friday
edition right after this. Welcome to Big
Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where
we break down the news in our
traditional coolheaded and nuanced
format. We have a great show for you
today. We're going to talk all about the
amazing week that Google has had.
everything from fending off the Justice
Department and getting to keep Chrome
and Android to the fact that Gemini
might be a big part of Apple's new plan
for Siri. Uh, and of course, there's
Nano Banana. We'll talk about that. We
also have uh a very interesting story to
discuss about how AI's costs are rising
despite the fact that every token you
produce uh is actually getting cheaper.
And then we'll talk about the debate
around that Wall Street Journal article
that we should definitely get into. And
then finally, well, Vladimir Putin and
Xiinping are talking about immortality.
And so that's how we're going to end it
today. So stay tuned as we get to that
part of the show. Joining us as always
on Friday is Ranjan Roy of Margins.
Ranjan, great to see you. How you doing?
>> Good. Good to see you. I will give
Google the best year ever if they can
fix Siri for me. So I'm excited to dig
into this.
>> You may be in luck because that is
exactly where we're going to start
today. There have been a lot of reports
coming out about the new plans that
Apple has both for its devices and for
Siri. And every time a new story comes
out about what's going on with Siri, uh
it seems to point to Google, which is
really great news for the pack at
Mountain View, who again began this
generative AI moment, uh behind the
eightball, and now are looking at a
potential moment where their rival phone
maker is going to include their AI
because they can't get it together.
Anyway, this is from Bloomberg. Apple
plans AI powered web search tool for
Siri to rival OpenAI and Perplexity. Uh
Mark German writes, "Apple is planning
to launch its own artificial
intelligence powered web search tool
next year, stepping up competition with
OpenAI and Perplexity. The company is
working on a new system dubbed
internally as World Knowledge Answers
that will be integrated into the Siri
voice assistant. Apple has discussed
also eventually adding the technology
into the Safari web browser and
Spotlight which it uses uh which is used
to search from the iPhone home screen.
The underlying technology enabling the
new Siri could come in part from
Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Apple's longtime
partner in internet search. The
companies reached a formal agreement
this week for Apple to evaluate and test
a Google developed AI model to help
power the voice assistant and it could
be in um a number of different
components of this new Siri. What do you
think about this Ron John? I mean this
looks like Apple is saying all right we
tried to build it ourselves we couldn't.
uh we're not going to acquire perplexity
despite my numerous pleas for that to
happen and they're simply looking to
partner now with the best in breed to
get this Siri thing to work. What do you
think?
>> Well, first of all, for any longtime
listener who knows how I feel about
Siri, anything that makes it work just a
little bit better, I'm incredibly
excited by. I mean, the more voice has
become kind of like almost my key
interface with how I interact with my
phone, it just is a reminder that of how
far behind Siri is. But I don't know,
like the some of the wording in this
article that just stood out to me is
that the internal system is called World
Knowledge Answers and Apple is aiming to
release the service described by some
executives as an answer engine. Like I'm
still it's unclear to me what they're
trying to do because we've talked a lot
about this like is Siri going to just be
the way you chat with a chat GPT even if
by voice or is it going to be I want to
do things on my phone and will Gemini
actually be able to finally help you
look up your flight that Apple promised
us years ago now. I think it's still
unclear to me what exactly they're
trying to do with Gemini.
So let's talk a little bit about what
they're planning to do with Siri. This
is again from the Bloomberg story. Apple
is Apple is rebuilding Siri around three
core components. A planner, uh the
search systems for web and devices, and
a summarizer. The planner interprets
voice or text input and decides how to
respond. The search system scans the web
uh or user data, and the summarizer puts
it all together into the answer. So Siri
is going to work at least in part with
third party models. Apple has been
leaning towards using a customuilt
Google Gemini model for the summarizer.
Um and it's also considering using a
Google model for the planner function as
well. So basically it's going to be
it'll be everything. Yeah, you're right.
I I think we still don't fully know the
extent that Apple is planning to use
Google um for this or what it actually
is going to be. like in some ways it
sounds a little bit like it's going to
be a new perplexity, but the fact that
it's incorporating ondevice uh data as
well makes me think maybe this is
something that's supposed to be an Apple
intelligence thing. Um, we can start to
talk about that more as we get more
clarity on it, but I think for the
purposes of this episode and this
discussion that we're having, um, about
Google really having a good moment, I I
think it's worth focusing on how that
this is just a complete coup for Google.
Uh, a year or two ago, we were talking
about how they were so far behind in the
generative AI uh, uh, race and they
couldn't get anything right. They they
were telling people to eat glue. Their
image generator wasn't working. And now
they're on the verge of pro potentially
um powering twothirds of the system uh
within I would say the most careful uh
device maker that we have today in
Apple. Um I think this is great. This is
if you're Google, you're celebrating
this. It's massive.
>> Yeah, I I definitely agree. whatever it
is. And and I'm hoping to learn more
about it. But I mean, yeah, gone are
long gone are the days of Google telling
us to put glue into pizza and to eat
rocks, which are still two of my
favorite moments in the whole AI
journey. But but I think the most
important part to me about this
announcement is the idea that if they
get access to helping parse Apple's user
data, I think that actually is huge.
that the the separating out Apple's
entire promise around how they're
approaching AI is we're secure. We trust
trust us with your user data. It's on
device. And if Gemini and Google are
getting to get into that level of
Apple's overall infrastructure, I
actually think this is massive. So I
think yeah Sundar anyone who counted him
out we should all uh eat crow on that
one.
>> Yeah I think we had that episode talking
about whether or not
>> we should fire him and uh obviously you
know that discussion looks silly in
retrospect. Um and it is interesting
that it's Google by the way. I think
you're starting to see some of Google's
advantages play out here. Uh the fact
that it uh can lose a little bit of
money to serve this stuff. uh the fact
that it has its own uh chips that it
produces for this the TPU and you the
two other options that seemed like they
were considered were Proplexity which
would have come in via an acquisition um
and maybe couldn't have done it in a
cost couldn't have done this in a
cost-effective way or could not have
convinced Apple that it was capable
because it doesn't have the foundational
model uh experience that Google does.
And the other one is anthropic which you
know was going to charge so much money
that it seems like it potentially lost
this deal uh based off of the cash. So
uh right now on the AI front you have
Google not only you know using its
Gemini technology to power its own
devices uh to produce some other cool
experiences like V3 and nano nano banana
which we're going to talk about in a
moment. um but also being the the
company that Apple looks towards uh to
do the Siri thing which is just to me
sounds like a grand slam and u one of
the reasons I would say Apple can look
to Gemini uh to power Siri is because
and there'll probably be some financial
arrangement there and who knows who pays
who right because you know Google
obviously pays to be the default search
uh with in iOS but you know if it's
providing this technology does it get
something on the back end? It seems like
Apple would probably pay them. So, um to
get their technology on Apple devices.
Uh so, that's a win. And the reason why
it can make these deals is because it's
been faced with one of the toughest
antitrust challenges uh we've seen to
date from a big tech company. It lost.
It was found to be a monopolist by uh
the district court in DC. And then this
week, we got the remedies. And there was
talk about whether or not Google uh
would have to, you know, spin off
Chrome, spin off Android, whether it
completely had to stop doing
distribution deals with companies like
Apple. And the judge who brought the
ruling on Tuesday at Meta basically
ruled across the board, none of that
needs to happen. It can keep Chrome, it
can keep Android, it can continue to pay
uh for distribution within Apple devices
and the partnerships can continue even
though it has to uh deliver some of its
uh search data to competitors. We don't
know how much, but it won't be to me it
didn't read like it's going to be
mission critical stuff. Um so Google's
really good week continued here with u
with this it seems like a win amid a
loss in the antitrust case. So what was
your read there Ranjan? Yeah, I think
when amidst a loss or after a loss is
the right way to approach that again the
idea that what was it a year ago when
the ruling came out everyone said this
could break up Google and then in the
end Chrome Android OS they get to keep
all of it and and the remedy again it
was uh around they have to provide some
search data some user interaction data
none of that's even completely specified
as to exactly what it is. So I think and
it's only to qualified competitors and
what that means is that duck duck go is
that perplexity I think is all up in the
air. So I think coming out of uh the
idea like antirust could Google get
broken up that everyone was saying that
that ruling was the most powerful one
since Microsoft in the early 2000s and
then in the end it appears that not too
much is going to happen to them. I mean,
what was really interesting to me about
the remedy, so I I did read through um
the the remedy uh decision here, and you
get to paragraph two, and the judge is
already talking about generative AI. Um
saying effectively that like generative
AI has upended the way that searches
performed today. And basically, I'm not,
the judge is saying, I'm not going to
change anything. And uh I'm going to let
this play out and the market will decide
what's going to be the thing that um
determines who wins here, not me. And it
was fascinating that the judge even said
from the moment the ruling was delivered
till today, things have changed so
quickly that I no longer feel com feel
comfortable uh taking these big actions.
So, it's it's fascinating to me that
basically generative AI or the thing
that threatened Google uh saved Google
from being broken up.
>> Yeah. I I actually to me when I was
reading through that, it actually is one
of the most kind of like technically
astute things. Everyone always talks
about how like regulators or the legal
system don't understand the nuance of uh
advanced technology, but I actually
think it's correct. like from a year
ago. We talk about this regularly is
search is threatened traditional search
is it going to live on is everyone going
to be on chat GBT and perplexity or
doing AI search which I do believe will
happen. Um so the traditional like what
made Google powerful in the context of
the ruling is definitely not the case as
it was a year ago. Like, can we argue
that them actually now having a great
week in the generative AI space and like
being able to consolidate power in other
ways is an is a problem? Definitely. But
it's a different problem.
>> Yeah. The point is that they're going to
have to fight for it. And so when you
look at what the judge did here, it's
sort of remarkable. Uh cleared ruling
that Google had basically illegally
become a monopoly. Um not basically,
that was the ruling. and then a
cleareyed look at the fact that
basically what had gotten it to this
point wasn't going to get it further.
And yes, you could try to punish it for
what it had done sort of disincentivize
it uh it and other companies from
attempting similar tactics because there
should be a punishment there. Um and I
think I hear the argument that the judge
didn't go far enough in this ruling.
However, I I think if you if you think
pragmatically about what is happening in
tech today, it was the right ruling
where it's basically just like the
government doesn't have a place uh to
put its thumb on the scale and decide
which companies win. Um and so judge
said all right let's just let this play
out and you know enforce this small
remedy which is the data sharing and see
see uh and basically may the best
product be the one that dominates.
>> Yep. Again, I I tend to feel there's not
enough concrete antirust enforcement
taken over the last 15 years, but this
one I have to give that where technology
is and how power was defined, it's not
the case anymore. And again, even on the
browser side, I don't know if you saw
the browser company got acquired by
Atlassian. If any arc browser fans are
now who are trying deal like like
there's competition. I don't use there's
there's definite competition on that
side on the generative AI side. So I
think we'll we'll see how this plays out
but and Google's doing pretty well. But
the power isn't just on search and ad
tech. Very quickly before we move on
with Google's great week,
is it just worth talking about the
counterargument here which is that um
yes, there's this new era of generative
AI. Google's probably just going to, you
know, resort to its old bag of tricks
and put a, you know, a product that is
not clearly better than everything else
uh uh into the hands of many many people
because of its distribution advantages.
I mean, now one of the interesting
things in the in the ruling was that
Google can no longer pay for the
exclusive position uh within things like
Safari. So it can can't be paid Apple to
be the only thing, but it's allowed to
pay uh for distribution. Um and so so
that can continue. So um why aren't we
just going to see a repeat of history
even if it's a new technology?
>> Well, I think we don't know what the
landscape is going forward. Like in the
in the old world, the search bar in
Safari in iOS actually was one of the
most valuable pieces of real estate in
the world. it isn't anymore. I mean,
which is again, you can I'll agree with
you that like putting Gemini into series
somehow and I'm curious how data sharing
works on that side, whether it's all
like completely walled off, but uh but
but yeah, the the old world doesn't
exist anymore. And if a new antirust
case that actually clearly defines how
they're setting up their kind of new
power structure, it need it would need
to be that versus what it started five
years ago when this case was brought
forth by the last Trump administration.
>> Yeah, it's a very different world. And
it also just reminds me that this week
we also had the CEOs of basically all
the major big tech companies uh sitting
with President Trump. Um Zuckerberg was
there, Sergey was there. Um
interestingly uh Sundar Pachai, Tim
Cook, Sam Alman and all of them
basically like you know they they took
uh turns going around the table pra
praising the president. Um but it was
interesting to hear them say like it is
nice not to have a uh administration
that's fighting our companies and
instead supporting them. Um, and it's I
mean that's interesting because again
like Trump is more business friendly,
more big business friendly, but he's
still his one tweet and then everything
changes.
>> Yeah. But also the cases that he brought
uh in his first term are still going
forward. It's not like he withdrew them.
It's not like he instructed the Justice
Department to like stop the remedy phase
of the trial. Let the judge decide it.
But it's I guess it's neither here nor
there. I think that the thing is the
fact that they're feeling that way. um
sort of indicates that we're now in this
moment where big tech, which has only
grown more dominance and impervious to
criticism over the years, is about as
teflon as it's ever been. And nothing is
basically stopping it from solidifying
its dominance even further. uh as we go
into this AI era which on one hand
threatens yes to disrupt its products uh
but also takes a tremendous amount of
money and uh and data data center uh and
and engineering talent and um and only
big tech has that.
>> It's good to be have the name of the
podcast
>> big technology. Well,
>> yeah, that's what we're
>> not going anywhere.
>> No, that's right.
>> Neither is this podcast. I mean, if
let's I'll just say like for the sake of
argument, if big tech did to lose its
dominance, we would we'd have great
stories to talk about on the show for
years. But it does seem like this the
title of our show will be relevant for
for a long time to come.
>> Um, all right. Should we continue on
this uh jolly adventure looking at all
the good news that Google has had?
>> It's a Google week. It's a Google week
this week. Why don't you tell us a
little bit about uh Nano Banana, which
is something that I know that you're
particularly excited about?
>> Yeah, Nano Banana Google quietly
released and then it started to kind of
make waves and then there's been more
and more noise, but basically it's a new
image model. It's the the nickname for
it. You can access it. It's like
technically Gemini 2.5 Flash. And
actually to Google's credit about how
good of a week or month they're having,
in the old days, they would have made a
big deal about Gemini 2.5 Flash as the
name of the official model, but somehow
now they're even coming out with an
amazing name like Nano Banana that
actually everyone remembers and actually
can go slightly viral. But mainly image
generation, it's incredible. It's
definitely leading the pack. Actually,
one of the things that blew my mind is
Adobe is now actually including Nano
Banana/Gemini
2.5 Flash in Photoshop and Photoshop
Express. Adobe who with its own Firefly
model like and was saying this is the
future. We're going to own this. It's
copyright indemnified. They're actually
the the fact that they're letting it
into you know the premier photo editing
software across like the entire
enterprise world means that they're even
giving into Google in this side and
saying you guys have the best image
model. So I think it's just at every
level. But then the other part of it is
it's getting people into Gemini while
we're everyone's using chat GPT
perplexity and claude that apparently 10
million people who were new to Gemini
use the app to use it for images. So I
think again more people using the core
app for these new image editing
capabilities.
It's yet another uh yet another good
thing for Google. Yeah, it's a very very
impressive model. I mean, it can do
crazy things like it can blend photos.
So, you could ask it to combine two
separate photos into one. Um, this is
according to according to Android
Central. Uh, you could also take selfies
and then ask it uh to put you in certain
situations like turn you into a spacew
walking astronaut or a rockstar or
anything you can think of. It also does
these really interesting things like
continuous editings editing. So, you
could tell you could tell Gemini or Nano
Banana uh what to add to an empty room
and then continue to tweak the design
and like add follow-up questions. Like,
this is this is amazing. This is natural
language design and it looks incredible.
I've seen unbelievable examples come
through the timeline over the past
couple days. Um, it's obviously being
used for lots of hilarious sports memes,
uh, including, uh, having Cowboys
receiver, uh, CD Lamb, uh, trying to
catch the game-winning touchdown with no
arms. Um, but which he which he did not.
U, but also someone put their selfie up
and asked Nano Banana basically to give
them four iterative uh, examples of this
turning from a sketch into a drawing.
And effectively you can see the drawing
process take place just totally
generated by AI. It it is astonishing.
>> I I think that last part to really dig
into why that's so impressive for anyone
who' used like certain things like
transform a selfie the big
transformation that is just on quality.
You've been able to do that with a lot
of systems in the past but now it looks
really good. But that idea of continuous
editing, the reason it's so powerful is,
and many of our listeners probably like
experienced this at some point, if you
create an image and you wanted to change
something, every image model would redo
the entire thing because that's how a
diffusion model would have to work. It
would reimagine all the pixels. and they
were okay at trying to remember what was
in the last model and actually creating
something that kind of looks like a
minor change, but actually they were not
great and they were certainly not
perfect. And with images that stands out
very clearly. Now like actually being
able to define I want to change only
this one part hold the rest constant to
to like the normal world that might seem
like intuitive or that should actually
be possible but with image models that
that was actually one of the most
difficult things to solve. So the fact
that and I've tried that in a number of
situations like the fact that it
actually works is a big deal.
>> Any safety concerns here? I mean, are we
going into what's called the reality
hole where you basically have no idea
what's real and what's fake? I mean,
we're already basically there, but as
these things get as sophisticated as
Nano Banana and VO3, starting to get a
little nervous. Well, actually on that,
I saw a tweet from Rob Leern, uh, where
he basically it was Mark Zuckerberg
smiling at Trump in an official Getty
image, and this is actually he turned it
into Mark Zuckerberg yelling at Trump.
And the craziest part of it is it
perfectly retained actually on this
topic of continuous editing, it retained
the Getty image logo perfectly. And he
actually noted that the one of the
craziest parts of this is Google a year
ago or maybe a year and a half ago did
not actually let you manipulate images
of people that you upload for safety
purposes. And now that's out the window.
You can do whatever you want. So, so I
think it there definitely needs to be uh
it seems like for the sake of progress,
they've just gone all in. Let's just
move as fast as possible and see what
happens. But it's it's a problem.
>> Yeah. I mean, we had Dario Ammoday on a
couple weeks ago or last month talking
about this race to the top that he wants
to incentivize,
but those rarely happen. Typically, it's
a race to the bottom. I mean, remember
OpenAI sort of took away those sort of
guard rails within Chat GPT and let you
do anything with its image editor and
that's how we had this Studio Ghibli
moment and now clearly Google's just
right there with them.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I remember and if
you remember that moment, at least for
myself, like everyone was creating those
Studio Ghibli images, but like you
couldn't exactly ask it to do the
copyrighted name or like the the actual
name. and you had to do workarounds
which still was at least some kind of
guard rail whereas now it's just like
here's a photo of Zuckerberg and Trump
make him yell at Trump and it just does
it and it does it right all right so
let's recap we've talked today about
Google's AI foundational models being
good enough that they uh might end up
powering Siri we've talked about Google
fending off uh one of the most intense
antitrust challenges we've seen uh to a
big company in the United States in in
century. Um, we've talked about Google
um
being a being able to lead with these
image generation models. Uh, and of
course the business is crushing, right?
The fact is that they continue to make
more money from advertising and search
than they did and they're jumping up by
double-digit percentages year-over-year.
Oh, yeah. And they have this cloud
business that's benefiting from uh,
generative AI as well. just announced,
this is something that came up in our
discord. Uh they just announced this $10
billion um deal with Meta for AI
infrastructure. So Google's just firing
on all cylinders. So uh may a culpa for
a criticism of Sundar's ability to lead
this business cuz um again this came up
in our discord what the stock is looking
like. Uh and I was like well I wonder if
Google's actually back. Here's the
stock. uh up 10% in the last five days,
up 19% in the last month, up 33%
over the past six months, up 40% over
the past year. Not bad.
>> So rosy picture, but in the spirit of
nuance, what do you see as threats to
Google that can actually still bring
them down and end up with Sundar on the
hot seat?
>> Still the same thing, right? I think
that we just we are so early here. We
don't fully know what the interaction
mode uh of generative AI is going to be,
but search will definitely be one of the
cases. So, it's like one of those things
that it's like the answer to your
long-term threat doesn't get revealed
two years into or three years into the
change, right? It's something that
happens over, you know, maybe a decade,
which is great for Google because you
have like a decade to figure it out. Uh
but ultimately I don't know about you
but I see myself doing more and more
searches within uh chat GPT and of
course perplexity um and Google will
obviously like maintain a large share of
searches moving forward. We just had the
people running the search team uh on the
show a couple weeks ago but it's not a
guarantee.
>> Yeah, I think that's I think that's at
least when the core business is still
under threat. They're still going
through the innovator's dilemma. I mean
the web is still dead in my opinion or
in secular decline. Um so yeah I think
they have to execute on all these
different uh paths that they're taking.
They have to execute well. So but
they're doing it so far at least in the
last week in the last couple of months.
Let it be known that the first week of
September 2025
has been the week where Google said
all that criticism
uh enough with all that. We are we are
in shape. We're trucking along and uh we
might be even further inside the iPhone
in in just a couple months.
>> I think all this makes me actually feel
are we just is this a death nail for
Google? all this positivity is it is
this a top
>> I appreciate that skepticism but I'm
gonna say no. What do you
>> I
It's I mean again all the pieces are in
place they have to execute on them. Um,
so yeah, I'm not going to say that, but
I don't know. Anytime the stars seem
this aligned perfectly together for a a
giant this complex,
it's it it doesn't always go that
smoothly. But think about it this way. I
mean, if you think about, let's say,
businesses powering these strategies,
uh, they're still the cheapest tech
giant on the S&P 500, um, or of the
Magnificent 7 when you look at the PE
ratio. So, they've been doing this all
with like very low expectations and
they're executing and it's still there's
still not like an Nvidia um which is at
the $4 trillion valuation. And by the
way, some one crazy thing that came out
of Nvidia's uh earnings last week was I
think something like two companies make
up 39% of its revenue. Um that that
doesn't sound good to me. That's I think
uh economists would call that
concentration risk.
>> Yeah, I think actually that's a good
point. One of life's great lessons that
low expectations are always a a better
place to start and that's worked well
for Google unlike GPT5 in recent weeks.
Uh Google took the the other path and it
seems to be working.
>> Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't see Sundar on
the Theo Von show talking about how
Gemini is gonna be
>> everything.
>> That happens.
>> That's top. That's top.
>> That's top. Sundar on Theo. That's top.
>> But okay, hold on. If they record that
show in a Whimo, driving autonomously
through New York. Not top. That's AGI.
>> That's AGI. And this idea brought to you
by the agency of Gantro and Roy.
>> That's right.
>> You can send us We'll send you the bill,
Google. the van in a whimo with Sundar
being like, "Yep, this is what meth
feels like." All right, let's take a
break and come talk about uh these new
iPhones coming up and then of course uh
the cost of AI. We'll do that right
after this. And we're back here on Big
Technology Podcast Friday edition. All
right, next week we have two, well, no,
one big event from Apple. Uh I was going
to say two new iPhones. It's actually
three new iPhones that we have coming
up. Uh we talked about that a bit with
MG Seagler. Uh but folks, next week for
all intents and purposes is going to be
uh the iPhone 17 Air event. Now, of
course, this is from Mark Gurman uh at
Bloomberg. Uh they're going to be um new
high-end versions, the iPhone 17 Pro and
the Pro Max, which will have new backs
and give a fresh look uh to the camera
areas. But there's this allnew model,
which is expected to be called the
iPhone 17 Air with an ultra thin body.
Here are the specs. The Air will be
roughly 5.5 mm, making it about a third
thinner than the iPhone 16 Pro. Uh, that
comes with some drawbacks, including a
drop in battery life and the inclusion
of only a single rear camera, which sits
in a pill-shaped bump. Ranjan, you and
I, I think, will lead the show next week
talking about our reaction to the new
iPhones. But, um, I just temperature
check right now before we move on to our
next story. Um, what do you think about
the Air and is it something that you're
going to consider buying?
>> Not interested. I'm going to be Whoa.
>> be very very direct.
>> Angry.
>> I know.
>> Angry.
>> Put the foot down.
>> I'm saying
>> Ranjan. Ranjan has has had it with
Apple. The big promises about a new Siri
and Apple intelligence and now they're
going to give me a less powerful,
thinner phone.
>> Throw it out the window.
>> No. No. But but that's why that's why
it's so out of touch for me that no one
is complaining about the width or the
thinness of the iPhone. Battery life has
always been a consideration or complaint
consideration. Everyone loves the
camera. This one of the main selling
features. So to move in that direction,
but the reason I think like I'm more
skeptical is Samsung is killing it from
a marketing perspective with the new
fold. like uh and I think what's the
tagline? It's like your phone can't do
this or it's some it's like feels very
appley of the old days where they're
coming right at you and saying you want
this and your phone can't do this. I was
actually last weekend I was at uh like a
gathering and someone had one of the not
the fold like the larger fold ones but
the ones that f it's about the normal
size of an iPhone but it folds in half
and they took selfies and like set it up
and everyone was just like wow this is
amazing like I have not se that was the
first time for Samsung I've ever seen a
group of people who all have iPhones be
like wait that's really cool versus
when's the last time you've seen someone
with an Apple piece of hardware be like,
"Wow, that's cool." So, I think Samsung
is making waves. People the innovation
in phones is around folding. Maybe
there's going to be something else, but
it's not. I don't need my phone to be
5.5 mm thinner.
>> I hear you. That's sort of been the crit
the criticism is that Apple has just
refined its devices, made them smaller,
thinner, made them a little bigger, now
making them a little smaller. Uh maybe
this is a move end route to the fold.
It's possible that you have this thinner
phone. You just put two of them
together. You know, it's easier to fold.
I don't know. I'm kind of grasping at
straws here. Um but uh but that they I
think next year the folded will be
you're right that will be the big the
big phone and this will I think they'll
still see some sales because it will be
cool. Uh but I think the educated
consumer will hold out for I don't I for
a fold. I don't know. I don't know if
I'm gonna get the fold. It just sounds
feels bulky. But I mentioned this last
week with MG Seagler. Every time I see
somebody using a folding phone, they
just seem happy and very satisfied. So
>> folding makes you happy. Folding makes
you That's the one thing I see it too.
People are smiling. They're like
excited. They're they're just walking
around with their either smaller
foldable phone or their giant foldable
phones that were they they're just
happier people.
>> Yeah. Just like Yep. They're They're
very thrilled to show you. They're like,
"Look at this It's a phone. Now
it's a tablet."
>> Yeah.
>> Phone. Now it's a tablet. How How do you
feel with your How How do you like your
smaller, thinner iPhone? Do you Do you
feel good about your limited battery
life and one camera in a pill? I didn't
think so. Look at this.
>> In a pillshaped bump,
>> pillshaped bump.
>> All right, that's a good setup for next
week. Let's continue this next week. In
the meantime,
>> I think we should be talking about this
uh very interesting article from the
Wall Street Journal that touched on the
economics of artificial intelligence and
really seemed to um do some great
reporting. It's by Chris Mims did some
great reporting on a conversation that
we have often on the show. So, here's
the story. Uh cutting edge AI was
supposed to get cheaper. It's more
expensive than ever. Uh Mims writes, "As
artificial intelligence got smarter, it
was supposed to become too cheap to
meter. is proving to be anything but.
Developers who buy AI by the barrel for
apps that do things like make software,
analyze documents are discovering their
bills are higher than expected and
growing. What's driving up the cost? The
latest AI models are doing more
thinking, especially when used for deep
research, AI agents, and coding. So,
while the price of a unit of AI known as
a token continues to drop, the number of
tokens needed to accomplish many tasks
uh is skyr skyrocketing. The cost of
inference is going down by a factor of
10 every year. But despite the drop in
cost per token, what's driving up more
cost for many applications AI
applications is reasoning or thinking.
So I am kind of curious what you think
about this Ranjan. There was this idea
that you know the the guts of AI was
supposed to be close to free. That's
where this like too cheap to meter idea
which comes from open AI uh began. And
now it looks like yes the cost per token
is dropping but because AI has advanced
and the new techniques uh ask it to
think you're actually going to pay a lot
more uh to use it because you just need
that thinking to happen. So uh AI isn't
actually that cheap after all. What do
you think about this? I I this was very
interesting or it's very important to me
because again uh given I work very
closely with enterprise AI like this the
conversation of cost comes up all the
time but to me the part this is missing
is and we've debated this about GPT5 and
whether like tool calling and re
reasoning can be too much is that really
what we want if I just want a simple
answer this only is a problem when
everything starts with the singular chat
interface that I'm starting in the same
place and I'm trying to do something
from scratch every time. But what what I
can tell you is at an enterprise level,
the way people are approaching this is
once I figure out how to do something,
I'm not reasoning through it. I already
know what tools need to be called and
whatru the structure is and I can make
it very cheap. like I don't have to have
the model figure it out from scratch
every time versus
if you even think about like at a
consumer level if I'm trying to search
for flights and then book the ticket and
something we always kind of come back to
as our example once you've defined go to
this website or this flight database go
here here's my credit card info like it
should be a very slim down process that
can be very inex inexpensive. It It does
not need any reasoning. It just needs
execution. But to me, what's happening
right now is we're all evaluating this
based on I'm starting with just a blank
chat screen. The system is starting from
scratch every time. Memory is starting
to get interesting in this overall, but
that's why it's so expensive and it's
not sustainable at all.
>> But because the systems are
probabilistic, right? So, it's trying
different paths every time. Um, is there
such thing as basically determining a
path that works for you and then
following it every time or is it still
going to kind of get lost along the way
if it's going to operate the way that we
know these bots to operate?
>> No, no. This is where again the way like
we look at this in my world is
structured versus unstructured agentic.
Unstructured is what a GPT5 is. It's I
will decide what tools to call every
time. But then structured is I know what
tools to call. I define them and it will
take go down that specific path. So
again I think looking at it as
completely probabilistic like if you
approach long workflows
completely probabilistically every
single time even if it's stuff you're
repeating over and over if you think
about like customer care agentic AI
it'll never be economical. It'll it'll
only get more and more expensive. So, I
think that's the big distinction here.
>> Very interesting. All right. I loved
what Aaron Levy had to say about this.
He says, "This is precisely Jeban's
paradox in action in the purest form.
Because the cost of AI tokens has gone
down, we can now afford to use far more
of them for increasingly complex tasks.
The key point, thus, is not that AI is
getting more expensive. It's that it's
because it's getting cheaper and more
capable. We're using it to solve
problems better. For almost every like
for-like task, we're just using way more
tokens to complete the tasks uh to
deliver far better output. Whether it's
writing code, answering a healthcare
question, or analyzing a contract, we're
using far more AI today to perform that
work because we need the additional
points of performance. Getting 99% uh
getting a 99% correct answer when
working with a legal contract is very
different from a 99 90% correct answer.
and it's easily worth the 10x to 100x
increase in tokens. Now, at some point,
we will start to reach plateaus for
certain types of tasks and then the cost
per task will go down. Um, but the
general cycle will essentially go on
forever because we will just keeping
raising the bar of what we do with AI. I
thought that that was really really
interesting and I think probably right.
>> Yeah. No, that that's exactly it. Like
forlike tasks. There's no reason to
breaking out into those two things. Like
for like tasks, there's no reason to go
through reasoning from scratch. And then
certain things should require a lot more
attention to get to that 99% accuracy.
And it's still funny that to me like he
uses 99% not 100%. Um but
for those they should be more
tokenheavy. they're more important uh to
get it exactly right versus certain
things just should be token inexpensive
and again open AAI said with GPT5 it's
supposed to be able to understand the
difference and but but it very clearly
like from the way people had been seeing
it being used early on and again this
was your complaint too like sometimes
for the most basic questions that in the
past would have just shot out an answer
back to you now it's going to go do 10
different things and come back to you
with like an entire PowerPoint
presentation that you don't want and
just, you know, churn out tokens. I
think that's where the problems are
right now that will get solved. All
right, folks. And speaking of Aaron
Levy, he's actually coming back on the
show. We're going to have him back on
Wednesday, September 17th to talk a
little bit more about what he's seeing
and some of the latest announcements
that he's going to make at his Box Works
conference coming up uh this month. So,
more from Aaron Levy coming soon. I'm
sure we'll talk with him about this.
Speaking of my complaints and
everybody's complaints about GPT5. Well,
if you thought that the era of the big
model was over because GPT5 didn't blow
everybody uh away and uh you know usher
in this era of super intelligence and
AGI. The money says no. The money says
you know let's keep scaling. Uh here is
uh the latest story on that. Anthropic
has raised a 13 billion series F at a
postmoney valuation of
183
billion. That's 183 billion with a B uh
on Tuesday. It's complete. It said it
completed this new funding round that
valued it uh nearly three times from
where it was 6 months ago at $61.5
billion. The investors include Altimter,
uh, Black Rockck, Blackstone, CO2, D1
Capital Partners. The company also says
its run rate revenue, which was 1
billion at the beginning of 2025, was
more uh than 5 billion by August. And
Cloud Code has already generated over
500 million in run rate uh with the
usage growing more than 10x in just 3
months. Um, of course, it was at a zero
base anyway, so uh what does that 10x
mean? But anyway, another big funding
round for a big foundational lab
company. The scaling will continue
around John. Scaling will continue.
>> SC I mean for me actually my favorite
part of this announcement was it
literally was like an Avengers assemble
of every late latest late stage high
growth fund there is. Altimter Bailey
Gford Blackstone CO2 D1 General Atlantic
there's two Tros Troll Price Associates.
Troll price investment management like
>> got to get all the T-R
>> you got to get two T-RO in your round
otherwise you're not going to make it.
uh every everyone every n Ontario
teachers pension plan like to their
credit they assembled every latestage
momentum all that money all in one place
at a a very hefty 37 I mean actually no
I mean the valuation is insane it's
close to it's more than 60x revenue
>> it's big
>> and um and guitar's there investment No,
got to got to get a little bit of that
37x
>> revenue. 37.
>> They did raise from the uh the Gulf
States, right? So, they had talked about
um Daario had talked internally
basically like, "Yeah, we're going to
give up like not raising from countries
that are run by dictators and um and
indeed it's done it." Or authoritarians,
I don't know. Call it what you will.
Guitar is in the round. two T-RO, a Gulf
State, and a couple of ex-tiger cubs,
and
>> you got yourself a $183 billion
obligation. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's it's obvious that
Anthropic um sees this moment uh has has
shown incredible momentum with the
coding thing and despite everybody uh
trying to catch up with them is still
leading. I mean, you see OpenAI really
trying hard to push this narrative that
Codeex is the leading uh coding
application and maybe it's doing well. I
don't doubt it, but um but uh they they
clearly are going to have to do a lot of
work to uh catch up with anthropic. So
uh all right, new funding for anthropic.
Let's end this week with a hot mic
moment caught between Xiinping and
Vladimir Putin. This is from the AP. Um
Xi and Putin's hot mic moment. How long
will science extend the human lifespan?
Uh, Chinese leader Xiinping and Russia
President Vladimir Putin chatted about
how advances in science could prolong
the human lifespan in a rare hot mic
moment in the Chinese capital. She spoke
first and said before it is said to be
very rare to live up to 70 and now it
said you are a child at 70. Uh Putin
said according to some translator in a
few decades as biotechnology continues
to develop human organs will continue to
be transplanted and people will become
younger and perhaps achieve immortality.
Xi appeared to break into a slight smile
and then said some predict within the
century may be possible that people will
be able to live uh up to 150 years old.
I mean obviously this is something
that's of interest in Silicon Valley as
well. So I thought it was interesting to
bring it up. Um but let me just give my
first simple reaction. It's very
interesting that in the short amount of
time that these world leaders have uh
you know to spend time with themselves
uh they're talking about transplanting
human organs and pursuing immortality.
What what what do you make of this
story?
>> I mean I I'll admit on one hand it was
kind of like fascinating to me and it
made me wonder like do either of them
follow Brian Johnson on Twitter? I don't
know if people know the uh you know
Brian Johnson, right?
>> Yes. But tell tell folks who who he is.
>> He Bri he is a fascinating character. He
was the ex-founder of Brainree, a
payments, a startup that was bought by
PayPal that uh actually and then made a
bunch of money and now is trying to
prolong his life and does all sorts of
thing things on social media to show
himself uh working towards life
extension. And some of them are kind of
horrifying, some of them are just
comical. But but he's the face. check
him out if you for a little bit of
entertainment. But I think or or some
guidance if you're into life extension.
But to me, the part that jumped out was
that biotech like human organs. I mean,
when you're talking about transplanting
human organs and you're an authoritarian
dictator, it's
>> man that was crazy.
>> It hits you. And they're smiling. That
was the best. They're just like
>> But but you know what? If you are a like
world authoritarian dictator with a
managing a billion odd people for one,
managing a large nuclear arsenal for
another. It that that was actually the
more fascinating thing to me is that
they do think about this stuff that like
they're it it's it's on their minds and
they're talking about it versus I'm just
worried about the trade war or some
other policy issue that's going on.
They're literally thinking about living
up to 150 years old.
>> I mean, this is definite like Squid Game
stuff. Um, you know that if they're
talking about it, they're thinking of
doing it for themselves, right? Like
harvesting uh the human organs. And it's
just so interesting that like as they
sort of start walking with each other, I
mean, one of them has got to be like,
"Hey, man. Um, so I'm trying to live
forever. Here's how I'm going to do it.
We got a lot of people living in my
country and my getting old.
Oh my god, that would be they should get
a podcast.
I would take it some transparency. I
mean,
>> yeah, podcast in a Whimo talking about
>> uh
>> harvesting organs.
>> Harvesting organs.
>> It's crazy. Uh Antonio Garcia Martinez
reacting to this says, "Life extension,
never mind curing death, would be the
most stifling thing in human history.
People complain about boomers now.
Imagine living in a world where
leadership cast dates from centuries ago
immortality would be the death nail of
humanity.
I like that. I think that makes sense.
>> I mean, we should do a what would it do
to the housing market and uh housing
supply? I don't know. I've seen a bunch
of stuff around like it's uh the aging
population within the US or other
developed economies are actually one of
the biggest reasons that you know
housing gets more expensive. Uh just
overall being younger becomes more
difficult and I think that's the more
extreme version of that. If you had some
guy from 500 years ago just living on a
plot of land and uh you can't buy,
you're just renting from him.
That's where we're all going. Uh let me
ask you this as we end this week. All
right. Let's say you're you're 80 years
old and uh your organs, you know, they
got some mileage on them. And in an
ethical way, someone says, "Hey, we'll
give you some some organs uh some new
organs, some young people organs, and
some lab grown organs, you know, even.
And uh and we could maybe give you
another 60 years of life." Are you
saying yes?
>> Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm not going
to let you go with there's a lot to
unpack in the last two minutes of the
show there.
>> In an ethical way, they're going to give
you some young people's organs first.
How does that happen?
>> It's I mean, it's possible that just
like maybe some young people happen to
have passed away and decided to be organ
donors and um there's lots of organs now
>> and so I don't know. It's it's actually
quite hard to imagine now that we're
unpacking this scenario.
>> Yeah. Okay. Labrown orans. Lab grown.
Lab grown organs.
>> Lab grown.
>> Lab grown. Cut me open and throw it in
there. I'm in.
>> You're doing it.
>> I'm doing it. Lab. Actually, I I read
something around there was a pig heart
transplant or sorry, lung transplant and
apparently like uh lungs when they're in
bad shape are one of the most difficult.
There's been like liver transplants in
the past and it kept someone who was in
a comeosse state or vegetative state. uh
actually it helped them it showed that
it was like on the way to uh potentially
working it worked for a brief moment. So
I think how would you feel about that
animal organs? Are you ethically okay
with that?
>> Okay.
>> Sure. I mean I also think that we just
spoke a little bit about uh these brain
computer interface applications on the
show on Wednesday and it's amazing. Then
the previous Wednesday we talked about
how electricity might be used to
stimulate new organs. U because that's
effectively the signal telling them to
to grow. So I I think we might be not
too far away from a version of this
question actually being real and not the
sinister way that we heard uh from Putin
and G uh this this past week. So I think
it's a relevant question is what I'm
saying.
>> This is now a life extension podcast. no
longer a big
>> Oh yes,
>> we were always heading this way. I mean,
how else are we gonna I'm sure we have
some young listeners, you know, if
you're young and listen, we want to be
able to do this podcast for your entire
natural life. And so, the only way for
us to do this is by implanting um lab
grown, ethically labown.
That's why we're doing it mostly is
because we want to keep making this show
for you.
>> That's why that's why I want to go from
80 to 140.
>> Exactly. Do you think All right, last
question before we leave. Was that all
right? Obviously, it was picked up by a
hot mic. These people aren't idiots.
They know that there's cameras and mics
all around. Was that an intentional
conversation?
>> No. Everyone can get hot micd. I feel
even Putin and she I think that
especially she like in an authoritarian
regime where you don't want that thought
getting out among people amongst people.
>> That's true. Well, we might be the only
ones actually hearing about it here in
the uh
>> outside of China. Um,
>> but you know, I think the best way to
prevent these hot mic moments is to get
get a thin iPhone, an iPhone air
>> because it can't record anything.
>> That thing won't do anything for you.
So, all right, Raj, we'll talk about it
next week. Thanks again for coming on.
Great speaking with you as always.
>> All right, see you next week.
>> All right, everybody. Thank you for
listening on Wednesday. Bill Vas, the
chief technology officer of Booze Allen
will finally be on the show talk about
whether we can use AI and technology to
fix the government. So very much looking
forward to bringing you that episode and
we'll see you next time on Big
Technology Podcast.