OpenAI and Microsoft's Tension, Apple Screens Everywhere, Meta’s Toothpaste Massacre

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. Cory Weinberg from The Information joins us for the first half! We cover 1) Open AI and Microsoft’s relationship starting to fray 2) Microsoft rebuffing OpenAI's fundraising efforts 3) Mustafa Suleyman's impact on the Microsoft - OpenAI dynamic 4) Why OpenAI sought Apple and NVIDIA's investment 5) Softbank from the top rope 6) When might OpenAI declare it's reached AGI? 7) Microsoft and OpenAI sort out ownership stakes in a new for-profit entity 8) Apple's new smart home strategy 9) Netflix's earnings and engagement questions 10) Meta fires employees for using meal money on toothpaste 11) Silicon Valley and FIRE --- 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/ Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology 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?

  OpenAI and Microsoft's relationship is starting to fray. Apple wants its screens all over your home. Netflix kicks off tech earnings and Meta fires a bunch of employees for using meal credits for toothpaste. All that and more is coming up right after this. This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put a Gentic 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 Financial, to go inside a large scale agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade offs, and lessons along the way.

• 0:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  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 Razor 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.

• 1:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today because we're going to talk about how Microsoft and OpenAI have all this really weird tension between the two, especially after Microsoft invested almost $14 billion in the company. But now things are starting to get weird and we love talking about that on this show. So we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about Apple's strategy to get screens in your house, a little bit on Netflix earnings this week, which just came in and beat expectations. And then finally, we're going to talk about the toothpaste massacre, which we're calling it at Meta, where a number of the company's employees were fired for using meal credits on household items like toothpaste.

• 2:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  And this is something that I pointed out on Twitter. The tweet went viral. I'm sure we have some listeners who've come in after seeing that. Of course, Ranjan replied to me, I think. Taking a different side. So Ranjan, I'm excited to get to that toward the end of the show, but I should introduce you. Joining us as always is Ranjan Roy of margins. Ranjan.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  While Satya and Sam's bromance may be fraying a bit, I can tell listeners, Alex and I, our bromance remains strong.

• 2:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Our bromance is strong. I think it's always a little bit simpler when you don't invest 13.75 billion in the other, but I think we'll just take it as a testament to our podcast chemistry beyond anything else.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I think that's fair.

• 2:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Now let's get right to that story because it's fascinating. So I was sitting back on Thursday being like, wow, this is like one of the few weeks we've had in a long time where no AI news has really come out. And then what I think is one of the most consequential stories of the year, an AI came out from the New York Times. And this story is all about how OpenAI and Microsoft's relationship is getting complicated. The headline says it's starting to fray, but as you read in, some of these details are exceptionally juicy. And it also illuminates a lot of what we've been talking about over the past month or so, when it comes to who might be funding OpenAI and why? And why did Microsoft only put in less than a billion dollars after putting in 13 billion

• 3:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  previously? So let's just start with the fact that Microsoft was going to put more money in, according to this New York Times report. Let me just read it to you. Last fall, Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, asked his counterpart at Microsoft, Satya Nadella, if the tech giant would invest billions of dollars in a startup. Mr. Nadella was initially willing to keep the cash spigot flowing, but after OpenAI's board of directors briefly ousted Mr. Altman last November, Mr. Nadella and Microsoft reconsidered. Then, over the next few months, Microsoft would not budge, as OpenAI, which expects to lose $5 billion this year, continued to ask for more

• 4:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  money and more computing power to run its AI systems. Then, OpenAI tried to renegotiate the deal to help it secure more computing power and reduce, reduce its crushing expenses, while Microsoft executives have grown concerned that their AI work is too dependent on OpenAI. And Nadella said privately that Altman's firing in November shocked and concerned him. So three big headlines. A, Microsoft was gonna fund OpenAI and then didn't. B, Nadella is shocked and concerned about Sam Altman's firing by the board, which we knew. But C, the company, and this is another important thing, the company, and that means Microsoft,

• 4:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  has started to realize that it's too dependent on OpenAI and is working to hedge that bet. Rajan, let's just talk about the top of the story before we go deeper into some of the details. What did you think about that? It's pretty explosive, right?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  I think it's explosive and I think it's the most logical, rational thing I can imagine, especially the grownups are in the room right now. Satya Nadella being shocked and concerned about Sam's firing and then rehiring. Again, for a company of this size and an investment of this magnitude, this stuff is not, is just not supposed to happen. You're running a company as giant as Microsoft. You're used to understanding that things are supposed to run a certain way. And everything we've seen, and we've been talking about this a lot, that OpenAI, for the size and scale of the company, is one of the most oddly run companies I can see

• 5:41Speaker 01

  or Matt think of in terms of its corporate structure, which we will definitely get into. But also overall, just its org chart, which is, I've seen plenty of memes around the org chart and who's been Xed out in just the last few weeks. So I think it's pretty reasonable that Mr. Nadella would be both shocked and concerned.

• 6:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  And now the question comes, what does Microsoft do about it? And one of the big moves it's made is bringing in Mustafa Suleyman from Inflection. And Suleyman, according to this New York Times article, has basically been tasked with two things. One is the way that Microsoft builds OpenAI technology into Microsoft products. But B, The way that Microsoft builds technology that could eventually replace what the company is getting from OpenAI. So in two moments, he's working on integrating OpenAI technology, but also potentially replacing OpenAI technology. And this is some just pretty wild details

• 6:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  from this story about basically the most important guy for the relationship within Microsoft and how he and OpenAI are getting along. Some OpenAI executives and employees, including Mr. Altman, are angered that Mr. Suliman is at Microsoft. And dozens of Microsoft engineers work on site at OpenAI's office in San Francisco and use laptops provided by OpenAI that are set up to maintain the startup's security protocols. Let's see how that relationship is going. And this might just be an isolated instance. Let's not make too much of it, but the fact that it made it into the New York Times is fascinating. Some OpenAI staff recently complained that Mr. Suliman yelled at an OpenAI employee

• 7:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  during a recent video call because he thought the startup was not delivering new technology to Microsoft as quickly as it should. Others took umbrage that Microsoft's engineers downloaded important OpenAI software without following the protocols the two companies had agreed on. Of course, just two examples in a story and relationships are what they are. But that sounds messy to me, man.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  No, I think that was my favorite part. Again, OpenAI staff complaining that Mustafa Suliman is yelling at an employee during a recent video call. But here is why I think this is insane. There's plenty of things that are insane about OpenAI in general, is these are the kind of issues and these are the kind of stories you hear about a lot when a startup is acquired by a big tech company or a bigger company. Again, cultural differences, turf wars, these things are completely par for the course when it comes to an acquisition. OpenAI is not acquired by Microsoft. OpenAI just raised the largest venture round ever and is worth $157 billion. Yet...

• 8:42Speaker 01

  The the relationship between these two companies is so weird and odd that somehow they're still having the same kind of issues that a completely acquired company would have. So I think this stuff is going to just continue. The fact that this is coming out now finally in original reporting, I think we're just going to hear more and more odd tales about the integration levels between these two companies, separate from the financial, on the cultural side as well.

• 9:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, the idea that Microsoft engineers could just download OpenAI software, I mean, without like any protocol, what do you think about that?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Well, I think I think it's a little unconventional to be generous about it.

• 9:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  That is a generous term.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Now unconventional, we'll call it. But but again, with the already, the financial side, we've talked about plenty is unconventional in terms of who gets what profits when, who gets what the cloud credit investment is versus the cash investment. All of this stuff has been essentially unprecedented, as another generous term. But now the idea that, yeah, Microsoft engineers can download OpenAI software, they can yell at their employees on a on a video call about not delivering technology fast enough. It appears that these things are OK in the current setup, and it can't last. It simply cannot last. And I think

• 10:11Speaker 01

  this, even though last week I suddenly became bullish around OpenAI after that one investment slide, these are these things bring me back to earth and remind me that this is a messy situation, and this is not normal for a company of this scale.

• 10:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And that was kind of Silimans reputation. DeepMind was a guy who was kind of abrasive. So it looks like it may potentially be showing up here, although, again, this is the Times reporting, and I don't think they commented on it. But now, as all this weirdness happens, remember, OpenAI is working with Microsoft. Satya is like, well, I don't know if I want to rate, I don't know if I want to commit the same way I did because of your weird politics. And by the way, my team's going to come in and do stuff that maybe they shouldn't. And then OpenAI still has a round to raise because, like we talked about last. Week, the company's making four billion in revenue and spending nine billion. So that's a loss of five billion. And without cash, this baby don't run.

• 11:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  So it needs the money and needs the compute. And it has to look elsewhere outside of Microsoft. So let's go to the to the next part. And by the way, I should I should note that I'm in the process of inviting people from Microsoft's AI team. And I'm sending an invite out to Suleiman to come on to the show. So if he if he wants to, or anybody from the Microsoft team wants to come on to talk about this and Microsoft's general interest in AI, you're more than welcome to. So putting that out there. But let's talk a little bit about what happened with this fundraise. So after Microsoft, this is from the Times article, after Microsoft backed away from the discussions without from the discussions about additional funding, OpenAI was in a bind. It needed more cash to keep its operations going.

• 11:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  And its executives chafed at the exclusivity of the contract. Over the past year, the exclusivity is basically that they committed to using Microsoft's cloud compute. Over the past year, the AI company repeatedly tried to negotiate a lower cost and allow it to buy computing power from other companies. In June, Microsoft agreed to an exception in the contract. That allowed OpenAI to sign a roughly $10 billion computing deal with Oracle for for additional computing resources. Oracle is providing computers packed with chips suited to building AI, while Microsoft provides the software that drives the hardware. And in recent weeks, OpenAI and Microsoft negotiated a change to a future contract

• 12:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  that reduces how much Microsoft will charge the smaller company for computing power. So again, this kind of goes to the idea that like OpenAI is still pretty dependent on Microsoft for compute and for the good deal that it was getting on compute. And if Microsoft's gonna sort of take a step back, I don't know if you could really call it a step back if it's still investing nearly $1 billion, but a less enthusiastic embrace of OpenAI, then it gets weird in terms of the computing costs. What do you think?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, there's also the part around that OpenAI employees are blaming and complaining about Microsoft not that they're not providing enough cost effective compute. And I think we know the key to any good bromance is cost effective compute. And it's no doubt that it's the key to any good bromance. And the fact that they have been getting preferential terms through this entire run up till now, and now if they have to compete at a level playing field and they're already losing $5 billion a year, how, I mean, the economics of the company have been, there's been plenty of questions raised around it.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  And to me, that actually is one of the more interesting things that people need to look at more, and I'm sure more will be coming out around it, is what does their cost structure look like going forward? Because it's not going to be what it is today, and it's not great today.

• 14:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  It just pushes home some of the topics we've been talking about previously on the show, which is basically like, you're turning in a $5 billion loss with sweetheart terms. So what happens when that goes away? It's a real question. And OpenAI is trying to solve this. And remember, we talked about how Apple and Nvidia were potentially going to fund the company? And I think that's basically, I mean, this is again from the story. It seems like that was basically OpenAI's interest in trying to find others that could help it with compute. Right? Part of the plan, this is according to The Times, was to secure strategic investments from organizations that could bolster OpenAI's prospects in ways beyond throwing around money.

• 14:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Those organizations included Apple, the chipmaker Nvidia, and MGX, a tech investment firm controlled by the United Arab Emirates.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I think they need to, they, again, it's not cash, it's compute, which is interesting in terms of what this means for just any kind of generative AI-driven business, but I think it says a lot that they were more focused on preferential compute rather than cash, knowing that that is the majority of the cost. But to me, and we talked a lot about this last week, the projections they've given around how they turn profitable, everything assumes a significant decrease in relative compute cost. The idea that they are pitching is that things will get more efficient, things will become more cost-effective in terms of how they train the future models, but it's still weird that they're saying that in the

• 15:43Speaker 01

  financial projections, yet specifically trying to chase investors who can provide them compute. And I think it just shows the, the, uh, the conflict at the heart of all of this.

• 15:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  But I think there's, there's some logic to take their side for a moment in that, which is basically like, for the time being, there's going to be a lot of compute required, but over time, as more efficient or different techniques for training and inference come about, that will not factor as much as it does now, right? This is going to be about the crudest possible way you can train and run an AI model today, because we don't have necessarily the hardware custom built for it, and because the techniques are still in their infancy, and over time that will come down. But in the time being, if you want to survive, you need that compute.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I think that's fair, but it's still the numbers, it doesn't make the numbers add up anytime in the near future. And this is a company that, as you, I think in the piece you had written this morning, you said that they just raised a $6.6 billion round, but the question is, when do they need to raise again? And as long as that's the case, the stuff is not going to happen over months, it will happen over years. So the actual sustainability of the company has to be called into question then.

• 16:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Without a doubt. Let's just season that for a moment. One of the things that this story really illuminated for me was that you have Microsoft backing away, you have Apple and Nvidia taking a sniff, deciding not to invest. You have traditional VC deciding not to invest for the most part. Okay, you have Thrive Capital that's gonna, you know, this time put in billions of dollars, it seems like, or at least a billion into the round. And you were raising 6.6 billion, you're losing 5 billion. So we're thinking late next year, they're gonna have to be putting together the next round of presentations to take to investors, which by the way, the year afterwards, they might lose 14 billion. And that is the question, is after going through all these sources of funding, no matter how promising the technology is and the technology

• 17:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  is funding, who's gonna foot the bill for that 14 billion in loss in 2026, after you've already gone through this set of characters? It seems like the only one that could possibly do it is a nation state.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Well, I think in terms of the funding, and maybe this is a controversial view on it, but I've written before around the whole model of late-stage momentum-driven investing, where Entiger, Global, Altimeter, these companies really push this model 2021, 2022, you come in midway, you come in late, you increase your investment and make it bigger and bigger and bigger at a higher and higher valuation, even though theoretically that's not, like, instead of fighting for better terms in the latest round, you are happy with that sky-high valuation because it means your earlier investment now shows a much bigger return, and then you can go out and raise a new fund off of that. And that whole flywheel

• 18:41Speaker 01

  worked very well, and it looks like that's what Thrive is doing. And remember, Thrive is big, but it's not gigantic. So this scale of investment of a billion dollars, I think...

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Is it's kind of telling that there instead of kind of backing away, letting others actually who have that kind of capital base, take care of these bigger rounds and just sitting on your massive gains off of your initial early investments. And they're very early in OpenAI. But I think they're quadrupling or quintupling down right now. So I think it's the composition of investors really says something from this past round.

• 19:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. I mean, the other option is maybe they just get SoftBank, which was involved in this last round.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  They just go all in. Masayoshi Son says, I'm going to take one last bet and it's all of his money into OpenAI. And OpenAI achieves AGI, Masayoshi Son gets paid back in multiples and the SoftBank story and the OpenAI story turned out beautifully.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  I, for, for anyone who followed the WeWork story closely, there's all these amazing anecdotes around like, and I think there was even in the, the TV show of like Masayoshi Son, sitting in the backseat of a car with Adam Newman with Justin iPad and raising the $4 billion right there. I would pay anything to just get to see a meeting of Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son.

• 20:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And he said to Newman, he's like, you're crazy, but you're not crazy enough. And Adam Newman was definitely crazy enough. And he's like, your big flaw is you're not, you need to be crazier. And if that's what Masay reacted to when he was sitting next to a coworking entrepreneur, what's he going to do with Sam Altman? He's going to build an AGI.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Oh my God, the lifelong vision. This is your capstone in life and Sam Altman's the guy that's going to deliver it. I think, I think we have not seen the last of SoftBank's involvement in this. Now that we're laying out this out, I mean, this is his dream. Sam Altman is the prophet to Masayoshi Son's vision.

• 20:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  But, okay, but I mentioned AGI and we're talking about weirdness. And today, and we love talking about the weird stuff on this show. And today, we've mostly focused on the structure, the nonprofit structure. But the Times article brings what might be the weirdest part of the entire OpenAI corporate structure into focus, which is that OpenAI needs more compute to try to build AGI. But once it builds AGI, it's no longer beholden to Microsoft. This is from the story. If OpenAI builds artificial general intelligence, a machine that matches the power of the human brain, Microsoft loses access to OpenAI's technology. The clause was meant to ensure that a company like Microsoft did not misuse the machine of the future.

• 21:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  But today, OpenAI executives just see it as a path for a better contract.

• 21:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  And the OpenAI board is the one that decides whether AGI has arrived or not. I mean, this could really lead in very, very interesting directions.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  This one sent me through the roof. I mean, in a legal proceeding, in a contractual situation, I'm just picturing a bunch of investment bankers standing around negotiating terms and just the term AGI being so callously thrown around in terms of like, I mean, I want to know, are there footnotes and definitions around what is AGI? As you said, it sounds like the OpenAI board gets to determine whether it has arrived. So can they just say, all right, AGI, we're done. Now let's, no more profits for you, Microsoft. I think this is, I saw one tweet, it was like, welcome to the stupid cyberpunk future.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  And that's what this one felt like.

• 22:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think we're joking about it, but I think that might very well be what happens. Remember, the board is now packed with Altman loyalists. And it's not that Microsoft doesn't get the profits, it's just it loses access to the technology. And the simplest, easiest way out of this situation is for the Altman loyalists on the OpenAI board to say, well, GPT technology can reason, it is proficient in many different tests, many different disciplines, it's general, it's intelligent, and it's artificial. We declare AGI, get out of our backyard. Take your laptops and go.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Wait, this is interesting. Now that I'm thinking about it, you're right. This could be the ultimate chess move by Sam Altman right here. And again, the idea is still in these negotiations. I always assume Microsoft and Satya Nadella have the very strong upper hand. But getting a clause like this into your contract and you being able to define, as you said, it's artificial, check. General, check. Intelligent, check. All right. It's, we negotiate.

• 23:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  AGI, baby.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  It's AGI, baby. We're there.

• 23:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  If OpenAI declares that, let's say the next version, let's say GPT-5 is AGI. When, and let's say it's like, you know, better than GPT-4, but not by much. I think a lot of people will go along with it and just be like, of course it's AGI. And that would be it.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  I think, because we, no one has ever actually explained exactly what it is, other than very nebulous paintings of a future and like completely, you know, self reasoning models and stuff like that. But what exactly does, does that mean? You can run through a customer service workflow and the, the agentic, the agent will make some decisions? And that's it?

• 24:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, just as capable of as a human in a bunch of different disciplines. And if you look at all the different tests that it's built, like passed, the same model, passing science tests, passing math tests. Why not?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  And just like a human, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate or correct. In fact, that's even more human.

• 24:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  More human.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  That's more AGI.

• 24:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Here on Big Technology Podcast, on October 18th, 2024, we declare that OpenAI has reached AGI.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  I second this motion. Put it in the contract. Passed.

• 24:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  By the way, there's another issue here, which is that, by the way, we're just kidding. For those who might take that one literally, there's, there's a, another really interesting issue here, which is that Microsoft's invested 13.75 billion into OpenAI. OpenAI is now going to tradition, transition into a for-profit corporation. And the question is, what does Microsoft?

• 25:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Microsoft's investment entitled to in this new for-profit company. And both Microsoft and OpenAI have hired investment banks to to see this through. And I'm curious what your perspective is, Ronton, having spent time in the financial world. How do you settle something like this? I mean, they put a lot of money in. They should be entitled to a traditional, maybe like Series A lead investor stake, which would give them, what, like 15% of the company?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so I think this detail is why I was just laughing so much with the idea of Goldman Sachs bankers and Morgan Stanley bankers sitting around with a straight face, trying to negotiate through these things. But one thing I wanted to touch, in that Wall Street Journal article, there is a really good infographic data visualization on how profit distribution works in the current structure. And remember, the latest round still requires that, I think it's in the next three years, they do convert to a for-profit structure. Two years, okay. But this one was crazy to me in terms of when we're talking about unconventional or unprecedented.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  So the first $194 million of the company's profits pay back its initial investors. The next $17.3 billion of profits will make Microsoft whole on its initial 13 billion. So they'll get 75% of that. Then after that, all profits up until a certain cap, half go to Microsoft, 40% to OpenAI, some to the actual nonprofit arm. And then after that, everything goes to the nonprofit arm. That's the the initial nonprofit structure. Weird as it is, my favorite part of reading that is this is a company that's losing $5 billion.

• 27:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, right. And we're assuming there are profits.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Assuming there are ever any, not just profits, but that scale of profits. And again, like, yes, Google and Meta just churn out profits and cash. But LLM-based companies are a completely different model. I'm getting more and more convinced they're more akin to an industrial company versus a pure tech company from everything that we've seen so far and everything that I think will happen. So the idea that they're all, they have such detail around how they're going to share profits in the future. When this is a company that cannot make money on preferential terms is a bit comical to me.

• 28:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  But Ron, John, I have to say, I think you're deeply misguided on this one because in your calculation, you are including training costs in the profit calculation. We know you don't do that.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  And you don't include your training costs in the profit. LLM adjusted EBITDA for for those who weren't with us last week.

• 28:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  We ranted.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  We ranted a good amount, but I think the most important part of this article was was that, again, that that image of bankers sitting around trying to, and I think they'll probably take themselves seriously because they're going to be getting paid a lot in fees over when you're dealing with this kind of money, but still with a straight face based on all of the training they have ever had around any other kind of deal, trying to come up with things like, what should this be worth? How are they going to convert into a for-profit company, AGI, elements of the contract, all these kinds of things. Someone must be just kind of messaging in the background,

• 29:05Speaker 01

  what the F is going on?

• 29:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, yeah. No, definitely. It's obviously untraditional. This doesn't happen usually. Actually, it's unprecedented, to use your word, for a company that starts as a nonprofit to end up becoming, you know, one of the highest valued private companies in the entire world. Just to go back to the including your training costs and profitability thing, I did look into this this week. And I found out some interesting things, which is, and this is potentially one way you might look at it, which is that the nature of models might change and that training cost could actually be quite variable. So if you think about it with the O1 model, OpenAI's reasoning model, you ask the question and then it reasons through after the prompt.

• 29:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  So a lot of that compute actually happens in the inference part as opposed to the training, even though the model is super smart. So this idea that like training costs will necessarily go up and are a fixed cost as opposed to a variable cost, maybe that's not the case because of different techniques and approaches over time. And maybe that's why you include, you say, if we're looking at profitability, we can ramp up training costs and we can ramp them down. And let's just put that out of the picture for now. So you can get a better picture of where we might be.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  I think that's that's probably the argument that is being made and will be made. And while I don't think it's completely unreasonable, again, the idea that is it a fixed cost that's amortized over a long period of time? Or is it something that is applied to essentially a cost of goods sold and applied to every query or transaction? I think this is a new world in that sense. But to me, when, what was it in terms of their expense structure? The percentage of the vast majority of your expenses are on this one thing that powers

• 31:02Speaker 01

  your entire business to say that that should not be included into how you determine profitability is generous. This is the generous episode.

• 31:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right. I'm with you on that one. Also, there was an idea that was brought up actually in our YouTube comments that this is going to be that that training will no longer be included as a cost because OpenAI is going to stop with GPT-6 because just the training and the compute and the data costs will be so high that you can't really go beyond that. I looked into that and that's not true. So I don't think that's going to be the end of it, although they're certainly going to come into, at least I think as far as OpenAI is concerned, although they will certainly come into some resource constraints pretty soon. So they just might have to train differently. But the idea that training costs will go to zero once they hit GPT-6 because they're done then, that's not right.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  I think that that was a, that's the right way to look at it for now, for now.

• 32:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's talk about this Apple story. By the way, like the second most fascinating company in tech right now outside of OpenAI, I think is Apple. Apple, of course, is pushing hard into artificial intelligence with Apple Intelligence and it's seen slowdowns in China. It had, what, five of six quarters going back to last year at one point with revenue growth declines and it's seemingly getting beat by Meta in AR and VR and it has this powerhouse iPhone. And you really wonder like, what's Apple's next chapter going to be? Well, we got a hint from Mark Gurman where he says, look, they're going to get into a smart

• 32:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  home strategy. And they've tried this before, hasn't really worked with the HomePod, but folks, it's coming again. And this is from Gurman. For years, Apple has sold the go-to devices for our pockets, wrists, backpacks, backpacks and desks, but it has struggled to achieve the kind of success, that kind of success in another key area, the car, in other key areas, the car, the face and the home. Now the company is setting out to conquer the smart home with an aggressive new strategy, putting Apple's screens and software throughout the house in a way that creates an end-to-end experience. Over the next two years, Apple will deploy a new Home OS operating system and smart display, as well as a higher-end robotic tabletop device.

• 33:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  So AI is going to govern how these products work. The tabletop device, for instance, will use AI to understand its surrounding environment so it can sense who is looking at the screen, what people are doing and who is speaking. And that capability, Gurman says, can make the device compelling. It might actually be the first product built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence, which he says, they claim the Apple iPhone 16 is, but really it isn't. And the table device, tabletop device is going to be very interesting. It's going to be about $1,000, he says. It's going to focus on home security monitoring, advanced video conferencing, media playback, high-quality audio, and the screen would be positioned atop a swiveling robotic limb,

• 34:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  helping it stand out from competitor products. Ranjan, I know that you are a proud and potentially frustrated HomePod user. Do you think that it's going to work for Apple this time?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  When I started reading this article, I actually would have completely disagreed with you that they're the second most fascinating company in tech. I would actually have started to call them the most boring company in tech right now because nothing they're doing is that interesting to me. Apple Intelligence is a dud. The Vision Pro has certainly not captured our imaginations in the way they would have, uh, would have hoped for, but damn it, this tabletop device got me all excited again. Cause, okay.

• 35:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  I thought I was out and they brought me back in.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  They, that's Tim Cook, the greatest dealer of all time. I, uh, no, but seriously, I, so I have HomePods throughout my house. They are not great. I, I'd switched from Alexa's to, but all my lights, I have routines and they work pretty well, but they're definitely, to get them to work, takes a lot of work. It's not the kind of thing I think the average consumer would ever invest the time to do. You have to be a bit of a smart home nerd. But to me, what do they do great? Make devices with screens. And I, I've been thinking more and more because I used to have an Amazon, whatever the one is that has a small screen.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  And the difference, the show. So the difference between having that and having just basic video or image or video content show up as a part of the answer to the question. Again, the simplest one, what's the forecast? Probably something I ask every day. To have that displayed as well as spoken to you is a pretty powerful thing. So thinking about how that can actually become the, if it can become the central hub of your home and it's a product that's kind of a big, cool iPad that you're on FaceTiming on, I'm using for watching some videos and I'm just doing, using for like basic iPad stuff as well as being the smart home hub. God damn it. That excites me.

• 36:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Ron Towns back. Well, you know what's interesting because we watched Apple unveil Apple Intelligence in that big vision setting event at WWDC. And we should have known the moment they sent that notification that was basically like, your flight is leaving this time, it's going to take this, you should probably get going, or should I adjust it for you? And all, you know, all this like intel, personal intelligence coming right to you through the phone. It should have been obvious that this is where they were going to go because that strategy, if it works, and that's still a big if, right? We haven't seen the returns yet.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  If.

• 37:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  But that strategy, if it works, is built for the in-home device and the in-home display. So it's one of those things where like the Apple Intelligence, if they do get it going, and maybe they will, right? We're still in the early, early innings here. It could be like a double grand slam because it will help sell more phones and then also build this new line of smart devices, screens and robotic arms in your houses that know you and will help you and be assistive to you. And that is a compelling vision.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, again, Apple products are already kind of the, the fabric of my home. Like, and I know that might sound a bit grandiose, but like between the Apple TV, the HomePods, my, I can set lights, routines, everything from my phone, speak it to the HomePod. And again, that took a lot of work and essentially programming on my part. So the idea that anyone can eventually do that and just plug and play and it just works and they can literally map their entire house and have it. And the only company I feel that people will, big

• 38:13Speaker 01

  tech company that people will feel secure doing this with is Apple. That's one of the big reasons I did switch from Amazon products. So I think. It puts them in an interesting place. And I mean, I'd pay well over $1,000 for this, whatever this tabletop device is. Again, I'm hooked. I'm already in.

• 38:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  But they got to deliver basic Siri functionality just to build this dream. Just still.

• 38:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's predicated on intelligence, like Germain says. By the way, quick stat before we go to break, Apple, in the first three weeks after the iPhone 16 came out, saw a 20% increase in sales in China, which has been a weak point for the company. That being said, it's still dropped. The iPhones, total iPhone sales still dropped 2% on the year in the first three week period because, as according to Reuters, because of decreased sales of older models and increased competition from Huawei's Mate and Pure Series. Okay, so very interesting mixed picture from Apple. Very interesting, especially as we head into earnings, because of course, we know that early perspective, those early days are going

• 39:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  to be included in earnings. So let me just quickly tease, Dan Ives and Stephanie Link are going to be joining me on the show to break down the story on Apple as well as the other big tech companies that are reporting earnings. We're going to do that next Wednesday. So make sure to stay tuned. And if you're not subscribed to the show, subscribe so you can get that on Wednesday. All right, we're going to talk about Netflix earnings briefly. We're also going to talk about Meta's toothpaste massacre in the time that we have left. We're also going to take a quick break. But before we go to break, I just want to make one more plea for ratings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Again, these are the only public facing metrics that we have for the podcast that people can take a look at to see whether people listen to it, to see whether people enjoy it, and to

• 40:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  see whether they or the executives that they represent should appear on the podcast. So if you're willing, it takes a second, a five star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, talking about how you like the podcast, or even just hitting those five stars will take 30 seconds. Will go a long way in us showing that we have folks listening and that people should give us some top tier execs to come back on the show or to come on the show for the first time. So. Would love it if you could help us there. Again, when we come back from the other side of this break, we're going to talk about Netflix's earnings. We're going to talk about the, as we're calling it, the meta toothpaste massacre, and we'll be back right after this. This episode is brought to you by App Point. Everyone's racing to roll out AI

• 40:50Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 41:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. That's avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. Violent threats against executives are growing at an alarming rate. When a company experiences backlash, executives are the first people blamed. When their address and other personal details are sitting online, this backlash can lead right to their front door. The team at Ironwell knows this better than anyone. They've protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. As a white glove enterprise security service, they protect your people with continuous

• 42:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and human-led emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwell ensures they hit a dead end. So here's what to do. Go to ironwell.com/bigtechnology, fill in the quick form, and request your free risk assessment. Their team will show you just how exposed your executives are, and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. That's ironwell.com/bigtechnology. Learn how to stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. The link's in the show notes.

• 42:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition with Ron John Roy. We're talking about Netflix earnings and let's do it briefly, but it's very interesting. Netflix came in to the quarter on a massive heater, as they say in market talk. The share price had almost doubled in the past year. It was up 46% year to date. It was on an unbelievable run and it beat all of its expectations. And today on Friday, let's just take a look. The stock is up 10%.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  10%.

• 43:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's had a new all time high. It's worth $324 billion. But the company's engagement in the first half of this year was effectively flat, up only 1% from the previous reporting period, the last half, first half of last year. That was despite adding 39% 39 million new subscribers after its password crackdown. So it shows that the company, I think, has maybe saturated the market. It's gotten its existing users to pay more, but it hasn't really added much net new users or net new watch time despite the really nice looking numbers. They asked me on CNBC yesterday, is it peak Netflix? I say it's a valid hypothesis. Ron, John, what do you say?

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Wait, sorry, hold on. I thought they they added 5 million subscribers last quarter, correct?

• 44:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So I said 39, the 39 million that they added was between Q2 2023 and Q2 2024.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so over, which is pretty significant. And as you said, I think the password crackdown, what's really interesting about that to me is that's the kind of UX thing and also business that has massive business implications that could have gone terrible for them. It could have received some major backlash. People got very used to it. It was something it's almost like a cultural meme. And instead, people are just subscribing. So it shows this is something people want. This is it's almost reaching that maybe it's saturation, but it's almost household utility. You just don't not subscribe to Netflix. So to me, these numbers were just a heater, as you, as

• 45:05Speaker 01

  you, as you called it. Even one thing that I thought was really interesting was They just broke through their May 20 or October 2021 high. So the stock being up 10% today. And this is something that if we all remember the May 2021 and the where the world was and where every stock was, it's absolutely on a heater through the roof. So this is a company that's back and established and was in trouble because no one else has made the economics of streaming work. None of their competitors, they're all funneling money into it and it's essentially a money losing operation, the Disney pluses of the world, the Mac HBO or Max's of the world.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  And this, they have shown this business model can not only work, it can keep growing. So I'm going to put them as the second most interesting company in tech right now.

• 45:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, explain the, the minimal growth on engagement. I mean, average watch time per user is going down and they only grew engagement like total minute hours watched on the service by 1% over a year.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Exactly, but I, I think, I mean, there's obviously my own personal anecdotal behavior, but I think overall this is good. People kind of, I feel have a portfolio approach to their streaming media.

• 46:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  They do.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  In the past, Netflix would have been the one you have and you just binge whatever is on there. Now people will choose maybe two or three or four. Uh, what are this, what are you going to pay for each month? And within that, you're going to cycle back and forth, but you still have the must haves. And as long as Netflix is able to grow their overall customer base and remain essentially a utility in the streaming portfolio. I think that's the decrease in engagement is fine as long as people get enough to keep subscribing.

• 46:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe, well, they're about to, they're going to raise prices. So we'll, we'll see what happens, whether they can actually.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  I don't even, I don't even know what it caught, what I'm paying right now. I feel, if remember, it used to be $9.99 a month, very clear, very, I think it's probably like 17 a month now, maybe.

• 47:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  I know exactly what I'm paying. It's $6.99 a month because I'm on the ad tier, baby. And I'm a sicko and I love, uh, seeing what's going on on these experimental tiers and.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  And also saving the money. And so here I am.

• 47:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Six ninety nine a month.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Your guy.

• 47:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  For Netflix and ads.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Wait, this is interesting. In my portfolio.

• 47:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I have, I'm a Hulu ad tier guy.

• 47:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  They've never made the jump to no ads, but Netflix, I just can't do it. I'm still, uh, maybe it is, I think that's an interesting, and I'm curious from listeners, what their own streaming portfolios look like, but which ones are you full price? Which ones are you ad tier? Which ones are you, uh, downloading the torrent? Not that anyone would do that.

• 47:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know what I just thought? If I was single, I could never do Netflix ad tier.

• 48:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank God I'm married, because imagine Netflix and chill with like ads that you can't skip for Chevrolet. It's like, do you want to come over? Hey, let me put some Netflix on. You have a glass of wine. Start watching a romantic comedy and next thing you know.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  You have a hundred eighty seconds of ads to sit through and watching the timer.

• 48:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Just tapping, tapping. Hello.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  The least smooth move.

• 48:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know what's going in the lady group chat? You wouldn't believe the experience I just had. I went over to watch Netflix.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  He was ad tier Netflix.

• 48:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  An advertisement came on. Poverty mindset.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Speaking of.

• 48:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Speaking of.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  The poverty mindset.

• 48:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right. So Meta, Meta, this is from the Financial Times. Meta fires staff for abusing twenty five dollar meal credits. Meta has fired about two dozen staff in Los Angeles for using their twenty five dollar meal credits to buy household items, including acne pads, wine glasses, and laundry detergent. The terminations took place last week, just days before the one point five trillion dollar social media company separately began restructuring certain teams across WhatsApp, Instagram, and reality labs. Like most big companies, Meta offers free food to employees based out of its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters as a perk, but staffers in smaller offices without a canteen are offered Uber

• 49:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Eats or Grubhub credits for food to be delivered to the office. Staff, staffer given daily allowances of twenty dollars for breakfast, twenty five dollars for lunch, and twenty five dollars for dinner. With meal credits issued in $25 increments. Those who were fired were deemed to have abused the food credit system over a long period of time. Some of them had been pooling their money together while others were getting meals sent home, even though the credits were intended for the office. Those who violated the company rules only on occasion were reprimanded, but not terminated. Terminated. So clearly, this is the chronic violators. In one anonymous message post on the anonymous messaging platform, Blind, one former Meta

• 50:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  staffer wrote they had used the $25 credit on items such as toothpaste and tea from the pharmacy Rite Aid. The person who indicated they had a salary of about $400,000 at Meta and worked nights and weekends, wrote that they admitted to the oversight when Human Resources investigated the practice before later being unexpectedly fired. "It was almost surreal that this was happening," the person wrote. Ranjan, I think you're on the... whose side are you on on this one? I couldn't tell.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  I'm on the side of efficiency and Mark Zuckerberg on this one in a big way. I will admit, I have never worked at a big tech company. I have worked at startups, medium-sized companies, and I have always been a little jealous of the perks that they would receive, even just seeing, getting 70 bucks a day in meal credits when most people who go to work at any other company actually pay for their own lunch or maybe get some kind of lunch provided. And then with a total comp of 400K, and to still feel the need to try to like get household

• 51:26Speaker 01

  items with this, to me, I actually think this is a big, important story because I think it's like, in terms of the whole remote work debate and the entitled, what our employees feel that they're entitled to, I am guessing anyone who is doing this... In no way thought it was wrong. Like the fact that if they're doing it, pooling money together, doing it on a long-term basis. And it it really is representative of like that complete breakdown in culture that's happened over the last few years at a lot of these companies where people could actually be so comfortable thinking that this is fine. Like, yeah, it's an Uber Eats thing, but I can get other stuff on Uber, so I might as well, even though this is for food.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  I think it they're sending a signal that's that's an important one.

• 52:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, I have a couple of points to bring up here. First of all, how much is it the person's fault and how much is it the system's fault? Effectively, like, I don't know. I mean, it could be both the system in terms of Meta just giving these open credits and also maybe people were just brought up with scarcity and they see these credits and even though they're making 400 grand, they it's sort of tough to get out of that, you know, mindset and you sort of decide to go.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  That's.

• 52:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't know. I mean, I'm just gonna bring this up for the sake of argument. Go ahead.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  I like that. That's a noble way to take the other side. I think you're bringing up the existential question. Should I hate the player or the game?

• 52:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  And in this case, it's still the player. I'm sorry. Once you scarcity mindset be damned when you're making 400K.

• 53:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  You should you should understand that if you want to keep that, there are certain things that are okay and not okay. And and, okay, I will blame the game enough that I'm sure things were so freewheeling over the last few years that people probably got used to lots of different, small, little, little tweaks of the system like this. But at some point, it has to stop and it's starting to.

• 53:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, Meta gives free toothpaste out in the office. Just saying. No, I'm just saying, if you're seeing it in the office and you want to order it at home, maybe you can.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  And I'm actually, I've been to the Meta offices here in New York and the dining options and the coffee options and overall, everything was pretty nice. So.

• 53:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, though I guess, hold on, in fairness. These, the vouchers were given to more satellite offices that don't get these things. So I guess the idea is that they're equating those offices with headquarters or like larger campuses. I mean, maybe this is also just a reminder that kind of like Amazon's return to office five days a week. A lot of this is these satellite offices are not the future of the company. And there's there, the things that made them kind of nice to work at, you're just off to the side. No one's really watching you. You're buying your toothpaste are going away.

• 54:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's also a signal, which is that we're going to be nice to you, but don't abuse the privilege.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do, we're not going to sustain these bad habits, I guess.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  It's the year of efficiency, part two.

• 54:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Part two, the year of efficiency becomes the decade of efficiency. I don't know. Your efficiency rolls on.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Is he still using it? I think they're still using, no, because you can't, you can only use year of efficiency for one year.

• 55:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's the statute of limitations on the year of efficiency.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, I'm going to go back and look now. I'm curious if Mark Zuckerberg is still using the term year of efficiency because I'm curious now. But you only get one year.

• 55:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Only one year. So one of the, so my, I tweeted this, the anecdote from the Financial Times and it kind of blew up. And I got some really fascinating and fun replies. And there was this one guy who said, he said that in his company, they gave free diet cokes. Until somebody started calculating how much they were spending per person on diet cokes. And because they were not drinking the diet cokes, demanded an extra $1,000 in comp for a year.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I can only imagine the like, the conversations at the highest levels over these things. And how fired up, you almost have to imagine this is where you put like 10 executives in a room and put this in front of them, they, the anger will feed on itself. And the rage at these kinds of behaviors and just, I mean, I'm guessing that's why these kinds of things, because it's just. You're working here, you're getting a lot of money. Just

• 56:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Do the work, get the money. The fact that that one commenter included nights and weekends, I actually think was the most telling thing, because at that point, they made clear that they felt they were, they deserved the $70 to go to toothpaste because they're working nights and weekends, even though the two should have nothing to do with each other.

• 56:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  I could see a loose relationship there, but, okay, but the other side of this, and we'll close with this, is that, do you know about the financial independence retire early community, FIRE?

• 56:53Speaker 01

  I do not.

• 56:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, oh, man, we should do an episode on FIRE. So FIRE is this, basically, it's this pretty religious type of approach to money, where people save like crazy, and try to maximize their earnings through their last 20s and 30s, and then they retire. Basically, they become financially independent, they put all that money that they saved in the market, they realize they can live on 4% of it, and they just kind of do what they want. And this is sort of behavior that's kind of, I don't want, I wouldn't say it's representative of FIRE, but there's like a religiosity to it, and I had a couple people bring it up. So first of all, do you know Ramon Bichetti? He had a Netflix show called I Will Make You Rich?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  So he quote tweeted this, my tweet, and he says, were these employees in the FIRE community, I need to know? And then there was another person, an anon account, who was like, there is a hyper competitive financial subculture intact fueled, intact fueled in part by FIRE and Reddit. It includes credit card churning, brokerage, bank bonus farming, it's a dopamine hit, but penny wise, pound foolish, begins to erode ethics, no room for reflection in the bubble. And I don't know if this is necessarily a outcropping from that ethical persuasion, but I think that, you know, maybe that is sort of where it comes from.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  I think you've just ruined my weekend, because I'm going to spend a lot of time on the FIRE Reddit.

• 58:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, you better. It's really fascinating. We should really talk about it next week.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I'm ready for it.

• 58:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's a blog that you should look for, and it's written by, and I'm not kidding, the name is, it's just so fitting. The author of the blog is Mr. Money Mustache.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Mr. Money Mustache, I will be finding you in just a bit.

• 58:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Read it up. I can't wait to read the margins post on FIRE. I think you're gonna have a field day on it.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  I wonder, what's the Venn diagram between effective altruism and the FIRE community?

• 58:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  I would say almost no overlap because I think effective altruism-

• 58:59Speaker 01

  They want to live off their money. So they essentially would drain down to-

• 59:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh my God. We should bring on a FIRE and an EA to debate each other.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'd be sick.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  I like this. I like this. But I think maybe the overlap of aura rings and whoop bands is probably 100%.

• 59:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Again, I would say the FIRE folks, they spend no money. So-

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Ah, that's true.

• 59:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  This idea, like Mr. Money Mustache, for instance, did this experiment where he like did extra Uber driving and wanted to see if it was worth it from like a financial standpoint, you know, to do it on the nights and weekends and like goes through like all the calculations, car depreciation, gas and all this stuff before finding, finally coming to the conclusion that it wasn't. I mean, this is how, how deep they scrutinize every dollar spent and earned. It's very, it's fascinating. Honestly, I think it's fascinating. And it's mostly, it's ultimately a rejection of the system because they're basically like, the system wants us to make us wage slaves and we're gonna opt out. But there's definitely been some, I think, regret from folks that have picked up on this

• 1:00:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  because it has sort of led them to a unfulfilling conclusion once they do retire and then they get back into the workforce.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Because they get ad tier Netflix while trying to date.

• 1:00:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Hence the lack of fulfillment.

• 1:00:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Watching truck ads with their dates when they're in the middle of a rom-com. And it never ends well when you, when you live that life. All right, Ron, John, great to see you, man. Thanks for coming on. All right. See you next week. See you next week. And thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll be back again on Wednesday with Dan Ives and Stephanie Link. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

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  In this life, you can't win.

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  When the world gets you down.

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  Escape to Pluto TV.

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  This is objectively fantastic.

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  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting.

• 1:01:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  You stay classy, San Diego.

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  The best things on TV really are free.

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  You just have to know where to look.

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  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.