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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.
