OpenAI’s Superapp Is Coming, Jensen on Jobs, Bezos’s $100 Billion Automation Fund

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-03-23

YouTube video id: 1udMIqMKSig

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

OpenAI is ditching side quests and
building a super app. Nvidia's Jensen
Wong comments on AI layoffs. The
metaverse is dead. Or is it? And Jeff
Bezos is raising a massive fund to
automate industry. That's coming up on a
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 getting some new direction
on OpenAI's products. something we've
been advocating for a while focus that's
coming. Also, Nvidia's Jensen Wong has
some comments on AIdriven layoffs. We're
also going to talk about the end of the
metaverse or whether it actually is. And
then finally, Jeff Bezos might be
raising hundred billion dollars to
automate seemingly all blue collar work.
Joining us as always on Friday is Ranjan
Roy of Margins. Ranjan, great to see
you.
>> Everyone has been listening to us, Alex.
Open AAI is ready to focus.
>> That's right. Finally, OpenAI seems like
the side quests are over. And in fact,
OpenAI did have a meeting saying
especially that. Now, we had been
talking about the fact that OpenAI had
so many projects going whether it was
video generation with Sora or the
browser with Atlas coding with codecs. I
don't know. Not to mention uh the image
generation stuff. It seemed like they
were trying to tackle a new
multi-billion dollar industry every
week. that might be coming to an end.
Here is the Wall Street Journal story
that sort of heralded this new era of
OpenAI. OpenAI to cut back on side
projects to push in and push to nail
core business. OpenAI's top executives
are fining finalizing plans for a major
strategy shift to refocus the company
around coding and business users.
Recognizing that a do everything all at
once strategy has put them on the
defensive, BGCO, OpenAI's CEO of
applications previewed the changes to
employees in an all hands meeting,
telling them that the top leaders,
including CEO Sam Alman and chief
research officer Mark Chen, were
actively looking at which areas to
depprioritize. They expect to notify
staff about the changes in the coming
weeks. Here's what Simo said. We cannot
miss the moment because we are
distracted by side quests. we really
have to nail productivity in general and
predictive and particularly productivity
on the business front.
Um, we'll talk about the focus, but I
have to say my first takeaway is not
focus. My first takeaway is oh my god,
they're giving up on consumer.
>> Oh, I think that's definitely feels like
it's embedded in the entire
announcement. And and I have to say a
couple things jumped out at me. one that
I should be happy that they're finally
focusing and for months on end we've
been talking about you didn't even
mention I think you said AI cloud you
didn't even talk about the pin and
consumer devices and whatever might come
out of that like there was so much going
on but I actually was kind of surprised
that Fiji Simo is the one that made the
announcement according to all the
reporting that she's the one who led the
all hands meeting and you know kind of
like spoke on behalf of Sand Maltman
because I think for something that major
you would think Sam should be giving
that message to the entire team. So that
that was the first thing that jumped out
at me. But the other the more I've been
thinking about is like it's as you're
saying the one lane I think they still
truly have a path to success is
consumer. And is it because of Google?
Is it because they're just looking at
anthropic and investors are telling them
that that's what's more attractive right
now? To me, this isn't the bet that they
should be taking.
>> Well, let's talk about that because if
you think about the consumer bet versus
the business bet. Well, can we both
agree that if you're able, it looks like
the AI models have gone from this like
fun chat interlocator to something that
actually could actually do real work for
you.
>> Have they have they?
>> Okay, this is all right. So, so folks,
listeners, this is an important moment
on the show. Ranjan at the end of 2025
predicted that this year was going to be
the year that uh we were going to see a
Gentic AI enter the mainstream and he
said he was living the future and I was
skeptical and I said we're going to hold
your feet to the fire this year. It's
March uh it's late March or mid-March
towards the end of mid-March.
>> I am going to raise the white flag on
this one and say that's all I ask.
That's all I ask. I'll ask
>> I was uh I I I have been surprised at
how quickly uh AI that does work for you
has uh has actually emerged this year. I
can't believe I'm using it and it just
goes to show you that the progress of
this stuff is crazy. Um so so you know
it seems like it would make sense if
you're open AI you have to play there
given the valuations.
I think it would make sense, but again,
this is like, is AI erotica no longer on
the road map? I'm assuming so. I hope
so. I mean, like the things
>> you're you're assuming that it's no
longer on the road map.
>> Yeah. In terms of side quests, my god,
if uh if that one doesn't get put on the
chopping block, I'm not sure how they're
going to get into enterprise, but
>> it is on hold. I believe
>> OpenAI has a very very different
perception. There's one of quality and
innovation, but there's also one of, you
know, a more cavalier idea uh attitude
towards data privacy, towards security,
towards all these kind of things that
which they they kind of that's the way
they pushed themselves. It's it's we're
going to release a video model. Are we
going to use a lot of copyrighted
material? Sure, we'll take it down in 2
days after Disney complains and then
we'll somehow do a deal with Disney.
like but like to date they kind of
leaned into that like break the rules no
holds barred mentality for progress and
I think that's going to that's going to
hurt them in terms of trying to actually
make this shift but I also do think when
we talk about focus of course anthropic
has made massive waves of course
enterprise again as someone who works in
enterprise AI at writer like it's a very
large attractive market I get it but to
shift that massively
such like a fastmoving business. I just
think it's and they've hired a lot of
very very talented people. I just think
there's a lot of baggage within the
company that you can't just make a shift
like that that easily.
>> Okay, but here's where I'm going with
this. So, to me, like there's reason to
try to go after enterprise. You you
basically you can't let it go because
it's such a big market opportunity. Even
though and we talk about this on the
show all the time there's potentially a
lot of side effects
the question would be okay so you're got
so I think that's a given you have to do
something in enterprise now the question
would be is it worth going after
consumer and maybe the answer is no
maybe the answer is in this we're 3
years into this AI shakeout there's no
real consumer play I mean think about
all the consumer plays that people have
tried and failed whether that's the AI
girlfriend the AI pendant the AI
necklace, the AI, you know, chatbot
friend, like how how much, you know, how
many consumers are you actually going to
get to pay that $20 a month just for,
you know, AI companionship? I think this
might be a larger indication that, you
know, may think about all the meta chat
bots that they made. Maybe consumer AI
is a thing that's going to happen down
the road, but it's just not happening
yet. It's not materializing.
large language models, the stuff we're
seeing with Agentic stuff is an
enterprise thing and it's a very
valuable enterprise thing, but we're
certainly not seeing the consumer market
materialize and that's where you're
seeing the shift from OpenAI. So, a
couple things I think that's still
ignoring that's still looking at what
current day consumer AI products are,
but that's still discounting where they
could go. So again, and there was
reporting from the Wall Street Journal
or Bloomberg on Friday that I found
really interesting that OpenAI is
stepping back from Chat GPT shopping
that retailers haven't actually seen
results and Walmart is now going to
inject Sparky their internal AI tool uh
to into Chat GBT which is pretty
interesting I think like but advertising
shopping and retail
uh I don't know streaming entertainment
there's just any take any consumer
business and OpenAI could take start to
own it if they own the kind of access
point and interface and intelligence. So
I think it's it's still a big potential
market. But one thing I wanted to
highlight is to me the more interesting
part of this is what it means with
Microsoft. Did you see the potential
Microsoft lawsuit reporting?
>> Yes.
>> Wait, before you get to that, can I make
one more counter point then we'll go to
the the Microsoft stuff. um with with
open AI, you know, one of the the proof
points here that AI hasn't worked for
consumer is that Google is still uh
still crushing it. You know, if if any
market that we've talked about
generative AI taking, it hasn't taken it
and certainly hasn't taken search yet.
If it had taken search, I would say,
okay, there's a potential here. But it
hasn't.
>> Yeah. But I think Gemini has certainly
shown that like a pretty strong
competitive element in the last
especially in the last like 6 to 12
months but but it's still it shows that
it it's still an attractive market or
it's still worthwhile to pursue. I think
though like we don't know what I agree
and you can easily argue like if the IPO
is this year we don't know consumer
monetization around AI yet. We don't
know what it looks like. We don't know
what like the real juicy business models
are going to be. If it's advertising,
maybe Meta is going to figure it out.
And we talked about that last week that
maybe Zuckerberg is going to be make his
big comeback because they're going to
figure out consumer AI themselves. But
but I I think it's premature to discount
enterp and again as someone who is very
aware of the attractiveness of
enterprise AI like to discount consumer
as a entire market and like addressable
market.
>> Okay. I'm not saying there's no way this
is going to work. I'm just saying it's
clearly not working now. And I will
point again to you know adult mode on
Chad GPT not shipping um because we know
it's delayed. That's why it's not
working. They didn't ship mode.
>> That's pro, I would say, maybe, but
that's probably the last sort of the
last gasp of like, oh, we need it to
work somehow. Let's try adult mode. Uh,
and that and now that's, you know, if
that's delayed where they're shifting to
enterprise. I mean, Fiji says it
outright. Pretty amazing. Okay. Sorry.
Go ahead to your um point about this
lawsuit with Micros.
>> Okay. So, and we hadn't planned on
talking about this, but I just this just
came to mind and I hadn't connected it
before we started talking right now.
Like so there's reporting from Reuters
that Microsoft may sue OpenAI over their
$50 billion uh investment from Amazon
and because it could violate the
exclusive cloud agreement that they had
uh they had set a number of years ago
that like all open AAI uh products had
to be actually served through Microsoft
Azure. Um I even saw there was stuff
around like the language they have to
use is like we are invoking the model
but not we are executing on the model
like they're they're really
>> we invoke the model.
>> Yes. Well look but we're not we're not
actually like deploying or executing the
model on our cloud service on Amazon
because that would violate the contract.
But if you think about it like I mean
who are you anthropic yes direct
competition everyone's going they've
made a lot of waves in it. Enterprise is
a gigantic market. Um, but Microsoft is
the is it 800 pound gorilla? What's the
what's the saying again?
>> That sounds like a nice size for a
gorilla to me.
>> That's a that's okay. 800 lb gorilla in
the room. And already if there's if
they're starting to kind of like make
some waves around they could put a big
thorn in the side of OpenAI in the year
as they move towards IPO. if you're then
going towards their market. I mean,
that's a whole other thing that uh
awakening to continue on with the 800 lb
gorilla metaphor like the the 800lb
gorilla. I'm not sure how to continue on
that one, but yeah, if you're you're
going to piss off Microsoft and they
have some leverage over you and you
haven't really been a threat to them yet
and now you are trying to be, I think
that poses a whole other problem.
>> Oh yeah, that I mean that is one of you
remember you know the relationship
started to seemingly maybe not fray but
uh have some distance in there and they
were both like okay no we're still very
close. Clearly something went off the
rails. By the way, my favorite Microsoft
news of the week. We won't spend too
much time on this. Uh but they made some
changes with co-pilot and Mustafa
Sullean, head of AI there. Uh he said,
quote, I think he's going to be focused
more on the model. He said, quote, "The
model is the product."
Mustafas.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that too. I
saw that actually. No, no. He he brought
us all together. It's no longer product
versus model. The model is the product.
It all converges. Yeah. Convergence
theory. I think I also
>> my other favorite Microsoft news of the
week is I mean I guess it was last week
they launched co-pilot co-work which
basically is like layering Microsoft
co-pilot over cloud coowork and somehow
multi-trillion dollars of corporate
value and they came up with the name
co-pilot coowork but
>> what would you name it
>> okay okay you know what I would just
stick with co-pilot I would just be like
own the brand. Own like
>> if that's your if that's your thing, no
one needs to make that additional like
distinction between like Claude is it's
a name.
>> It's not like a brand name. So you can
you can alliterate on it a little bit.
You can add a but C-pilot's already
Microsoft Copilot.
>> So yeah, I I would just stick with
Copilot.
>> Just make it another featuring. All
right, I could say I see that. Make
another feature in Copilot. All right.
So, by the way, this is not just like uh
with with OpenAI's direction. This is
not just rumblings. There's actually
news uh that we've seen come out
recently or over the past 24 hours that
they're actually going to go ahead and
make some product changes. And speaking
now, so like we talked about consumer
enterprise, I think that's the most
important thing. Number two, secondarily
is focus. And that focus is coming. And
here's the news that's happened uh from
the Wall Street Journal. OpenAI plans to
launch uh uh launch of desktop super app
to refocus and simplify the user
experience. OpenAI is planning to unify
its chat GPT app coding platform CEX and
browser into a desktop super app. A step
to simplify the user experience and
continue with efforts to focus on
engineering and business customers.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman, who
currently leads the company's computing
efforts, will temporarily oversee the
product revamp and related
organizational changes. And Fiji Simo,
the chief of applications, will lead the
company's sales team as it markets the
new product. Very interesting. The
strategy change marks a shift from late
last year when OpenAI launched a series
of standalone products that didn't
always resonate with users and sometimes
created a lack of focus within the
company. The OpenAI executives are
hoping that unifying its products under
one app will allow it to streamline
resources as it seeks to beat back the
success of its rival Anthropic. One more
line. OpenAI is seeking to focus on
so-called Agentic AI capabilities within
the new super app. Rajan, your reaction.
Okay, so number one,
reading between the lines, one thing
that jumped out at me is Fiji Simo was
referred to as chief of applications. Do
you remember what her title was when
they hired her?
>> CEO of
wasn't it CEO of applications?
>> CEO of applications.
>> Oh, that's that's that I just think
that's the Wall Street Journal writing
it. No, I think that's I think it's
telling because already it was very
confusing when she was announced as CEO
and then it was that she would be
reporting. Okay, I'm I'm saying watch
watch that space. Is she going to remain
CEO or is she going to become like chief
application officer, chief of
applications? Just maybe maybe reading
into it. That seems Yeah. I mean, you
would you in this type of thing, you
would write like chief and CEO like
chief CEO is chief executive officer.
So, chief of applications, but whatever.
If if this was the Wall Street Journal's
way of signaling that she's getting
demoted, which I don't think it is. It
would be far from the weirdest thing
that's happened in journalism in AI this
week, which we'll probably get to in a
bit. I I don't think it's demotion even
because again she led the all the the
company all hands to actually kind of
like send this message. I just think
it's it's interesting. I'm curious
whether the threeletter CEO will remain
that long. But
>> okay,
>> moving on from that complete
speculation. Um I I found like it's been
odd because I don't know if did you see
Gemini is now launching a Mac app.
They're talking about like merging
browser and desktop. One using the term
super app, which I haven't heard in a
while since the days of everyone wanted
to be WeChat and we would hear about
Chinese super apps. And it was funny to
me that they kind of use that. But I
don't understand why that's like that
interesting
uh browser experience desktop app
platform like the coding platform into
just one UI or interface. I don't know
what do you think is interesting or
exciting about that? I found it almost
like a very mundane product detail that
they could have almost just done without
announcements. So,
>> well, I have this desktop app on my
desktop uh that has, you know, standard
chatbot and co-work stuff and coding
capabilities in it. cloud app
>> and having all that together on your
browser. Sorry, not on your desktop, you
know, and giving it access to use your
browser to go do things.
>> Uh that has been an unlock for me and
many others. So I do think this might be
open AI seeing that that system really
works and saying and maybe it's going
there and saying, you know, we'll put
our models against anthropics best and
our coding against their best and let's
go like let's have at it. See, here's
where I will push back. Co-work and uh
computer control essentially giving
Claude unfettered access to the files on
your hard drive. Basically like doing
local work on your computer, that kind
of experience from an enterprise
standpoint is terrifying. So if you're
really making the shift to enterprise
allowing local file like a open local
file access is actually not what you
would want to be doing as like a core
part of the product. Again claude
co-work is in research preview still.
It's not a core part of the platform
that they advertise especially to
enterprise. So like to me that that's
the reason like I think the the desktop
part again it's like that's fine. I want
to hear there's no more pin. There's no
more like there's no You're not going to
hear that.
>> No. No. Johnny IV just walking out the
door pissed off just wearing his pin.
That That's what I think. Then I'll then
I'll believe the focus. Then I will
>> I'm going to push back on your on your
push back. I mean Jensen Wong, the
Nvidia CEO, happens to be driving the
whole thing. $4.5 trillion company,
which is crazy. just said that OpenClaw
is the most important thing after Chad
GPT. By the way, who acquired the Open
Claw team or Aqua hired them? That would
be Open AI. So, if you're going into
enterprise, you're making this move, all
signs point to this OpenClaw style
agent. And by the way, Anthropic just
launched a version of it with I think
it's called Claude console where you
could just kind of text Claude to do
stuff when you're away and it will do it
for you. So this is
>> uh I will go even more in the tank for
Agentic than you are. I'll say this is
where it's going. the distinction
between kind of like launching
cloud-based operations and accessing
kind of like monitored files versus
local files and like just like uh where
you can be offline or I mean it's just
such a it's such a different thing and
and and again I agree like the whole
open claw thing has taken the industry
by storm across the board. Everyone's
pushing it. Everyone wants to jump on
it, but it's still like what it
represents in terms of like finally
doing agentic work. Yes, I get. But I
think like if that's the core part of
what OpenAI is trying to do, again, it
like everything is reactive right now.
As you said, Claude has a good desktop
app that combines multiple platforms
into one and makes it more usable. So
then they're going to do that. Claude,
we started talking about this last
February when people are actually
criticizing and showing charts about
their drop in consumer usage and joking
about it. Pivoted hard to coding which
then led to enterprise like OpenAI being
this reactive. I think again if they
mean it, show it by just smashing the
pin. That's all I ask.
>> They're not smashing the pin. I'll I'll
just say this. I I have no inside
knowledge on this, but uh pretty
interesting. Greg Brockman's going to
run the super app. Fiji's going to help
market it. Where is Sam? Probably
working on the pin.
>> He's just in the back with Johnny.
>> That's my guess.
>> Just in the back with Johnny with the
pin
>> and and launching the entire AI cloud
business and the whole consumer devices
arm as well in addition to the pin.
>> Why isn't the pin the consumer device?
>> Oh yeah, that's true. And it's the only
device that will exist and the only
interface through which we will access
AI in a matter of minutes.
>> Maybe headphones.
>> No.
>> Okay. So,
>> headphones are dead. It's only the pin.
>> Don't tell that to Tim Cook.
>> I pin. I pin.
>> The iPen. The iPen.
>> Oh god. That's what they're going to
call it. I promise it's going to be
yesterday's yesterday's vision, today's
technology. The iPen. Simplicity.
Uh, all right. Let's talk about pro
proactivity. Let's talk about our
favorite type of uh productivity, which
is consultants. Uh you know, this stuff
is messy. It's going to take your
computer over. What do you need? You
need consultants. CNBC OpenAI lands a
multi-year deal, mult multi-year deals
with consulting giants in enterprise
push. OpenAI on Monday announced it was
entering into multi-year partnerships
with four consulting firms that will
help the company deploy its enterprise
platform called Frontier. is going to be
working with Accenture, Boston
Consulting Group, Capgeemini, and
McKenzie. OpenAI is racing against
rivals like Google and Anthropic to win
users and market share, and the company
has to make an aggressive push to court
enterprise uh customers. Frontier, which
OpenAI unveiled earlier this month, acts
as an intelligence layer that stitches
together disparate systems and data
within an organization. It aims to make
it easier for companies to manage,
deploy, and build AI agents, which are
tools that can independently complete
tasks on behalf of the user. All right,
so that's maybe how it works. If if it's
going to build technology that's going
to just take your stuff over, maybe it
happens with the assistance of McKenzie
and the merry band of consultants who've
now gone from being potentially
displaced to essential in the roll out
of this technology. Your thoughts? Well,
so this is a very delicate balance in
ter in these kind of situations in terms
of like you have the palunteer model of
take technology and for deployed
engineer and our people will be in there
implementing technology. You have the
partnership model in this case and I
think like it's interest
kind of the Ford deployed engineer
implementation model. They they've also
launched large partnership efforts very
I think just last week as well again
reacting in these kind of ways like
copying what Anthropic is doing in this
case I I think like giving the
relationship to the partner if OpenAI if
this is truly the priority rather than
just going all in and being like we're
building a business around that I think
it's another it adds another element of
risk here. Um, but yeah, I think it's a
bet and it's actually going to kind of
like be a big judge of the type of
success they do have.
>> Now, one more idea about why we're
seeing this.
This is some crazy stuff that came out
of RAMP, which is access to enterprise
spending. Uh, and Axio wrote it up in a
story called the AI spending flip.
Here's the story. Anthropic is now
capturing over 73% of all spending among
companies buying AI tools for the first
time. 73%.
Uh just 10 weeks ago, the split with
OpenAI was 50/50 and it was 60/40 in
Open AI's favor as recently as December.
This is an unbelievable flip where
you're starting to see Anthropic be the
first choice. Obviously, it's related to
cloud code among companies who need LLM
technology and they've surpassed OpenAI.
I guess this I'm sure Open AI has access
to this data and it's probably driving a
lot of what we're seeing and talked
about in the first half of the show.
>> I was just it's funny cuz I will take my
momentary
rant that it still shocks me that
everyone in the industry is okay that
RAMP does release this kind of data. as
someone whose company uses RAMP, it's
still just kind of weird to me that like
whatever I'm spending on will be able to
be in an anonymized way still kind of
advertised to the entire world. But
>> I'm all about that ramp economics lab
man era over there. Just unbelievable
data.
>> No, and that party run.
>> I'm sorry. It's amazing, but it's still
kind of weird to me that everyone's okay
with it. But that's for another day. I
think it's funny if let's say OpenAI is
looking at this data cuz RAMP is a
really specific company. I work at a
high growth technology enterprise AI
startup writer. We use RAMP.
Many people I know who work at cutting
edge technology companies use RAMP. It's
an amazing product. I have I love it as
someone who had to file expense reports
in the past and it was a pain in the
ass.
It's still such a specific profile. So
their data is going to be heavily skewed
in whatever the coolest new so it'll
show momentum but like in terms of
showing actual like aggregate impact in
the economy most large companies are not
using ramp like I can't imagine
especially more kind of like
old-fashioned companies. So, so I I
don't know if it's truly
at large versus the cool kids are using
Claude more than OpenAI right now.
>> Yeah. Well, maybe they're a leading
indicator.
>> I guess that's the question. Is is what
a Silicon Valley startup is using today,
is that going to be an indicator of
what's going to happen to the rest of
the economy? Do you think it's a good
one or do you think it's actually almost
like counterproductive because it's such
a different personality and consumer?
>> That's a good question. I mean, I think
category, yes, it is a leading
indicator, but maybe not specific
vendor. Um, and we we're going to find
out later this year. I I don't know if
you've seen this. Morgan Stanley of all
entities has warned, this is according
to Fortune, that an AI breakthrough is
coming in 2026 and most of the world
isn't ready. A massive AI breakthrough
is coming in the first half of 2026. I
guess we're halfway through and Morgan
Stanley says most of the world isn't
ready for it. In a sweeping new report,
the investment bank warns that a
transformative leap in artificial
intelligence is imminent, driven by an
unprecedented accumulation of compute at
America's top AI labs. Executives at
major AI labs are telling investors to
brace for progress that will shock them.
What do you think they could be seeing?
I mean, what does Morgan Stanley know
that that we don't or we do?
>> Well, you did. There is also the part
that says researchers specifically
highlighted a recent interview with Elon
Musk citing his belief that applying 10x
to compute LLM training will double the
model's intelligence. So, so that's one
of their citations. Like I think uh I
beyond that I don't know like
yeah I genuinely don't know and this is
again as someone who is very bullish and
some somewhat thinks we need to be
thoughtful about how smart and fast this
technology can move. I'm still,
it's still funny to me this kind of
curiosity gap style research report from
a Morgan Stanley versus just say what is
it? What is it? Just what's going to
happen? Take a bet. Take a bet. Give a
prediction. Was very bizarre. Anyway,
there another interesting note on the
bottom of the story. It says for this
story, fortune journalists use gender AI
as a research tool. an editor verified
the accuracy of the information before
publishing. I thought that that was
interesting, but it wasn't to me the
sort of weirdest use of generative AI in
tech journalism or journalism. This
week, I don't know if you saw the Vanity
Fair story about Daario Amade. It was
initially titled Dario has a cold
>> and it was it seems like this reporter
got some decent in access into
anthropic.
>> Uh and then like towards the end of the
story he's been building up the whole
story about getting to meet Daario
Amode, CEO of Anthropic. And then he
writes this whole long interview that he
had with Daario. Uh and then afterwards
he's like oh uh I actually didn't
interview Daario and ask these like
biting questions to him. I like uploaded
a lot of Daario's talks into Claude and
I interviewed him that way and that's
what you've just read.
>> Yeah, this was
you do that and call it an interview.
>> No, I wouldn't think about doing that.
It's so disrespectful.
>> I
>> to the reader to the companies you're
it's especially to the reader. I mean
that's awful. Yeah, I think uh I mean
yeah, it's more was it like performance
art or something?
>> I hope that that's the best possible
explanation.
>> I mean, I think you should
>> It wasn't just the interview. It wasn't
like this person seems like they
actually did real reporting and then
just wrote the put the fake interview at
the end.
Truly a puzzling situation. I mean,
like, I guess we we hadn't planned on
talking about it, but in terms of what
is real and what's not anymore, I'm sure
you've been following uh good old BB
Netanyahu and these videos this week.
>> I have. Yeah. So, the Go ahead. You can
introduce it. Uh, I mean, I almost have
to imagine every listener would have
crossed paths with the rampant
speculations that uh, Benjamin Netanyahu
is deceased and is been has been putting
out AI videos of himself at a coffee
shop. And then even today, there was a a
press conference, but still endless
speculation that it was AI generated.
And honestly like this like again this
kind of like Daario interview and then
it was AI like the Netanyahu stuff is
actually I think this most scared I have
been around the impact of like AI and
video and people trying to understand
what is true that like just how absurd
and crazy it is that if we're actually
living in an era where world leaders
somehow and are they is trying to troll
us by putting out a coffee weird coffee
shop video rather than just showing up
live with like a bunch of people. But
yeah, this one has gotten me pretty
rattled this week.
>> I don't know. I think you're on blue sky
too much. I I saw those videos. I didn't
have any question about the veracity of
them. Maybe I'm
>> No, no, no, no, no. This is X. This is
This is I feel you're getting both sides
on X. You're getting
>> That's true. I feel like this is one of
the unifying things on all
>> this is horseshoe theory loves AI
generator Netanyahu.
>> That's true. It's like the epitome of
it.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh all right, we we need let's let's go
to break before this really goes off the
rails. Uh but if you're interested in
the political story, folks, Senator Mark
Warner is going to be on the show on
Wednesday. We're going to talk about AI
job loss. We're going to talk about the
anthropic and the Pentagon thing. And
yes, we'll talk about uh one of my
favorite topics, which is why do members
of Congress continue to conduct
seemingly insider trading, and they they
will not stop. They can't stop. Uh and
Senator Warner and I will discuss that
next week on Wednesday. All right, Ron
and I will be back right after this to
talk about Jensen Wong's comments on AI
layoffs, a little bit about the
metaverse, and then of course, who did
you say? Who did you say is going to be
on the show for discussing insider
trading? And
>> Mark Warner.
>> Jesus, man. The guests you get. I love
for listeners. I love that Alex with no
heads up just casually drops these names
right before we go to break. Sorry.
>> Okay. I'm I have to
>> That was a compliment. That was a
compliment. Yeah.
>> All right. I guess I guess we're leaving
this in Rajon. I was just making my my
pitch for the second. All right. We'll
be back after this with a conversation
about Jensen Wong's AI. Uh Jensen Wong's
comments on AI layoffs, the metaverse,
and then Jeff Bezos's fund. We'll be
back right after this. And we're back
here on Big Technology Podcast Friday
edition. Yes. Uh as you heard before the
break, Senator Mark Warner is going to
be on the show next week. We we have an
amazing, honestly, I think the strongest
lineup we've had in a very long time, if
not in the show's history, coming up on
some of these Wednesday shows. So So
stay tuned for that. All right. Uh maybe
Jensen Wong will come on. Maybe not. But
he certainly was speaking with Save AI.
Yeah.
>> Oh yeah. So this was so he did do this
this uh tour around GTC similar to what
we thought which was basically making
the case for artificial intelligence.
and Jim and part of it was Jim Kramer
asking him on CNBC about his um about
his his impression on whether companies
will continue to uh lay people off with
AI and and Jensen I think captured what
I was feeling about this uh pretty well
here was what he what he said in
response for companies with imagination
you'll do more for companies where the
leadership is just out of ideas they
have nothing else to do they have no
reason to imagine greater than they are.
Then when they have more capability,
they don't do more. And this just has
kind of gone to my my thought on the
whole AI layoff thing, which is that
yeah, if you have no imagination, you'll
just lay off and take profit, but if you
do have imagination, you're going to do
more with these tools. And there's so
many things that ambitious CEOs want to
do. And that's why I'm a little bit
skeptical whenever I hear this AI will
cause mass unemployment, uh, you know,
sort of line like we heard. Um, you
know, I don't know. We've heard from
multiple places. I don't it doesn't mean
that the we shouldn't be prepared.
That's what I'm going to speak with
Senator Warner about, but it also means
like let's look at this in context and
with some nuance like we tried to do on
Wednesday with Andrew Ross Orcin. So,
what do you think about this line from
Jensen? I think it captures it so well.
>> I think Jensen
is slowly cementing himself, as we
talked about on last week's episode, as
the good guy of AI. And he he's got a
shot. He's People are going to like the
leather jacket, the drinking beer, and
the fried chicken. I think he's This is
a good line. When you have imagination,
you can do more that you can use this to
just try new things and like scale more
quickly and just Yeah, it just opens up.
I saw one thing I think I'm starting to
buy into. It's like it could mean fewer
SAS giants, but it could mean many many
more medium-siz SAS businesses of like
smaller teams, but still just more
software is created, more technology is
used in new kinds of ways. Like I think
that's definitely the the optimistic
scenario. I think where again we saw
with block we've seen a lot of the time
and we're going to get into the rumored
uh the reported potential meta layoffs
like people are going to be attributing
these to AI directly. People might even
use AI as the excuse like we saw with
Jack Dorsey but in a lot of these
companies maybe they don't have much to
do. They overhired. They were bloated
and they potentially wouldn't need to
cut anyway and they couldn't just
reinvest those people into more
interesting things.
>> Yeah, exactly. I I really I I'm a
believer in the bull case here. Not to
say there won't be any disruption, but
it also means that like I I won't
discount the fact that there's a
percentage chance that like there things
will go bad and that's why you have to
plan for that. Um, but I think Jensen
really captures it. If you have
imagination, you're going to do more. If
you don't have imagination, you're going
to lay off.
>> Do you think
by the summer is Jensen has he cemented
his role as the good guy of AI? It's
clear he's he's pushing.
>> Well, I don't know if good guy is the
the sort of framing I would use, but I I
think he's
>> a friendly face.
>> He has a chance to be sort of the Steve
Jobs of AI. and maybe he's already
there, but you know, he he can be the
visionary that explains and makes the
like we were saying last week, someone's
got to make a case for this technology
>> and do it well because the polling
numbers are bad. So, I think he could be
if maybe that Steve Jobs was a great
marketer and salesman. Jensen is a great
marketer and salesman,
>> different products, but I think that he
can fill that marketer salesman role for
sure.
>> No, that's a good point. Okay. So maybe
it's not like you don't have to be even
friendly face or good guy. You just have
to try to like make the optimist case
for the industry. And and again, like I
feel there's a lot of times where it's
almost like the there's this tone of
even when you're trying to couch it as
optimism, like people still it's like
you have to deal with it otherwise
you're dumb or you you know like it's
it's still being shoved down your throat
rather than making people want to
actually just be excited about what's
possible. And uh we we certainly need
that.
Well, I mean, you know, I let's see
because the implications of where this
AI thing is going are are, you know, I
think you you're also someone who's
like, let's not believe, you know, fully
and drink the AI Kool-Aid on this cuz
you if you go all the way in, you can
end up having, you know, shocks and
disappointments on the way, you know, if
things don't go the positive way, right?
>> Well, there's two types of shocks you
can have. One is it it doesn't work as
advertised and that's just its own kind
of shock and disappointment or it works
just in a very scary way and just causes
mass disruption as many in the AI
community talk about and its own its own
kind of shock. So, I think it could be
either of those, but there Yeah, that
narrow path through the middle of those
two, no one has outlined in any kind of
like decent way.
>> Well, I mean, yeah, the numbers the
numbers tell the story, right?
>> What was it? Oh, they were below. AI was
pulling lower than Ice and uh Yeah.
>> the only above Iran in the Democratic
party.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is not not exactly the things that
people are most into uh right now. By
the way, I you know I just one more plug
on the Warner interview. I do speak with
him about whether this negative polling
can lead to uh delays in data centers
and coming from Virginia which has the
most data centers in the US certainly
knows a thing or two. So something to
look out for. All right, meta and the
metaverse. Should we call this segment
um is it Schroinger's metaverse? Is it
alive or is it dead? Uh, this is from,
let's see, CNBC.
Meta is shutting down VR social platform
Horizon Worlds and further piv pivot
away from the metaverse. Meta announced
Tuesday that it was shutting down
Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality
social network for Quest VR headsets
that was once a key piece of the pivot
to the metaverse. Horizon Worlds, by the
way, was this kind of VR world where you
would start hanging out with people. No
one really used it. Maybe some people
did, but not not many. And here's the
next story from Mashable. Meta isn't or
I'm sorry, Ngadget. Meta isn't shutting
down its VR metaverse after all. Meta is
backtracking on its plans to shut the VR
meta uh version of its metaverse. The
company now plans to support Horizon
Worlds in VR for the foreseeable future.
According to Andrew Bosworth, the CTO of
Meta, we will keep it working for VR in
VR for existing games to support the
fans who've reached out.
Uh, Ronan, is is the metaverse alive or
the metaverse dead?
>> I I'm going to pivot from Schroinger's
metaverse because it's dead. Is this
isn't a dead or alive question to me. I
would like to pivot to a very nostalgic
kind of like wistful look at I I I liked
I was seeing people share just those
ridicul like I think it was Mark
Zuckerberg interviewing Gail King in the
metaverse. There's like just just
remember that time. I mean
>> I don't know if this is true or not but
I saw someone share that someone paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to live
next to Snoop Dogg in the metaverse.
>> What is it? remember metaverse real
estate metaverse like ah what a time
what a time that was.
>> This is from the New York Times. They
highlight some of the some of the
madness around it. Um Disney and Crate
and Barrel and other companies were
quick to appoint chief metverse
officers.
And this is from McKenzie
>> with its potential with its potential to
generate up to 5 trillion in value by
2030. The metaverse is too big for
companies to ignore.
>> So question, did you ever go into the
metaverse?
>> I think I did.
>> Like what do we consider the meta? Did
you own an Oculus
Quest or I guess you try I mean you
tried the Vision Pro. I don't even know
if that counts as metaverse like
>> No, that was spatial computing. No, I
never owned one. Oh, I did I did have an
Oculus. You know, I had an Oculus when I
was uh it was a test device when I was
at uh BuzzFeed back in the day and then
I lent it to a co-orker because I wasn't
using it very much and then CO happened
and I never saw that person again.
>> I would have I would have loved to have
that uh you know a metaverse with me in
CO which by the way it ended up being
mostly a co fever dream. Well, I think
because so I played like games with the
Oculus Quest, but I didn't interact with
other people. Also, certainly never like
a Horizon's World or anything like that.
Um, yeah. No, I I don't think I ever
made it to the metaverse. I I kind of am
regretting it now. Maybe we should go
find ourselves some quests on Facebook
Marketplace,
pretty cheap, and go see who's hanging
out on Horizon's World right now. If any
listeners are, let us know. We'll come
find you. We'll hang.
>> Yeah. You if you're the person that
going to is going to go meet someone to
pick up a quest on uh to go to the
Facebook marketplace, they're just going
to hit you in the head with a crowbar
and take your money.
>> You're you should be wrong. Sorry.
Sorry,
>> Ron. John the Cororum. Um no, no. But on
a serious note, maybe the metaverse was
never just virtual reality. I think this
from Matthew Ball. The metaverse is
misdescribed as virtual reality. In
truth, virtual reality is merely a way
to experience the metaverse. To say VR
is the metaverse is like saying the
mobile internet is an app. Note too that
hundreds of millions are already
participating in virtual worlds on a
daily basis and spending billions of
them without VR, AR, MR, or XR devices.
I see he's talking about Roblox. As a
correlary to the above, VR headsets
aren't the metaverse anymore than
smartphones are the mobile internet. So
maybe actually you know what here's the
comeback. So world models I think are
going to be like the you know like AI
models that instead of are being based
on language or being based on actually
understanding the physical world and
we're going to get into Bezos's new
fund. I think I think they keep the
metaverse alive and reality labs and
then slowly quietly pivot to the whole
world model space and then suddenly it
all comes back and Zuck was right the
whole time as he figures out AI ad LLM
based advertising and comes back with
world models and gets on his hoverboard
thing with an American flag and just
wins again.
>> Yeah. Uh but oh by the way that thing is
called a foil. I called it a skin
>> foil hydro
or something.
>> Yeah. One of my Yeah. Yeah. Apologies to
listeners. Like we should have known
that one.
>> We we regret the error. Um but the funny
thing would be if they do pivot to world
models, guess who the perfect person to
bring back uh to run that would be would
be on Lun.
>> That's that would Oh, wait. Isn't that
his new startup? I
>> think is a big part of it is
understanding the world. Yes.
>> Yeah. at world models. But it is I think
it is interesting to me because like you
take your Fortnites and Robloxes and
people are still spending ungodly
amounts of money for like skins in those
games and interacting everywhere and
those are those are virtual world
experiences. So, so yeah, metaverse is
alive. Just not not legless
avatars while wearing a virtual reality
headset and sitting in a meeting because
I still wish I did that once, but never
got around to
>> Yeah, I unfortunately think I was just
not working in a company for when the
time that came around. Oh, one last
thing we should say. I I think that this
conversation about the metaverse, you
know, is incomplete without talking
about what it led to, which is like if
there is a hope for consumer AI, which
we debated in the beginning, it's
probably through some form of device.
And Meta certainly has a head start on
that. I mean, the Ray-B band metas,
which which you and I both really like,
and these newer projects are direct
results from uh this V VR move. Yeah,
take the VR headsets live on just the
metaverse. No,
>> take the win. I think like if they just
said openly like these technologies gave
us a head start in wearables in the
entire new world of AI, no one would
question it. It's it's right. So, you
don't have to just shut down Horizon's
world. It's okay. You don't have to
pretend to keep it open. You don't have
to. you guys. No,
>> no, I was I was just saying
>> I to myself I think they are basically
saying that
>> that version of what you just said
>> which is like this was
>> it's almost like you know like the uh
fire phone led to the echo or something
like that.
>> Exactly. Exactly. There's a there's a
hero story here. There's a definite hero
story.
>> And now that they don't have to spend
all that money supporting it, they can
actually work to build build AI. So, all
right. Uh, speaking of Amazon, there's
this really interesting story that I
don't think we should leave without
talking about, which is that uh, Jeff
Bezos, according to the Wall Street
Journal, is in talks to raise 100
billion for an AI manufacturing fund.
Bas is in early talks to raise 100
billion for a new fund that would buy up
manufacturing companies and seek to use
AI technology to accelerate their path
to automation. The Amazon founder is
meeting with some of the world's largest
asset managers
to raise funding for the project. A few
months ago, he traveled to the Middle
East to discuss the new fund with
sovereign wealth representatives in the
region. More recently, he went to
Singapore. The fund described in
investor documents as a manufacturing
transformation vehicle is aiming to buy
companies in major industrial sectors
such as chipm, defense, and aerospace.
It would dwarf the size of some of the
world's uh dwarf the size of some of the
world's largest buyout funds and rival
soft banks 100 billion tech focused
vision fund. Couple of thoughts on this
if I may. Number one, why is Bezos
raising this money? Doesn't he have it?
I don't know, maybe you don't always
want to use your own money, but if you
believe that much in the idea, why don't
you just put your own in towards it?
Number two, uh it is somewhat horrifying
uh that Jeff Bezos is going to after
well I guess Amazon did increase its
employees in the fulfillment centers
after it brought the robots in. But it
is somewhat horrifying that Bezos who
wants to automate everything he can lay
his hands on seems like he's ready to
automate
uh you know real uh you know bluecollar
jobs with this push. And third of all,
you know, knowing knowing Bezos the way
I do, and that is, of course, reading
about him and speaking to people who
know him, he just tends to be right
about these things all the time. And I I
really do believe that he's on to
something here that uh manufacturing
transformation with AI is is already in
underway, but is about to make a major
major leap and there's real opportunity
there. So, I think Bezos is on the money
and I have a lot of these feelings. What
do you think, Rajan? Well, if you
continue reading the next two paragraphs
on this, Bezos was recently appointed
coco of Project Prometheus, a new
startup that is building artificial
intelligence models that can understand
and simulate the physical world. While
much of the AI revolution has been
focused on large language models,
billions of dollars have begun to flow
to companies that are seeking to apply
spatially focused AI systems towards
industries including robotics and
manufacturing. So yeah, I I had not even
seen that in the the our our prep dock
here before. World models, that's that's
going to be the next big thing. And and
again, I like the point. Not only is
Bezos someone who is often right about
this kind of thing again like what
Amazon did to the entire warehouse
space, bringing in more people and but
still the level of automation is what
led to us all getting addicted to
two-day delivery and one day instant
delivery like like the the technological
innovation that they were able to push
like he gets it. He he's shown it time
and time again. So I think he will
definitely this is this is something we
will watch very very closely.
>> No totally I agree. I mean the thing
with Bezos is he knows that there is
like there are going to be companies
that will implement this and companies
that don't and I think he's making a
pretty sizable bet of course with others
money but he's going to make this big
bet and and probably be right. Um all
right John before we leave I have a
question to ask you. It's uh somewhat
sensitive. I just need to ask
>> away.
>> Do you dry chat?
>> I have dry chatted. I have dry chatted.
>> So, Wall Street uh Journal reporter uh
Megan Babrowski tweets what the And this
is seemingly a pitch that she got. She
goes, "One in four admit they she the
email goes from Mandy. Poor Mandy
getting put on blast in front of
everybody. One in four admit they try
chat before emotionally difficult uh
tasks. What is dry chatting? Here's the
pitch. Hi Megan. Jittery before a tough
conversation. Have you tried dry
chatting? Dry chatting. Apparently it's
a trend. As over half of adults admit
they find it hard to articulate their
emotions during tense conversations.
Many are turning to AI to rehearse.
Enter dry chatting. Rehearsing
emotionally challenging conversations
with AI before having them in real life.
I I guess we found it. This is the use
case. AI consumer. Here it is.
>> This is the consumer use case. Dry
chatting. I kind of when I saw this,
obviously the term dry chatting is just
like h I don't know there it's something
a bit it's just something that gives you
the aches. But but then when you start
to see it, you're like, wait, this is so
I have admit like if you have to write a
tense email,
running it through an AI and asking for
some pointers and saying like what you
want out of it is a pretty good thing. I
think most people should do. I I I
haven't gone straight for the the voice
dry chat, I'll admit. like I haven't I
haven't talked to
Jet GBT Gemini Cloud, whoever else and
uh tried to rehearse the conversation in
full, but maybe it's maybe it's worth
it. Maybe I I might try Jack dry
chatting soon. It's uh it's like it you
know what? If it helps you actually
resolve the situation in a in a much
more amicable way, shouldn't we all be
dry chatting?
>> First of all, I will say I have used
voice to dry chat. Uh you you voice I
have some of my some of my interviews uh
before I like I have like a rundown and
you know I want to anticipate what the
interviewee is going to say. So I role
play with the bot sometimes and I'm like
you're this person and I'm me. So, I'm
going to separate dry chatting from like
roleplaying,
>> like rehearsing because this this is
specific. I feel dry chatting applies to
like really like emotionally challenging
conversations. It could be if you're
about to fire someone, if you're like uh
like, you know, you have to break up,
you have to like deliver some really bad
news to me. I'm going to I want to keep
dry chatting, make sure we all
understand. Oh my god. This is
>> just the the syphancy uh and the dry
chatting. I don't think it goes well
together. It's like, "All right, it's
all right, Chat GPT. You're going to be
my girlfriend and I'm going to be me and
I have some news to to share with you."
And Chat GPT like, "Okay, go ahead." And
you'll be like, "Um, baby, we need to
break up." And Chat GPT will be like,
"Great idea. They're always coming up
with the smartest ideas."
Well, so but so does dry chatting work
better? We what's like the eval? What's
the dry chat benchmark? Cuz a 40 40 sick
Vincency would then when you go to
deliver the actual bad news, you'll get
ripped apart cuz sophantic GPT40 told
you you're right about everything. Maybe
that that's my that's the new benchmark
we need to uh come up with. Well, you
have it has to be this like sort of
reinforcement learning where you reward
conversations that don't get the person
slapped in real life.
>> That's the So, there's some poor scale
AI guys who have to go through.
>> Got to go. All right. Listen, your your
task this week. I'm ready for it. Um,
you got to break up with your girlfriend
>> for science. We got to see if she's
you're getting slapped.
I'm telling you, man.
>> This could be it could be a a reality
reality TV series.
>> Dry chat, actually. Yeah. You you go
wait. This you go you dry chat and then
you go have the real conversation and
everyone gets to watch how it actually
plays out. This is not a bad
>> not a bad pitch.
>> Have you seen Nathan Fielders the
rehearsal?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, it's just like that. Nathan's just
dry chatting with all these people.
>> Yeah. They put comedians out of business
now.
>> All right. Well, I think on that note,
might have to.
>> Well, this has been a a lovely I don't
even want to say it. Is this a wet chat?
If that's a dry chat,
>> don't don't
go. I think we should go.
>> I specifically refrained this entire
time.
>> All right, folks. Don't miss my
interview with Mark Warner on Wednesday.
Thank you, Ron John. Thank you everybody
for listening and watching. We'll see
you next time on Big Technology Podcast.