Spyglass - Smelling the Roses

Up to this point, I think the right analogy for OpenAI and Microsoft's relationship seems to have been that of a bickering married couple. But we're getting to the point now where it's getting more complicated. To the point that the couple should probably divorce. But can't. For various reasons. So these sort of passive aggressive leaks keep trickling out about the state of their relationship as things get more and more awkward as the two try to operate more independently of one another, while still living together. Let's hope it doesn't end like The War of the Roses ends. I mean the movie, but the actual wars too, for that matter.

The War of the AI Roses

Microsoft and OpenAI increasingly make strange bedfellows…

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

Some Thoughts...

🔎 The Google Search/AI Reorg – Most of the stories seem focused on the change atop Search, and you get why, of course. But I think Ina Fried's original story had the far more interesting aspect: Gemini moving under DeepMind. This always felt inevitable. The tech is good. It needs to be a better product doing things that aren't just following OpenAI. Mostly, they need to move faster. Faster. Faster. This should help. [Techmeme]

⚾️ Baseball. – There’s just no way you can watch the ending of the Guardians/Yankees ALDS game last night and not love baseball. The Yankees, down two runs in the 8th, are facing Emmanuel Clase, arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now, and certainly the best closer – so good that he enters games like this, to the mythical music of "Wild Thing" – in 74 regular-season appearances, he gave up 5 runs. Five. All year. 47 saves, 0.61 ERA. Two home runs given up all year. He enters with two outs in the inning and a runner on. Clase quickly gets to 0-2. Aaron Judge homers. Game tied. Two minutes later, down in the count 0-2, Giancarlo Stanton homers. Yankees, down nearly the entire game, now leading. An extra Yankees run in the 9th makes it a 5-3 hole. Bottom of 9. Two outs, two strikes. Last potential pitch. Lane Thomas doubles. Still two outs. Still down two. Jhonkensy Noel — “Big Christmas”, one of the best nicknames in sports — steps to the plate. A swing and... as his bat flip makes clear, there was zero doubt. Hammers a two-run homer to tie it. To the 10th. Bottom of the inning, two outs, up walks David Fry to the plate. He saved Cleveland's season the previous series against Detroit with the go-ahead two-run home run in Game 4. A swing and once again zero doubt. Ballgame. [ESPN]

🪱 Villeneuve Returning to Dune Faster Than He Thought He Would – Great, but hardly surprising news given the success of Dune: Part 2. “Let’s say that I thought that after 'Part Two' that I will take a break, that I will go back in the woods and stay in the woods for a while to recover. But the woods weren’t really suiting me, and I would go back behind the camera faster than I think. But that’s all I can say.” At that point, his publicist silences him, but it sounds like 2026 is a likely start date for Dune: Messiah. As for the cast? "'They have to return. They are with the main cast when it happens. And more worms. What can I say?' he shrugs." [Deadline]

Some Links...

• Rivian is doing Halloween car "costumes" via software updates. Sort of an awesome/fun idea? (Yes, Tesla does a bit of this too, but Rivian's seem better executed – no surprise.) [Verge]
• Qualcomm is getting out of the PC business before their first PC. Yes, they're committed to their Snapdragon processors running Windows, but this is a sort of weird/abrupt pull-back? Is it about an HDMI port? [XDA]
• Google's AlphaFold may have just helped to unlock a secret of how animal fertilization works. Proteins would seem to act as a lock-and-key mechanism. [NYT]
• Is French startup Mistral the next of the AI titans to be taken out by a hackquisition? The Information thinks they're a likely candidate for a range of reasons – team worked at Google and Meta, Microsoft is an investor, Amazon is doing these deals left and right, and even Apple is a bit of a wildcard – but would the EU regulatory environment ever allow that to happen if it's an American company buying?! [Information 🔒]
• Worldcoin drops the 'coin'. It's cleaner. It's also less crypto-y. Still got that whole retina-scanning orb optics problem though... [TechCrunch]
• After continually saying they weren't looking to sell their Altera unit, it now looks like Intel is looking to sell their Altera unit – at least a minority stake, but potentially the whole shebang if the price is right. That price is said to be roughly what Intel paid – $17B – in 2015. That would buy a lot of breathing room for the company and send a signal to Qualcomm as they circle... [CNBC]
• While Threads seemingly wants to have nothing to do with news and Xitter is, well, a total shitshow, LinkedIn seems happy to pick up the information slack. [Information 🔒]
• Netflix keeps growing, adding 5M subs this past quarter. Nearly 283M in total now. They seem to have timed their change in metrics well, as they'll stop reporting on subscribers next year to focus on business metrics. Paying subscribers are now watching around two hours a day, which feels like it has room to grow if Netflix really is the new cable. You know what will help? The NFL. [NYT]

And I Quote...

"I mean, he pinch hit to hit a homer. That's why we sent him up there."

-- Stephen Vogt, the manager of the Cleveland Guardians, when asked why he put in Jhonkensy Noel to pinch hit – did I mention his game-tying, bottom-of-the-9th, two-out, home run was as a pinch hitter? – and it doesn't get more matter-of-fact than that answer.