← Tech Brew Ride Home
Tech Brew Ride Home
Uncle Sam’s Intel Stake
00:18:03
The government has indeed taken a stake in Intel. Apple might turn to Google to save Siri. Meta turns to Midjourney. Perplexity wants to cut publishers in on the action. And how DHL is using AI to shore up a workforce that is aging out.
Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:04]
A
Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Monday, August 25, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today the government has indeed taken a stake in Intel. Apple might turn to Google to save Siri. Meta turns to Midjourney. Perplexity wants to cut publishers in on the action and how DHL is using AI to shore up a workforce that is aging out. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Over 10 years ago, Mizzen and Main invented and some might say perfected the performance fabric dress shirt. To this day, they continue to embrace that same entrepreneurial spirit by re engineering classic American styles with modern fabrics. The goal is to make it easier for guys to achieve and enjoy their version of success. So whether you're grinding away in an office in San Francisco or on site in Austin, they've got you covered. You know me, I'm a polo guy. So personally I'm super into their Versa line of Polos. Go to mizzen and main.com techbrew and use promo code brew15 to get 15% off your first purchase. That's mizzen and main.com Techbrew promo code brew15. Need to catch you up on this real quick because it is big news. The U.S. government has indeed taken a 10% stake in Intel. Howard Lutnick said earlier that the U.S. won't be on Intel's board or play role in Intel's governance. But intel says the U.S. will make an $8.9 billion investment by purchasing 433.3 million primary shares of intel common stock for $20.47 per share. Intel closed on Aug. 22 at $24.80 per share. Quoting the Journal. The deal is a remarkable turnaround. Just over two weeks ago, President Trump called for Intel CEO Lippbu Tan to be fired for his ties to China. After meeting Tan and talking business last week, Trump became a fan and saw an opportunity to deepen their partnership, he said Friday. I said I think you should pay us 10% of the company and they said yes, trump said in the Oval Office. Tan was photographed smiling with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington to celebrate the deal. Under the terms of the agreement, the government would become Intel's largest shareholder. Intel previously received $2.2 billion in Chips act grants. The US is paying $20.47 a share, a discount to the $23 per share Japan's SoftBank Group recently agreed to pay as part billion investment. The stock closed at $24.80 on Friday. The deal gets better for the government if intel does a deal for its contract manufacturing business. If Intel's ownership in its foundry falls below 51%, the government gets the option to acquire an additional 5% stake at $20 per share. This is the government bigfooting its way in, said Gauntam Makunda, a lecturer at the Yale University School of Management who studies innovation and leadership. Makunda characterized the arrangement as unprecedented. Inter company that isn't in dire straits as banks were during the 2008 financial crisis, say analysts have speculated the government could help arrange deals or urge companies to buy from Intel. Announcing the deal, the president promised to do more like it in the future. Since his reelection, he has already intervened in the commercial sector in novel ways. Trump has agreed for the US to take a 15% cut of AI chip sales to China from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices and been given a golden share, giving him sway over how Nippon STE operates U.S. steel following a recent takeover. End quote Sources tell Mark Gurman that Apple is in talks with Google about using Gemini to power a revamped Siri. Google has even started training a model that could run on Apple's servers. The work is part of an effort to catch up in generative AI, a field where Apple arrived late and then struggled to gain traction. Earlier this year, Apple also explored partnerships with anthropic and OpenAI, weighing whether Claude or ChatGPT could serve as Siri's new brain. Apple is still several weeks away from making a decision on whether to continue using internal models for Siri or move to a partner, and it hasn't yet determined who that partner may be. Spokespeople for Apple and Google declined to comment. The Siri update was originally designed around technology developed by the Apple foundation models team. That group also created the on device large language models that power Apple intelligence features like summarizing text and creating custom emoji, aiming to fix serious flaws and bring the delayed features to market. Apple executives and Apple's corporate development team, run by Adrian Parika, started meeting with Anthropic and OpenAI about a potential deal. Internally, Apple is holding a bake off to see which approach will work best. The company is simultaneously developing two versions of the new Siri one, dubbed Linwood, that is powered by its models and another, codenamed Glenwood, that runs on outside. Technology executives had long viewed Anthropic as the leading candidate for a partnership, but the financial terms demanded by that company led Apple to broaden the search and bring others into the mix. Apple certainly hasn't ruled out sticking to its own models either. These talks are separate from other deals to integrate chatbots into Apple Intelligence. Last year, Apple added ChatGPT as a Siri fallback for general knowledge questions, an area where the assistant has long underperformed. And both Apple and Google have already publicly signaled plans for a similar Gemini integration. The talks about using Google Gemini models to power Siri remain exploratory, with no formal commercial negotiations currently underway, and Google has made similar deals before and powers much of the AI functionality on phones sold by Samsung. End quote Meanwhile, Meta announced a partnership with Midjourney to license the startup so called esthetic technology for Meta's future models and products. The announcement was made by Alexander Wang himself on X, quoting TechCrunch to ensure meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people, it will require taking an all of the above approach, wang said. This means world class talent, ambitious compute roadmap and working with the best players across the industry. The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry leading AI image and video models such as OpenAI's Sora, Black Forest Labs, Flux and Google's Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagen, into several of its products including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, moviegen, that allows users to create videos from prompts. While the terms of Meta's deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup CEO David Holtz said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors. Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken an outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup. According to Upstarts Media, Midjourney was founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model V1. Meta's partnership with MidJourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers, including Meta, face similar allegations from copyright holders. However, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies. End quote Meanwhile Meanwhile, Perplexity has launched Comet Plus, a $5 per month tier offering curated content and said it has allocated $42.5 million for publishers of that content, which will receive 80% of the revenue, quoting Bloomberg. AI is helping to create a better Internet, but publishers still need to get paid, said CEO Arvind Srinivas. So we think this is actually the right solution and we're happy to make adjustments along the way. The media industry has clashed with artificial intelligence companies over concerns that AI generated Responses from tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's AI overviews have cut valuable web traffic to their sites. Jessica Chan, head of publisher partnerships at Perplexity, said in an interview that the traditional model where media outlets rely on Web traffic and clicks is a quote old model. We just want to create a new standard for compensation, she said. In the new program, publishers will be able to earn money when their content receives web traffic through Perplexity's Comet Internet browser, appears in search queries on Comet and when it's used to complete tasks by Comet's AI assistant. The funds for compensating publishers comes from the revenue earned from Comet Plus a new subscription tier for the Comet browser that Srinivas described as being similar to Apple's Apple News Plus. Customers will pay $5 a month to access a curated selection of content from publishers and Perplexity's new program. Publishers will get 80% of the revenue while Perplexity gets the rest. While AI companies like OpenAI and Google have made bespoke multimillion dollar deals with major publishers to license and distribute content, Perplexity is one of the first AI startups to introduce a new method of sharing revenue based on how often content appears or assists in user queries. Chan declined to say which publishers are already participating in the program, but said that Perplexity is in talks with previous media partners. The startup has previously teamed up with outlets like Time, the Los Angeles Times and Fortune on a program for sharing ad revenue. Perplexity has also scuffled with some media organizations, with outlets like Forbes and Conde Nast accusing the company of using their content in AI news summaries without permission. The startup also lost a bid last week to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by News Corp's Dow Jones and the New York Post. We are confident AI companies will win all of these lawsuits, perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said in a statement. We look forward to settling the law on this early on so that everyone can benefit from AI, end quote. Netflix plans to open its first so called Netflix house locations, 100,000 square foot entertainment and shopping venues in Philadelphia on November 12th and Dallas on December 11th. Quoting Variety, the free to enter venues will include paid activities, merchandise and food all tied to top Netflix ip, including Wednesday Squid Game, One Piece, Stranger Things, K Pop, Demon Hunters, Love Is Blind, Sakamoto Days and a Knives Out Mystery franchise and more per Netflix. Description for the Netflix House locations offerings. They include experiences and activities that will be refreshed regularly and ticket prices will vary so there's truly something for everyone and opportunities for a different adventure each time you visit a Netflix House. Top nine Mini Golf at Netflix House Philadelphia offers nine holes of gamified mini golf where every golf ball and hole is connected with a live leaderboard, allowing for more fun and competitive play. Each hole is themed to characters and stories from popular series and events, including Bridgerton, Is It Cake, Stranger Things, wwe, Squid Game and more. Netflix Virtuals at Netflix House Philadelphia lets fans play as the main character inside the worlds of Netflix shows and movies with immersive VR games including Stranger Things, Squid Game and Rebel Moon. Netflix Replay at Netflix House Dallas includes interactive and fresh takes on traditional arcade games that you can play with friends. Fans will join the action of favorite shows and films such as Sakamoto Days, Floor Is Lava, Love Is Blind, army of the Dead, Big Mouth and more. Larger scale feature experiences at both locations allow fans to transport themselves into some of Netflix's most popular series 1 Quest for the Devil Fruit and Wednesday Eve of the Outcasts in Philadelphia, Stranger Things, Escape the Dark and Squid Game survived the trials in Dallas. A wait list is now open to sign up to buy tickets for the paid Experiences at Netflix House, which will go on sale October 17th for Philadelphia and and November 18th for Dallas. End quote.
- [12:25]
B
Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real, and so is the relief from EBGLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [12:43]
C
EBGLIS Librekizumab LBKZ a 250mg per 2ml injection. Eglantin is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with epglisco. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.
- [13:17]
B
Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about epglis and visit epglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
- [13:26]
A
This weekend, the Financial Times took a look at how German delivery giant DHL uses automation and AI to help offset an aging workforce. I'm flagging this one because this looks like it could be a model for how AI will transform the workforce. Not not necessarily by stealing jobs, but like by sliding into DMs, if you will. It's not been all smooth going. When DHL's AI powered voice bot first launched, managers discovered it struggled to recognize jah. Yes, a reminder that close analysis is critical to refining AI systems. The bot now handles a million calls a month, resolving half without human help, freeing agents up to tackle complex issues and even retrain as conversation designers or quality supervisors. For dhl, AI isn't about cutting jobs but adapting to a shrinking labor pool. One third of support staff will retire in the next five years. Automation and AI already optimize warehouse operations, from sequencing orders to predicting shipping volumes, helping offset demographic pressures while employment and logistics continues to grow. Everyone in Germany understands that if you don't automate, you won't manage the shrinking workforce, says CIO Bernd Gaiman. Still, integrating AI requires careful negotiation. Work councils pushed for strict guidelines to prevent sensitive data leaks and regulators. Regulations limit how advanced some tools can become. Yet DHL's internal Gaia AI hub encourages experimentation, from streamlining customs paperwork to generating training materials, ensuring employees see AI as a supportive colleague rather than as a threat. The company frames AI as a partner, helping new hires access institutional knowledge, translating customer instructions into 20 languages and simplifying repetitive tasks. Though economic pressures have driven some job cuts, DHL emphasizes that AI adoption is about sustaining operations in a challenging environment. As one work council leader put it, whether you love it or hate it, you have to work with it, so make the best of it. End quote. Finally today, also from the weekend but from the New York Times, a look at Foundher House, an all female hacker house in San Francisco that has become a hotspot for dinners and panel discussions Sponsored by the likes of A16Z and others in San Francisco's Glen park neighborhood, eight young women transformed a rented stucco home into Found her House, an all female hacker house aimed at shattering the male dominated glass ceiling in artificial intelligence. Founded in May by University of Southern California students miki safranov yamamoto, 18, and anatika manby, 21, the co living space provided a supportive environment for residents to build startups while sharing expenses amid soaring rents. The residents aged 18 to 21 included Ava Poole developing an AI payment agent Chloe Hughes creating an AI real estate platform Sonia Jin training AI agents Danica sun focusing on clean energy Fatima Hussain building a mentoring program Nassima Mohammed designing an AI tool for pediatric medical explanations and others pursuing innovative ventures motivated by the AI boom's gender disparity. Where fewer than 20% of the 3212 venture deals this year involved female founded companies, the house fostered collaboration with six startups launching products and two securing funding. Facing challenges like mail, heavy hacker houses and underfunded women led AI firms. As noted by CREDO CEO Navrina Singh, the group defrayed $40,000 summer rent costs through donations from investors like Brad Feld, who kicked in $10,000. The house became a hub for VC sponsored events from firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, culminating in an August 19 demo day attended by 150 investors. Praised by Cowboy Ventures Eileen Lee as exceptional found her house closed today actually, as most residents are returning to college, though Jin and Mohammed are dropping out of college to continue building. Nothing additional for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.