Zuck's New Mojo, Elon's New AI Company, Striking Actors' AI Fears

Ranjan Roy of Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the week's tech news. We cover: 1) The revitalization of Zuck’s image 2) Twitter’s payments to creators 3) Whether Threads has staying power 4) Microsoft, Activision & the FTC’s failure to reign in Big Tech 5) Elon’s new AI company, xAI 6) OpenAI’s Code Interpreter plugin 7) SAG-AFTRA actors joining the writer’s strike, fearing AI's impact. -- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  A new image for Mark Zuckerberg. The Microsoft Activision deal is going to go forward and actors in Hollywood are going on strike and wondering whether machines will replace them. All that and more coming up on this live edition of Big Technology Podcast right after this. This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put a Gentik AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis Chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, Head of Enterprise Business Solutions at Voya

• 0:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay? Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, Friday edition.

• 1:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  We break down the news in our traditional cool-headed format. We have so much to talk about. Ranjan Roy is here. Ranjan, I know you have a lot of thoughts about Threads. We've been talking about Threads a lot on this show, but we're going to talk a little bit about where it leaves Mark Zuckerberg and what's going to happen in the battle between Threads and Twitter going forward. That's our A Block. And from there, we're going to move on to Microsoft Activision and plenty more. Ranjan, welcome.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  It's good to be back. I've missed you, Alex.

• 1:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's definitely, there's been a hole in my heart, especially as this Thread story has unfolded and myself, and we've had people on Threads writing me saying, "We'd love to hear what Ranjan has to say about this." So today, we'll finally get our chance, but let's start with the revitalization of Mark Zuckerberg's image. So this is coming from the Wall Street Journal. It says Elon Musk has done the once unimaginable. He has helped revive Mark Zuckerberg's Silicon Valley mojo. That was evident as tens of millions of people signed up for Zuckerberg's alternative to Musk Twitter. After more than eight months of turmoil under Musk on Twitter, a certain glee erupted from those who said that they were tired of the chaos and sometimes nastiness of his particular digital clubhouse, so much that they signed up for threads overlooking the

• 2:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  typical privacy anxieties that come with Meta. Here's the question, okay, is this, so obviously we know why people are going to threads, right? Because they just don't like Twitter anymore. But the deeper question is, did people give Mark Zuckerberg too much of a hard time previously?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Did they give him too much of a hard time? They're certainly not now. People are thirsting over Mark Zuckerberg shirtless next to two other UFC fighters on my threads when I open it up. And we'll definitely get into Threads, the app itself. But, but I'll admit myself, when Threads has come out, it's the first time in a long time I didn't look at Meta slash Facebook with total fear about what are they doing and what are the implications of this? And I'm actually ready to give it a chance. And I think that is the greatest, I mean, short of shooting rockets into space and, you know, electrifying the vehicular system, I think Elon Musk making me be okay with Mark

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Zuckerberg, launching a new app that grows at unimaginable scale, I think that is quite the accomplishment.

• 3:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  And then this, so this is a moment, and some have called it a moment that should be more, the press and the detractors of Zuckerberg should be more introspective. I'm curious what you think about that. Was this, again, like, okay, here's, here's the argument, and I think it's important to address this. The argument is that the press and commentators always need a villain. And the fact that they've moved from Zuckerberg to Musk, and now Zuckerberg is a hero, we talked about this a little bit last week with Alex Heath, but I really want to hear your perspective. So they say that that's a little bit, you know, intellectually dishonest. What's your perspective?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and as someone who has certainly tried to shine light on Meta's practices and what, how Mark Zuckerberg operates a business. I would say in terms of being introspective, it's a reminder because the way Threads has come out and we can definitely get into it and it relates to the Microsoft Activision news. In terms of market power and what Meta still is able to do thanks to its size and its interwoven apps and business lines. I actually think Mark Zuckerberg is getting an incredible free pass right now and I think it's not going to last too long. So I think, yes, it's nice right now Zuck versus Musk in the cage and shirtless Zuck and Threads blowing up are all great.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  But I think like people are going to look pretty carefully at how did Facebook slash Meta, you know, actually launch Threads? And how did they get it to grow so fast and is this a good thing? And when you had Alex Heath on here talking about how Threads is not launching in the EU. And for listeners, I'm actually sitting in Paris right now and I was able to download Threads from the US App Store and try to use it. But I actually think it's a reminder that like they are still, the company is still not willing to play by rules around data privacy. They're not launching the app and they're trying to use it. And both of you guys were in agreement that it seems to be that users will be angry at regulators for not allowing Threads.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  But I feel it's a reminder that Facebook is still not, you know, trying to suck up as much data, trying to not respect any rules around data privacy as possible. So, so I think this is a nice little honeymoon that I hope Mark enjoys, but I don't think it's going to last for too long.

• 5:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So, well, this is the, the thing that I've been thinking about, which that it does come down to product in some ways. Like even though like Facebook and Google were doing the same things as, you know, in terms of like recommending content that made people outraged and making the sort of discussion much more emotional versus thoughtful. People like Google's products more, so they gave Google a pass and all the outrage went to Zuckerberg. And this is like a similar, well, let me finish. So this is like a similar thing here where actually the, the face and the, because people didn't like the Facebook product. The, now people don't like Twitter, the product.

• 6:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's almost as if that is a conduit through which like they say, okay, this person is like, you know, a vector of badness.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  All right, all right. I'll agree with you that Mark Zuckerberg, from like, let's say, 2016 to 2019, maybe 2020, did become the face of why is Donald Trump the president? What happened to our privacy? What are these algorithmic media? All these different issues that everyone started to understand and realize and realize what had happened. And I completely agree that YouTube itself has all the same underlying problems as Facebook Blue or Instagram or whatever else. And, you know, like, Sundar definitely does not take the public hit on that. Susan Wojcicki, how do you pronounce her last name?

• 7:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wojcicki, yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Wojcicki, yeah. She, uh, she was not a kind of publicly flogged villain. So, yeah, I agree. Mark Zuckerberg became the face. And I think Elon Musk, right now, perfectly represents a lot of what's wrong with the tech industry, much more than Mark Zuckerberg. How outspoken he is, kind of like embodying Twitter VC tech billionaire evil guy. I think, yeah, he presents like a better embodiment of the things that are make people are unhappy about, that Mark Zuckerberg, at this moment, does not as much. So, yeah, he's, he's a cleaner story and villain than Mark Zuckerberg was. Whereas, again, data privacy, having like the messages from back in college, like, screw the users and their privacy.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Like, Mark Zuckerberg very well painted those issues perfectly into a picture for journalists. And of course, like, the media, everyone, having like a central character like that makes telling that story easier.

• 8:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. And one thing I'll say is, so, first of all, I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is an angel. I think that a lot of the criticisms of him are completely mirrored. And it is kind of a stunning about-face in terms of like the way that the public, and especially the press, are treating him now versus before. Uh, that being said, um, you know, I think that there was a point where there was no penalty for saying something bad about Zuckerberg. It was almost like, you know, a gratuitous, like, take your pot shots for free zone, even if they didn't have much of a, like, they stemmed away from the critical thinking criticism to just a free-for-all. And to me, I do think that, that it did get a little bit out of hand. Not to say, I mean, I was, you know, I-

• 9:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Full, full, uh, you know, uh, full disclosure, like I definitely was part of the Zuckerberg criticism in the past. I mean, I'd said some good things about him as well, but it is just an interesting thing to me to kind of grapple with as we start to go from, you know, these two competing narratives.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I have to disagree because there was also a time when he was the, on the cover of Time Magazine in 2010 to like, I think he was gonna like, maybe he was Person of the Year, or maybe it was, I remember holding that issue. Uh, there was many years where he could do no wrong and the press, and that's why ignoring all of the underlying issues that Facebook, Facebook was creating, giving him an eternal free pass and he was the wonder kid and the boy wonder and all that. Like, so all of these things kind of ebb and flow. And yes, there was a time where that reputation, because it was so unquestioningly positive, that it went unquestioningly negative. And now it's kind of probably back somewhere in

• 10:04Speaker 01

  the middle, whereas Musk is the exact same thing. You know, he was gonna change and save the world and now the real Musk comes out and now definitely people have a more critical eye on him. But, but I think the idea that there is some necessary fault, I think that's just how stories in the world work. Not to get too philosophical, but like, I think, you know, like a clean narrative always travels better than a messy one. And then for a while he was the, I mean, he's been at the top, he was at the bottom, now he's kind of in the middle, maybe, maybe a little higher than the middle.

• 10:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  When I was sitting down with Nick Clegg for the podcast in Davos last year, um, just a fun sentence to say.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  The Davos flex.

• 10:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Global Affairs.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Alex with the Davos flex.

• 10:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Have to drop it when you can.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  VP of Global Affairs at Facebook, or I think he's the EVP there. Basically, he's, he's running, you know, policy and, and public relations there. And I asked him, well, it was just when Elon had closed the deal. And I asked him, so are you happy? And, uh, the smile that he gave was pretty indicative, even though he, uh, He even though he was very politically correct about it. So let's talk a little bit about Twitter's counterpunch. This week Elon Musk and Twitter started paying creators, sometimes above $20,000. The people, obviously the top tier, but they've been paying them an ad share for the ads that appeared in the replies to them. People are saying, well, this is the counterpunch. It's going to get

• 11:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  some of the more interesting creators to stay and invest even more on Twitter. And it's like the perfect defensive move against threads. What do you think about that?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's not even necessarily big news because every platform, I think TikTok at some point launched, they said it was like a billion dollar creators fund. YouTube has been very successful at both using monetary rewards and using engagement rewards for creators and to build out their own creator community. So I think every platform actually is very strategic and smart about giving money to creators. I think Twitter probably has been the worst at it, or it's been non-existent. So to me, that's not as interesting. I did see though, like, I mean, the questions are raised, though, who are these high profile users? And I think it's going

• 12:25Speaker 01

  to be pretty interesting to watch or try to understand who he's paying. But in some ways, think about when Substack, the launched and who they chose to give the advances to. Again, Substack, the newsletter platform famously paid some people in the hundreds of thousands, even maybe over a million dollars to come to the platform. And again, it was successful. It did what it had to do. It was essentially an advance. And then they would start taking a cut of their subscription fees going forward. So I think that strategy, when executed well, it can work, but it also helps define exactly what you want that platform to be, because who you choose to pay will be exactly what that platform will become.

• 13:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  So the narrative has been that all the Musk payments have actually gone to right wing influencers. But there's another side of that is that like, anybody on the left has left, right? They've declined their use. They don't want to brag about getting paid by Musk. They're on Blue Sky. They're on Threads. So like, is it a choice by Musk? Or is it a user choice of exit?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, that's why to me, again, like, when a platform chooses to pay creators, there it's it's like no different to me than a magazine choosing who to hire to write there, or who the New York Times choosing who to give space to for their opinion.

• 13:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wait, so you think this is editorially driven and not algorithmically driven?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Of course it is. I mean, come on, they're not paying their Twitter is not paying like half of its vendor bills. The choice to actually pay a specific creator, of course, will be editorially driven.

• 14:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I think that it's I think it's been much. I don't think that Twitter said, let's go pay all the right wing influencers, because that just turns it into true social. I think they they probably paid across the board. But some of the people on the left or even the center had a feeling that if they tweeted, like even Brian Krasserson, I think he's a left guy. He tweeted his.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  He's a I think he has been the perfect symbol of like the horseshoe theory of engagement where, yes, there he was like the ultimate resistance tweeter for a long time, but now he's come pretty much around just responding to Musk, being friendly with Musk. So I think he actually represents me. Okay. Right versus left wing, I think, is less relevant than engagement thirsty, willing to kind of like respond to Musk for the engagement.

• 14:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, that's that's a cop out. Come on. Like, if he's coming at it from the left, he got paid. He's shameless enough to tweet his his Twitter payout.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  The left, though, it's not the left.

• 14:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right, anyway.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  It's, yeah.

• 14:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'll just say this. I think that like, that the people on the traditional left who got those payments from Musk, and there must have been some, they they're not publicizing it. Like, it just does. It's not going to show. It's not going to show what they wanted to show.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  All right, I I'm okay with that, understanding that. Because, yeah, it would not be a badge of honor at this point to say you took 20K from Musk.

• 15:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what do you think? So so now we can take a little bit of time, and we'll just do it quickly. But I I've been eager personally to hear about your thoughts about threads. You actually texted me, you know, from Romania, saying that like, this is the biggest tech story of the year. So

• 15:39Speaker 01

  All right.

• 15:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  What makes it that?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  This has been so incredibly fascinating for me to watch, both while I am on vacation and like, trying to keep up with it. But I so first, when you download it. The fact that to me, it blew my mind, and again, talking about how Mark Zuckerberg's image has been rehabilitated, but then in terms of like pure Facebook, like, you know, marketing power, my Instagram, it's already loaded up, ready to sign in. I don't actually have to sign up. I still don't know whether it's already created the account, because it basically signs in automatically. It's even populated my Instagram profile. Then

• 16:23Speaker 01

  my entire Instagram feed, it's trying to nudge me to follow all of them, even though when I signed up, it was like right at the moment it was available. I knew my wife at the top was not on threads. So clearly, you know, it's taking advantage of that social graph. Then I end up on the feed and oh my God, it was like the perfect manifestation of just brandy, influencery awfulness that like what I have loved Twitter because it is not. Literally, the first thing was like Paris Hilton tweeting to Taco Bell, like, good night hun or something like that. And then like that annoying, it's like Spotify

• 17:04Speaker 01

  saying I am music. I don't know, like all these like annoying memes and brand, social media managers having to, you know, like they were told by their senior managers, get on threads, you got to be involved here. So to me, the feed already, and this is before I followed a single person, but clearly it's, and it was clear, they are taking the algorithm. I had some sports highlights. I had like, it was clear they were taking the, using my Instagram following to build my algorithmic feed, which again, is pretty smart and masterful and scary. But again, for them to build a product and like get past the zero start problem where you join a new network and you have no one to follow, you have no feed,

• 17:49Speaker 01

  it's brilliant from their side. But then, you know, a few days later, it's the same thing. It's recycled stuff from Twitter and Reddit. It's brands trying to be funny, which gets old, which is good in like short spurts, but is not that engaging over time. So yeah, those are my initial thoughts.

• 18:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you think it has staying power?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Ah, this is what's, so this is what's interesting to me. I think.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  The brand and advertising side of this is brilliant. I think this is an existential threat to Twitter's business. I think Mark Zuckerberg did win the cage match metaphorically already because like every brand, it is the perfect place for brands. It's this like saccharine, simple moderated, brand-friendly place. So every advertiser already is salivating over the platform and will continue to. And the moment they ask for monetization, they have a better monetization engine than anyone else in the business. And the second they turn it on, every brand will be running to get there. So Twitter's, Lynda Yaccarino,

• 18:58Speaker 01

  God help her, like, I mean, for this to happen after her joining and then meanwhile, Elon is posting dick-measuring contests with Zuck and whatnot. Like, I think from a business standpoint, it has huge staying power. I think you made one of the smartest points of, and it's rare that I'll say that, but I'll take it.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I, to me, this, but from a user standpoint, this more likely replaces Instagram than Twitter. Because Twitter for me, slash, I would put Blue Sky as a bigger potential long-term threat to Twitter because when I'm on Blue Sky, it's the same thing as Twitter. It's some of the same people I'm interested, it's not, it's people I don't really know for the most part, but people I find very interesting, saying interesting things. That is as far from what Threads is for me. But Threads, seeing some brand, especially the more and more the feed does feel visual, seeing some nice photos and meme videos and stuff from people you, you know, like,

• 20:06Speaker 01

  that is interesting. That, that, but that's more what I would use Instagram for. Whether they can get people to actually post like their life on it, the way Instagram, the purpose it currently serves, that will be interesting. And I'm curious because like, I still think back when Facebook first launched Stories, when Instagram first launched the Snapchat clone of Stories. I remember how aggressively they pushed people towards it. When they started Facebook Stories on Facebook Blue launched and wasn't getting enough engagement and people basically getting tricked into if I post an Instagram story, it will repost onto Facebook Blue Stories.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Like, the way they work all this stuff together. I think at some point, they could easily just turn on like post to Instagram, auto-post to Threads.

• 20:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  And then suddenly, that can become like the place you go to to see what people are up to in life. And I would much rather see what my friends and family are up to in life on a Threads like format than the current Instagram app has gotten more and more convoluted with reels and stuff like that. So, so I think overall, bigger threat, and I don't even know if it's a threat. They, they have shown an ability to, you know, like, allow Instagram to become the premier destination and let Facebook Blue decay a little bit. So maybe they will be okay making Threads the new hot place.

• 21:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep, I, I agree. I think that's what's gonna happen, that it's gonna largely take from, from Instagram, but it could take from Twitter too. And your point about this being a, a great place for advertising is, is spot on. In fact, just the second that we finish recording this, I'm about to send out a big technology newsletter where Chief Revenge Officer Doug and I spent the week speaking with advertisers. And the quotes that they give are, are really unbelievable in terms of how eager they are to advertise on this platform here. I'm just gonna read a couple of them for you. I'm just gonna pull it up here.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  I also will note that I love that Doug has officially become Chief Revenge Officer, and it's Doug.

• 22:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  So for those listening, Doug is our intern on big technology this summer. He's coming from NYU Journalism. He's very talented. And yes, we've just promoted him to Chief Revenge Officer.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And do not mess with Doug.

• 22:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, you can't, you can't. Okay, so here's, here's some, some quotes from advertisers. "I'd for sure start to test immediately because it's Meta, generally trust them in every placement they have." This is another one. "They're always making updates to improve targeting and placements and ad optimization." Another. "They already have better ad technology from a marketer's perspective than Twitter. Facebook's ads, technology, and interfaces are much better than Twitter's." And one more. "We'll be ready to jump in as soon as Meta rolls out advertising on Threads. We are communicating with them currently about launch." Many of these folks are saying, you know what, like, we think that this is gonna come by the fourth quarter, and I mentioned this on the last pod, I think that's spot on, I think Zuckerberg

• 23:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  said, listen, like, we are gonna wait till we're on track to hit a billion users, you can already make the argument that they're on track to hit that billion, and they're publicly traded company, Wall Street's gonna want its returns. So I think, but the real question is, can they build audience outside of Instagram's current audience? I think you hit on it perfectly, because if they can't, then it's just another way to buy Instagram ads and on a product that's not as sophisticated. They really do need to pull Twitter's audience in order to make this work from a money standpoint. I think there's already evidence that they're doing some of that, but that's really where the rubber's gonna hit the road for Meta and this product.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Well, let's talk about the user growth, because there's a couple of points on it. Again, fastest to, I think it was 100 million users in five days, and to me, the kind of most comical thing is Mark Zuckerberg said, "We did that with no promotion." So let's unpack that a little bit, because first of all, to me, again, how aggressive that signup flow was as an existing Instagram user, the moment you download the app, everything works very perfectly in an aggressive way from your existing feed. So getting a new user when you have the entire 3.2 billion users using your product, I think on a daily basis, 100 million is not that exciting or impressive. But to me, what's more interesting, this is, I'll get, go a little

• 24:32Speaker 01

  bit out there on this one, is I've talked about this a few times in the past, there have been these moments where, when Meta slash Facebook decides, "We want to make something happen", suddenly, the entire world is talking about it. After they renamed themselves to Meta, and went all in on the Metaverse, suddenly, NFTs become a huge thing, crypto price boom. When they control the narrative, they control the media, like, what article, if I write about threads, will it land and get traction on Facebook and Instagram? They control the algorithm. They control the algorithm. So, and to me, I don't even say that as a conspiracy

• 25:15Speaker 01

  theory, I say that as normal business practice, like, Juice up threads a little bit in the Instagram and Facebook algorithm, then every writer will be happily covering the story. Again, we're talking about it right now. I recognize that, but like they control the narrative. So also getting it to a point where everyone in the world is talking about it, they can turn the dial on that. Like even I remember after the TikTok hearings, and I was pretty disappointed. The New York Times wrote about this almost as though it was this organic surprising thing that the TikTok.

• 25:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  I remember this, yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the TikTok CEO went from like five thousand to like 10 million followers on TikTok. Yes, they can do that. Like they can and suddenly became kind of like a heartthrob and all these TikTokers are like talking like praising him. Yes, they can control what videos get seen and which accounts to push. So, so again, the idea that threads organically grew without any promotion, I think is a bit disingenuous. And I actually, to me, the one thing that could kill it staying power is I actually think it was a mistake to grow this fast. Cause you get all the hype, you get the users and you get the energy.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  But to me, a social platform requires some kind of community, some kind of like vibe to use the word that like, you know, and maybe blue sky. It's been annoying how closed off it's been, but still it's actually been active among the people I know who use it. It's still a place where it has like a very specific thing I go to for it. Like think about, do you remember Facebook Bulletin?

• 26:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Okay. Did you ever use it or did you ever see one in the wild? It for good.

• 26:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  I did, I did. I subscribed to one. I subscribed to one. So Bolton is like their newsletter, uh, uh, knockoff.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they had like Malcolm Gladwell Malala, I think was writing a new, you know, they had these big name launches. And it just went nowhere because they went too big, too fast. I always actually think about like LinkedIn, when they started with Barack Obama's ghostwriter um, in 2013, when they were trying to launch the more like post oriented efforts, I think again, rather than getting. Homegrown organic stars, YouTube was the best at this and Twitter, in fact, was also great at this as well. It's like people who didn't, weren't big elsewhere, they grew the platform. They created a voice. They created a way of speaking. They, that's what made the platform interesting.

• 27:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And right now, again, I think Threads getting that big, that fast, being such a brand focus. That's why it's just like Spotify and Netflix and Taco Bell and Wendy's on my feed, trying to be funny. And then a bunch of recycled meme accounts.

• 28:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, you've got to build out your follower graph. I think the one thing, the one counter argument to this is that they have a built in community, which is a good chunk of the Twitter community that's come over to try it out and has liked it. So the one last thing I'll say about Threads is there've been some people asking for podcast recommendations on it and multiple of you, multiple of our listeners have shared that big technology podcast is something that you listen to and you recommend to others. I want to say thank you. I appreciate that. It really made me feel good to see big technology in the mix. And we love it when listeners advocate for the show. So thanks for doing that. We're going to head to break, but you know, on that note, I do want to say if you have the Spotify or Apple app open and you want to show some love, if you could give us a five

• 28:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  star rating on either of those, maybe a review also, that would be really helpful. It would help us rise the ranks and get some more great guests. So that's always helpful. On the other side of this break, we are going to talk about Microsoft Activision, whether bipartisan opposition to big tech is still exactly the way that it was when it seemed like there was a united front in both parties. We're going to talk about Elon Musk's new AI company if we have time. And we're definitely going to get to the SAG-AFTRA strike and whether machines are going to play, replace actors. Back right after this. This episode is brought to you by App Point. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking

• 29:28Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 30:12Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 31:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Ron John Roy. Ron John writes margins. You can get it at readmargins.com. Great newsletter. Definitely recommend you check it out. Ron John, what do you think about the fact that Microsoft Activision is about to about to close effectively? And that like this big challenge that the FTC brought to try to block that merger just kind of flopped?

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is about to go through. Currently, the FTC has appealed the, I believe, preliminary injunction, the legal specifics, like specifics, I'm not gonna probably butcher, but the deal, I believe, tonight is the deadline, that if the FTC does not win this final delay, the deal will definitely go through on the 18th. So it looks like, for all intents and purposes, it is going to happen. And this is raised, as someone who has been very keen on the antitrust topic and followed it very closely for many years, and has thought that the market, concentrated market power is a huge problem. I mean, it's been a bit disheartening to watch,

• 32:24Speaker 01

  but on the other hand, it's also been crazy to watch, you know, like the backlash against Lina Khan. How a lot of people seem very kind of like, not consistent in terms of their positions, in terms of how they feel about certain things that a Meta or a Google or an Amazon do. But then, when it comes to just the FTC taking power, everyone reverts back to kind of like tech versus government, and we're on the side of tech. So I think this is a pretty important moment, because where, how optimistic I was a year to two ago, I definitely am not that optimistic that things will change. And again, anyone, if you just, on the Big Technology Podcast,

• 33:06Speaker 01

  if you look at the big tech company stock prices over the last year, even on over a three-year basis, they are crushing all mid to small-size tech. So I think like, and when you think about what they've done with artificial intelligence and how things are getting concentrated again, I think, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is not an optimistic time for those who are hoping that things have become a little fairer.

• 33:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Without these seven big tech companies, which is like the typical Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, you have Nvidia in there, maybe not, maybe one more.

• 33:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  What is the seventh one? Do you know the seventh? It would have been Netflix in the past.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  It would have been Netflix in the past, but but I think it it's also been very interesting to me to watch how coordinated, because even the New York Times had a piece that was like very disappointing, where it was like

• 33:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Tesla is the other one, of course.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sorry, Elon.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Sorry, Elon, sorry, Elon. The New York Times had a piece where it was like, oh, yeah, FTC Chair Faces Criticism in Congressional Hearing. And it's talking about like, they're talking about basically tech lobbyists, former Google longtime executives who now are saying like, you know, speaking as though they're kind of neutral parties criticizing the FTC, talking about how they're losing over and over again. And we had Matt Stolar on here a couple of weeks ago, who did lay out the case that the FTC has been doing a good job. And I think this is, it's like the narrative, the FTC is in danger of losing control. Like, I definitely feel everyone is like, why are they losing?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  They're getting creamed, they're losing everything that, you know, they're not going to be able to do anything. But from an actual like, reality standpoint, again, they have had wins, it's just on these very big cases. They are not winning.

• 34:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so I happen to have some sourcing inside there. And you saw some of this stuff come out in the congressional hearings, where they were asking Lina Khan, are you bringing cases you know you can't win? And she said, no, of course not. But the truth is that she has been sloppy in bringing cases and they haven't been strong. I don't think the organization has been run very well. And you can speak to the people inside there and many, I mean, we've seen a lot of exits. And that's what, that's why this backlash is coming, and that's why she's losing cases. Personally, I just think that that's, that's what's happening, that it's like, she's losing for a reason. These agencies, now there's, there's a balance, right? The agencies usually don't like to bring cases.

• 35:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  They aren't sure they're going to win, which is a problem because they've been sheepish and feeble because of it. However, like, you still need to come out the gate like really prepared for victory. And the key, and just the proof is in the pudding, it hasn't been what's happening. And I wonder like, yep, go ahead.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I did two things on that. One, Yes, I like, I think that was the problem that for so long, the idea that we could not, like, the FTC could not win against big tech regulators could not. So instead, they went after middle, mid or small company, midsize and small companies. And then that only allowed big companies to further concentrate power. So I think that was the exact wrong thing. And then let's, it's not just the FTC, it's Congress as well. Cause remember there was three large bills that were brought up two years ago in the House. I think they got through the Senate committee, but never received a vote. Cause Chuck Schumer prevented it. Chuck Schumer, whose kids work at big tech companies.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  And then, wait, wait, and then the judge, this one blew my mind. This, the judge who just made the decision on Monday or Tuesday night that really pushed the Microsoft Activision deal through, her son works at Microsoft and she did not recuse herself from the case. How that was not the a blaring headline. It's insane. Like that's, come on, forget Clarence Thomas or whoever else.

• 37:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  I got nothing else to say on this topic of, geez, like, there's nothing you can say. The, the, yeah, go ahead.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  To me, that's the second part is it's a, has been such a reminder of how entrenched a lot of the power is that like, how, how far the web runs that like the FTC is trying to battle. And, and at that point, I still actually think that going, like making these big cases and at least this stuff coming more to light and at least these battles having to be fought is still better than if they just went after like a bunch of small mergers we never would hear about. If they went after like small companies that where they would necessarily win and no one ever cared and like the overall climate of how companies operate didn't improve. I actually think it's still better this way.

• 37:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, you have to be smart about it. You have to like, sort of, you, you know who you're going after, right? And I think that like resources and energy probably could have been, been used more effectively. But it is interesting, like it is, one of the things that this has sort of proven to me, not this court case loss, but just like the general like petering out of energy in Congress is that like all those tough talking senators and, and Congress people grilling Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey just were there for YouTube and not for, and not for like the actual reasons of doing their job, which is sort of emblematic of what's happened. Inside Congress recently.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  I'll push back because even I was a little, there's like, I saw these headlines of GOP attacking Lena Kahn, the bipartisan antitrust is broken. If you watch the hearing of Lena Kahn just yesterday, like, it's still bipartisan, but the GOP loudest members like Jim Jordan going after her very aggressively, that is very specific wing, but even surprisingly, Matt Gaetz was like talking about the ring from Amazon and the data privacy problems it implicates. Ken Buck, who's a Republican, was who's been at the lead with David Cicilline around antitrust, was very aggressively pro FTC, anti big tech. So I think like, there actually is still surprisingly out of all issues out there.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  This is still a bipartisan issue. Again, the problem is, and this is like, it's the narrative, it's the headlines, it's the way this is, the FTC has lost control. Maybe they just need better PR or something, but, but like, that's been the most disappointing part to me because again, it's still bipartisan, there's stuff still moving, it's still like, it's not that all is lost at this point. And even more important, to me, the most important story was the judge's son worked at Microsoft and they did not recuse himself, but none of that makes it to the, yeah, that should be the blaring headline on CNBC, and it's not.

• 39:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, that's good nuance to the story. So I think we've really, that's important to share. So Elon has a new AI company. It's going to be called XAI. It's a chat GPT alternative. This is coming from the Financial Times. He secured thousands of high-powered GPU processors from Nvidia. Do we think that we're going to like now see like, is it like Elon's like, you know, non-woke chatbot? I mean, what do you think is going to come of this? And of course, we're speculating here. We don't know what the guy, but go ahead.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Well, what do you think is coming out of this? Because for me, whenever Musk launches a new company, I try to wait and see. I think like what the main company he has is the X company, right? And that's going to be the universal app, super app that

• 40:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's Twitter. But this is a separate company from Twitter, but it's going to rely, it's going to partner with it. Here's my perspective on it. You know, I think that like, you know, Elon is running a ton of companies. I mean, from the story, you know, it talked about how he's running, you know, he's got Tesla, he's got Boring Company, he's got SpaceX, he's got Twitter, he's got, you know, Neuralink, and now he has XAI. Like, how does one person handle all this stuff? The one, and so of course, you know, my instinct is to be skeptical of it. But the one thing I'll say is the guy did found OpenAI. I mean, so you can't really count it out here. And I mean, he has the resources to buy the computing power and the talent necessary to make this work. And he has people that have come from DeepMind and

• 41:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Microsoft and Tesla and the University of Toronto. Like, I would not count this out. I don't know what it's going to do, but I mean, I would not count this out. I mean, that's the key constraint in AI right now is computing processing power and talent. And with Elon's resources and with the shine of his name, which still exists in the tech world, right? He can get both of those things, and he has gotten both of those. So it's definitely something I'm going to keep watching.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  All right, let's make a bet. Two years from now, OpenAI valuation or XI valuation? Which is higher?

• 41:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Open. I think it's open still. They have a head start, so you never know. So you have another AI story that you've been watching.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, okay, for everyone out there, go pay OpenAI $20 and get become a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, enable plugins, and enable the code interpreter plugin. This has been one of the most mind blowing things I've seen. Like, you can upload, I uploaded a CSV, and not to get too nerdy here, but there's 350,000 lines. It was like it broke Excel every time I used it. And I say this, someone who has not learned to code in Python is still an Excel person. And what it did is I could natural language query, I could be like, okay, how many times does this show, this term show up, like account function across the entire thing? It actually writes the Python code to query it.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  It even shows the work, you can like unfurl show work, see the code written. And it will run this process, you can make graphs out of it, you can make data visualizations out of it. You can do actually much more complicated data analysis, things that you would have to have spent years like I have with Excel to understand how to try to do. You can literally tell it to do and it will write Python code and it will do it and return it to you in natural language. It to me, it was like, it was one of the, it probably was as like magical as the first time I used ChatGPT. I think like out of all the AI hype and all the things I've seen, because again, all the text generation, image generation still lives in this very contenty place.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Like for me as a writer, for you as a writer, for marketing people, it's crazy, it's amazing. But suddenly you're like, okay, this now it's for everybody. This is like every part of any business anywhere to be able, the fact that this can do this, that you can do complex analyses on massive data sets that would have required a programmer in the past and it can just work and it worked on my first try. Usually these things feel like they can be a little buggy. And again, not to be an open AI salesperson here, but like this blew my mind in terms of most exciting thing for me with any of this generative AI stuff since first using ChatGPT.

• 44:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  And this is the thing, like people have been asking like, well, is this the, are we, have we seen the end of innovation? And are we like at like, you know, the end of the S curve here, right? And was like ChatGPT and you know, these generative models like the innovation and we're not going to really press forward. But it's the application of this stuff that's going to really get interesting, which leads me to believe that there's just so much more to go here. Despite the shortcomings, but it is a generally exciting moment in the technology world, no doubt about that.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's where like, you know, the are we in another bubble? I don't believe this is a bubble. I think certainly like uh, risk management and assessment by investors of companies with AI in their name is probably not as rigorous as it should be. But to me, again, like when I, this is where when I, when I use stuff like that again, and I just see that happening and it feels like pure magic. That convinces me we have a long ways to go in terms of this stuff transforming things. Maybe I'll even have to give Andreessen a little AI will save the world credit on this.

• 45:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow, wow, never thought I'd know.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I take it back. I take it back.

• 45:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's, let's, so, so will it replace actors? Because it's kind of interesting that one of the core items in this SAG-AFTRA strike uh, has been the machines and the potential for AI to replace actors and, and, and people in film. So let me just, um, you know, give, give, uh, you know, a little bit of an indication. So first of all, I don't know if you watched Fran Dreschler's talk, but uh, one of the lines that she had in there as she was, she's the president of the Actors Union. And she said, if we don't stand tall right now, we're going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines. And there was a story in The Verge that went into even more depth, which was really interesting. So first of all, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is on the other side of this.

• 46:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  So they included a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors' digital likenesses for the members of the union. Okay, now they asked the union, well, what is the actual agreement here? This is where it really got interesting. They said, they proposed that, um, that their background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day's pay, and then companies that own this, and their, their companies will own the scan, their image and their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want with no consent or compensation. I mean, this is, by the way, this is happening everywhere. Where the AP just signed a deal, I think with OpenAI to allow it to train on their material. I had a photographer that I know post on threads.

• 46:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  He's like, hey, uh, an AI company wants to train on my photos to learn my editing style. Should I do it? And I'm like, hell no. And then this is going to become a thing, right, where, where you can. We already have digitally recreated actors. You can have AI, you know, versions of of of people on screen. And I mean, this that statement really just goes to it. Scan once, use in perpetuity. So I'm curious, like, obviously, like, it's it's gonna be a very painful strike for the actors here. Um, but but do you think that it's merited, especially on this AI claim?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so two things. One, I think they should stick with it because this is a very important moment. Although the precedents that are set now will define the next 10 years of the industry in kind of labor versus capitals, let's say. So I think it is important. I think like probably from the labor and union side, like, they understand versus the last 10, 15 years, especially with, you know, like with online and streaming not being as aggressive and seeing what happened. I think it is important, but also that's the second point. Like, to me, the AI part of it almost is kind of like a figurehead of the conversation, but but the stream, the broken economics of streaming, to me,

• 48:15Speaker 01

  it's also a reminder, just whenever you see the numbers of how many billions were lost or are being lost in streaming, that the entire model was created in a broken way. And then writers will suffer, you know, disproportionately as that's right. Yeah.

• 48:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, they had the orange is the new black actors. They're getting like 10 cents in residuals outside of like a handful of them for like one of the most popular shows in Netflix history.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Versus like, imagine TV residuals. Like, I think, like, you know, people, the Friends cast or whoever else for years or decades keep just minting money with those shows versus the stream, uh, pennies for streaming. So I think it is, it's an important reminder that the entire way the streaming model developed was completely broken. But during that process, I think the actors, writers, that side just kind of went with things and just let it let it go. And, you know, just kind of the assumption, probably a lot of them were making a lot of money that was possibly unmerited or just kind of the result of like companies making huge bets and low interest rates, of course.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  But now I think it's important that, yeah, of course, but now I think it is more important that, like, on the onset of whatever this technology does and is in five to 10 years, I think. Them being much more aggressive really does matter and it's the right decision.

• 49:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep, this is this, but this is gonna hurt. It will definitely hurt. And it is interesting like, you know, it's like when you are a union and you go to bat on something and it's not making a lot of money to begin with. Like, it's very difficult to like, what you really need to do, what the company really needs to do is change the business model or figure out a way to make it work. And, you know, it's, I don't know, I think it's just kind of tough to like, try to get real wins when just the pie is smaller than, you know, than you'd like it to be.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  No, that's a good point. Like, fighting for a broken business model is maybe actually not, or yeah, it's a tougher strategy.

• 50:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I hate to say it.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  It's a tougher battle overall.

• 50:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  It reminds me exactly of the union fight inside BuzzFeed News, where like, they unionized when I was there. And I was like, guys, like, we're losing a ton of money. What are we, I mean, you know, by, by all means, like, do the union, but like,

• 50:28Speaker 01

  That's not gonna change.

• 50:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's crazy fights over like, you're a cause center. So, anyway, I'll end, I'll end with this. So, this is what the actors, union folks cannot do. They can't do tours, personal appearances, interviews, conventions, fan expos, festivals, for your consideration events, panels, premieres and screenings, award shows, junkets, podcast appearances, poor one out there, social media and studio showcases. And someone quoted that tweet from Variety and said that it looked like a Jonah Hill text, at all the restrictions that they have. But, I, I, that's very tough.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Boundaries, boundaries.

• 51:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. It can be tough to have solidarity on all those restrictions. So, I mean, no podcasts, come on. I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm with them, but no podcasts, no social media. What are they gonna do? What's gonna, they can't even, can they thread? Can't thread?

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Well, they can thread on their, wait, sorry, the AI cannot thread?

• 51:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, this is just.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Or the person cannot.

• 51:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  For the humans, the, the, the union people are agreeing not to do.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess you don't thread on behalf of your work, but you just thread on behalf of your personal space or ideas. I don't know. That's an interesting one to try to battle. Yeah.

• 51:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Ron John, another great one. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Europe. Thanks for being here with us.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  All right. Thank you.

• 51:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thanks so much. Thank you to our chief revenge officer Doug for hanging here with us. Thank you, Ron John Roy. Thank you LinkedIn for having me as part of your podcast network. Thanks to all of you listeners. Thanks for those to those on our live stream. We had a very nice lively group of folks here today. Plenty of comments. Thanks to folks like Pierre and Joffrey and Walat for coming in and showing up and contributing. We really appreciate it. We see your comments and thank you for those. Again, if you're listening here on the feed, we do these every Friday live on LinkedIn and YouTube. So you can check those out. Find my LinkedIn page, Alex Kantrowitz and tune in there. And then we also post them

• 52:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  on the podcast feed if you're listening there. And then Wednesdays, we do our flagship interviews. Another one of those coming up this upcoming Wednesday. You don't want to miss it. And that's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

• 53:01Speaker 02

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  When the world gets you down.

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• 53:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 53:51Alex Kantrowitz?

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  The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.