“All I know is I'm good for my $80 billion.”
Rarely does a one-liner capture the state of the moment so well. Here, you have the CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella Saying he's “not into the details” About Stargate, their major investment, the alleged multi-hundred billion AI infrastructure project run by OpenAI.
Nadella is not being read in the program vague description Stargate says a lot about how far apart Microsoft and OpenAI have become. Microsoft is mentioned in Stargate press release Since OpenAI's models are still specific to Azure. But the most striking aspect of Stargate isn't that it's not funded yet; This is who OpenAI's biggest supporter has decided not to participate in Sam Altman It is being called “the most important project of this era”. As Nadella explained on CNBC this week, he's driving his own $80 billion AI infrastructure buildout and, going forward, OpenAI could get additional compute – with his blessings – Elsewhere.
Although it got less headlines this week, I got Nadella's headlines answers to Elon Musk on x Even more bright. In response to Musk's statement, “Satya, on the other hand, definitely has money,” Nadella responded: “And all this money is not about promoting AI, but about doing things that are useful for the real world.” It's about building!”
That post can only be interpreted as a dig at Altman. Nadella could be financed Stargate for OpenAI. He didn't. What does he know that the rest of us don't?
The spectacular Stargate unveiling at the White House certainly accomplished its goal, clearly getting everyone talking about the big numbers. The headlines it generated inspired Mark Zuckerberg To make sure Everyone ended the week knowing His data center will be even Big Compared to Stargate.
on friday Post on his Facebook pageZuckerberg said that meta 2GW data center planned in Louisiana “So large that it would cover a significant portion of Manhattan,” with a map view of the square footage superimposed over the city to drive home the point.
From their post (my emphasis added): “We'll bring ~1GW of compute online in '25 and we'll end the year with over 1.3 million GPUs. We plan to invest $60-65 billion in capital expenditure this year, while also significantly growing our AI teams we have capital “To continue investing in the years to come.”
I have no doubt that Altman, masayoshi sonAnd larry ellison They will be able to raise the billions of rupees needed Reduce dependency on OpenAI At Microsoft for calculations. (The US government isn't funding Stargate, which makes the prospects of Trump announcing it all the more bizarre.) Ultimately, all of this points to a theme that is fast coming to define 2025. IS: Big Tech sees AI as the most existential technology of the coming era and will continue to spend like hell to make sure OpenAI doesn't completely run away with it.
AMA with space
For some companies, 2024 was as good as Reddit. Since going public last March, the company's stock has soared 300 percent, giving the social network a valuation of $32 billion.
This is about the situation Reddit was in before it went public, when its moderators were raging against its hastily made platform changes and there was backlash over the company selling its data to Google and OpenAI.
With those controversies now in the rear-view mirror, Reddit is focusing on growing its user base, staying profitable, and using AI To help people find its site more easilyI met the CEO steve huffman Tuned in at CES a few weeks ago to hear his priorities for 2025, how he's leading Reddit, his thoughts on the AI scaling debate, content moderation, and more…
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity:
Your IPO did very well. How have the last nine months been for you personally?
We have a saying on Reddit that good numbers make good meetings. So we had some good meetings.
Preparations to go among the public were intense. It's telling the story over and over again, which I enjoy doing, but it's a lot of work. I think that compared to most new companies, we're already in the rhythm of the public company: quarter close, audits, board meetings, earnings, and all that. So from an operational point of view it is not a big change for us.
This is a really exciting time for new investors and employees. You won't catch us complaining. What I keep telling the company is that everyone should be very proud of the work they do and not take these moments for granted. I just tell them, look, enjoy the view. If you look at our history, there are a lot of ups and downs. There is no doubt that there are challenges in our future.
Where your market cap is now, are you looking to make changes that you didn't think you could make a year ago?
There are two categories of things that we will do. One is to execute the main strategy. We have to hire. We have to build. I think we are very reasonable in terms of the size of our investments. The one sentence strategy for us is to grow the product and remain profitable.
What can you do with a high stock price? Maybe you can look at M&A, otherwise you wouldn't do it. I would say that's not really our trend right now because the acquisitions we've made in the last two years have been $25 to $50 million deals. It's a good place for us to get technology and teams. I would say we're always keeping an eye on the market, but we're not chasing anything big or crazy right now because I like the core strategy. I think we can do what we want to do within our current capabilities.
What is Reddit's main product focus this year?
The first is the core of Reddit, which is community conversation. Everyone on Reddit has a house, but do you see that house in your first session? There's also another dimension to our work, which is Reddit as an information source. Reddit has all this incredible information. For users who have a question that needs an answer, can we give them that answer? We're testing Reddit Answers right now. I find it really useful for searches about current events. A year from now, it's a monetized product. This is one of the few products where it scratches every itch, so there will be a big focus on it.
What do you make of the debate about whether the AI industry has run out of data?
I think virtually every month we'll have a different answer to that question. We want to have good relations with other people in this area. We are open for business.
At the same time, we want to maximize the value we get from our data. We have not experienced conflict between the two at this point. i love [data licensing] Prominent among the relationships we have are Google and OpenAI. At this point, we don't need to make any special partnerships. I would say they are all good but nothing is existential for us.
One of the challenges is that AI companies don't know what product they are building. This is not a bad thing. They are repeating themselves. ChatGPT itself, the central product of this conversation, was a demo. Then, a year later, it's the most important piece of enterprise technology on Earth with questionable economics. This makes it very exciting. I don't think any of these companies will be angry after hearing what I have to say.
You were one of the first social media CEOs I saw who was very critical of TikTok. How does the US ban affect Reddit?
If you look at Reddit's traffic graph over the past 19 years, you won't see the rise and fall of any particular platform. I think every content type should work on Reddit. The video on Reddit is largely camera-out – what I'm seeing – as opposed to camera-in, or who am I? That's social media. I believe banning is the right step The reasons I mentioned Which honestly has nothing to do with competition.
With changes to Meta's moderation, the broader conversation on social media feels like it's changing right now.
For the last 10 years people have been talking about whether speech is a problem, which is a crazy idea. You cannot have freedom without speech. I think questioning and rethinking America's core values will change the way, hopefully, that era is coming to an end.
Are people doing politics? Of course, there are always people. On the subject of moderation, we always try to do things the right way, which, not coincidentally, is consistent with American values. This is a Democratic platform. We strongly believe in the power of people, the wisdom of crowds and voting processes. That's Reddit. So I'm glad to see that we're back to where we've been for most of our lives, which is an appreciation of freedom of expression.
somewhere
- Contestants storm TikTok: TikTok is no longer available in the US App Store and its in-app functionality technically boundEveryone is trying their best to take advantage of the situation. meta Pre-announced its Capcut competitor and trying lure creators with cashSubstack, Bluesky, and X all the tricks are going on To encourage more video consumption. Meanwhile, President Trump says he is Ok Elon Musk Or larry ellison buy itByteDance is saying it wants to make a deal but it seems backed sharply into a cornerEllison can have a guarantee that Oracle will not wiped out of existence To violate the law right now, but Apple and Google have shown that they are going to follow the letter of the law. Since TikTok is still not available for download in the US, it is a competitive threat to Meta, YouTube and others. decreases every day,
- Trump got a chance to work for Big Tech: Why are Zuckerberg and other CEOs taking a knee? Don't look too far from the President's comments This week at the World Economic ForumWhere he dismissed the EU's Digital Markets and Services Acts as “taxation”. Meta and other US companies are praying for a similar response. We'll see if it works for them.
- More headlines: OpenAI released this AI agent called “operator” For Pro-tier customers… musk Told X employees That “user growth is stagnant, revenues are unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even”….Apple regrouped Because it plays catch-up in AI, it is google Putting in another $1 billion In Google Cloud via Anthropic and Received part of HTC's Vive team raising meat Its Android XR efforts (Yes, get ready for the return of Glass)… epic games gave an update In an effort to compete with Roblox… meta created Rare investment in Databricks,
more links
- What is the reason for DOGE's exit? between Vivek Ramaswami And Elon Musk,
- A profile of DeepSeekThe Chinese company that has a group of CEOs worried about how much they're spending on models.
- Dan Schipper's hands-on experience Using OpenAI's Operator Agent.
- “Humanity's Ultimate Test” AI Dataset,
- Brian Armstrong's Conclusion from Davos,
- An informant is claiming Amazon's $400 million deal for most of Covariant AI was a “reverse acquisition” designed to avoid antitrust scrutiny.
- nvidia is the top tech company Glassdoor's latest listings Among the top places to work.
- rise of MAGA-Bro Podcast,
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