Down Round

This is part two of our marathon holiday record. This is a preview – the full episode is available for premium subs. Sign up here.

The Down Round holiday episodes continue. As the beers continue to flow, we turn our critical attention to another major tech event of December: the hack and leak of Insomniac Games, a first-party developer owned by Sony. 

Links

• Insomniac finally responds to hack that leaked ‘Wolverine’ game and more – The Verge
• GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order – BBC

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Welcome to our holiday special.

We have recorded a marathon 4 hour podcast with much holiday spirit (we got drunk), and will be dropping it in parts throughout the holiday season.

We started with a quick reflection on the latest news: Bird Scooters has gone under, and Adobe's planned acquisition of Figma has collapsed. 

Plus, due to listener demand, we explain our not particularly complex recording and editing process.

Our original Adobe episode.

Descript audio/video editor

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We had it all planned out. A huge Xmas bonanza episode featuring guests, fun, laughs and all you could ever want from a Down Round variety show.

But then Raph was struck by a mystery illness and we had to delay it by several days. So, until then, enjoy this delightful backup episode where we dig into the world's biggest companies by market cap, and opine on our future. It isn't financial advice. But we would not blame you if you took it that way.

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For many years, Apple has enforced iPhone dominance by refusing to adopt modern text messaging standards, meaning group chats and multimedia messages between iPhones and Android devices has been fundamentally broken. But last month, Apple announced it would adopt the RCS standard.

But at the same time, it came down hard on Beeper Mini, an app which purported to bring the locked down iMessage experience to Android. In this ep, we dive into iMessage and the weird politics of the green bubble.

Links

• Apple has seemingly found a way to block Android’s new iMessage app – The Verge
• Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year - 9to5Mac
• Google's site pleading Apple to adopt RCS

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Poor Google. What used to be possibly the best business in human history has taken a few heavy body blows after the rise of generative AI, with the folks in Mountain View no longer looking like the obvious winners of the internet age. Though they were instrumental in building our current AI moment, companies like OpenAI are hogging the limelight.

But they've been trying to wrestle that crown back. This month, Google announced Gemini, the model it hopes will challenge OpenAI. But will it? It already seems like it won't be that easy. We discuss.

Links

• The demonstration video
• Google just launched a new AI and has already admitted at least one demo wasn’t real - The Verge

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You probably know the story by now. Elon Musk replied positively to a weirdo's anti-Semitic post, which led to an advertiser exodus and Elon melting down at the New York Times DealBook conference. Now, X seems increasingly loaded up with crap tier chum advertising, which is never usually a good sign for a platform.

Is the company spiralling? Is it at death's door? Who knows, but it's fun to talk about with friends.

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We last updated you on the OpenAI drama a couple of weeks ago, right in the middle of it. Back when it looked like Sam Altman was gone, and the future of AI was up in the air.

Ah well! Now that the dust has settled, we're reflecting on what we know about what went down, internet arguments about accelerationism vs decelerationism, and what the near future might hold for OpenAI and AI generally.

Links

• Microsoft to Become Non-Voting Observer in Latest Shake-up of OpenAI Board – The Information
• Who Is @BasedBeffJezos, The Leader Of The Tech Elite’s ‘E/Acc’ Movement? – Forbes
• Our episode on AI Doom
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Welcome...to the silly season.

We answer a bunch of your questions which allows us to prognosticate about the future with less constraints than the few there are usually.

Topics covered include:

• Will AI stagnate?
• Biden's AI regulation framework
• Can I have $20?
• How many beers do we typically drink before a podcast?
• Will VC stop funding boneheads, or is it built into the system?

Sorry if we didn't get to your question, join the discord and ask in there!

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The day James left for honeymoon, the unthinkable happened; Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, got boned by his board of directors like a dog.

How can a man who took a product from 0 to 100 million users in less than a year, who is on top of the world be so unceremoniously dumped by a board of AI doomers and safety dorks?

Well, we dragged James away from the margaritas and discussed all the crazy happenings in the first official Down Round emergency pod. 

(Also our first remote recording on non-studio mics, soz)

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Since the last time we did an episode about Airbnb, the company has both done well and faced deeper problems. Earnings look pretty good. But it has also faced political problems – like being functionally banned in NYC – plus a general perception that it has gotten shittier. 

So, CEO Brian Chesky says he's going to fix it. That means two things: AI, and putting the boot into hosts.

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