TBPN Episode Summary – December 18, 2025

Episode: Amazon Bets $10B on OpenAI, Ford’s Reality Check, Paramount Deal Unravels | Diet TBPN
Hosts: John Coogan & Jordi Hays
Special Guests: Ben Thompson, James Allworth, Sahil Bloom
Theme: Major breaking tech and business stories: Amazon’s $10B bet on OpenAI, Ford killing the F150 Lightning EV, Paramount's failed Warner Bros. bid, and shifts across tech/media.

Episode Overview

This episode covers several rapidly developing stories in tech and media:

• Amazon’s unprecedented $10 billion investment in OpenAI, and the implications for AI infrastructure and e-commerce.
• Ford’s retreat from electric pickups, getting candid about the failed F150 Lightning, and what it reveals about the truck market.
• The unraveling drama around Paramount’s attempted acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery—with political twists and financial skepticism.
• Notably, the group also dives into advertising (out-of-home campaigns), tech geographies (SF vs. NY), and the new wave of influencer- and content-led brands.

Key Topics and Discussions

1. Ford Ends the F150 Lightning: Did Truck Buyers Ever Want EVs?

[00:02 – 05:03]

• Ford kills its flagship EV pickup after a massive (72%) year-over-year drop in sales—tied to the sunset of tax credits.

  • “The first question that I was sort of toying with... did truck buyers ever really want to go electric? Was that ever a good idea?” – Ben Thompson, [00:46]
  • Traditional truck branding—”dude guys being dude, driving through the mud,” the importance of engine noise and exhaust—doesn’t translate to EVs.

• Consumer profiles revealed a mismatch:

  • “Of the people that reserved the F-150 Lightning, 50% had never owned a truck before. 75%... had never owned a Ford before.” – Ben Thompson, [02:31]
  • What seemed like a win (new customers!) was a red flag—all core truck/Ford buyers weren’t interested; only niche consumers tried the EV.

• Comparison with Rivian:

  • Rivian successfully created a premium, outdoorsy, REI-like brand for electric trucks.
  • Ford’s speed to market was laudable, but the Lightning didn’t match Rivian’s product appeal.
  • “I always looked at Rivian as something like the Whole Foods of cars. Or the REI of cars.” – James Allworth, [04:23]

• Ford pivots—back to hybrids:

  • Betting on new “extended range” hybrid trucks (up to 700 miles).

• Car tech annoyances: lack of Apple CarPlay in Rivians, the struggle with proprietary in-car systems.

2. Amazon’s $10B Bet on OpenAI: Chips, Cloud, and Commerce

[06:09 – 14:09]

• The mega-deal: Amazon is in talks for a $10B investment in OpenAI, structured as AWS credits and strategic partnership.

  • “This is kind of like a rebate... ‘Hey, we're going to buy 40 [billion in service], here take 10 back and we'll take a piece.’” – Ben Thompson, [06:51]
  • OpenAI recently committed to spending $38 billion on AWS over 7 years.

• Dual-prong rationale:

  • Cloud & Chips: OpenAI promises to use Amazon's “Trainium” AI chips (rivals to Nvidia’s).
    • Discussion on whether OpenAI will tailor models to Trainium, or create a more hardware-agnostic stack.
    • “Do you have any instinct... does Trainium get abstracted to a point where it’s model-agnostic... a liquid pool of compute that cuts across the entire stack?” – Ben Thompson, [11:51]
  • Commerce: OpenAI wants to build shopping features into ChatGPT—potentially turning it into a storefront or recommendation engine.
    • “The more notable news here is that Amazon and OpenAI have discussed commerce partnership opportunities.” – James Allworth, [06:59]
    • Potential conflict: If people search in ChatGPT instead of Amazon, it could cut into Amazon’s critical ad business.

• Amazon’s advertising moat:

  • Ad revenue at $60B+, growing faster than retail—Amazon does not want to cede the “start of the commerce journey” to LLMs or chatbots.

• Aggregation Theory Talk:

  • Both Amazon and Shopify fiercely protect being the main aggregator for e-commerce, resisting “platform on top of platform” scenarios.

• Industry perspective:

  • “Amazon is in deep talks, but the real win is securing big new chip customers and protecting the e-commerce funnel.” – Paraphrase, various.

3. Paramount’s Bid for Warner Bros. Unravels & Media Power Moves

[14:19 – 19:39]

• Jared Kushner, after political noise, pulls out of the Paramount-Warner Bros. bid.

  • “Jared Kushner is pulling out of the Paramount bid, hours after his father-in-law took aim at the Ellison clan.” – Ben Thompson, [14:29]
  • Political friction between the Ellison family and the current administration surfaces.

• CCBS/CBS Brand (Barry Weiss as News Head):

  • Diversity of opinion about CBS’s new direction under Barry Weiss—seen as more relevant, though divisive.
  • “You can like it or hate it... but you can’t deny people are talking about CBS content in a way I have not seen ever.” – James Allworth, [16:03]

• Deal structure criticism:

  • Warner Bros. calls out Paramount/Skydance’s lack of a real financing commitment; the "revocable trust" cited is inadequate for deal certainty.
    • “A revocable trust is no replacement for a secured commitment by a controlling stockholder.” – James Allworth, [18:14]
  • Netflix’s competing offer seen as more credible (“bird in hand worth... not two in the bush.”).

4. Advertising, Out-of-Home, and the Friend.com Billboard Gambit

[19:39 – 21:21]

• Modern tech billboard strategy:

  • Friend.com’s unconventional out-of-home campaign—focusing on cheap, high-frequency inventory rather than prestige placements—may become a template.
    • “He might have unlocked an entirely new strategy... a go-big, massive billboard campaign.” – Ben Thompson, [20:27]

• Ad arbitrage:

  • “Every out of home agent I’ve ever talked to has offered 50% reductions in price... most inventory is actually pretty cheap.” – Ben Thompson, [19:45]

5. Tech Hubs: Is San Francisco ‘Over’? Debating Tech Migration

[21:21 – 22:57]

• Avi Schiffman’s viral “SF is over” post:

  • Declares NY is the new center for tech; dismisses the SF scene as stale, “just YC slop startups.”
  • Strong disagreement from the panel: “I put this up as one of the worst takes of the year... It’s like saying in the early days of the Internet ‘it’s over, just don’t build anything.’” – Ben Thompson, [22:21]

• Humorous aside:

  • Shark-diving in the Bay Area as the new “adventure,” if hackathons aren’t interesting enough.

6. Startup Ideas—Half-Joking, Half-Serious

[23:09 – 23:53]

• "friend.com for sharks" and telemedicine for anabolic steroids for pets.

• “Why reserve digital companions for just humans?... All life. All life matter. Think bigger.” – James Allworth, [23:12]

• “You know way too much about performance enhancing drugs anyway.” – Ben Thompson teasing Sahil Bloom, [23:46]

7. Influencer-Led Brands: Wild Roman Skincare & DTC Dynamics

[23:53 – 26:54]

• Sahil Bloom gifts his new men’s skincare product “Wild Roman.”

  • “I got sick of putting things on my skin that I never put on my body, so I spent 18 months creating the perfect solution.” – Ben Thompson, quoting, [24:17]

• The challenge for influencer brands:

  • Massive social followings give initial traction, but real scale requires breaking out of the built-in audience and finding new customers.
    • “No matter how big your audience is, you can be Kim Kardashian... eventually you have to go find new people that aren’t already getting exposure.” – James Allworth, [26:04]

• Distribution as king:

  • “Feels like a good brand to introduce... to the Target audience. This screams end cap to me.” – James Allworth, [25:35]
  • Example: some brands doing >$100M annually only via Target.

8. Media Shifts: Barstool x Netflix, The Oscars Go to YouTube

[26:54 – 29:38]

• Barstool/Neflix: Video Podcasting Exclusives

  • Dave Portnoy announces Barstool’s 3 top pods will be “video exclusive on Netflix.”
    • “That’s what we do at Barstool: evolve, rotate, evolve.” – Dave Portnoy, [27:12]
  • Admired for his “one-shot” DIY announcement video—authenticity over production value.

• The Oscars move to YouTube (2029):

  • The traditional film industry cedes its highest-profile event to a “new media” platform.
  • “The movie industry is saying: Yep, YouTube beat us. It’s over, it’s over.” – Ben Thompson, [29:34]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Did truck buyers ever really want to go electric? Was that ever a good idea?” – Ben Thompson, [00:46]
• “All that advertising worked on me. I grew up in a Toyota family... as soon as I was an adult... I bought a Ford Raptor.” – James Allworth, [01:53]
• “It’s like this weird, what does the [Rivian] name actually mean? I guess it means ‘river Indian’... like something from a pharmaceutical company brainstorm.” – Ben Thompson, [04:06]
• “This is kind of like a rebate... ‘Hey, we're going to buy 40, here take 10 back and we'll take a piece.’” – Ben Thompson, on Amazon’s OpenAI deal, [06:51]
• "If consumers start just going to chatbots to find products on Amazon... Amazon needs to be really careful... OpenAI wants them to pay for that customer, and that’s a customer that didn’t just go look at a bunch of ads.” – James Allworth, [08:03]
• “The bird in the hand is worth... not two in the bush.” – Ben Thompson, [18:57]
• “I hereby declare New York the new bastion of what matters in the near future. Could not disagree more with every single pretty much every single word in here.” – Ben Thompson (reading Avi’s post, then responding), [21:57]
• "It’s literally like saying in the early days of the Internet... ‘yeah, it's over, just don't build anything.'” – Ben Thompson, [22:17]
• “Who’s making friend.com for sharks? ... Maybe they’re lonely out in the high seas.” – James Allworth, [23:09]
• “20 years of experience. Most people can't just one-shot that on day one of their career.” – Ben Thompson on Portnoy's legendary video skills, [28:24]

Important Timestamps

• Ford’s EV retreat, truck market insights: [00:02–05:03]
• Amazon’s OpenAI investment & AI chip wars: [06:09–14:09]
• Paramount/Warner Bros. deal drama: [14:19–19:39]
• Billboards & OOH advertising democratized: [19:39–21:21]
• Tech geography debates (SF vs. NY): [21:21–22:57]
• Influencer/DTC brands & distribution challenges: [23:53–26:54]
• Barstool x Netflix, Oscars move to YouTube: [26:54–29:38]

Overall Tone

Fast-paced, witty, and densely insightful, with the hosts freely mixing sharp business analysis, personal anecdotes, and humor—even as they break down billion-dollar deals and industry upheaval.