← Big Technology Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Does AI need its own Steve Jobs? Which big tech company is climbing the AI chaos ladder? And let's look ahead at what will happen in 2026. That's coming up with MG Siegler right after this can AI's most valuable use be in the industrial setting? I've been thinking about this question more and more after visiting IFS's Industrial X Unleashed event in New York City and getting a chance to speak with IFS CEO Mark Muffett. To give a clear example, Muffett told me that IFS is sending Boston Dynam spot robots out for inspection, bringing that data back to the IFS nerve center, which then, with the assistance of large language models, can assign the right technician to examine areas that need attending. It's a fascinating frontier of the technology, and I'm thankful to my partners at IFS for opening my eyes to it. To learn more, go to ifs.com that's.
- [00:53]
B
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- [01:37]
A
Welcome to Big Technology Podcast. Well, it's not the first Monday of the month, but this is the first real Monday of the month here. January 12th, as we get 2026 kicked off, which means it's time for MG Siegler to join us for his monthly spot. We have a great show for you coming up. We're going to talk about whether AI needs its own Steve Jobs. We're going to talk a little bit about the chaos that AI brings to Big Tech and who's climbing that ladder. Of course, we have some breaking news that Apple and Google have just signed a deal for Google to power the new AI functionality within Siri and Of course. Since it's the first, our first episode together of the year, let's take a look ahead and see what MG thinks is going to happen in 2026. MG, great to see you. Welcome back to the show.
- [02:23]
B
Thank you. Great to be back with you in the new year. Alex, sorry for my rugged appearance. It's very cold and wintry here in London. So I'm still. I'm still in winter mode. Fully not in 2026 mode yet.
- [02:36]
A
That's right, yeah. I have been definitely checking the European temperatures as I prepare myself mentally and physically to make my way out to Davos next week and shiver. So get ready. There we go. So this morning a great piece by you came into my inbox from Spyglass, which, folks, you can find@spyglass.org Basically, the piece argues that AI needs its own Steve Jobs. This is obviously a transformational technology and we are starting to see a lot of skepticism around it. And especially in the US there is negative sentiment, whereas in places like China and even Europe, there's much more of a positive approach to AI. And you basically say, listen, there's two strong camps around AI. There are those who think it's the future and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron. And then there are those who think that AI is the worst thing in the world and it's going to ruin everything. And I think some of the impetus behind this piece is basically like, if AI is going to live its potential, it needs to get through this perception problem. Otherwise it's going to struggle to catch on with consumers, struggle to catch on in society, maybe face regulation and a host of other, you know, lack of funding and a host of other negative things. So just talk a little bit about your thesis of why you think AI needs its own Steve Jobs and why. And why you think we're not quite there yet.
- [03:59]
B
Yeah. So this, this sort of kicked off, as many posts, I assume, do for many people these days, in sort of a group chat. I'm in where a lot of folks were sort of talking through some of these notions, mainly the idea, as you noted, that there seems to be this dichotomy between the US and sort of, in some ways, the rest of the world. I think it's more probably pronounced sort of US versus the Asian countries, at least from what, you know, is reported and what we hear. But I, you know, I live in London, so I'm here in Europe, even though it's not part of the EU famously anymore. But still there's. There's definitely a. I would Say a much more positive sentiment that I feel like talking to people here. And maybe that's, maybe that's some level of night, naive, naivete or maybe that's, you know, something, something else because you're not sort of living and breathing day to day, sort of all the AI news nonstop. But I do think, per the post, I think a lot of it, you know, at least stems from the notion that people look to who are the, who are the folks who are sort of putting this out there in the world and who's talking about it and who's leading these, these AI companies, right? And obviously it's all the big tech players. And big tech is, you know, problematic these days in some fronts because it's obviously it's the biggest companies in the world right now in terms of market cap, but also in terms of employment and in terms of all different sorts of things that are important to the economy. And I do think some of them have high levels of trust and some of them have sort of less high levels of trust, but also the individuals in particular, and hence why I sort of kick off with the Steve Jobs notion. Because Steve Jobs, of course, famously was, you know, I think maybe the best ever to, when it came to unveiling new products and sort of putting new technologies out in the world. And really, you know, certain the argument is just going back and watching some of those old Steve Jobs keynotes and even when he was much younger, in his, in his 20s and 30s, just talking through technology, which obviously wasn't as commonplace as it became, and the piece, you know, the Mac and everything, and he was talking through sort of some notions to some pretty late people in the audience who wouldn't necessarily be able to wrap their heads around it fully, but he was able to get people excited about these things. And that reminds me of sort of the day that we're in right now with AI and how do you get people super excited about all this stuff that's coming out there? So anyway, there's a lot going on in there, but I do think again, you know, backing up to the, to the big picture stuff, I think that there's a perception problem for sure and interestingly that it's that it's in the American, you know, market, it seems like more so than the other ones at this time.
- [06:37]
A
Right. And so let me start to poke at this argument a little bit because, you know, the, the argue counter argument here is who's really pitched software well with charisma, I mean, with Steve Jobs, like, it's very clear the iPhone and does some things that like, you know, people can immediately grasp. Maybe that was Jobs's gift is he was able to relate this technology to regular people. But it doesn't really take, you know, too much of a demo to be like this thing can make phone calls, it can connect to the Internet, you can take photos with it and there's an app store. Right. But whereas like ChatGPT and it's like similar with Google, right? Like Google actually has done amazing marketing, but it's never really been a pitch, a pitch person like, you know, sort of demoing it. It's more of been like, here's the emotional side of being able to use Google to find your like long lost relatives or something like that. But with, with ChatGPT, it's the same thing. It's a blank box. And so I wonder even if you have like, and I think I'd agree with your premise that it's not like we have the most charismatic people in the world, you know, or at least people on par with Jobs. Is charisma pitching this stuff. I just wonder if it's, if it's really possible for a software product like ChatGPT to ever have a demo like that that sort of sparks that emotion in people and inspires people the way that Jobs did with the iPhone.
- [07:57]
B
I would say that I think that that's a really good push because sort of towards the end of the article, which is about 2500 words, I do note that the person who I think is most analogous to Jobs in the current sort of day and age is Jensen Wang. Which, you know, obviously is, as you're talking about is more hardware. Nvidia is more hardware focused than software, of course, software layers with Cuda and things like that. But I think that he's really good at those keynotes and those have become like, you know, the, the sort of heir apparent in a way to the Apple keynotes. Even though it's, it's interesting because it's not so user facing, you know, the hardware obviously it's, it's, it's incredible stuff.
- [08:34]
A
That, it's incredible that Jensen is able to do this because he like legitimately, he makes it Must see tv.
- [08:40]
B
Yes.
- [08:41]
A
And instead of having an iPhone to show it's literally a board.
- [08:45]
B
But he's genius when it comes to the showmanship. Right. Like he brings out the big shield and you know, is holding it up like an Avenger and it's got chips on it and stuff. And so he knows how to like basically make it relate to people, even though that's, that's a product that again, most people aren't buying. Obviously people buy gaming cards, but even then they, they usually just check a box on whatever, you know, Dell, Dell or you know, Lenovo that they're buying and then they, they get the Nvidia graphics card that they want with that. Most people aren't building their own computers still and so let alone building their own AI, you know, giant infrastructure, as these big companies are and who Nvidia's main clients are right now. And so again, he's a genius in the way that he's been able to make this sort of, I don't know if it's relatable, but at least fun and interesting to watch. And again, I think that that's what Jobs was great at. But to your exact point though, it's a little, it's probably a little bit easier when it's going to be a product that people and consumers can sort of use in their hands like an iPhone or like the Mac or an iPad, etc. Whereas Jensen's able to gin up this excitement around these things that people aren't going to be touching. But to your exact point on, you know, software versus hardware, again, he is, Jensen is still selling hardware for the most part. And that's what Jobs was doing for the most part. Obviously Apple is great in software too. But to your point, like, software is harder to do. You have to do different types of things. And in part I think it's harder still even with AI because as you know, it's even more of a blank page problem. Right. You can do anything pretty much with AI. And so how do you exactly market that, like, except for going after very sort of specific and granular use cases. And so I think to your point about Google, like, I would imagine that OpenAI and they did their first, what, super bowl commercial last year. Right. I would imagine that all, all the marketing ends up being sort of more brand marketing like, and more, you know, pulling at heartstrings, but also maybe showing off, you know, very verticalized utility, whatever they, they happen to be going for in that, in those points.
- [10:41]
A
Yeah. Here's my prediction for what we're gonna see as a Super bowl ad from one of these companies. I could be wrong. I think we're gonna see like open AI basically come out and show the journey of a person typing their symptoms. No, maybe this would be too much. Typing their symptoms into open it into chat GPT and then finding out that they have like a rare disease that a doctor couldn't. Couldn't cure.
- [11:01]
B
I like it. But they have to be careful obviously, when that's dangerous. Like. And Google's in the news right now for having to pull back some search results. Right. Because of. They. I think there was a, there was an investigation by one of the publications that basically found that the, the one. The search one box thing, the AI populated AI answers was sort of giving some iffy information, I guess on liver function tests and things like that. And so, so they have to be super careful for anything that they do with healthcare. Even though as. As yeah. Is why I think you're saying that they're all going after this space right now. Right. OpenAI anthropic, Google, of course, Microsoft, that's like this is one. Healthcare is one of the verticals that they think is going to be a big. Certainly a big player and big money maker, you know, potentially for them. But advertising that is. Is a tricky beast.
- [11:48]
A
That is tricky. Maybe, maybe it's like one step down from it. Then maybe it's somebody who's like on this like weight loss journey and they have like a good one Sycophantic chatgpt being like, you're doing great. Thanks. You know, share your stats today. Oh, look at the improvement that you've had. And then, then you see them at the end, just like, you know, they're sweating running across the finish line of a marathon and it's like ChatGPT enable the best version of yourself or running side by side with you. There we go. That's a good tagline.
- [12:19]
B
I like it. I definitely think something like that. Yeah.
- [12:23]
A
But let's keep going on this because it is really interesting. So. Okay, so software I think we both agree is going to. Is a little bit harder to pitch than, Than like a phone that you would hold. I wonder also if there's. And it is interesting because usually the US is not the one that has this issue and especially since there's the reservations in the US But I wonder if there's also like an inherent level of creepiness to AI that is like somewhat underappreciated, especially maybe even in our. In the conversations. Not you and I, but just conversations I have on the show where it's like, yeah, like AI can be really useful, but you do give it more data than you've given any product. People like forming relationships with this technology is, you know, maybe cool in a way, but also somewhat creepy and like, yeah, you know, yeah, you know, just like it's almost like you don't even if you're, if you're running a company, you don't really want to talk about how much people are gonna trust you with this stuff. You almost kind of want them to not think about it like being in a casino and not thinking about the days passing.
- [13:21]
B
Right. So you hide all the, hide all the windows and all the clocks. Yes. I do think that there's something, you know, unique and new about AI that's, that is also helping to fuel a lot of this. And a lot of it is sort of, I don't know if creepy. There's some level of creepiness for sure with, with the amount of personal data that, that these systems will eventually are already sort of knowing about you. And then of course there's the sex bot stuff which is constantly in the news, obviously the romantic relationship stuff, the, the tragic, you know, suicide situations that, you know, AI may be a part of right now. And sort of all of that stuff is, is sort of building towards what I think you're hitting on. And, and it's even more than that, right, because it's like these, a lot of these companies as, as we were just saying, like they are big tech. And so, you know, a company like Meta has already had, you know, their whole wide range of different sort of privacy issues. Google's had their own privacy issues obviously in the past as well. And so when it's these companies that are also the ones that are sort of, you know, at the forefront of the new technology that's just going to sort of add fuel to that fire. And then of course the biggest one might be the jobs displacement stuff. Right? Like it's not just like, and I hit on this in the piece. So yes, some people, the doomers view this as existential and that it might be the end of the world, which, you know, tbd, obviously most people don't believe that, but there is some, you know, percentage chance that keeps people keep bringing up that maybe there is, there is a way in which this goes really, really badly. But even if it doesn't, even if you don't believe that there is likely a world in which a lot of just jobs are displaced and a lot of jobs are lost because of this technology. And that's not necessarily as we've talked about before, it's not necessarily new in the history of all technologies, but it is going to be probably the most acutely felt and certainly maybe the fastest felt of any of those in the previous like years and decades and hundreds of years ago. Because this is evolving. So Fast and because it's going into these other businesses so fast. And so I do think that people just read all of these headlines and, and just know like they see we, we talked about this several weeks ago, but it's like the dichotomy between these companies spending more and more money than ever. Microsoft, Google, etc, on Capex, but at the same time doing layoffs too. And so even, even within the big companies, so not even, you know, not even outside of tech, there's, there's layoffs happening within these companies and it's at least in part because they believe that AI will be able to do a lot of the jobs that are already being done, you know, within these companies right now. And so I think all of that sort of plays into what it, what's driving it. And then yeah, the, the U.S. thing, you know though remains like really interesting because in the other sort of places around the world it just seems less, less divisive than it is right now. And I do think that some of it is yeah, just like the, these big company narratives. But also again, I go back to the individuals. Like it's just like do you, if you don't have that super charismatic person on stage and maybe Jensen is the person. Even though it's a little weird because you know, they're not actually doing the AI big training models, they're, they're powering all of that, but they're not actually building them themselves at least yet. So like what is it that actually gets people comfortable with it? Or is it just going to have to come with time and, and people using it in the world not ending and people not losing their jobs or maybe losing their jobs, but I help some find new jobs, etc. That kind of stuff.
- [16:53]
A
Yeah, I will say it does. It is like the ultimate bargain that you make with the technology. Like this ultimate tech bargain, right, for a lot of tech products is like you give a little data, you get a little utility and we've been giving more and more and this one is just like, well you know, the, all the, the downsides are also the positives, right? It's like the more I give to ChatGPT, the more useful it becomes to me or even the more I use this for my job, the more evident it's going to be that it can do parts of my job. But it's also like something that makes me so much more productive. And getting back to. So, so maybe there's a technology side, but getting back to the person side of, of this, you spent a lot of time in the piece talking about Sam Altman. So, you know, it was interesting to me. So I interviewed Sam at the end of 2025 and I thought it was a great conversation. I thought we like really went some, some places that were new to me and interesting newsmaking. But, but in preparation, I did, you know, I watched like almost all of Sam's interviews, you know, maybe again, because I've watched many of them before and it was very interesting to me to see the reaction to them in the comments underneath.
- [18:04]
B
Yes.
- [18:05]
A
Especially from non tech audiences. Theo Vaughn's podcast, for instance, like if you look at the Spotify comments, you see just a. It's almost a personal reaction to Sam of Distrust. And now maybe part of this is because of his feud with Elon and there's a lot of Elon fans out there. And he did, you know, he did take a nonprofit and turn it into, you know, it's going to be a trillion dollar IPO company. But it was surprising to me the level of personal vitriol that I saw there. What do you think is behind that?
- [18:39]
B
Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up. I think that was the exact jumping off point in that, that conversation I was having too, that sort of spurred this along because it was like, okay, it honestly, it may have even been your conversation with him where it's like, that's a great conversation. Like he's saying a lot of, you know, reasonable things and you know, a lot of obviously smart and savvy things about where this is all heading. And in your conversation, in that Theo Vaughn conversation with Ben Thompson, like a bunch of these conversations, all of the feedback you see, almost all the feedback you see is exactly what you're talking about. Like these super negative, quick to judge things that just do not trust in this case, Sam in particular. But like, I think that it happens, you know, wider than him. I think that there's a lot of these types of AI conversations where, where it's sort of the comments delve quickly into that. I mean, honestly, on a much lower level. I even see it anytime I publish anything that's sort of more positive about AI and less skeptical. Like immediately you get a bunch of people jumping in. And of course, I'm used to that from, from old reporting days and everything of comment sections and whatnot. So it doesn't bother me. But it's, it's interesting to me that it, that immediately people just like assume that you're like, you have some sort of ulterior motive, even just writing about like you know these technologies in a way that they view as not in line with their own. Again, I, I frame it as a sort of a religious viewpoint, but I do think that you hit on like, the Elon element of it. I think that that's certainly a part of it, certainly with like a Theo Vaughn type audience, I'm not so sure. But with your audience, like, it doesn't seem like it would be that, you know, dynamic at play, but it's still interesting that people jump to that. And I don't know if, yeah, again, if that's particular to Sam. I hit on it a little bit because, you know, I knew him as you did back in the day in his first startup and, and sort of watching how this has evolved over the OpenAI saga from the blip, you know, when he, when he was ousted on forward, and you know, all of the subsequent sort of text messages and emails that have come out as a result of lawsuits, many of which from, from the Elon lawsuit, basically point to a lot of internal dissension and, you know, strife within OpenAI about can we trust Sam? And, and it's sort of weird that it sort of is spilling out into the public. Like, it seems like that's a weird mirror of, of what was happening, at least in the earlier days, within that cohort of OpenAI itself.
- [21:06]
A
Yeah, as. So that I think this is interesting mystery to me and it's something that I'm going to, you know, keep thinking about and maybe, you know, continue to try to, to learn more about. But, you know, as we wrap up the segment, you like, go through a lot of the different, you know, big personalities in the AI world and think about, like, who might be, that might fill that Steve Jobs role. My dark horse is Panos Panay at Amazon. He has a hardware product. He's a very charismatic presenter. You know, we're going to talk a little bit about how big tech companies are faring right now, but, um, I've got, I have Alexa plus, it's actually better than I anticipated. So he, you know, obviously a long way to go because that thing needs, needs to get even better. But maybe he's the person.
- [21:55]
B
I don't know. Yeah. And you know, I put his name out there. I do. It's interesting with these big companies, right, because you would think, like, okay, well, there's, there's Satya Nadella and Sunday Sundar Pichai and, and, and, and Andy Jassy at Amazon. Right. But it's like some of them are of course, certainly Satya and Sundar are more forefront of AI trying talking points and become, you know, thought leaders as, as you sort of have to as you're selling these both to the public but also to enterprises and whatnot. So you want to be out there sort of talking up, you know, what is the most, what they view as the most important technology right now. But at the same time that's not their only business. Like Google has a massive business beyond just what they're doing with Gemini and, and Microsoft has a massive business beyond Copilot and Amazon is a massive business obviously beyond Alexa. And so I do go to sort of, and a few of those at least the sort of tier below the people who are in charge of AI. And as you note Panos Panay and Mustafa Suleiman at Microsoft and then Demis Hassabis at Google and DeepMind and so are these the people who do it. And you know I go through like a little bit on each of them and it doesn't really feel like it to me. I think Demis Hassibus is probably the closest in terms of credibility wise and this is just my own sort of personal view of it. I don't know him. I, I don't have like a strong point of view on it but I just feel like from what I've heard and seen I, I think that he has some real credibility certainly the tech, the tech credibility on that in that regard. And some of the others are a little, a little bit more marketing. You could say Jobs was like that though, too, right? Yeah, certainly back in the day. And so yeah, that list and I would just say just backing up for one second to Sam Altman because I do in that piece, you know, I'm trying to be a little bit more evenhanded. It's not all negative like I think that he is right now the person who has taken up that torch and some of that is obviously because he's teamed up with Johnny. I've. Right. And you can't avoid sort of that parallel and I've himself has said like there's parallels there and so if you.
- [23:56]
A
Want Jobs comparisons that's pretty good a route to take.
- [23:58]
B
Yeah, you can't get any better than, than working with Johnny I've on, on a new product. But I do think like Sam and the OpenAI product team and strategy has done a better job than anyone else. You and I have talked about this a lot on AI to date. I think Google has been catching up a bit and I think some of the others, as you know Amazon and others have been starting to catch up a little bit. But I do think that OpenAI deserves a lot of credit for moving that forward and getting us to the point where like every time OpenAI launches something, whether or not it turns out to be a huge hit or just a sort of a flash in the pan as maybe Sora was like, I do think that they do a good job getting it out there, much better than a lot of other companies have done to date. And so that's a, that's a mark in Sam's favorite. But again, it's just, it's not. None of these people even they're, they're interesting, they're successful in their own right. But I do not think that they're going to be the ones who are able to sell this the way that Steve Jobs could sell an iPhone to the public. And maybe no one can, maybe that's unreasonable, but I do think that that's what is playing into some of this backlash.
- [24:57]
A
Yeah, no, I definitely agree with your point about OpenAI's ability to get the products out there for sure. And on the Demis front, interestingly, and maybe this is because they're Google related, but they put out this documentary, it's called the Thinking Game. I'm in the middle of it.
- [25:12]
B
I've heard a lot about it. I heard a lot about it. I haven't watched yet. It's just on YouTube. Right?
- [25:16]
A
On YouTube. Very good. It's with.
- [25:18]
B
People love it.
- [25:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, very interesting. And it has 260 million views on YouTube.
- [25:25]
B
What are the comments like on that? Any is even just the first five or there. Are they negative? Are they positive?
- [25:31]
A
Like it's possible that they're, they're curated. But people, people do love Demis in these, in these comments. So. But you know, again, like, you know what, you know what's interesting? The focus of the documentary, of course it's on, you know, AI and you know, LLMs and stuff like that. But scientific breakthrough, right? And you know, the protein folding, the game playing and what that's going to enable old footage of Demis with his like slide of like AI for science. And you see things, I have it right right here in front of me actually. Protein folding, genomics theorem, quantum chemistry, climate science, particle physics, I think, you know, and they are, they are making real progress on these fronts as much as we talk about LLMs. So maybe that, maybe that's basically the route is that they just need to go and talk about, about science and.
- [26:20]
B
And, and just, you know, compare that angle to what we were talking about with, with OpenAI and Sam Altman, it's like so DeepMind with Demis has this background. Yeah, they want to, you know, they want to go after science hard and they want to sort of build, discover new drugs and, and you know, Microsoft and Mustafa Suleiman, who's also obviously from DeepMind, are sort of trying to take that path as well. Whereas OpenAI, all anyone hears about, at least for the past six months, has been like, they were a nonprofit and now they're not. And so, like, what are we supposed to take from that? Like, they're worth a trillion dollars and they were a nonprofit. How, you know, these people are. There's billion billionaires being minted every day from this. Like, is any of this real? Like, again, all part of the stew of what's going on here. So I agree that the, the DeepMind angle that it seems like they're, they're taking from this, this documentary on down is, is a much safer and smarter angle to probably right.
- [27:14]
A
And you know, that's the one advantage of being, I guess of being DeepMind is you do need that money and that infrastructure, but you're doing it within a multi trillion dollar company or else it's right.
- [27:26]
B
Because it's not like D Mind is still doing or Gemini is still doing all the same things that Open AI is. They all have to chase each other. Right. They launch new image like nano bananas. Is nano Banana a big part of the documentary of like, you know, I.
- [27:39]
A
Haven'T gotten to it yet, but it could, it could be. But yeah, you're right, it is, it is, it is interesting. And, and I think that, I mean, we're going to get into predictions a little bit, but these, these companies leaning on their edges and sort of getting their positioning now, especially as things commoditize, is going to be a big deal this year. All right, let's take a quick break and come back and we're going to talk a little bit about what this AI moment has done in terms of the reshuffling of the deck of cards as far as, like, where big tech stands. It actually isn't as, as positive as, you know, it looked a couple years ago or last year even. So I want to cover that and then we'll, we'll probably have time for some predictions at the very end of the show. So we'll be back right after this. Let me tell you about my partners at NordVPN. If you ever want to watch sporting events, TV shows or films that aren't available in your region. You can do it by switching your virtual location to a country which is showing that content with NordVPN. NordVPN also helps protect your data while you're traveling and using public WI fi wherever you are in the world. It's the fastest VPN in the world with no buffering or lagging While you stream. NordVPN has 7,400 servers across 118 countries with easy virtual location switching. It supports up to 10 devices and it's extremely fast. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com BigTech Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee link is in the podcast Episode Description box as well.
- [29:22]
B
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- [29:57]
A
And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with MG Siegler who joins us once a month to talk about the the latest in tech and AI. You can find his riding at Spyglass, which is@spyglass.org highly recommend it. All right MG so you wrote a little bit about how AI is like a chaos lab. Chaos is a ladder and the AI chaos is like creating opportunities for companies, big tech companies in particular, to move up that ladder and, and reshuffle the deck in terms of the power and in the business and the technology community. We'll, we'll go, we'll, we'll touch on some of these companies. But here's my big takeaway. I looked at, you know, where these companies stand compared to where they were previously and I found more of them. I don't want, I don't want to say falling down the ladder but like less up the ladder than I, you know, previously expected. Here I'll just run through a couple Microsoft for instance, big OpenAI deal. Now they're kind of stuck in the mud. It feels like there are people are asking questions about Copilot. They don't have a standout product in a way that they did when they were shuffling state of the art GPT models into, into Bing, for instance. So Azure is growing, growing in a big way. So maybe that's. And, but that's probably just, I don't know, is that reselling OpenAI in a way that, you know, others don't have access to because of exclusivity. And Amazon was another big one. Right. Their big partnership that you mentioned was Anthropic, you know, and, and Anthropic is now partnering with Nvidia and Google and, and who else? And Microsoft.
- [31:32]
B
And Microsoft.
- [31:34]
A
You know, Alexa plus is doing okay like we talked about, but AWS isn't, isn't killing the world. And then you have Apple, which we've talked about the Apple problems. And then Meta. Right. Which doesn't seem to have his act together. It's act together in a way that, you know, it did in the early days. So my big takeaway from reading your piece, I mean obviously Google's doing well, but my big takeaway after reading your pieces, like, wait a second, like do, do. Are, are the big tech companies not going to capitalize on this in a way that we all thought and, and maybe the momentum is actually moving to the AI labs themselves. Like, is it, is it that big tech doesn't get as big of a boost and the next big Companies are the OpenAI's and Anthropics whose valuations, you know, seem to double every few weeks. What's your, what's your perspective here?
- [32:18]
B
Yeah, I wrote this a few weeks ago, you know, ahead of the new year, so the end of last year. And I was just, yeah. Trying to take a step back and look at the current states of the major players, you know, as you rattled off a bunch of them. And again like for my chaos ladder analogy, I just think of like who are the stable ones versus who are the less stable ones. And I think definitely at the top is, is Google right now, but it changes, right? Like Google was in the middle of last year, their was like super depressed and I wrote about that at the time versus where the other players were and like why was that? Even though it seemed like they were, you know, found their footing with Gemini, but it still seemed like they were sort of being undervalued by the market. Fast forward to today. Literally they just hit 4 trillion for the first time. So they joined that club and you know, they're up like a one and a half trillion I think in, you know, in the past six months in terms of market cap, which is just incredible obviously. But it just shows you like how, how fluid this sort of situation is that it can sort of change that quickly for even a company of that size. But I do view them right now as the most stable. They've got this Apple partnership sort of locked in now, it sounds like. And so I think that that stability is going to probably continue for a while. I do view sort of anthropic is another one of these more stable players, certainly in, you know, versus if you compare them to where OpenAI has been, I think OpenAI is a little bit more stable. You say that they're all falling. I think they're a little bit more stable than they have been mainly because they finally have this Microsoft thing at least somewhat put to bed. Right. The deal. And now they're, they're the public benefit.
- [33:54]
A
I think OpenAI is, is stable for sure.
- [33:56]
B
They're more stable, yeah. Than certainly than a year ago, like where everything was up in the air. There's, there's a lot of questions though, right. And like you heard it towards the end of the year, the notion you and I talked about it maybe in the last time we were together, the OpenAI API. Right, sorry, the opening IPA, the OpenAI IPO, do they go out this in 2026? Can they possibly do that? And if that's the case, like is anthropic, obviously there's talk that they're also going to do that. And if anthropic beats them out there, like that causes potentially a lot of problems for open AI. And so while they might be more stable right now, they really need to hunker down and get the business in line. It feels like in order to have the correct narrative to be able to go out if and when they need to, which it sounds like they probably will need to, given the capital that they need to raise. And so again, the level of stability that these companies have right now, I think is a moving target. But it does feel a little bit to me like they're starting to sort of not, certainly not cement in place, but starting to coalesce around these like more stable and less stable pockets. Meta is obviously unstable because they, they blew up everything. We'll see. We're probably a few weeks away, maybe less from whatever they're going to, you know, announce in terms of coming out of their new AGS super intelligence efforts.
- [35:14]
A
Their Avocado model.
- [35:17]
B
Yeah, that's what the code name was, right?
- [35:18]
A
Yeah.
- [35:19]
B
So we're going to see that soon. Microsoft, as you note, like, because of this sort of official unofficial severing of the ties with OpenAI, they're now free to do this on their own. But it feels like, you know, that hasn't been the easiest going. And so in some ways they're sort of held back by the success that they saw with OpenAI. Right. And, and as you know, they still have that exclusive partnership and so in many ways they have this weird situation where they have to sort of obviously still partner with OpenAI on a number of fronts and they are, but trying to do their own thing and compete with them and, and make investments in Anthropic and do all these other things like even though, you know it's, it's all sort of competitive with one another and so they're in a weird spot. Amazon as you know, but again it's, it sort of feels like it's coalescing that, that Google's in a really good position right now. Anthropic, I think is in a pretty good position because they, it feels like they have the right sort of model at least to match, you know, what they're trying to do and then going on down the line like it goes from there and you know, all the, all the way down to sort of the real, the real chaotic players right now, which is the, mainly the ones that have, that have blown it up and tried and started over.
- [36:31]
A
Right. But you know, it's interesting because think about what we just listed here. So of the big tech companies, the ones that are in to use your, your system in unstable or less stable positions are Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Meta. I mean that's four out of, out of the big five that are not in a good position, which is surprising to me because you would expect them to be at this point. Right. We're now three, three years and change past ChatGPT's release. You would expect them all to be in prime position to be capitalizing on this and it's very rare for them to be behind the eight ball yet that's where it seems like they are.
- [37:10]
B
I mean I think that they, they have their, each individual company that you list there has their own reasons. Right. We talked about. Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI was sort of a double edged sword. Right. Like it helped them a ton in those early days, but now because that's not an exclusive like thing, you know, relationship that they have anymore and they really feel like they have to do their own thing. Like they're sort of, they were behind the eight ball when they came out of that. In some ways I think Amazon is similar with Anthropic. Right. Like they relied on Anthropic in the, in a similar vein to the way that, that Microsoft and OpenAI were working together. And so now they've been trying to work on their own models and have launched several of them. But. And they still have the anthropic relationship too. And so part of it is, is all goes to the, you know, the, the ideas of like how just circular all of this stuff is, right? And all of these players are working with one another because there's the cloud players that have to partner with the model makers and some of the cloud players are also model makers and then eventually some of the model makers are going to become cloud players. And so they all, but they all have to sort of work with one another. And so you know, at the end of the day, the only real winner, as you can see by the way, the, where they are in the market is Nvidia. And if, if that stands throughout the year, we'll see with all the competition that they have coming their way on the chip front. But, but yeah, I mean you're right that the, the players like these biggest companies in the world, I think that they are sort of still trying to find their way and you see various reports to this, to this idea that they're trying to figure out exactly what the right model should be of how they're leveraging AI. And, and they'll all say that everything's great, right? Like oh, Met is using it to tailor ads and, and yeah, Microsoft's using it to sell Azure and it's, and it's going great and you can see it in the bottom line and yada yada. But like there's a reason why they're all scrambling and why they're constantly reshuffling their teams. And I do think there will be a lot more of that in 2026 as they all try to jockey for a position on this ladder.
- [39:06]
A
Right. I mean I might get some emails from this and I might regret saying this, but what standout product does AI product does Microsoft have outside of selling AI services from Azure? What standout product does Amaz AI product does Amazon have outside of selling some AI with aws, what standout AI product does Apple have? We both know that they don't have one. And what standout product does Meta have? None. AI products.
- [39:32]
B
They have none.
- [39:32]
A
None.
- [39:32]
B
They have none. Certainly none on the consumer front and even on the enterprise front though, right? Like that's long been what Microsoft said when would be, you know, sort of. That's always been their fallback, right. If they Couldn't do it on, on consumer side. And obviously they try across the board for every single different technology that comes out and they, you know, they don't have that much success on the fronts but like you would think that they could fall back to the, the, you know, massive enterprise, just sales, you know, sale through that. They sell through that they have. And yeah, to your point, like they'll say that everything, it looks great and, but again, just watch the actions of these companies. I think you're exactly right. And I think for Microsoft in particular, it's, it's glaring because you hit on it. They had not only the open air relationship, they had Bing as like the original, like there it was going to make, it was going to make Google dance. And who's dancing now? It's Google. Like Microsoft is not dancing, you know, so no rhythm. They got no rhythm. And it was a huge, a huge missed opportunity. They could have made Bing a real potential competitor to Google. And in some ways they, they, you know, they were probably too early, I'm sure and they stubbed their toe and they pulled back. You know, the whole obviously weird conversations. Yeah. Going on.
- [40:52]
A
What a moment in history that people.
- [40:53]
B
Leaving their wives and stuff like that. But, but still they were there and they, they could have basically had what Chat GBT became and you know, they just didn't sort of focus on the right elements of it.
- [41:06]
A
I know I'm going a little longer on this than I anticipated, but I do think that this is really worth talking about. It's like then you look at where the action is. ChatGPT ground up Claude Code ground up Gemini, effectively ground up. One of the things that sort of stuck out to me when I was speaking with Sam was he was like, you can't just bolt AI on the existing products. You need to build ground up. And you know, as we have this discussion, you know, those words are certainly like seeming like they're ringing true. Like it's the businesses. The business picture right now is looking like twofold. One, you sell AI services to companies who are trying to like build on your API. Or two is you build these like native AI first products and you grow them from the very start.
- [41:56]
B
Yeah. And this story is nothing new, right? Like this is what happened with mobile too where like a bunch of players rose because they built these mobile first applications from Airbnb and you know, they started a little bit before that obviously, but that's what really helped them take off. But Uber, Uber is a great example. Right. Like why, why didn't AVIS where was Avis in the, in the App Store and buying Teslas and so like. But it's the same story of like, yeah, you, you've got to really go after sort of the owning the whole experience and sort of doing it in a native way. I even think back to when, when Facebook. I mean I often think back to this these days because I feel like it comes up a lot with Meta and what's been going on there recently where it's like when they sort of made their mistake around HTML5 and thinking like, oh, we don't need native mobile apps. Like it's not going to be a big, it's not going to be a big deal. We're going to do this extensible thing where you know, the open web is going to take over and it just didn't play out that way. And Zuckerberg has said that that was one of their, their biggest mistakes in the previous era at least. And so you know, again, like the notion of you got to build these products around what the technology is and not just try to bolt on the technology. You see everyone make the same mistake over and over again. And to your exact point, I think it's a good framing of it that like where is Microsoft's a hundred percent sort of, you know, native AI product? Like they'll say it's co pilot but it's sort of like, you know, it's sort of like an amalgamation of a bunch of things. First of all, Copilot, the branding is a mess because it's. The enterprise thing is called Copilot. The consumer thing is Copilot. They've got characters, cutesy characters. They've got, you know, all sorts of, of non cutesy things for doing it within Office. They can't figure out the brand. You go to office.com and you're, you're shoved into Microsoft 365 app, whatever. Like the, the press cycle was around that like their awful branding. So they've got all sorts of weird branding issues. But Amazon would say obviously it's Alexa and, and they are having, starting it sounds like to have, you know, some level of success with Alexa plus. But in some ways they were held back too because Alexa is from the old generation right of you know, drop the plus. But Alexa was on millions and tens of millions of devices and tens of millions of homes and so they were yeah again held back by the success of what they had in, in that front. And so they don't want to blow it up and start over. And so as A result Alexa plus. I agree it's like it's better than it was, but it still feels a bit tacked on and I don't think it's particularly going to be good for, you know, sort of these go forward Future initiatives in AI, whereas something like ChatGPT, they just keep rocking and rolling, rolling out these new ideas and features because again, they've been building in this AI native environment from the get go.
- [44:41]
A
Yeah, I mean this conversation just suggests to me like as we start thinking about this is maybe AI is, you know, if AI works it's going to be more disruptive than I think a lot of people imagine. Because if it's going to pose this threat to the incumbent tech companies who by the way, they're the one putting all these, this capex into, into the equation, then what does it do for everything else?
- [45:02]
B
And the last thing I would say about this, because this, your point jogged a thought in my head. Like I feel like with AI, you've often heard it said that it's basically it's like a website, right? It's like every company is going to have to have AI integrated and it's just like every company had to have a website and eventually a mobile app and you know, it's like table stake stuff. Right, but what if that's not the case? Right? I mean, I think that it will be the case to a, to a degree. I do think that all these sites and services will have AI baked into them. But what if the really successful companies are the ones that are doing this, like leveraging AI? And I've written about this and talked about this a little bit in the past where it does feel like AI. There are companies that jump up in sort of the echelons into the biggest companies of the world by leveraging sort of these new technological shifts that come into place. And I think most everyone would agree that AI is one of those. And so if you're just really tacking it onto your current products, that is not going to be what gets you to over the trillion dollar market cap hump or 2 trillion or 3 trillion. Right. These companies that are out there right now that are sort of the sub 1 trillion dollar tech companies that are just trying to bolt this stuff on. Like if I were them in some ways I would at least have a Skunk works project internally to like build entirely new products based off of AI and not just trying to tack it on because that's again, history has shown that's the only way to actually get into the conversation and become one of the biggest companies in the world is by doing that.
- [46:30]
A
Yeah. I think that's what Google has done. Well, yes, yes.
- [46:34]
B
There's a few companies that have done that, and Google is right there at the forefront of that.
- [46:37]
A
Yeah. Okay, so I definitely want to get into. We have like 10 minutes left. I want to get into some predictions. I think think you and I both believe, despite the issues that Apple's had, that it's gonna have a big year. One of your predictions for this year is that the folding phone is gonna be a big hit for Apple.
- [46:55]
B
I think so. I mean, again, this is. This is a little bit going against the grain because it does feel like that people are maybe not skeptical of it, but I know you and I have talked about it, right? Like, you were. I. I like the. I have a Pixel Fold as my sort of Android backup device that I test things on and I do generally like it a lot. But I, I think that I like it in that it. It shows me the way forward of how the I. The folding iPhone will work. But I do think, like, if they nail the screen without a crease, which seems like out of ces, there were some leaks that maybe Samsung has a great screen that doesn't crease anymore. So it feels like the. The pieces are starting to fall into place. Then you go into like. I don't think it will just necessarily be what everyone just assumes, which is just. Just the standard iPhone that you unfold. And then it's a bigger screen. I wouldn't be shocked if it's. It's going to end up being sort of like a little bit different of a use case. And the way that they market it isn't a little bit different. There's. There's a whole weird. No one knows for sure, but there might be a different aspect ratio to the front of the thing. It might be a little like smaller and fatter when it's. When it's folded. And people might appreciate having a smaller sort of device in their pocket. And then when it's unfolded, maybe it's more like an iPad mini, which is device that I love, but it hasn't really resonated as big as is. You know, sort of the bigger iPads have. But so anyway, so maybe there's these different, different ways to sort of frame it that does end up being a success. And if it's timed well with this new partnership with. With Google to get Gemini powering Siri, what if it's one of the first devices with like, really good AI finally from Apple. That could be a very compelling selling point, obviously.
- [48:28]
A
Definitely I'm looking forward for, to Tim Cook coming out there and introducing the iPhone origami. And you're able to make your iPhone.
- [48:40]
B
If it's Tim Cook might be any number of people he might be.
- [48:44]
A
That'd be one hell of an. Of an iPhone retirement. He turns it into like a little fortune teller thing and then he goes, all right, I'm done, everybody. I'm gonna give this over to John Turnest. Have a good one. But speaking of it, of Tim Cook, the, the Times had an article that talked again. I mean this is, this is more smoke than, than you need to say that something's going on here. He's. The Times had the story that said Tim Cook has told friends he's tired. This guy's gonna retire. I think he's. This is not, this is not the, this is the last year. I think for, for Tim Cook just, just, you know, not based off of any, anything more than reading the reports, but I, I think he's done.
- [49:27]
B
I think so as well. I mean, obviously there's been a bunch of, there's always the pushback, right? Like, okay, so this report says this, but like who would actually, you know, leak that Tim Cook is telling people that he's tired. And I think Gruber, you know, pushed back on that a little bit and then, you know, German, who's done a bunch of the reporting on this, has pushed back on like the timing of the whole thing. But I think there's too much smoke now. Like clearly the pieces are being put in place for him to at least have the optionality to step back when he wants to. And it does feel like it's going to be at some point in this coming year. You saw there was, you know, the news cycle around. They're letting Arthur Levison, who is the current chair, stand for re election even though he's 75, which is the unofficial official time of retirement for Apple board members. And you would think that that has to play directly into the notion that they're going to have Cook obviously step into that chairman role eventually. But because he's not ready to step down from the CEO role yet, you know, this is all sort of the period of transition. But it does again feel like that everything is, is moving into place to have Cook be able to do that, to step into that chairman role and perhaps to let John Turnus come in. You know, there was some push in that same story about like, oh, are there other candidates that that could be in the offering. You know, a lot of the, it's all the standard names that are thrown out there. The problem with most of them is that they're almost the same age as Cooking Book, except for Craig Federighi, who is another one who I would view as a legitimate contender to do the job. And I, you know, it has to be sort of between those two, between Turnus and Federighi. But everyone, you know, all the reporting points to turn us. And so you have to believe that that's the thing. The one thing that I do think that's a wild card in this. I'm very curious to see who they hire to replace John Giandria. As you know, the head of AI. The, the. All the reporting right now has, of course, like Mike Rockwell from Vision Pro is sort of taken over the Org and then he reports up to Federighi who is sort of overseeing the entire, you know, strategy of that. And so either they let him continue to run it, but you think that they, they have to get a sort of an AI focused technologist in there to actually sort of oversee this entire thing. And so who that ends up being. We can go back to you and I talking all of last year about, like, who does Apple acquire? Like, maybe they do acquire someone to bring in, to bring in the right talent in order just to lead that division. I'm not going to say it's like Ilya Sutskever. I don't think that they're gonna do a deal that's like, you know, the 30 billion dollar. 30, 40, $50 billion that it would take to buy safe super intelligence just to do that. But like, they need a name like that, of that caliber in order to lead this and give people they. They now have the sort of band aid stop gap, if you want to call it that, a very good band aid in the Google deal. But eventually Apple's going to want to own this and do this themselves. And so they need the right person that they now have years of Runway, thanks to this Google deal, to be able to work behind the scenes on their own stuff.
- [52:16]
A
Yeah, one of the popular names is going to be Mistral. And we do have Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch coming on the show in a couple of days. And at the end of the conversation, I said, oh, I forgot to ask you, are you going to sell to Apple? And he said, I think he was at Google DeepMind. And he's like, I didn't leave a big company to start a company to get acquired, to go back to a Big company now. Money, money talks.
- [52:41]
B
Yes, but money always talks. The EU talks too. I don't know how much the EU wants right. They're champion to be bought by an American big tech company, but that's right, yeah.
- [52:52]
A
All right, so one more prediction that you have is someone is going to buy Perplexity. You don't think it's going to be Apple? Who could it be?
- [53:02]
B
I think the most likely one is Samsung for the obvious reasons that they have a big partnership with them though Samsung is in the process. It sounds like a, of, of more deeply integrating Gemini as well. You know obviously they've, they've been a long time leader in the Android space and so you'd think like anything that Google does they're going to be closely aligned with. But yeah, again they have the partnership with Perplexity. I wouldn't be shocked. It's going to be a big price. Right. Like that company I think was Last valued at 15, no, maybe 20 now 20 billion. So anything to take them off the table will be immense in terms of price. So it narrows down the options of who could do it. I don't think it'll be Apple for the reasons that we've talked about. I think that Apple kicked those tires and decided not to go down that path. I don't think it'll be Google for a host of reasons. I don't think they really need it. You could see a Microsoft or someone like that trying to come in and, and do a deal that again maybe helps reset or, or establish some sort of consumer, more consumer oriented foothold. Something like that wouldn't shock me. And there's a, you know, you can go down the list of a handful of other players, the Amazon's the world and whatnot. But I do feel like the music is maybe slowing to the point where they might have to figure out the path forward for that company in particular.
- [54:19]
A
Yeah, I'm much less bullish on Perplexity than I was. I just think that like their functionality is just going to be swallowed up by the Geminis and the ChatGPT of the world and it's like do you really need an AI search engine to do the same thing that you can do within Chatbots?
- [54:36]
B
Yeah, and they thought, they thought like the browser thing would be you know, a huge beachhead and they, they said they were gonna buy Chrome. Right. And, and TikTok too.
- [54:45]
A
And they had a year, didn't they?
- [54:47]
B
So they, they've been looking for, there were these strategies and I think they're sort of running, running out of options of what the what the next strategy will be in order to get to maintain that momentum that they need to in order to keep fundraising.
- [55:00]
A
Website is spyglass.org definitely one of my must reads whenever it comes to tech and AI mg. It's always great to speak with you. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
- [55:08]
B
Thank you, Alex. Great to chat as always.
- [55:11]
A
All right, everybody, thank you for listening and watching. We'll be back on Wednesday, as I mentioned, with Arthur mentioned, then on Friday. So Arthur Mensch, the Mistral CEO, and then on Friday to break down the week's news. Thanks again for listening and watching. And we'll see you next time on big Technology Podcast.