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Latest Episodes:

Tue. 02/04 – Uncle Sam As A VC? Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

Is the US government about to get into, or at least, heavily impact the VC investing business? Apparently, the trade war with China is still on. The resurrection of Twitterific. And how Spotify has quietly stopped investing, and started getting real about profitability.

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Links:

Trump Signs Executive Action to Create Sovereign Wealth Fund (Bloomberg)
China Hits Back Against Trump’s Tariffs With Targeted Actions (Bloomberg)
China targets Google, Nvidia and Intel as Trump tariffs bite (Financial Times)
Twitterrific team launches new ‘Tapestry’ iPhone app for Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS, more (9to5Mac)
Opera’s new browser might save you from doomscrolling (The Verge)
Spotify Reports First Full-Year Profit (WSJ)

Mon. 02/03 – OpenAI Deep Research Feb 03, 2025

Show notes

OpenAI unveils Deep Research, an AI agent just for that. I’ll explain. Are Shein and Temu first up to feel the brunt of the new Trump tariffs? Apple canceled the AR project I assumed they would be pivoting toward. And the Beatles won a Grammy last night with the first AI augmented song to ever win a Grammy.

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Links:

OpenAI unveils a new ChatGPT agent for ‘deep research’ (TechCrunch)
Trump Targets Loophole Temu, Shein Used to Take On Amazon (Bloomberg)
Shein to Face EU Consumer Law Probe Under E-Commerce Crackdown (Bloomberg)
Apple Scraps Work on Mac-Connected Augmented Reality Glasses (Bloomberg)
Stablecoins are finding product-market fit in emerging markets (TechCrunch)
That AI-restored Beatles song won Grammy for Best Rock Performance (The Verge)

(BNS) Terra Trust And How To Build In Uncertain Times Feb 01, 2025

Show notes

If the entire world shifts after you launch your startup, what do you do? Terra Trust founder Mike DiPetrillo tells you how to do it. What was our original use-case? DOUBLE DOWN on what you do well.

Fri. 01/31 – Zuck’s Complaints About Leaks… Leaks Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

Apple’s earnings are decidedly mixed. Mark Zuckerberg’s complaints about everything he says leaking… leaked, and there are a lot of interesting details in those leaks. Looks like the SoftBank and OpenAI courtship is a serious one, and if the marriage happens, looks like Arm Holdings can be leveraged for the dowery. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

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Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Thu. 01/30 – Everyone Reports Earnings But Wall Street Only Wants Capex Answers. Jan 30, 2025

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Meta and Microsoft reported earnings, but all Wall Street cared about was getting Capex updates. Meta settles with… the President. Waymo’s expansion continues apace. Why Masa Son is the perfect white knight for OpenAI. And AI IS copyrightable.

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Wed. 01/29 – OpenAI Says: No Copying! Jan 29, 2025

Show notes

Essentially, OpenAI suspects that DeekSeek might have copied them. I’ll explain the term, “distillation.” Could you soon be able to connect to Starlink on your iPhone? Is Comcast about to make the Internet… better? And the hopeful return of commercial supersonic flight.

Links:

OpenAI says it has evidence China’s DeepSeek used its model to train competitor (Financial Times)
Microsoft Probing If DeepSeek-Linked Group Improperly Obtained OpenAI Data (Bloomberg)
Alibaba releases AI model it says surpasses DeepSeek (Reuters)
Alibaba Announces AI Model That ‘Outperforms ChatGPT & DeepSeek’ (Tech.co)
Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 surpasses DeepSeek as China’s AI race heats up (BGR)
Apple and SpaceX Link Up to Support Starlink Satellite Network on iPhones (Bloomberg)
Comcast is rolling out ‘ultra-low lag’ tech that could fix the internet (The Verge)
Streaming prices climb in 2025 after already surpassing inflation rates (ArsTechnica)
Netflix won the streaming wars, and we’re all about to pay for it (The Verge)
Civilian jet breaks sound barrier during historic test flight over Mojave Desert (CBSNews)

Tue. 01/28 – Day 2 Of The DeepSeek Era Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

More fallout from the DeepSeek realignment of everybody’s thinking about AI. Could this be a signal that the large model business model is over and value is going to be in the application layer? Pebble lives! Spotify says it pays out tons, but does it really? And the network of AI local news newsletters.

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Mon. 01/27 – Why DeepSeek Has Stunned Silicon Valley (And Wall Street) Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

It’s one of those days where there’s only one story. Maybe you saw that tech stocks got obliterated today. I’m here to tell you why. It’s solely because of DeepSeek and Chinese AI tech generally. How this tech is making people think twice about the AI boom, what DeepSeek did that is different and how this could affect all of Silicon Valley.

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Links:

China’s DeepSeek Tops iPhone Downloads and Spurs AI Selloff (Bloomberg)
The Short Case for Nvidia Stock (Jeffrey Emanuel)
DeepSeek R1’s bold bet on reinforcement learning: How it outpaced OpenAI at 3% of the cost (VentureBeat)
DeepSeek resets the board (Axios)
17 Thoughts About the Big DeepSeek Selloff (Bloomberg)

Fri. 01/24 – Operator AI Jan 24, 2025

Show notes

OpenAI releases its agentic bot that can do things on your behalf on your computer. Has the Stargate controversy driven a rift between Musk and Trump? Will the US government create a strategic crypto stockpile? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

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Links:

OpenAI’s new Operator AI agent can do things on the web for you (The Verge)
We Tried OpenAI’s New Agent—Here’s What We Found (Every)
Trump staff ‘furious’ after Musk trashes AI project (Politico)
Stargate artificial intelligence project to exclusively serve OpenAI (FT)
Trump signs executive order promoting crypto, paving way for digital asset stockpile (CNBC)
Mark Zuckerberg's Post (Facebook)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

As Netflix stock surges, an ‘anti-ESPN’ sports strategy emerges (The Athletic)

Thu. 01/23 – “Humanity’s Last Exam” Jan 23, 2025

Show notes

Ok, that whole AI datacenter joint venture thing seems to have gotten messy. A ByteDance board member thinks TikTok might have a way out without selling. Netflix rakes in a bunch of Oscar nominations. And humanity’s final exam has been formulated to see when AI has actually graduated to true intelligence.

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