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Ain’t No Drama Like AI Drama
00:22:03
There might be, and I know this is going to shock you, some drama going on over at OpenAI. Why is Anthropic cutting off Claude access to OpenClaw? Why are VCs covering the rent for founders who drop out of college? And maybe that two person unicorn I shared with you in the longreads is not what it was cracked up to be.
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Morning decisions. How about a creamy Mocha Frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.
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Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Monday, April 6, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough. Today there might be, and I know this is gonna shock you, some drama going on over at OpenAI. Why is anthropic cutting off clawed access to open? Why are VCs covering the rent for founders? And maybe that two person unicorn I shared with you in the long reads is not what it was cracked up to be. Here's what you miss today. In the world of tech, The information says well, like I said to Sebastian Malaby on last Friday's interview, the AI space continues to be the most drama heavy space I've ever seen. Quoting from the information Sam Altman has committed OpenAI to spend $600 billion in the next five years and privately said he wants to go public as soon as the fourth quarter of this year, despite expectations his company will burn more than $200 billion before it starts generating cash. But behind the scenes, Sarah Fryer, his chief financial officer, has voiced concerns that reflect the tensions and risks inherent in the CEO's extraordinarily ambitious plans. Fryer has told some colleagues earlier this year that she didn't believe the company would be ready to go public in 2026 because of the procedural and organizational work needed and the risks from its spending commitments, according to a person who spoke to her. She said she wasn't sure yet whether OpenAI would need to pour so much money into obtaining AI servers in the coming years, or whether its revenue growth, which has been slowing, would support the commitments, the person said who spoke to her. It isn't clear whether the company's announcement this week that it had received investment commitments totaling 122 billion DOL dollars has allayed some of her concerns. OpenAI is due to receive the capital in stages, and it mostly will come from Amazon and Nvidia, which supply the cloud servers and chips OpenAI uses. The deal is part of a series of circular financial arrangements involving the biggest AI related companies outside OpenAI. Sam Altman, 40, and Sarah Fryer, 53, have generally presented a united front. That was the case at a dinner for investors that they hosted at Altman's San Francisco home earlier this year, said one attendee at Seems though their divergent emphases have fueled the perception of strains in their relationship among some people who have worked closely with them since Fryer joined OpenAI in June of 2024. Those people said Altman has excluded her from some conversations related to the company's financial plans. For instance, in recent months, he left Fryer out of a conversation about server spending with leaders at one of OpenAI's top investors. One of those people said her absence was noticeable and awkward given that a previous conversation on the same topic had included her, according to an attendee. A different person who attended a senior level meeting at OpenAI with Altman earlier this year said it was unusual that Fryer was not invited as it involved a discussion of major financial decisions. In an unusual move for a large company where CFOs almost always answer directly to the CEO, Fryer stopped reporting directly to Altman in August last year and instead began reporting to Fiji. Simo, who had joined as head of OpenAI's applications business Seema, last week told staff she would take a short medical leave. Altman and Fryer have starkly different personalities and backgrounds. He has long positioned himself as a world changing visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. She is a former Goldman Sachs equity analyst who later worked in finance at Salesforce, helped Square Now Block go public, and spent around six years as CEO of Nextdoor, a local social network, before being replaced as the business struggled. She was then brought into OpenAI to help it raise funds and reassure investors about what Altman has described as the most capital intensive company in history. Fryer has a hard job, said someone who works closely with her and Altman. She is working for a founder with big ambitions who wants to push the envelope as hard as he can on spend. End quote. Uh, the throttling of stuff continues, though one wonders if this is in aid of preserving compute or maybe clearing the lane for their own stuff. Or, you know, maybe both. But yeah, Anthropic has essentially banned openclaw, Quoting the Verge Using openclaw with Claude AI is about to get a lot more expensive, thanks to Anthropic's new policy changes. Beginning on April 4 at 3pm Eastern, users were no longer able to use your Claude subscription limits for third party harnesses, including OpenClaw, according to an email sent to users on Friday evening. Instead, if users want to use openclaw with Claude, they'll have to use a pay as you go option that will be billed separate from their Claude subscription. With OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger, now employed by OpenAI, Anthropic may be encouraging subscribers to use more of its own tools like Claude Cowork. Instead, Steinberger says that he and openclaw board member Dave Morin tried to talk sense into Anthropic. Best we managed was delaying this for a week, according to Anthropic Claude Codexec Boris Czerny Starting tomorrow at 12:00pm Pacific Time, Claude subscriptions will no longer cover usage on third party tools like OpenClaw. You can still use these tools with your Claude login via extra usage bundles now available at a discount or with a Claude API key. We've been working hard to meet the increase in demand for Claude and our subscriptions weren't built for the usage patterns of these third party tools. Capacity is a resource we manage thoughtfully and we are prioritizing our customers using our products and API. Subscribers get a one time credit equal to your monthly plan cost. If you need more, you can now buy discounted usage bundles. To request a full refund, look for a link in your email tomorrow. We want to be intentional in managing our growth to continue to serve our customers sustainably long term. This change is a step toward that end. Quote. This is a pretty big deal for the largest subset of Android owners out there. Samsung plans to discontinue its Messages app in the US starting in July and is instead offering instructions for users on older Android versions to switch to Google Messages. Quoting 9to5Google this has been a long time coming. Once the Samsung Messages app is discontinued, sending messages via Samsung Messages on your phone will no longer be possible except for emergency service numbers or emergency contacts defined in your device. The app will no longer be available for download in the Galaxy Store after July. Galaxy S26 users are already prevented from downloading Samsung Messages. This is for Galaxy users on Android 12 and newer, with the notice spotted today on Samsung's US site. Older devices are not affected by this end of service. Samsung Messages will guide users to Google Messages with an in app notification and on screen instructions. On Android 14 plus, the Google Messages icon will automatically shift to your home screen dock after switching. Samsung Messages is also being discontinued on Tizen OS watches with users no longer able to see the full message conversation history on their watch. However, those watches will still enable the user to read and send text messages. Samsung is touting the advantages of this switchover, including quote powerful security, AI powered scam detection and robust spam filters. Identify and block suspicious texts to help keep your inbox clean and your personal information. Safer RCS Messaging With RCS enabled across Android and iOS, you and your friends can share high quality photos and videos, enhance your group chats see real time typing indicators and more. Also expressive AI features. Access powerful Gemini features to bring AI powered expressivity to your chats including remixing, photos and smart replies. End quote. I did not know expressivity was a word.
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K Pop demon hunters, Haja Boy's breakfast meal and Hunt Trick's meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.
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It is an honor to share.
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No it's our honor.
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It is our larger honor.
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No really stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side
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and participate in McDonald's while supplies last.
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you both sides of the AI job Pocalypse file. But I got to admit that at this point I can't even pick a trend line. Guess what? According to some counting software job openings, jobs for software engineers and the like are actually up this year. Quoting Business Insider Tech job openings have rebounded sharply in 2026, challenging the popular narrative that AI is wiping out engineering roles. Data from TrueUp, a tech hiring analytics firm, shows more than 67,000 software engineering job openings, the highest level in over three years. Listings have roughly doubled since a trough in mid 2023. The most striking number for me is this so far this year, the number of open roles has jumped about 30%. TrueUp tracks jobs at tech companies rather than all types of businesses that may need tech workers. So the impact of AI should be felt even more strongly in this data. A lot of the AI is replacing engineers narrative isn't grounded in job posting data, at least not so far, amit Taylor, founder of TrueUp, told me this week. Check out this chart, which shows open software engineering roles globally. The chart starts in late 2022, when ChatGPT emerged and started the generative AI revolution. The line goes the opposite way you would expect, given all the hand wringing over AI lately. The recovery follows a steep correction in 2022 and early 2023, when tech companies slashed hiring over expanding during the pandemic boom, rising interest rates and a shift toward profitability forced companies to freeze hiring and cut staff. Now hiring is rebounding heavily in AI, which ironically requires a large number of engineers. TrueUp's dataset tracks more than 260,000 open roles across 9,000 tech companies, focusing on startups and public tech firms rather than the broader economy. Within that universe, demand for software engineers remains strong while AI related roles are exploding, Taylor says. So why does the situation feel so dire for some candidates, especially recent graduates? There are still entry level tech jobs, but the pool of available talent is maybe now much bigger way. More people have pursued computer science, TrueUp founder Amit Taylor told me this week. The jobs haven't disappeared, but competition for them is dramatically higher than it was even five years ago. How might the tech job market evolve as AI weaves itself into the economy? Maybe AI compresses some roles entirely, or maybe it makes great engineers so leverage that companies fight even harder over them, taylor said. Right now, the demand for top talent is strong, but maybe that continues for a while until things suddenly flip. End quote. Nice work if you can get it. The Journal says that venture capitalists are increasingly covering expenses like rent for young college dropouts. Founding AI startups. According to Antler, the average AI unicorn founder age fell from 40 back in 2022 to 29 in 2024. During this blisteringly fast phase of AI development, it's no longer enough for venture capital firms to invest in companies. They're buying apartments and workplaces, Ikea furniture and dishes, and providing housekeeping for their teenage and 20something founders. The logic is fewer responsibilities mean more waking hours for working. Starting a company has never been easier or required fewer people. New AI tools like Claude Code help write and debug software faster and spin up a website or a marketing venture capital money is abundant and every minute feels precious. Many founders say there is a short window of opportunity to build something new before AI systems become smarter than humans and they see a chance to make a fortune if you wait until after you graduate, said Castellano, a first generation college student whose parents immigrated to the US from Ecuador and Venezuela. All the good ideas are going to be already taken. Many students take breaks from school with no real intention of returning. Universities and parents often prefer to call them leaves rather than acknowledge that the students are dropping out. Leave policies vary by school. Mit, for example, allows undergraduates to take up to four semesters off, while young founders have long dropped out of college to chase startup dreams during past technological booms. This time their financial backers are funding housing for them and ensuring their daily needs from changing sheets, taking out the trash and booking travel are met. Competition to invest in the best talent is intense, and that talent is increasingly younger. The average age of founders of so called AI unicorns companies worth more than $1 billion has fallen from aged 40 in 2022 to age 29 in 2024, according to investment firm Antler Link Ventures founder Dave Blunden spent $5.4 million of his own money last year to buy a six unit, 10,000 square foot apartment building near MIT in Cambridge to house some of the founders the firm has backed. I'm first trying to convince them that there's nothing else you can do in life right now, said Blunden, who graduated 1988 and went on to found several companies, including Insurance Marketplace Everquote if it were me, would I even vaguely think about going back to class? Not even close. End quote. Finally today, since I suggested this to you in the longreads last week, I owe it to you to tell you about this. Follow up Gary Marcus and Voidzilla on YouTube have brutal takedowns, which suggests that Medvy, that company profiled by the New York Times as a two employee startup with more than a billion dollars in revenue is actually well quoting Akash Gupta. MEDV received FDA warning letter number 721455 in February 2026 for misbranding violations. Their clinician network Open Loop suffered a data breach in January 2026 that exposed 1.6 million patient records. Futurism reported that they used AI generated deep fakes before and after photos in their marketing. A class action lawsuit was filed malware in November 2025 and now they're running more than 800 fake Dr. Accounts on Facebook to sell compounded GLP1s. The company holds no proprietary technology, no licensed physician network, no pharmacy infrastructure. It outsources every regulated function to care, validate and open loop while keeping the customer relationship, checkout flow and ad spend. The entire business is a marketing layer on top of rented infrastructure and the marketing itself itself is built on fabricated medical credentials. HIMSS did $2.4 billion in revenue last year with 2,442 employees and a 5.5% net margin. MEDV claims a 16.2% net margin with two people. The margin difference tells you where the compliance spending went. The AI built the website, the AI runs customer service, the AI generated the deep fake before and afters and now more than 800 fake doctor accounts are running paid ads on Facebook. The entire company is an AI powered frau machine that happens to also sell real drugs. End quote. And here's Rob Freund quote medv was sued in a class action last month for violating California's anti spam law. MEDV's affiliate marketers send spam, use falsified header information, spoof domains and nonsensical sending addresses to evade spam filters. They also use false and deceptive subject lines, everything that people rightfully hate about spam, end quote. And well watch that takedown on YouTube that I'm recommending. Quoting from the David Marcus post where you can see all of the above quote, A friend of mine who has been tracking this for a while sees Medvy as a fraud layer on top of also scammy but possibly less illegal platforms speculating that quote, if there is any money there, they will be sued by all of their suppliers and vendors because I'm sure they're in violation of every agreement in terms of compliance, evidence efforts, safe data handling, etc. The friend also is doubtful of the revenue reports asking why would this be the only thing they're telling the truth about. All in all, glorifying Medvy was not the New York Times finest hour and hardly the poster child AI boosters should be hoping for. Instead, as the YouTube video author Voidzilla notes, if anything, MEDV is a warning sign for how AI can be abused. End quote. Hello from the Grand Canyon. We are wrapping up our multi day stay here and heading down to Sedona right after I hit publish on this. Talk to you tomorrow.