More OpenAI C-Suite Drama, Is Siri Seriously Broken?, Meta’s Elusive Next Hit

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-04-10

YouTube video id: RIvuDPLQYUs

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

Top OpenAI executives are reportedly at
odds over its spending in IPO plans.
Apple keeps making plans for Siri and
well, nothing to show for it yet. And
can Meta find its next hit? That's
coming up with MG Seagler from Spy Glass
right after this. Welcome to Big
Technology Podcast. It's the first
Monday of the month and MG Seagler is
here with us in his traditional spot to
break down what's going on in the world
of tech. We have a lot to talk about
today, including more turnover at the
top of OpenAI and what that means. We'll
also talk a little bit about OpenAI and
Anthropic seemingly headed toward the
same product. Then we will return to a
common theme in these discussions,
Apple, and whether that company's plans
for Siri will ever materialize. And then
finally, why Meta seems not to be able
to find its next hit. MG, great to see
you. Welcome back to the show.
>> Thanks, Alex. Super sunny here in
London, so it's nice outside. Got
Michigan Wolverines in the national
championship game uh this week and so
I'm glad we're recording this right now
and not say tomorrow when I might be uh
staying up till about 4 in the morning.
>> Oh goodness. Well, it it's definitely
going to be a busy week on a number of
fronts and certainly the OpenAI team is
going to have to figure out what's
happening once again uh in the seauite
because there's breaking news that we
have coming uh you know basically within
our our recording window here that um
there is potentially some discontent
between OpenAI CEO Sam Alman and CFO
Sarah Frier. This is from the
information. Sam Alman has committed
OpenAI to spend 600 billion in the next
5 years and privately said he wants to
go public as soon as the fourth quarter
despite expectations his company will
burn more than $200 billion before it
starts generating cash. Behind behind
the scenes, Sarah Frier, his chief
financial officer, has voiced concerns
that reflect the tensions and risks
inherent in the CEO's extraordinarily
ambitious plan. She told some colleagues
earlier this year that she didn't
believe the company would be ready to go
public in 2026 because of the procedural
and organizational work needed and the
risks from its spending commitments. She
also said she wasn't sure whether OpenAI
would near need to pour so much money
into obtaining AI servers in the coming
years or whether its revenue growth
which has been slowing would support the
commitment. And seemingly as a result,
Alman has excluded her from some
conversations related to the company's
financial plans. Now, OpenAI and uh has
a state OpenAI has a statement between
Alman and Frier saying everything is
hunky dory. Uh but this does seem like
yet more drama at the top of OpenAI. On
one hand, I would expect this type of
disagreement between any CFO who's done
any sort of financial job and uh OpenAI
with its like unbelievably ambitious
plans that don't really fit any model
previously. So I can't tell whether or
not this is like a big deal and another
problem within the company or whether
basically uh this is just kind of
business as usual for company growing at
an unprecedented pace that's going to
deal with some you know typical tension
at that at that you know juncture uh
where the finance and the product
strategy ma meet. What do you think MG?
So yeah, my first um initial thought,
same as what you just said, it was like,
"Oh my god, I can't believe a CEO and a
CFO are at odds. What are what are the
odds of that?" Like that happens in
every company, of course, because
obviously the CFO often has to be the
bad cop telling, you know, slowing down
spend or or sort of putting a a dose of
reality into uh you know, any sort of uh
future plans. But at OpenAI, not a
normal company, famously, things are
always sort of to the extreme. And I
think this one is obviously unique in
the case that we're talking about the
IPO. Um, you know, this had been
rumored, of course, dating back to last
year that that basically OpenAI and of
course Anthropic are sort of in uh
starting to put the wheels in motion at
least to go to go public potentially
this year. I actually predicted as one
of my year-end predictions, I predicted
that neither Open AI nor uh Anthropic
will go public in 2026. Uh that was
looking fairly bad. I would say a few
weeks ago like it like it was going to
happen. But, you know, there's reports
like this now coming out that are not
too surprising. Again, it's the CFO. Of
course, she's probably going to be, you
know, um, if anyone putting the brakes
on a little bit more than sort of others
at the company, but, you know, the CFO
is obviously vital to a company going
public and and being instrumental in
that raise. And Sarah Frier in
particular, who's been involved with
public companies and and on the board of
companies and knows what to do here. Um,
but again, I just think when I was, you
know, when all these these rumors have
come out about OpenAI and Anthropic
potentially going out, like there's so
many wild cards still at play over the
next even, you know, n 6, seven, 8, nine
months macro-wise, as we've talked about
before, like where anything could derail
like an IPO from happening. Um, but I do
think, you know, now that SpaceX is for
formally, you know, put the wheels in
motion to go out and it sounds like, you
know, they're angling for June, uh, for
maybe for Elon Musk's birthday. Um, and,
uh, you know, that puts a little bit
more pressure of course given his
position with OpenAI is technically a
co-founder, but now, you know, at odds
obviously with the company and with Sam
Alman in particular. Um, you know, that
adds another layer to this. But it does
feel like that maybe Sarah Fryer is
looking at sort of the overall picture
and looking at these leaked, you know,
what these leak financials obviously
they have they have even better insight
into what the actual numbers are and
just looking at the market and being
like it's unclear what would happen if
open AI went public. You'd think like,
oh, it's an AI company. There's so much
buzz like everyone. But again, SpaceX is
already going to be out there touting
the AI angle, right? Elon's going to
play up the data centers in space and
XAI and all of that. So, we're going to
have sort of some of the um some of the
wind taken out of the AI, you know, hype
sales uh in the public market already.
And then if they go if OpenAI goes out
and you see just this massive massive
burn, how are public markets going to
react to that? It's it's sort of
unknown, but I think like she might be
saying, look, we're in the midst of
changing a lot about the business right
now. you know, famously we're we're
putting a pause on on these side quests
and at the same time sort of maybe, you
know, pivoting to sort of focus more on
what historically has been anthropic
strength in in enterprise and obviously
with with what's going on with co cloud
code and codeex and so we don't have
like a full vision into what like the
next year is going to look like even
financially.
>> Yeah. I mean any CFO you know no matter
who it is sitting in this company would
probably be having a heart attack
because the belief within OpenAI is that
this technology is moving on an
exponential and it may well be but as a
CFO you don't you're not really able to
think in those exponentials. You have to
think of like am I going to is this
company going to go bankrupt? like are
we investing so much that we're going to
end up uh you know sort of not being
able to f meet our commitments and we've
already seen openi pull out of a few
commitments recently this is a quote
it's kind of an interesting quote uh in
the in this information story prior has
a hard job since said someone who works
closely with her and Alman she's working
for a founder with big ambitions who
wants to push the envelope as hard as he
can on spend I don't know that to me
seems like a nonbackground quote from a
comm's person most likely. Um, but then
there's an let me just say there's one
interesting thing here though which I
almost overlooked. Uh, and that is that
in the at the beginning of this report
they they I'll read it again. Briar said
she wasn't sure whether OpenAI would
need to pour so much money into
obtaining AI servers in the coming years
or whether its revenue growth which has
been slowing would support the
commitments. Uh, revenue growth has been
slowing. I haven't seen that reported
previously. So, if the revenue growth is
slowing, it's harder to believe you're
on an exponential and maybe that's the
source of all this.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's hard to know exactly
what they mean or, you know, what the
wording exactly is there, right?
Because, okay, you might say, yeah, the
revenue growth is slowing relative to
the speed at which it's been, you know,
like it's the law of large numbers
stuff, right? Like it's it's coming
down, but it's still growing very fast.
It's hard to parse exactly what they
mean by that. But at the same time, even
at the high level, like if you're if you
already know that sort of things are
are, you know, slowing down a bit, um,
and you're again angling to take this
company into the public markets, like
you've really got to lock down the
narrative in terms of like what both
growth is going to look like going
forward and sort of what the key drivers
are going to be. And again, the company
itself is in the midst of this like
product pivot and and sort of business
model pivot in a way. And so it's it's
unclear that they know exactly what what
the growth picture is going to look like
over the next year. And so if I'm Sarah
Frier, I'm probably saying like, "Hey,
we just raised this $122
billion round. Um, you know, by far and
away the largest round ever raised, by
far and away larger than any IPO, um,
you know, including SpaceX upcoming
rumored IPO, you know, would would
target a mere 70 or 80 billion, right?
and Open AAI is raised more than that in
the um in a private round. And so if I'm
Sarah Fryer say, well, look, we just got
this done. Um this this buys us X amount
of runway. We don't know exactly what
that is, but it's not indefinite um
given these these burn numbers. And you
know, it just sort of slowed things down
a little bit. Let's see how uh all the
codecs work that we're putting in this
new super app, you know, that we're
working on. Let's see, you know, give
this some months to to play out so we
have a better picture of what our actual
financial picture will look like before
sort of we start the wheels in motion.
But again, Sam Alman and maybe others
within the company are probably looking
at this, you know, overall picture and
looking at not only SpaceX, but again,
Anthropic is is probably the main
concern here because if Anthropic were
to go public before OpenAI does and has
a sort of is able to b paint paint that
better picture in terms of
profitability,
um that's going to be even more
problematic for Open AI. Um, and so I
get sort of the, you know, the two sides
here, the the push and pull as it were,
but, um, again, it seems very risky for
them to try to go out this year,
regardless of all the macro stuff going
on.
>> Yeah. And you're going to really need
your CEO and CFO to be in sync if you're
going to do it. Uh, and this is again
the reporting from the information. In
recent months, Altman left Frier out of
a conversation about server spending
with leaders at one of OpenAI's top
investors. Her absence was notable
noticeable and awkward given the
previous conversation on the same topic
included her. A different person who
also attended who attended
a senior level meeting at OpenAI with
Alman earlier this year said it was
unusual that Frier was not invited.
Also,
>> um this is from the information. And
it's an in an unusual us in an unusual
move for a large company where CFOs
almost always answered directly the CFO
to the CFO sorry to the CEO Frier
stopped reporting directly to Altman in
August last year and instead began
reporting to Fiji Simo who had joined as
head of OpenAI's applications business
who as we know after uh last Friday's
news Fiji is now on medical leave. So
leaving Frier where exactly? I I mean
there's there's so much in just what you
said right there. Um so G sort of going
backwards when the news came out that
Fiji Simma was joining. I did think it
was odd at the time even that yeah um
all of these reports were moving over to
her. Um you know she had the CEO title
but it's not the CEO of the company,
right? It's it was at the time CEO of
applications and now they've changed it
to CEO of AGI something or another. I'm
not 100% sure what it is right now.
>> Deployment. Yes. AI
>> AGI deployment. uh totally normal uh
what whatever that means. And and so um
so it seemed a little weird at the time
that uh yeah, Sarah Frier, the CFO, was
was sort of moving in that. Now they
would play it as like look, we just
needed to free up Sam's time. He needs
to do fundraising, though obviously
finance is pretty important with
fundraising. You'd think like again,
they might want to be, you know,
perfectly in sync and and in line with
one another um talking through that. But
um that's sort of why I've always uh
sort of had in the back of my head that
I would not be shocked if Fiji Simo is
eventually sort of overall CEO and uh
they just sort of have Sam Alman there
because he's vital still obviously from
a fundraiser perspective from sort of
these higher level uh missionoriented
goals. But um you know if and when
Vigimo uh you know is is in a place with
her health where you know she can be
sort of uh more instrumental on the
day-to-day obviously you know every
everyone hopes that that she gets better
and and uh she's able to to come back
quickly from this leave of absence. um
you know you can see a world in which um
she already has all these people who
normally report to a CEO reporting to
her as the sort of sub CEO and so we'll
see where that path goes down but yes
the the sort of fracture um in this
report uh between Sam and and Sarah
Frier seems like the big element of it
obviously that's that's very damning if
you have uh financial meetings and the
CFO isn't involved and you're
specifically not including the CFO um
what does that suggest Now, it might
suggest that who knows, Sam Alman is is
saying like, "Look, I I'm trying to come
up with all these new methods of
financing as he's talked about in the
past and and maybe I just need someone
to brainstorm with that's not
necessarily our CFO because of course
she'll say no or she'll, you know, lead
us down a more traditional path and I
really need to think outside the box."
I'm trying to come up with some uh way
in which, you know, you could say like,
"Yeah, the CFO doesn't need to be in
this very important financial meeting uh
that she's normally involved in." But
the reality is like it might be a bad
sign. Um or you know there might be
something else going on but it doesn't
look good regardless uh optically uh you
know from the outside. And of course the
the company's going to say everything is
hunky dory just like they historically
has have always said with Microsoft and
and you know everything else like you
know nothing to see here. Um but there's
always something to see with OpenAI as
we've learned.
>> Absolutely. And it's also interesting
that that meeting leaked like who leaked
it? It probably wasn't OpenAI. It seems
like that was leaked by the investors.
Maybe someone who wasn't happy with how
the latest $122 billion funding round
went down. I don't know. I mean,
obviously, this is all just speculation,
but that is an interesting wrinkle as
well. A top investor leaking this stuff
is,
>> by the way, the entire the entire um
press strategy around the $122 billion
round was weird, too. It's like, look, I
get that they had, you know, it's again,
we've t, as we just mentioned, it's like
a record raise. It's an incredible
number, but they also had just announced
the $110 billion raise, right? And now,
and then they felt the need to do a
whole another cycle with Sarah Frier
going out there and talking to folks.
Um, it sort of felt very it felt like
the most defensive way to uh to announce
the biggest fund raise in history. Um,
you know, obviously they're under attack
on a few fronts. You know, we talked
about anthropic and and everything else
going on. Google and and etc etc. But
still like that whole cycle was just
weird. Yeah. It's an up it's an you know
an upgrade of 12 more billion dollars
coming in which again is incredible.
That's bigger than almost every fund
raise ever you know not done by open AI.
That in and of itself the delta between
those two numbers but still it was like
you just announced the 110 now you're
announcing the 122 and like you're
getting you know two bytes of of the
apple out of these things. And um I
don't I don't know there there's weird
weird weird optics around this. if you
just take a step back around a lot going
on in OpenAI.
>> Well, MG TBPN fixes this. You know that.
>> Yeah, we haven't even gotten into that.
I mean, uh yeah. Um but that like yes,
there's there's so many weird things
going on at the moment.
>> One last thing about about the revenue
side. Um there's this chart in this in
the information story and um for those
of you in audio, I'll just kind of
narrate it a little bit. uh it looks at
OpenAI versus Anthropic revenue and you
could sort of see why they'd want to go
public before uh before Anthropic
because late last year Anthropic was
doing looks like about uh $10 billion in
annualized revenue and OpenAI was over
20 billion but now Anthropic has closed
that. They're at 19 billion in
annualized revenue while OpenAI for the
latest report has 25 billion. So if
things continue at this rate, does
anthropics surpass OpenAI and revenue
and what does that do to the IPO story?
>> I think I actually asked Claude to do
that extrapolation. I'm trying to
remember exactly a few weeks ago and it
did have them crossing. It's I think at
some point next year if if memories
serves um and you know it's obviously a
moving target quite literally but um but
even that speaks to exactly like why
OpenAI is doing this this sort of
product and in a way business model
pivot because of those very numbers
right they see them too like they see
that anthropic is gaining steam and and
we you know we talk a lot about like
yeah claude is is getting consumer usage
which sort of they hadn't had
historically or hadn't had a strong
point there historically And that's
that's big. But the key thing is yeah
this cloud code usage driving these
these these sort of enterprises to sign
up for uh for anthropic versus using
open AI and how that is closing that gap
as as you're talking about. And so
regardless of that being bad from a
public company you know narrative when
you're trying to go public it's bad for
the company overall because that's
entirely why they're they're pivoting it
would seem right. That's why they're
doing everything and and killing off
these side quests and killing off Sora
and and just trying to focus because
they see this real threat from what had
historically been their much smaller
competitor,
>> right? And so let's let's go to that
because that also plays into some of
this executive turnover here. Uh let me
read from Spy Glass uh about that
something that you wrote about OpenAI's
odyssey. He said, "While OpenAI was
doing a a million things to expand to
any and all potential markets, Anthropic
was focused on their core market. The
game has changed and OpenAI needs to
change with it. Good thing they have
that second CEO, Fiji Simo, with a range
of experience at dynamic companies. It's
hard to imagine that Altman could
instill the discipline needed here. Is
he really going to be able to tell
Johnny IV, no? No, he's not. But it's
fairly easy to see how Simo could. This
may not be exactly why she was brought
in and she'd clearly live to focus on
health and other initiatives, but here
she is and now she's on leave.
>> Here she was. Yeah. Unfortunately. But
um but yeah, I mean that is the sort of
crux of everything going on right now um
within OpenAI and and just looking again
at at Anthropic and what they end up
doing here. It feels like it's a full-on
sprint now to get this quote unquote
super app, you know, in place. Bring in
all the the elements of of Open AI's and
and CatchBT in particular, their
strength and sort of see if they can use
that strength with the big consumer
installed base and mixed with the sort
of all the work they've been doing on
codecs and then whatever they're trying
to do with Atlas, the browser. It sounds
like that's going to be a piece of it as
well. um you know bring this in and can
they use that to sort of cut off the
momentum that that Anthropic has has
garnered over these past several months
and you know that's that's really what
the sprint is is all about. But again at
the same time I go back to it's not just
that they're sort of doing all of these
um you know this this focus. It's also
that they're this is a different um sort
of muscle than they've needed to do, you
know, sort of adhered to to in the past
where again they're not selling directly
to consumers. They're talking about
selling into enterprise and it by all
accounts they've been doing a good job.
It seems like it's a fast growing
business codeex for them, but it's still
not nearly, you know, as big as as cloud
code is. and they've got cursor out
there and they've got you know and and
myriad other um you know wouldbe
competitors and so uh they like these
next few months are going to be even
more fascinating than they always are
for OpenAI. The fact that um you know
these past few years have been this has
been arguably the most interesting
company in the world to watch and now
these past these next few months seem
like they're going to be absolutely
vital to watch. MG let me ask you is
this wise the fact that OpenAI is going
to build this super app that will have
uh computer use or browser use chat GPT
and codeex all together and Anthropic
also has their own version of this super
app which is you know claude and co-work
and uh claude code all together um do
you think that this is the right use
case to be running after basically this
um AI code jockey that can just
basically go do everything for you even
if you're not technical.
>> I mean, I I go back and forth a little
bit on this and as I think the companies
do, right? It's like the famous uh
bundling and unbundling quote, right?
The Jim Jim Barksdale back in the day.
It's just like companies always do this
from Meta. Meta famously has done this
multiple times now, right? where they
they have all these products inside of
back in the day Facebook and then they
start to unbundle them into their own
sort of disperate products and then
later they've realized like oh actually
we should bring them all back in
together and so companies just bundle
and unbundle and open AI again is just
doing it a little bit faster it feels
like than than sort of historically has
been the case. Do I think it's a good
strategy? Um, I think it's it's probably
the right thing to do right now for them
because again, they have this massive
user base with ChatCBT. Um, they have
what they feel like is a good
competitive product in Codeex. if
they're able to bring the two of them
together, um I think that it makes sense
in a world if you truly believe that
codeex is not just going to be coding um
you know for developers. If you believe
it's going to be the future of sort of
agentic software um that it's going to
be meant for for consumers as well as as
enterprise and everything sort of
allin-one uh then I think it makes sense
to do that. Um, and I think that, you
know, Claude right now sort of already
has that baked in, right? Like they're
all part of the sort of the same uh at
least Mac app payload right now. Um, I
think there's other sort of variables at
play with regard to mobile like how you
make this all work on mobile and and
what that might look like. But at least
for now, I think it probably makes sense
and I think it's sound strategy to do
it. There is a risk though obviously
that that both like your app just
becomes this bloated mess of you know
Microsoft Office and you've got drop
downs and you've got drop downs of drop
downs and and and uh chatbt has had this
problem in the past right with the model
picker and they had to simplify things
and so when you're bringing in two
products together and potentially three
as we mentioned with with Atlas in the
in the mix as well like does it just
become the sort of thing that that
consumers all of a sudden don't like
because it's it's just like this this uh
Frankenstein of a product Frankenstein's
monster of a product. Um, and so there's
there's risk to it. But again, I think
that their strategy is to basically
leverage that chatbt massive user base
in order to again get out ahead or try
to stop the the growth of anthropic that
they're seeing,
>> right? And it is interesting because
there used to be like OpenAI was going
after consumer, anthropic was going
after enterprise. Now they're going
after the same thing. And it really does
take uh the experience to a different
level, right? goes from AI being a
chatbot to AI being this like
personalized agent for you that can help
you with work or your personal life. And
so I guess what I'm asking is do you
believe in that vision? Like do you
think that is appealing enough to pivot
the entire company uh toward and if it
is I mean you're basically going to see
OpenAI versus anthropic head-to-head. So
who do you think wins?
So, first I do think that it is again I
think it's directionally the right bet.
I think we've seen enough now of the
early signs. Um, and I think it was
frankly I'm not sure how much it was
claude code um that drove this decision
as much as it's cloud co-work right the
the offshoot that sort of goes after the
more again computer use aentic use cases
that are more meant for regular day
everyday usage of of quote unquote
regular people not just uh developers
coding um where OpenAI must have looked
at that mixed with what's been going on
with Open Claw um and just been like
look we need to be the one go-to shop
for everyone to do this. We already have
ChateBT which has sort of become the
Kleenex of uh you know the ubiquitous
brand within AI and we have a risk of
losing that if we're not there with
these sort of agentic coding um and
agentic um services and again it feels
like it's early even now like with all
the momentum and all the hype around
these things it still feels like it's
too early for these things to really
take off in a in a meaningful way on the
mainstream. Um, but uh I think that
you're seeing everyone sort of go after
little pieces of it. Again, we talked
about Open Claw. It felt like that was,
you know, there's a movement behind
that, but at the same time, it's sort of
it's sort of too um obtuse, I think, for
for sort of everyday regular people to
wrap their heads around. Um Claude Code
comes in and others perplexity and and
even Microsoft and some others are now
trying to make it more uh you know,
regular user consumer friendly. um these
these general ideas about yeah using
agents um on your behalf on your
computer and letting them like sort of
roam free and sort of trying to yeah
sequester them or or put them in their
own little sandbox to make it a little
bit safer so people aren't you know
doing all the the bad things that you
know you can go easily go down the path
of and so uh you ask do I think that
open AI or anthropic has a better shot
of sort of doing This
again, OpenAI with thanks to just Chat
GBT has a huge huge advantage in terms
of just installed user base and when
they're shoving this new product, you
know, this new super app in in
everyone's face presumably in in the
next couple of months. Um, they're going
to have the opportunity to overtake
certainly the momentum that Anthropic
has. That said, Anthropic made the
absolute right bet here, whereas OpenAI
seemingly did not. um at least for where
we stand right now. And everything
they've done over the past few months
has just been insanely impressive of how
they've angled uh you know what seemed
to be this this enterpriseoriented
company and product towards um being
able to do some things which may or may
not be the future of AI at least in the
the relative uh short term.
>> Can I tell
>> I gave you a non-answer but
>> but uh yeah I mean
>> a lot of it is TV.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I right now I would
bet honestly on anthropic uh doing it
first, doing it better. Um, but it
really comes down to the timing of when
OpenAI gets this super app out there and
if the world is ready for sort of yeah
all this this agentic workflows that
come in and I still think it's early and
so I think that they'll have some time
to be able to sort of catch up to all
the work that Anthropic's been doing
which by the way just going back to the
numbers for a second when I looked at
yeah the the the published charts Wall
Street Journal published those charts Um
it it's sort of incredible that
Anthropic is where they is where they
are given the relatively much smaller
spend on compute um versus open AAI
right and like and that's still going to
be the case from these projections going
forward and it's not like you know in
some cases of course you could argue um
open AIS models are a little bit better
but like by all accounts like cloud is
near the top of most things most of the
leaderboards um for most use cases and
again they've done that without nearly
the amount of spend uh it seems like
from open
>> but that's going to hurt Anthropic
because it seems already like the demand
for their services is outpacing what
they were willing to invest in from a
compute standpoint that's just the sense
I get from seeing the developers react
they just did this thing where they
pulled back some of the cloud code from
openclaw type instances and if you're it
it is interesting because anthropic is
like we are going to build with caution
and open AI is like we're going build
because we see the demand going this
way, which is probably what's causing
those issues with the CFO in the
beginning. But if you get to the point
where the demand is outstripping your
ability to deliver the service and
you're delivering the same service as
Open AI, people are going to go to
OpenAI.
>> Yeah. And that and that's true. And
we're seeing that right now, right? I
think even even today um sort of
anthropic had had a bit of downtime. And
I think that they're they're probably
just getting stretched in, you know, in
ways that are very unnatural to them.
And again before when we were talking
about when these two companies were
going down separate paths like that was
basically yeah I wrote about that angle
a little bit like the two two roads
diverged um because it did did feel like
basically Anthropic was totally fine
with letting openai take on that capex
spend that insane capex spend while they
sort of yeah just sort of focused on
their their meat and potatoes and and
what they needed and and sort of they
were just going to spend for what they
needed. But yes, to your point, the flip
side of that is that now OpenAI may be
in a the the relatively better position
from a from a pure um capacity
standpoint, right? But I, you know,
again, I I'm sort of talking more about
like the way that they've been able to
not spend as much and still do the model
training um you know, is has been
insanely impressive. Yeah. Without a
doubt. Yeah,
>> but you're right like yeah, if if
capacity ends up mattering far more,
what is what is Anthropic's story there?
Because again, this is a company also
trying to go public. And if they all of
a sudden realize like uh we are badly
badly server constrained. We need to
start cutting deals left and right with
all of the Neoclouds, with all of the
big tech partners. Um the the reality is
like just everyone's constrained right
now. So how are they going to be able to
do that? By the way, every time that
does happen, like OpenAI had this issue
at the end of last year where the demand
outstrip their ability to deliver to the
compute. They they did go out and they
made those deals, but you're kind of
over a barrel then and your margin goes
down because you're paying so much for
the data centers.
>> Yes. And that was the story of sort of
the end of last year and I think it's
mentioned in one of those stories today,
right? Like their margins are uh not
going the wrong way. they've been going
the wrong way and and that's it's
largely sounds like it's just the um
under uh underappreciation for how uh
inference costs would would sort of go
through the roof and that's yeah again
that's demand and utilization of these
things.
>> Can I share like one perspective of the
way I think this will go? So, you know
how like the these GPT5 series models,
they'll give you an answer. And I think
they've gotten a little bit better at
this, but like basically every question
you've had, they've tried to do
something useful for you. So, they've
been like, "Let me build you a PDF of
that or give you a five-step plan and
I'll make that an image or, you know,
why don't I take that, you know, uh,
idea that you had for a business and
then flesh it out and delivered to you
in a dock." Um I think as all this stuff
merges that will end up being either a
let me build you an app that will be
able to you know sort of handle some of
these things that you want to do like
for instance let's just take the f
fitness example you know okay you have
some you're key coming to back to me
with these fitness ideas I think I can
build you an app that will sort of you
know help you accomplish those goals or
um even take it a step further let's say
you're asking I'm just going to use an
example from my world let's say you're
asking it for help about like how to
break a video into chapters. And this is
something I spoke with Greg Brockman
about last week. You know, instead of
just taking the transcript and breaking
it into chapters, this thing will now
want to go into Adobe Premiere and start
the edit for you. It's going to just
take that one step further cuz it knows
what you're trying to do. It knows your
interest. And having the ability to code
and go out and get stuff done, it can
become proactive about suggesting these
things and then do more than just give
you that PDF or the business plan.
>> That's interesting. when you were
talking about that, my mind goes to the,
you know, the um if teaching a man to
fish, uh, you know, idea and like
basically AI is saying like, we know
what you're trying to do, so we're just
going to go ahead and do that so you can
do this and you don't have to keep
coming back over here. Um, and you know,
doing it step by step and and slowly.
One other thing that that joged in in my
head while hearing you talk through
that, I do wonder if if there's a way um
and this is sort of delicate given
privacy and whatnot, but like you think
about how back in the day when when
YouTube and and Netflix and and um and
just the sort of other services along
those lines had to scale um and and they
sort of realized like rather than um you
know sort of doing the same thing over
and over again, they were able to sort
of uh save up uh some of the content
that they knew would be sort of pulled
by um was going to be asked for by
multiple people and instead they would
just serve they've had one version of
that and then they would distribute it
out right to whoever asked for it like
is there a way in which AI for some of
these um you know for some of these
ideas and queries um that are just
getting asked over and over again and
maybe they're already doing this to some
degree um but they can stop sort of
trying to do everything on the fly and
instead sort of go back to their own
sort of broader memory of of things that
have been asked in the past and sort of
reference that up just as a way for like
a you know they would never frame it
this way but it's like a good
cost-saving mechanism right like when
you don't have to do the same sort of um
queries over or sorry you don't have to
run basically the models and do the
inference over and over again because
you already have you know a corpus of
data that people that have asked for
this
>> I mean considering that I would imagine
the vast majority of users have the
default uh toggle on to allow the AIs to
train on my conversations.
>> I mean, basically, you know, wittingly
or not, most of us are giving these
things permission to do this. Exactly
what you said.
>> Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
>> Uh yeah, it's going to get like like you
said, I agree with you. It's going to
get very interesting very quickly,
especially over the next few months as
we see this all play out. you know, IPO
anomalous standing, although that will
add a new wrinkle to it and we'll be
able to see even more data on the
revenue numbers.
>> Yeah. And I guess so if so, as talked
about, SpaceX has has confidentially
filed. Sounds like they're targeting
June. So if OpenAI and Anthropic really
want to go out and they're both said
they're targeting Q4, at least that's
those are the reports. They haven't said
that, but those are the, you know, the
internal reports say that, you know,
we're looking at the end of, you know,
summer, early fall when they would have
to sort of file and and um so those are
the targets that we're going to be
looking for and seeing what how their
businesses look at that point.
>> Okay. I was going to say they should
both wait, but they won't. But do you
think they should wait? Maybe they
should just go out now.
>> Um
>> I just raise get out there, raise that
money. I mean,
>> well, how That is the
>> that is the unstated thing here which is
that we can go back and forth about
whether they should or not but the
reality is like given these numbers
OpenAI is going to need to go public
like they need the capital and Anthropic
as well like they basically have tapped
into all of the possible uh you know
private uh uh capital. I'm sure there's
some other things out there. There will
be other little like strategic things
that come in and I say little I mean
billions of dollars of course. Do you
think the Gulf money is is still in play
given what's going on in Iran right now?
>> That's a good question and actually um
>> because I thought that they were the
next one, the final boss, then you IPO,
but we haven't heard that mention.
>> Have some of it in there, right? MGX
ones.
>> Um so there is already quite a bit of
money in there, but yeah, I mean Sam
Alman and and and Dario have been
spending time over there for reasons,
right? They're establishing these
relationships. So yes, that would be
sort of the the one final thing, but as
you noted, given all the turmoil in the
region right now, it's a little bit
tricky. But at the same time, there's
other reports like uh there was
headlines about today just um about the
debt that uh yeah, the the Mid East uh
wealth funds are are putting into the
Warner Brothers deal, which we
previously talked about, right, for
Paramount and Warner Brothers. And so
they're still apparently active, you
know, doing that. And so it seems like
they're still open for business. But
still, at the end of the day, at some
point, OpenAI and Anthropic are going to
have to go public in order to just
access the amount the sheer amount of
capital. And not meaning in one big slug
because again, they're already raising
uh rounds that are bigger than any IPO,
but it's just like all different sort of
instruments that you have access to when
you have, you know, when you're a fully
liquid public company. Um and the
different mechanisms you can use. Um
because remember again like um OpenAI in
particular has had a really hard time
and this was in some of the reporting
today as well like with regard to trying
to build their own data centers because
they just they don't have profits like
what how are they you typically do that
with debt and they're having a hell of a
time raising debt because of the
financials of the company. And so, you
know, if and when they go public, while
they might not be profitable for some
time, at the very least, they'll have
they'll have more avenues um and more
levers to pull in order to uh to put
some of those wheels in motion.
>> All right, let's let's go to a break
because we have plenty more to talk
about, including what's going on with
Siri and then the latest that we have on
Meta's attempt to diversify its business
uh beyond advertising. So, let's do that
right after this. And we're back here on
Big Technology Podcast with MG Seagler
of Spy Glass. You can find Spyglass at
spyglass.org. One of my mustreads.
Definitely recommend you go check it out
and sign up. All right, MG. So, um you
know, I kind of titled this section is
seriously still broken. Um because it
does seem like we keep getting more and
more um big plans from Apple about what
Siri can be. Uh but yes, here we are in
April 2026 nearly it's it's going to be
I mean couple months away from 4 years
after Chad JPT has launched and the
thing is is still terrible. So um let's
just talk about the latest and then we
can kind of riff on on what the vision
year is and whether they'll be able to
accomplish it. Um you highlighted some
reporting from Mark German at Bloomberg
that uh where where German said that
Apple is testing a dedicated Siri app
for the iPhone. The app's main interface
will display prior conversations in
either a list or a grid of rounded
rectangles with text previews. Users can
pin favorite chats, save older
conversations, search across
interactions, and start new chats. Uh
the conversation view resembles a thread
in Apple's messages app. You also sorry,
German also highlighted that one new
design uh in testing uh places for Siri
is at the top of the screen within the
dynamic island. Uh there are also some
reports that it's going to use the
action button on the phone. So it is
interesting. It seems like Apple is
basically kind of warming to the idea
that it's going to bake a chatbot app or
Siri the chatbot app built on top of
Google uh directly into the operating
system whether that's above the dynamic
island in its own app uh using an action
button or a combination of all the
above. Um, but yet again, you know, Siri
is not really ready to do that. So, what
do you think this is all about? What do
you think this means? Where do you think
it's going? And do you think Apple is
capable of pulling it off?
>> I think this is a good sign. Um, the
fact that they're going to do a
standalone app, you know, per German's
reporting, I actually had written about
this last year that it seemed wild to me
that they weren't going to do it, right?
because the previous reporting had said
that Siri was going to sort of remain as
it has been over the past 15 years where
it's sort of in the background and you
invoke it um by either saying you know
hey so and so which I don't want to do
cuz I'll trigger all of my devices right
now or um or using yeah some sort of
software or button or whatnot um but now
if they have an app it felt like they
needed to do that because that is
basically the the standard thanks to
chat GBT that everyone is is used to now
like you go is you say like, "Oh, I'm
going to use AI to do this." And you
either um you know, at at the very least
you're you're loading up then a website
to do it, but on a phone you're
definitely loading an app. You're not
talking to Siri in the background. And
so it felt like this was the type of
thing that historically Apple would
learn the hard way, meaning like they'd
roll it out, they wouldn't have the app,
people would be confused and not
understand like where Siri's app is, and
then they would eventually launch the
app. But instead, it's it feels like
they're getting ahead of it by doing
that and sort of recognizing like this
is the reality of the market. Even
though they've historically said they've
historically by many reports now um you
know in the past have disparaged the
idea of a of a chatbot and an app right
for for those things. They thought that
AI would be some bigger more grandiose
thing where it's again running in the
background and a part of every app and
doesn't need to be its own standalone
thing. But that's not the reality of of
the market right now. The reality is
like people are going to want this chat
app and they're going to want a
repository to see what they've asked
before and they had no way to do that
without building an app. And so I think
it's a good sign. Um, you know, yes,
everything continues to be delayed, but
it's obvious now that they're just
waiting for WWDC coming up. They
announced the dates of it coming up next
June, which will be the two-year
anniversary of when they last announced,
you know, everything that was coming
before famously, infamously having to
pull back um all the things that that
they could just couldn't um ship on
time. And so I I'm getting more
optimistic as time is going on that I
think that they're going to do it right
this time that they have obviously the
the deal in place with Google to use
Gemini and Gemini is going to underpin,
you know, the the um Siri models and now
the new reports that they're going to
allow other third parties potentially to
come in there including obviously
they've already had chat GBT as a part
of it. I think it's way too buried for
when it's been right now. It's way too
buried within Siri. But if they make it
more of a first class citizen and along
with Claude if you wanted Claude, if you
wanted Perplexity, if you wanted any
number of other sort of uh apps, they'll
just allow them to plug right into it on
top of their baseline Siri powered by
Gemini. I think that's the right
approach and I'm getting optimistic. I
know this sounds foolish given the 15
years, given we've been fooled every
single year for those 15 years, but I
think that they're starting to sort of
come into focus on what this should look
like for them.
>> Interestingly, their perspective of
yeah, it's got to be a chatbot app kind
of is now changing places with the
others, which are like it should be an
AI that is sort of magical and baked
into all programming.
>> Hey, it's baby steps. This is Apple.
like they're always going to be, you
know, late to the game and and that's
the real risk with AI, right? Even even
at a bigger level like the AI moves so
fast relative to other technology and
Apple historically has come into uh
markets later than, you know, than
competitors and sort of, you know, quote
unquote done it right, done it
correctly. And so that might be the case
here where they make the most beautiful,
the best sort of AI chat app uh that
anyone's ever done and and it makes the
others sort of look um you know much
worse, more childish or whatnot. And
then everyone else though has moved on
to these agentic uh full-on service
suites of uh of AI and Apple then has to
sort of go back to the drawing board and
and try to hustle to come up with that
as quickly as possible.
>> Right. I mean it is interesting like
Apple still hasn't gotten chatbot right
and um opening eye at anthropic are
already on to the next thing and you you
sort of highlight this in your story you
talk about the biggest issue or the
bigger issue remains that by outsourcing
the core work to Google Apple is might
never be able to catch up from a pure
technology standpoint and this encumbers
the true what's next shift in hardware
and I think this kind of points we've
been having these like debates back and
forth on the show for a little bit about
whether or Apple was actually right and
not making these big investments um in
AI development and sort of what does it
lose if it just implements like Google's
technology into its products and doesn't
have to do all that big R&D spend. But I
think the answer really is that if you
don't do the R&D spend, you're in a
you're working in a technology world
that's going to be passing you by and by
the time you catch up on, you know, step
one, the your competitors can be at step
three or four and it's basically at
their whims uh as to whether you're even
able to participate in that game. That's
the problem.
>> Yeah. And and sort of so I think that
that's all correct. And there's also the
sort of the second order effect of that
which is that look they may or may not
be behind on on the product side and and
with the models. But what if even just
by not sort of competing in that space
while it may make a lot of sense
financially
they run the real risk that they just
never get the right DNA within the
company and the right mentality to
really be able to compete in in AI. And
and if you believe that it's the future
technology that sort of permeates
everything, there's a real risk that
they just don't have again that right
that right mindset and they are
constantly like as you note running a
step behind andor you know they don't
quite have all the right people in place
to be able to execute on this. And as we
just talked about like this is
technology that's moving faster than any
other technology that's come before it.
And so it's not just being behind, it's
that they will fall increasingly further
and further and further behind. And I do
think that that's a real risk. And it's
also like it goes back to the notion
that uh you know Apple um has long sort
of uh adhered to which is that like you
know if the whole mentality of if you
want to uh uh you know prove yourself uh
in computing you and and in hardware
you've got to sorry in software you've
got to make hardware. And it's like what
if in order to prove yourself in this
next phase of computing like you also
have to sort of make your own AI like
that's a part of it and Apple is sort of
seeding that to Google right now and
you'd hope like they have their own
projects obviously that they've been
working on internally. You'd hope that
this is just a stop gap measure but at
the same time what if they can never
bridge that gap because they're just you
know going uh and seeding that work
right now. And this is almost the
perfect setup for uh what we had planned
to speak about next, which is should
they acquire Anthropic? Now, it's been
floated uh in the discourse, shall we
say, that maybe Apple should try to
acquire Anthropic, and you wrote about
it a little bit over the past month. Um
I we never really spoke about it too
much in depth on the show just because
it seemed like Daario just I couldn't
imagine Daario selling that company to
Tim Cook and being a subsidiary of
Apple. And now also the finances might
just be unworkable or Apple's a $3.8
trillion company and Anthropic is
probably going to go public uh at a
trillion. So, you know, maybe more than
a fourth of Apple would have to go
towards um buying Anthropic. But let's c
let's throw that aside, throw that
skepticism aside and just uh give you
the floor here to talk about what an
acquisition like this could look like.
>> Yeah. And this was to be clear like more
of a thought experiment. I I couched it,
right? like that. I don't think this is
going to happen, but I did think my
jumping off point was the, you know, as
we've talked about in previous episodes,
the Anthropic and and DoD situation,
right? Like that to me made a unique uh
moment in time uh potential here, right?
Where anthropic was was under attack
from the government uh and still is. Uh
and so would they um you know be
potentially more amendable to doing a
type of acquisition meaning getting
acquired by one of the big tech
companies in order to protect them and
you know and ensure that they can
continue to do what their mission is.
And if you look around the landscape,
like who's the only real of the big tech
companies uh that sort of would fully uh
buy into maybe that vision, like it does
seem like Apple and Anthropic are the
most aligned, which is sort of ironic
because Apple's the one company that I
think is not an investor now of the big
tech companies in anthropic um because
they're not an investor in any of them
if they famously, you know, went down
the path with OpenAI, but did end didn't
end up doing it. And so, um, it does
feel like there's there's some real
natural alignments there. Now, would
would Daria work there? Would, you know,
would, you know, would he dare sell a
company that's that's potentially going
to go public at a trillion dollar
valuation? Again, it's a unique moment
in time given given the risk that they
face right now. And on the flip side,
for Apple, everything we just talked
about, um, yeah, that's that's exactly
it. It feels like they need to do
something. there's a world in which they
need to do something that's a true
gamechange deal and it's not, you know,
making these hundred million dollar
purchases here and there, which they do
from time to time of talents, and those
are good. Um, and obviously Apple has
has run that that game plan as well as
anyone over the past couple of decades.
But this would be more like, you know, I
I hate to invoke the the idea of buying
Next and bringing Steve Jobs on, which
was a much smaller deal relative to what
this would be, of course, but it's still
that was a gamechange deal that really
changed the DNA of the company, right?
And this is this hypothetical
theoretical deal would be along those
lines in that I think it would be about
much more than than bringing on a great
product and and um you know a a great uh
potential business. It would be about
changing the DNA of the company and
really getting them geared up for the
next phase of of whatever the AI future
is. And right now it's hard to see for
everything we just talked about how they
do that without some sort of real
mentality shift. um and and something
that totally changes the culture to do
that. So that's my argument for it.
>> I was going to say I couldn't really
imagine Daario as a product manager at
Apple,
>> but then again, we know they've been
looking for a successor to Tim Cook.
>> He uh I don't know. He would be he would
he would be the head of AI obviously. Uh
you know, he'd be the G John G
>> chief AI officer.
>> Um but would he still be okay with that?
I don't know. I mean, again, you would
have Apple's unlimited resources. They
would never have to worry about
fundraising. Well, presumably, if they
if they struck the right deal with
Apple, they would never have to worry
about that. Like, Apple has more profits
that they could funnel into this. And um
again, if you believe like Google's got
Deep Mind, Microsoft had OpenAI, now
they have their own, you know, version
that they're working on internally, the
my stuff, and and their own super
intelligence stuff. Amazon's obviously
working on their own internal super
intelligence stuff um internally and so
Apple can they really afford to just
partner like yes literally they can
afford it that's why it's like a great
great deal in that they're not spending
all the money on capex that all of their
their rivals are but there's still a
real risk of that and everyone points to
like oh Apple's going to get the last
laugh here but there's a real real
longer term risk for the company by not
going down this path.
>> Totally agree. All right, before we go,
we should definitely spend a couple
minutes on Meta. Uh they just haven't
been able to put together the next hit.
Uh and we we can talk about Reality
Labs. Um clearly whatever is happening
on AI uh within that company. I mean
maybe there's you know sometimes you can
have delayed progress where you need a
couple of years of research to put
something together. They don't have a
competitive LLM. And again it's the same
problem as Apple. they're now, you know,
not one but two generations behind what
the cutting edge is. Uh, and so what
what do you think the state of what do
you think that says about where Meta is
today? Where it say what it says about
Zuckerberg, the fact that they are
unable to come up with that next hit and
certainly have not been able to
diversify away from advertising.
Yeah, I've swung around a little bit
here because when they first sort of
announced um the scale deal that sort of
you know would was the effective end of
the llama strategy and you know their
new their new path going forward. Um, I
wrote a post like just saying like, "Can
Meta buy the future of AI?" And my
thesis was no. That I felt like they
were basically buying up mercenaries and
it would require a team of true
believers in the mold of sort of
anthropic, I think, was the main example
I used um to be able to to actually do
this. And then, you know, all this stuff
happened. A lot happened obviously in
the subsequent months, but like
certainly with um with Elon spinning up
XAI and and how we got that data center
up so quickly and basically it felt like
maybe maybe you could just throw money
at the problem, right? And and you could
basically get up to speed quickly. Fast
forward, you know, a couple months ago,
there's new reporting that well actually
it looks like XAI uh for all that money
spent and the models by all accounts are
are good, but it's not good enough. It
doesn't matter, right? like what's
what's the point? Like what's what's XAI
doing? And and Meta, all that money
spent, the billion spent and now they
have to delay they delayed, you know,
potentially their their new work and it
seems like that work is definitely feels
like it's being couched in the public
comments about it. It's like, oh, it's
it's going to be a a good first step,
but it's not going to, you know, be
competitive with uh with the Geminis of
the world and the cutting edge models.
Um, and so there there's also a world
now it seems like in which all of that
money, you could spend all the money in
the world and you still can't catch up
to what the leading edge is. um andor
even being at the leading edge, it
doesn't matter because the chatbts of
the world and now Claude with Claude
Code, they have the mind share advantage
where they're they're just going to be
locked into these cycles where they just
keep improving and it's sort of the
self-improvement stuff. um just makes
them better and better faster and faster
just like Google leveraged back in the
day with search engine um where they
were able to just out compete the Bings
of the world and Yahoos of the world
because again it just was
self-fulfilling in a way and so it feels
sort of like that we're into that and
now Meta you know is yeah there's all
these reports about these little new sub
intelligence projects that they're
spinning up and these new groups and all
this other sort of stuff and and again
the reports you know that they say on
the record everything is great and and
we're making progress and and yada yada,
but like the the posts that you're sort
of alluding to that I wrote about where
they weren't, you know, they just they
don't have a good track record over the
past decade plus of launching new things
obviously with the the metaverse uh
being, you know, the prime example, but
several other projects. They had a
crypto project DM and and uh you know,
they've had many many other things that
just have gone nowhere. and and of
course they had their Zuckerberg's big
initiative of going after encryption and
that was going to be the future of of
social networking and that was going to
be the future of the company and now
they're pulling back on that um because
again they don't get they don't seem to
get traction unless they acquire
something and we're in the tricky
position where who were they going to
acquire besides scale and that's a seems
like you know maybe a problematic uh
problematic deal that they did there.
Yeah, I don't think that worked. And um
you know, it's interesting because I was
thinking back to like the old developer
conferences that Meta used to hold and
Zuckerberg put like a 10-year road map
and I remember being in the audience in
2016 specifically and he was basically
right on the road map that there was
going to be some tech technology
development and then AI was sort of at
the end of the tunnel and here we are.
Uh and yet
they don't have they also like Apple
don't have much to show for it. And not
only that, um Super Intelligence Labs
like has already seen some departures.
We don't know what Alexander Wang is
really doing in within the company. You
know, from the chatter I've heard, you
know, there's definitely been some
disputes with him and uh and Meta
Leadership about the pro, you know, the
the path forward and what are you going
to do to him? He just paid more, you
know, billions of dollars to bring him
and some of his team on board. And now,
and this is again just according to
reports, but the company might be
staring down the barrel of a massive
layoff that could be in route, you know,
between now and the next time we speak.
And you put it all together and you're
just like, uh, you know, they got maybe
a couple more shots at the AI getting
this AI thing right. Other other than
that, they they they look like um they
look kind of like a potential Yahoo,
right? Where like
>> they they got advertising, right? and
it's the one thing they do, right? And
they're going to live off it for a
while. But, you know, anything we know
about Mark Zuckerberg is that that has
effectively been his greatest nightmare.
>> Yeah, that's uh that's an interesting
analogy. I hadn't thought about that,
but I could see why you draw that. Um
the difference would be that Zuckerberg
is there and while like Jerry Yang tried
to come back as you'll recall to Yahoo
and they almost sold to Microsoft for 40
some billion dollars uh back in the day
with in Steve Balmer days. Um
Zuckerberg has total control of the
company right from the stock on down he
is in control. And so it's it's a it's a
strength and probably a weakness in ways
right where like they do as he goes. So,
so goes meta and so he leads them down
the metaverse path and maybe he maybe he
was weward in that, right? And maybe he
he was distracted to your point of like
they he had the road map for knowing AI
was coming. So did Google by the way and
Sundar's been talking about that for for
a decade plus, right? The difference is
Google actually executed upon it and
Meta so far has not. Even though they
brought in Yan Lun and even though you
know they tried to buy DeepMind back in
the day and sort of failed um at it and
again that led to Yan Lun coming in
potentially and and sort of they had the
right pieces in place but they have not
been able to sort of what for whatever
reason zero in on it. And some of me
part of me just wonders again going back
to that post it's like they're good at
they're great at acquisitions. They're
one of the best companies ever at
acquisitions, but when they're not
making acquisitions, like they're not
that great. Like they've been they've
been good in sort of copying uh Snap and
stuff like that, right? Even in a way,
you could call that an acquisition, an
acquisition of another idea. Here, they
have not been able to uh both acquire,
you know, potentially the the
game-changing company that gets them
into the AI race in a meaningful way
andor clone, as they're obviously trying
to do now, the game plan of of others.
And so what changes that now Zuck and
and everyone else at Meta would probably
say it's it's the glasses, right? Like
that they have a foothold in in the
early uh part of of you know the next
paradigm shift in terms of uh new
devices like
we'll see. I mean they're they're
certainly successful right now but it's
super small compared to a lot certainly
compared to the iPhone and it still
relies upon the iPhone and so like what
else are they going to come out with?
you know, uh, sounds like a wrist
device, you know, they've been working
on and several other, I'm sure, skunk
work projects that they have right now.
And that's going to be the hope for it
because otherwise they're just competing
again with all of these sort of already
more established players in AI. And so,
they need to come up with something that
actually changes the game and they're
not just chasing and they're actually
leading. And again, the glasses are
probably the best uh place they have
right now, but we'll see what happens
when Google and Apple and everyone else
comes out with their competing products.
Like that's going to be fascinating
because beyond even the technology angle
of it, like remember Apple has a retail
footprint all around the world, they're
going to be able to move any sort of
product that they put out there and if
it's fairly priced, if it's not the
vision pro pricing strategy, um they're
going to have an advantage over Meta in
a number of ways. And it really becomes
uh you know trying sort of a foot race
as to like what's the better strategy in
terms of uh you know getting these new
fangled devices out there.
>> I know we're over time but I just want
to end on this. Sebastian Malib has this
book about Demisabus, the head of uh
Google Deep Mind coming out and there
was this excerpt published in the Wall
Street Journal and it just made me you
made me think about it when you talked
about how good Meta has been at buying
and about how Zuckerberg has sort of
been all over the place in his bets and
this anecdote um just brings it together
perfectly. So Deisabis was on the west
coast when he when DeepMind was still
independent to have lunch with Larry
Page from Google and Zuckerberg heard
about it and invited him uh to dinner.
This is from the excerpt. Arriving at
Zuckerberg's Palo Alto home, Habis
administered a subtle test on him. The
two men discussed the potential of AI
and Zuckerberg expressed appropriate
excitement. But then as the dinner
continued, Habis brought up other hot
technologies. virtual reality, augmented
reality, 3D printing. Zuckerberg sounded
equally excited about all of them. That
told me what I needed to know, what I
needed to know. Haba said later,
Facebook offered more money, but I
wanted somebody who really understood
why AI would be bigger than all those
things. And then he sold to Google.
>> O, that's that's painful. That is an
expensive dinner in what he didn't get
to spend on on potentially acquiring the
future of his company. Uh and it of
course hearkens exactly right to the
future where by the reporting uh the
founder of OpenClaw uh you know wanted
Mark Zuckerberg wanted to bring him on
board as well and and maybe offered more
money as well and he went to OpenAI and
and again history repeats itself. So
yeah not a not a great look.
>> Website is spyglass.org. MG Seagler of
course is our guest first Monday of
every month. MG great to see you. Thanks
for coming back on.
>> Thanks Alex. talk soon.
>> All right, speak with you soon. Thank
you everybody for listening and watching
and we'll see you next time on Big
Technology Podcast.