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Latest Episodes:

Tue. 10/25 – “Extractive Rentier Capitalists” Oct 25, 2022

Show notes

Apple tries to wedge the App Store vig into another market. Prices are going up for your favorite Apple services. Shutterstock is partnering with OpenAI cause if you can’t something them, join them! And what is the deal with Stage Manager on the iPad?

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Links:

App Store guidelines updated with new rules for apps with NFT and ad managers (9to5Mac)
Apple is raising the price of Apple Music, Apple TV+ and Apple One from today (9to5Mac)
Project Volterra launches today as the 'Windows Dev Kit 2023' with 32GB RAM and costs less than a Mac mini (Windows Central)
Meta shareholder writes critical open letter saying company needs to slash headcount and stop spending so much money on ‘metaverse’ (CNBC)
Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI (The Verge)
Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 (13.5-inch) review: a few steps forward and one big step back (The Verge)
Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (SQ3) review: Windows on Arm is not ready (The Verge)
iPadOS 16’s Stage Manager is not the future of multitasking you were hoping for (The Verge)

Mon. 10/24 – Investing In Chinese Tech Means Investing One Man’s Whims? Oct 24, 2022

Show notes

Did investing in Chinese tech become a fool’s errand over the weekend? A deep dive on how TSMC is caught in the middle of all the things. Is Elon’s Twitter deal presenting systemic risk to corporate finance? Are M2 Mac Pro and Macbook Pro’s still coming soon? And Bono tries to justify putting that U2 album on your iphone.

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Links:

China Stocks Crater in US as Alibaba Leads $130 Billion Wipeout (Bloomberg)
TSMC: the Taiwanese chipmaker caught up in the tech cold war (Financial Times)
Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Debt to Be Held by Banks Amid Turbulent Markets (WSJ)
These artists found out their work was used to train AI. Now they’re furious (CNN Business)
The iPad Lineup Is Perplexing — Here’s How Apple Could Fix It (Bloomberg)
Bono on the birth of U2, that iTunes album and Live Aid: ‘There’s only one thing I can see when I watch it: the mullet’ (The Guardian)

(TWTR SPC) The AI Moment With @pt, @miguelisolano & @mignano Oct 22, 2022

Show notes

Talking this week's big week for AI, with Parker Thompson (@pt) plus@miguelisolano&@mignano

Fri. 10/21 – What If Uncle Sam Let’s Elon Off The Hook? Oct 21, 2022

Show notes

I said Elon’s name five times in front of a mirror and the whole Elon/Twitter headlines came flooding back into our lives. Forbes alleges that they’ve caught TikTok doing the thing that everybody fears. What if I told you there was a third huge AI raise story to round out this week? And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

Links:

Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce (Washington Post)
Twitter Tumbles as US Weighs Security Reviews for Musk Deals (Bloomberg)
TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens (Forbes)
OpenAI, Valued at Nearly $20 Billion, in Advanced Talks with Microsoft For More Funding (The Information)
Snap plunges more than 25% on third-quarter revenue miss (CNBC)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready? (MIT Technology Review)
How Gamers Beat NFTs (Bloomberg)
The Hottest App Right Now? One Where Teens Have to Say Nice Things About Each Other (WSJ)
I Turned My Home Into a Fortress of Surveillance (The Atlantic)

Thu. 10/20 – A Day Of Reviews Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

The big Solana challenger had a terrible first day of trading. Previews of the new Thunderbolt standard. Reviews of the new Raptor Lake chips. Uber takes a page out of the New York City taxi playbook. And the first hands-on, quasi-review of Meta’s high end VR headset.

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Links:

Aptos Token Plummets 40% After APT Airdrop for 'Early Network Participants' (Decrypt)
Android 13 (Go edition) announced with Material You, Google Play System Updates, and more (9to5Google)
The next generation of Thunderbolt seems nice but less necessary than ever (The Verge)
Intel Core i9-13900K review: an AMD Zen 4 beater (The Verge)
Uber rolls out ad business to reach more riders (FT)
I Tried the $1,500 Quest Pro and Saw the Best of the Metaverse (NYTimes)

Wed. 10/19 – What Even IS Apple’s iPad Strategy? Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

Netflix actually beat on earnings and customer additions. Why their pivot to ads might actually be in line with their long-term strategy. Yesterday’s iPad releases were even more complicated, and stranger, frankly, than I told you. Bluesky is still plugging away on decentralized social media. And another monster interesting raise in the AI space.

Links:

Netflix adds more than 2.4 million subscribers, reveals details about password-sharing crackdown (CNBC)
The New Netflix Age Has Arrived (Puck/Julia Alexander)
The iPad’s erratic odyssey continues (Jason Snell/Six Colors)
Jack Dorsey-Founded Bluesky Unveils Roadmap for Decentralized Social Networks (Decrypt)
AI content platform Jasper raises $125M at a $1.5B valuation (TechCrunch)

Tue. 10/18 – It’s AI Vs. The Metaverse, And AI Seems To Be Winning Oct 18, 2022

Show notes

New iPad Pros and new Apple TV 4ks. Meta walks away from the Giphy acquisition. Layoffs at Microsoft. High attrition at Amazon. Mobileye is probably going to IPO at a significant discount than people hoped? And why I’ve been telling you that the energy in Silicon Valley is switching to AI startups.

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Mon. 10/17 – Kanye To Elon: Hold My Beer Oct 17, 2022

Show notes

Looks like Ye, née Kanye West, is going to try to buy the social network Parler. A look at the Chinese export controls that could potentially force American executives to choose between their jobs and their American citizenship. Wait until you hear about the Mango Markets exploit. And what do you think is the global population of robots, right now? Today?

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Links:

Kanye West is buying ‘free speech platform’ Parler (The Verge)
Kanye West to buy social media app Parler (The Verge)
Decentralized Solana-based trading platform Mango reportedly hit by $100 million exploit (Fortune)
Biden declares economic war on the Chinese semiconductor industry (Noahpinion)
With New Crackdown, Biden Wages Global Campaign on Chinese Technology (NYTimes)
American Executives in Limbo at Chinese Chip Companies After U.S. Ban (WSJ)
Meet the Army of Robots Coming to Fill In for Scarce Workers (WSJ)

Fri. 10/14 – Meta Lied About Legs? Oct 14, 2022

Show notes

We now know how much Netflix with Ads will cost; we think we know how many ads they have to show us to make up for the lost revenue. What is unclear is if people will watch that many ads. It looks like Zuck lied to us about having legs in the Metaverse. Something something, eventually every company becomes a bank. I’m talking about the Apple savings account. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Links:

Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November (The Verge)
Meta Avatar Legs Demo ‘Created By Motion Capture’, Not Live VR (UploadVR)
Facebook's Legs Video Was A Lie (Kotaku)
Apple Card to Offer Savings Account for Daily Cash (MacRumors)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

WhatsApp is now a spammers’ paradise in India (Rest of World)
The GIF Is on Its Deathbed (The Atlantic)
Can Kickstarter’s new CEO help the company get its mojo back? (Fast Company)
The computer errors from outer space (BBC Future)
How the Glengarry Glen Ross “Coffee Is for Closers” Scene Got Made (Vanity Fair)

Thu. 10/13 – The End Of The Office Era Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

Signal is phasing out SMS and MMS. Microsoft is sunsetting Microsoft Office branding. The SEC is poised to officially ban some Chinese hardware. Is AR not living up to its promise as a tool for soldiers on the battlefield? And would you ghostwrite tweets for prominent venture capitalists? There’s good money in it.

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