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Brian McCullough
Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride home for Friday, July 25, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, could intel exit the high end chip game entirely? Why are public companies loading up on crypto? GPT5 is probably coming in a matter of weeks. What if it's actually AI job apocalypse? Not now. And in the long reads, the best explainer of those GLP1 drugs I've read so far. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech intel announced earnings that were okay, ish, I guess. But the big news was the continued restructuring as the company struggles to survive. For example, intel canceled planned fab projects in Germany and Poland and says it will consolidate its testing and assembly operations in Vietnam and Malaysia. Quoting CNBC CEO Lip Bhu, Tan added that the company would slow down the pace of its construction of a cutting edge chip factory in Ohio, depending on market demand and if it can secure big customers for the facility. Over the past several years, the company invested too much too soon without adequate demand, tan wrote. In the process, our factory footprint became needlessly fragmented and underutilized. Tan wrote that the company's forthcoming chip manufacturing process, called 14A, will be built out based on confirmed customer commitments. There are no more blank checks. Every investment must make economic sense, tan wrote. End quote More on that from Reuters Quote those customers for the company's so called 14Amanufacturing process are crucial to the success of the technology, so much so that if it fails to secure a big one, it could shut down its cutting edge manufacturing business altogether. According to Intel's quarterly filing on Thursday, the possibility that intel could drop out of the cutting edge manufacturing business would be a historic shift for a company that has described itself as a steward of Moore's law. An observation by intel co founder Gordon Moore about the fast rate of development of the chip industry that held true for decades. Intel is the only US Chip maker capable of making advanced computing chips. We're developing Intel 14A from the ground up in close partnership with large external customers, tan said in a memo released with the results. Going forward, our Investment in Intel 14a will be based on confirmed customer commitments. We will build what our customers need when they need it and earn their trust through consistent execution and more layoffs. Reuters Again, intel is going to end the year with a workforce that is over a fifth smaller than last year. Intel plans to cut its workforce from 96,400 that it reported at the end of June to 75,000, or about 15%, through attrition and other means by the end of 2025. Google is testing a vibe coding tool called Opal that lets users create mini web apps using text prompts or remix existing apps available in the US via Labs. Quoting TechCrunch AI powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own. Makers of the so called Vibe coding tools are a hot commodity at the moment, with startups like Lovable and Cursor fending off buyers and investors keen to tap a hot trend. Google's now become the latest to hop on this bandwagon. The company is testing a vibe coding tool called Opal, available to users in the US through Google Labs, which the company uses to experiment with new tech. Opal lets you create many web apps using text prompts, or you can remix existing apps available in a gallery. All users have to do is type in a description of the app they want to make and the tool will then use different Google models to do so. Once the app is ready, you can navigate into an editor panel to see the visual workflow of input, output and generation steps. You can click on each workflow step to look at the prompt that dictates the process and edit it if you need to. You can also manually add steps from Opal's toolbar. Opal also lets users publish their new app on the web and share the link with others to test out using their own Google accounts. Google's AI studio already lets developers build apps using prompts, but Opal's visual workflow indicates the company likely wants to target a wider audience. The company joins a long list of competitors including Canva, Figma and Replit that are making tools to encourage non technical people to create prototypes of apps without having to do any coding. Something I've been meaning to tell you about for a while now is this whole trend of public companies loading up on crypto tokens expanding beyond Bitcoin in an effort to boost their share prices. Quoting the ft, public companies are loading up on cryptocurrencies such as US President Donald Trump's Meme Coin Hype Token and Litecoin as they branch out into hoarding digital currencies beyond Bitcoin in an attempt to drive up their own share prices. Issuing bonds or shares in order to buy Bitcoin has become a hot trend globally this year as companies seek to emulate billionaire Michael Saylor's $116 billion company MicroStrategy in stockpiling the digital currency. But listed companies and new special purpose acquisition vehicles are now targeting other tokens as they seek to differentiate themselves from the hundreds of Bitcoin owning businesses. Former Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser is working on a deal to raise $200 million of equity using a public shell company to buy TON at a discount to its current trading value with Canadian investment group RSV Capital, according to two people briefed on the matter. Toncoin is the token of the blockchain used by messaging app Telegram and built by its founder, including Pavel Durov. Since TON is the exclusive blockchain for Telegram, which has over 1 billion monthly active users, the opportunity for rising demand is unparalleled, kaiser told the Financial Times, adding that the deal quote, will focus on growth of the Telegram ecosystem. Blockchain platform Avalanche is also studying a similar deal where it would sell some of its tokens to a publicly listed shell company. The shell company would then hold and stake the Avax tokens, which are used on the Avalanche network, to earn yield in hopes of attracting an investor base, the people said. Avalanche declined to comment. The moves beyond Bitcoin come as the price of the world's biggest cryptocurrency recently reached a record high of more than $123,000, boosted by the US's friendly approach to digital assets under Trump. Last week, Washington passed landmark crypto legislation marking a significant step forward in the mainstream adoption of crypto. Bitcoin has outperformed other tokens, climbing 77% over the past year, compared with a 6% rise for ether and 52% rise for litecoin over the same period, leading some firms to look at other cryptocurrencies, among other deals in the sector. Logistics management company Freight technologies recently raised $20 million through convertible debt to spend on buying the president's official coin. Trump Chief Executive Javier Selgas said buying the coin would help, quote, diversify our crypto treasury and simultaneously bring attention to trade policy. Oncology company Sonnet BioTherapeutics agreed an $888 million special purpose acquisition deal with a vehicle backed by former Barclays chief executive Bob diamond to buy Hype this month. Hype is the token of the hyper liquid blockchain. Sonnet's stock price surged 200% on the deal, but later fell, end quote. Just putting this on your radar. Tom Warren is reporting that OpenAI plans to launch GPT5 in early August, with the main and many versions available via ChatGPT and the API and the Nano version via the API only. Quoting the Verge, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed on X that we are releasing GPT5 soon and even teased some of its capabilities in a podcast appearance with Theo Vaughn earlier this week, Altman decided to let GPT5 take a stab at a question he didn't understand. I put it in the model, this is GPT5 and it answered it perfectly, altman said. He described it as a here it is moment, adding that he felt useless relative to the AI because he felt like he should have been able to answer the question. But GPT5 answered it instantly. It was a weird feeling, he said. GPT5 had already been spotted in the wild before Altman's appearance on this past weekend for fueling speculation that the next generation GPT model was imminent. I understand OpenAI is planning to launch GPT5 in early August, complete with Mini and Nano versions that will also be available through its API. Altman referred to GPT5 as, quote, a system that integrates a lot of our technology earlier this year because it will include the O3 reasoning capabilities instead of shipping those in a separate model. It's part of OpenAI's ongoing efforts to simplify and combine its large language models to make a more capable system that could eventually be declared Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI. The declaration of AGI is particularly important to OpenAI because achieving it will force Microsoft to relinquish its rights to OpenAI revenue and its future AI models. Microsoft and OpenAI have been renegotiating their partnership recently as OpenAI needs Microsoft's approval to convert part of its business to a for profit company. It's unlikely that GPT5 will meet the AGI threshold that's reportedly linked to OpenAI's profits. Altman previously said that GPT5 won't have a gold level of capability for many months after launch. Unifying its O series and GPT series models will also reduce reduce the friction of having to know which model to pick for each task in ChatGPT. I understand that the main combined reasoning version of GPT5 will be available through ChatGPT and OpenAI's API, and the mini version will also be available on ChatGPT and the API. The Nano version of GPT5 is expected to be available through the API only. End quote from the job pocalypse question mark file the Financial Times says US and UK entry level graduate job listings have plunged since 2022, but there's only tentative evidence of AI related disruption in a lot of occupations. Quote Job postings for entry level roles requiring a degree have dropped by almost 2/3 in the UK since 2022 the year ChatGPT launched twice as much as for all entry level roles, according to job search engine adzuna. In the US such listings are down 43% over the same period. Yet while the data points to a tough landscape for new graduates, it also indicates the causes are more nuanced. AI may be part of the picture, but other factors including economic uncertainty, post Covid retrenchment and offshoring are probably playing an equal or bigger role in falling graduate hiring. There is so far only tentative evidence in some of the most immediately exposed occupations of AI related disruption. According to an FT analysis of the latest available data, advertisements for graduate level roles have plunged in Several sought after UK sectors thought to be highly at risk from AI. They were down by 75% in banking and finance, 65% in software development, at 54% in accounting in June this year, compared with the same month in 2019, according to data from job search site Indeed. But listings have also fallen sharply in fields identified as being under less acute pressure from generative AI, such as human resources, which was down 77%, and civil engineering, where there had been a 55% drop in openings, according to the data. Youth employment has fallen in some AI exposed roles like graphic design, management, analysis and loan assessment since ChatGPT's launch, while fields like accounting and many tech jobs remain strong despite slight declines in software development. US data shows rising unemployment among young male graduates is concentrated in construction and production, not white collar work. Experts attribute hiring slowdowns less to AI and more to tariffs, government cuts and broader economic uncertainty impacting entry level opportunities.
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Unnamed Speaker
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Brian McCullough
Mid tier Altitude Elite feel free to board now.
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Unnamed Speaker
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Brian McCullough
So close.
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Unnamed Speaker
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Brian McCullough
In select markets Time for the weekend long read suggestions first up, the betas for iOS, iPadOS and Mac OS 26 are all out and as he does every year, Jason Snell has a deep dive. I want to focus on his review of Mac OS 26 though, because he says the interface is a bit of a mess, like a poorly imported iOS design. Although the power of the new spotlight and shortcuts he says, will delight many longtime users. His beef with the design is basically this liquid glass. In macOS, Tahoe feels unfinished compared to its more pleasing effect on ISOs and iPadOs, he says. While there are transparent menus, redesigned icons and glass textured docs, the look on the Mac often feels muddled rather than sleek. Toolbars, which are suddenly ubiquitous in macOS, are the biggest issue. Instead of dynamic glassy bubbles, most appear as flat gray ovals with awkward shadows, rarely achieving Apple's intended depth effect. Content sliding behind interfaces sometimes looks beautiful but often harms readability with shifting contrast and text visibility issues, Apple claims. These elements frame users content, yet they sometimes obscure it, according to Snell, turning blurred images into mirror decoration. In practice, he says, Tahoe remains functional and occasionally striking, but much of the design feels like an undercooked experiment rather than a cohesive vision. This may improve before release, but for now, macOS seems to be borrowing ideas built for touch devices without fully adapting them to the Mac's interface traditions and needs. But hey, not everybody is sold on this experiment for touch environments either. And finally today, from the great Derek Thompson, the best single explainer I've read yet about those GLP1 drugs. Yes, they're good for weight loss, but are they actually good for a lot of other things? Like, should everybody be on them? GLP1s, technically known as glucagon, like peptide 1 receptor organists, seem to curb alcohol, cocaine and tobacco use among addicts. They prevent strokes, heart attacks, chronic kidney disease, sleep apnea and Parkinson's disease. They're associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma. Arthritic patients use the drugs experiencing relief from knee pain that was on par with opioid drugs. A small study found that they reduced migraine headaches by 50%, and emerging research suggests they might even slow the rate of memory loss among people diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Yes, GLP1 drugs seem like the real deal, even if the specifics of their broad benefits remain uncertain. We have lab, animal, clinical and cohort data testifying to their broad effects. The most comprehensive analysis of GLP1 drugs on a large population was published earlier this year. A team of scientists looked at more than 1 million patients with type 2 diabetes in the Veteran Affairs Medical System. They compared patients on GLP1 drugs with those who had been prescribed other meds. GLP1 drug usage was associated with a reduced risk of just about everything bad substance use and psychotic disorders, seizures, neurocognitive disorders including alzheimer's disease and dementia, coagulation disorders, cardiometabolic disorders, infectious illnesses, and several respiratory conditions. When I initially read this study in January, it seemed too good to be true. Miracle drugs don't exist. Perhaps I thought there were nuances that I'd missed. So I called up a co author of the study, the Washington University physician scientist Ziad Al Ahli. On my podcast Plain English, Al Ahli told me that GLP1 drug use was really associated with improvements across every biological system they studied. They're really remarkably beneficial across multiple organ systems, he said. A single study should never be final word on anything. Fortunately, the Veteran affairs paper isn't the only cohort analysis that testifies to the broad benefits of these drugs. Last year, a team of researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine studied 1.6 million patients with type 2 diabetes and found that those on GLP1 drugs had significant risk reduction of 10 cancers esophageal, colorectal, endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, liver, ovarian and pancreatic cancer, as well as meningioma and multiple myeloma. These drugs come out looking like superstars, the Yale researcher F. Perry Wilson wrote. As more data comes in, I become more convinced that we may look back on these drugs as the greatest medical breakthrough of the 21st century. End Quote no weekend bonus episodes for you this week, but how about a podcast recommendation this weekend? The Blank Check podcast is continuing their series on the filmography of the Coen brothers, and I believe they are going to tackle Miller's Crossing. It drops early Sunday. Whomever is the guest for this episode better come correct because Miller's Crossing is one of my three favorite movies of all time, next to Glengarry Glen Ross and There Will Be Blood. So do it justice, whoever you are. I'll be listening and judging. I could pick like 30 different lines to share from that movie, but how about this one? All in all, he's not a bad guy. If looks, brains and personality don't count, you'd better hope they don't talk to you on Monday.
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Unnamed Speaker
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