Big Technology Podcast - Apple’s Most Ambitious Roadmap Ever? + OpenAI vs. Google vs. Anthropic Revisited

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

MG Siegler is the author of Spyglass. Siegler joins Big Technology to discuss Apple’s sudden burst of new products and what it means for the company as John Ternus takes over from Tim Cook. Tune in to hear why Apple’s foldable iPhone could reinvigorate the business, how its new hardware strategy marks a departure from the past, and what challenges Ternus will face as CEO. We also cover Google’s shifting AI strategy, OpenAI’s resurgence, Anthropic’s potential IPO, and the increasingly blurry meaning of AGI. Hit play for a wide-ranging look at Apple’s new era and the rapidly changing competitive landscape in artificial intelligence. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apple is all of a sudden flush with new products. What's happening at that company? And let's reassess the competitive balance between OpenA.I., Google, and Anthropic. That's coming up with M.G. Siegler of Spyglass right after this. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight.

Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on espresso.com. When Westchette first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s,

one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when West Jet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at Westjet.com slash 30 years. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Well, we are airing this on Wednesday, September 9th, which means Apple has a big event coming with a slew of new products. And it looks very different from the Apple of old that just seemed to refine the existing products. We actually have some. new models and brand new ideas coming from the company.

So we're going to discuss all of that. We're also going to talk about the state of the OpenAI Anthropic and Google competition. Now that Open AI has released Astro, Anthropic seems to be on the doorstep of an IPO. And Google, of course, is in the middle of some serious changes within its AI effort. So it's good to see you, MG. It's the first week of the month. And here we are back together. Welcome back to the show.

Great to be back, Alex, back to school, back to Apple. it's all it's all setting up well for the fall yeah back to apple and you know we're used to you know a certain cadence of routine right every september apple talks about iPhones and this event has sort of taken a secondary position compared to w wdc which is where if we're being honest all the action has happened everything that's happened with an apple that's been notable recently has likely has been mostly on the software side of things apple intelligence even you know a year a couple year and a half ago liquid glass although i don't think we need really tight about that but now the iPhone event is taking center stage again and we have actual new products from

apple not just a refinement of what has traditionally been you know the latest iPhone model so let me just quickly set it up by reading what the preview from Bloomberg this is from mark german apple kickoff turnus era with its biggest ever slate of new products Apple has spent much of the past 15 years refining existing product lines and launching services to generate more recurring revenue that is all about to change beginning at the company's September 9th surprise and shine events they're even playing up the surprise element I'll just read the first product then we can get into it first product coming the foldable iPhone it's the centerpiece of this year's product rollout and it's

going to be a foldable smartphone that many people inside Apple refer to as the iPhone Ultra it will have a large interior screen with a small external display and it'll be about this and it'll be about the size of a passport when fold it has touch ID support, split view multitasking, and advanced hinge, whatever that means, and a crease that is far less apparent than on prior foldable devices. The price is expected to be $2,000. New Apple, new phone, new leader. What do you make of all this? You hit it on the head, I think. It is interesting that the past several years, right, WWDC has taken over that mantle for Apple's big event. And I think you're exactly right. It's because software has mattered so much more,

because we've known what we're going to get every single year from Apple on the iPhone and the hardware side. It's basically since iPhone 10 roughly, you know, it's been roughly the same story for in terms of the flagship iPhone. Obviously, there's little tweaks here and there and there's some size changes and upgrades for sure, but it's still largely the same, you know, overall shape and and size that we've had before. This year, something new. Finally, obviously they haven't confirmed yet, but I mean, this is so, this has to. to be one of the most well reported on devices now in history, given not only the German reports, but also just the supply chain stuff, right? And now the fact that Samsung has their competitive version of the product already out, I in market and a few other of the handset makers, Motorola, etc., have all done sort of these foldables, even Google, of course, a few years ago. And so everyone

has been waiting for this. And we talked about it previously. Like, I think that Apple set this up well. I think it's going to be a huge hit for them, even though, as you noted, it's insane, it's going to be insanely expensive. I think that they teed that up sort of well, too, with their new sort of pricing strategy, right, where they're sort of have some new options to perhaps obfuscate just how expensive everything is. And I think people are just going to be excited about having a new form factor. And I think the form factor they chose, which is a little bit different than what Google and

some of the others have done in the past on the folding side. I think it sounds good on paper. I even obviously used it, held it. I debated sort of trying to buy one of those Chinese demo units just to see what it would feel like, sort of that size and ratio in hand. I didn't go down that path. But I do, I think it's setting up well to be a good device. And I think the fact that Samsung has noted, you know, they released their version of the Galaxy flip phone that has that same sort of aspect ratio and the passport style, as you noted. I think the fact that that seems to be doing well, the reviewers love that.

that thing, I think the form factor is going to be going to be a winner. Right. And so when Samsung made its big foldable foam push in 2021, interesting thing happened. So first of all, their overall sales went up by 6%. But revenue went up 11%. And I think when you look at what Apple is doing, remember, you know, up until the 17, the iPhone sales were effectively stagnating, right? 17 had a bunch of new features people liked. And now we're seeing some good sales. They've been up, I think, 21% quarter or year over year in the first quarter of this year, or the most recent quarter. I always get mixed up, which what Apple refers to as the first quarter, second and third.

But the most recent quarter up 21%, I think the quarter before that up 20%. That's sales. But ultimately, I think with these models, people have been hanging on to them longer, and there's only a certain level of price that you can get. And so if you're thinking about what Wall Street is going to care about, you sort of set yourself up. in a tough position, and that's why you've been relying so much of your Apple. You've been relying so much on services. With a $2,000 plus phone, all of a sudden, your upper bound of the amount of sales that you can get is much higher. And so when you have a new CEO coming in, like John Turneris is coming in, what you want to do is be able to go to the market and be like, we're just getting started

in terms of the revenue increases you can see under me. And I kind of wonder if that's what's in the back of their minds or in the front of their minds and whether that is sort of the driver of the timing that we're seeing for the Cook-Turness changeover. I mean, we talked about it a little bit even before when the Cook stuff was just rumored, right? Like one of the things that we went back and forth on was the notion that this could be the right time for Cook to take a step back because of exactly what you're talking about, because the pipeline, the potential setup, you know, to put someone in Turner's like Turner's in his place, after the amazing run that Tim Cook has had from a stock perspective and obviously revenue

and the business perspective. Like how do you, how do you follow that up? It's going to be very hard regardless, of course, but you've tried to do that by setting your successor up with a great product lineup, you know, and a lot of things in the shoot that are ready to roll. And it feels like again, you know, the Apple famously has just over the years while they've kept iPhone prices steady until recently. We can talk a bit more about that with all the component issues and the memory chips and

whatnot and supply chain stuff. But so they've been able to mostly maintain price consistency across certainly the iPhone lineup. But what they've done is basically raise the average selling price over time by introducing the pro models and the pro max models and now the quote unquote ultra model, if that's indeed what they call it. And so that, of course, what's it going to do the average selling price? It's going to jack it way up.

But this thing is over $2,000. Now, maybe their margins, you know, again, their margins are obviously impacted by all the component stuff that we just mentioned. But still, it's going to look good when all of a sudden analysts see, yeah, the average selling price of the iPhone continues to go up under Ternus. Like, you know, Wall Street has nothing to worry about because we've got all these new products in and people are excited about new Macs and, you know, new Mac minis for the AI revolution. and all this are the stuff that sort of come in.

And so, yeah, it felt like Cook teed him up well, and Apple overall is in a good spot for the foreseeable future with that pipeline. Now, Motorola, also, you mentioned them. When they released their flip phone, their folding phone, their sales went up 21%. And average sales price went up, I think, 17%. So clearly when companies do this, there's like a predictable windfall at the end.

I've always said that people with folding phones, they just look happier than people with phones then don't fold. I'm curious, like, if you could talk a little bit, because you've looked into the product as well, obviously, you know, you thought about getting one of the demo models. Talk a little bit about what the phone is going to look and feel like. You mentioned it's kind of like passport style. I don't know if it 100% looks the way that I expected. It might be a little bit like the height might be a little smaller than I anticipated. So I'd love to hear your perspective just on like what this is going to look like. And, you know, I think we both believe that it's

going to be a hit. But why? you think it will be a hit? So I've had the past two pixel. I've had three different versions of the pixel fold. And I have the not the current, the one that they just released the 11, but I have the 10, the pixel fold 10. And it's a different form factor is noted like it's longer, you know, to your point. It's not sort of the passport style.

But I basically buy them. It's my, you know, Android test device, my backup to my iPhone. But it's also just to be able to test out the flip, you know, with the foldable features feel like and how I would actually potentially use them. I do think, again, this iPhone form factor, I think is smarter. I think the pixel fold to me felt a little bit awkward in that it feels like it's very sort of narrow when you're holding it folded straight on. It's very tall and narrow. It's, you know, it feels a little bit like a standard phone, but a little bit more narrow. But then when it's open, you know, it's much more of a sort of a rectangular square, almost

square and it feels good, obviously, for watching media and whatnot. And that's obviously how they feel that these devices, you know, give them an advantage in the market right now. But I think the iPhone, I think what Apple will hit on here is I think the slightly more passport-like shape, when I'm envisioning it, I think about like right now with the current, I have a pro Mac, so it's obviously the massive one and it's very tall. It's obviously a little bit challenging with some pockets to fit in pants pockets. And so I think that the new passport style foldable will do a little bit better in that regard. But it's also honestly just a little weird to type on. I've always sort of thought that because your hands, your fingers are so close together. Your thumbs are so close together

when you're typing. I think this will elongate it a little bit and make it a little bit easier. I've called it in the past like wondering if it's going to be more like a Blackberry of old, obviously without the physical keys, but still that that style of, you know, that basic shape. I think. think was actually a very good sort of typing shape. And so I think it might be good in that regard. But it will be very interesting how Apple does the OS for this, right? Like there have been reports that it's going to be sort of a hybrid between iOS and an iPad OS. It's not going to be full on iPadOS when you open it up. So it's not like switching between two different operating systems. But again, sort of like a hybrid in-between version of those. And I do think that Apple can do some pretty

interesting things when you do unfold that device. Obviously, side-by-side multitasking is something that everyone does right now, but it will be curious if Apple does some stuff. And of course they will. They'll have to want to play it up in the in the marketing of it, like what this device can do that other foldables can't do. And so what are those sort of software features that they come up with that are unique to this iPhone Ultra if they call it that. And again, when it's folded, it's still going to be an iPhone. It's going to be a little bit different of a form factor. But that is how I envision it. vision it when it's folded up, it's sort of your standard iPhone. Maybe they have a little bit, you know, more fun with the widgets or whatnot because of the slightly different screen size.

But then when it's unfolded, that's when it becomes really interesting. I am a huge fan and I have been forever of the iPad Mini. I know I'm sort of a little bit far afield of that. They've obviously been selling them and making them for years now, but most people tend to buy, you know, a regular sized iPad or an iPad Pro model. I like the Mini and this, by all accounts, is going to be a very similar size to the mini when unfolded. And so I think that that's it's going to be really interesting as a media consumption device and potentially multitasking stuff. Right. So I guess like for me, the real question is this is this going to be media first or like business first, right? Is this going to be a device where the pitch is going to be it's easier to type and you can do your emails

on it or is it going to be like you can watch YouTube and Netflix on it and sort of like because that's the when I think of somebody being happy with a foldable, phone. I think of them kind of, you know, grabbing their seat in the airplane, unfolding the phone and like hitting YouTube or Netflix right away and getting this big smile on their face. So I'm curious what you think is there. I mean with the iPhone, obviously it's both, but do you think there's going to be a, you know, a lead use case for this? You're giving me an idea in real time of an angle to take for this, which is like, it's sort of like the mullet iPhone, right? So it's a, it's a party. It's a party when unfolded,

but it's straight and center like when it's folded up. So again, it's like it's sort of like business. You got your regular phone folded up. You're just doing that. You're doing some emails. You're doing some typing. You're maybe taking phone calls and you're doing some other stuff quickly. But then when you have some time to sort of sit back and lean back experience, which again,

like from the original introduction of the iPad with Steve Jobs sitting on that leather chair, right? It's like that's the sort of lean back experience and you can sort of relax a bit. And that's sort of how I view it. I wouldn't be shocked if they play that up. Obviously, they'll want to still talk about the productivity gains you can get from unfolding and having a bigger screen. But I do think a lot of it, you're exactly right, is going to be, yeah, just like watching YouTube, watching videos and then reading. And again, they'll play up multitasking side-by-side apps, which will be great. But a lot of it will be that, again, lean back experience.

And again, so it's sort of a party, a party win unfolded. all business when folded type thing, the mullet iPhone. I'm ready to party. I mean, I do enough business travel that the way that we're talking about it, even though the price tag is so high, it kind of starts to feel like something I might want to have, especially for flights and airports. Like, you know, just trying to think, all right,

I'm doing email on the phone. Now I get to the terminal. There's an hour, an hour and a half or two hour delay, which is really common. It might be nice just to like kind of lean back in the chair with a bigger screen. and watch some YouTube or Netflix until the fight comes. Yeah, and imagine, like, obviously there's a lot of people who have both an iPhone and an iPad

or an Android device and some tablet, be it in an iPad or whatnot. And just think if you can sort of consolidate that. Now, Apple will never play that up, of course. They want you to buy both. And I have historically, again, you know, bought both. But there is a world in which this certainly replaces that iPad mini, you know, in your lineup, if you have that. And I think you're right. Then it comes down to like, how does the battery life look, right, on this thing?

And how well can they get that running with the two screens and how heavy is it, of course, and just how good is that hinge that you mentioned and how good is that? And how not visible is that fold, invisible is that fold. You know, those will be the key issues. Now, it's an advanced hinge, MG, so clearly this is going to be. Super advanced hinge. You laugh, but I remember like, what was that device? Remember Microsoft made the Surface Duo?

Do you remember that? Of course. It was like, yeah, the surface that was a small phone foldable. And it was probably ahead of its time, honestly. It always looked sort of cool. You know, it didn't have exactly the ecosystem that certainly Apple has and whatnot. But I remember them playing up how good the hinge was and people talking about how good that hinge was. And I could say like, you know, again, with the pixel fold, like the hinge is fine, but it's a little bit hard to open.

It's not perfect. It's a little awkward to open it and then close it. I always worried I'm like pushing too hard or You know not applying enough pressure to sort of fully open it It's gotten a little bit better over time and again the crease has gotten less noticeable, but that's still definitely there on that device and so if Apple nailed you know that that that hardware element of it that advanced crease like it could be a delight to open imagine that Imagine that well I was gonna say you definitely want to get Apple care for these devices and And then it's just like, oh, my goodness, there's the player right there, right? It's a $2,000 plus phone. I'm sure it'll be $300, maybe $300 for two years or $400 for two years to get the care package on it and then services revenue grow right with it.

That's a good point. And yeah, and they'll be talking that up in retail stores because as much as many broken iPhones as they have seen with just the front face, you know, the front facing screen. Now we have what, triple the amount of screen. real estate, right, that, that, uh, that you need to protect. And so there's going to be a lot of people, uh, unfortunately that, you know, break these things. Obviously, they'll play up the notion that it's the most durable phone yet, yada yada, but yeah, you're going to want that. Um, and one other thing, you brought up Samsung when they originally launched, um, you know, their foldables back in the day.

Remember, there was a huge backlash against it because they would, they had all sorts of issues. Um, I think in part with the hinge, but then there was a screen like that would sort of like, people were removing part of it that they weren't supposed to remove and then like they were removing like things. And so dust would get into the screen and it was sort of a disaster. Obviously, they've solved all those issues now. But there's still going to be new things that pop up at iPhone scale when people have, you know, a foldable, you know, with that's selling tens of millions, if not more, you know, units every single year. Like what are the new weird things?

There will be, of course, people who bend it the other way to prove that it could bend. You know, it's not invincible. And there will be all sorts of fun. class action lawsuits undoubtedly that arise as these new form factors come to play. Definitely. And this is of course coming as John Turnus kicks off his tenure as the CEO of Apple. So I do want to get into some of the other products we're going to see at the event, but we should also talk a little bit about Turnus, what the beginning of his tenure is going to look like and some of the challenges that he's going to face. Now, I was on CNBC last week talking

a little bit about the Turner's era and the challenges that are coming his way. And, you know, the first thing I pointed out was like his job number one is just to sell iPhones. And it sounds simplistic but like when Apple is selling iPhones everything else falls from there there's better services revenue obviously investors are looking at it it's making up more than 50% of the company's sales and so you know that's job number one and it's not gonna be you know the easiest thing in the world because he's gonna deal with the memory crunch hitting just as you know he sort of takes in and obviously they've raised prices on the laptops already but they haven't

raise prices on the phones yet and he's the product guy he's not the supply chain guy although we'll talk about a little bit more Tim Cook is going to stay pretty active so what do you think of terms of the challenges that turnus is going to face as he takes over and how big and important is the fact that he's going to have memory components that used to be one price and now might be three four five X what they what they were previously yeah we talked about you know apple teeing teeing up turnus well and obviously Cook's transition, and it seemed like it was all going to be perfect. And then this wrench got thrown in there, right? There's always one more thing with Apple, and there was a one more thing here with this transition.

And it is a big deal, obviously, to the point where, again, you know, cooks come out and, you know, tried to take the brunt of it, right? Like, tried to, you know, come out and speak to the press and also get some of these price changes done ahead of time before Turner took over so that the new CEO didn't all of a sudden come into a nightmare. And we talked previously about like, you know, the situation at Disney before, you know, when, when Iger stepped away the first time and what a sort of precarious situation Bob Chappe walked into. And again, that was like an unforeseen thing with COVID and everything that happened. But so you got to prepare for these things as best you can. And so again, I think Cook has done everything that he could to set turn us up well, even with this situation. And it's interesting that Cook, obviously famously is the logistics guy and the one who would be, you know, best suited. presumably to deal with this part, whereas Ternus is, is, you know, the hardware guy, the hardware operations guy, setting up all the new devices and whatnot. And so you would have

thought that they also thought that they were setting him up well with all these new things, including the foldable coming in, because obviously he's overseen all of that work for years leading up to this release. And so it's like, great. He can, he can speak to that like it's secondhand. But now, to your point, he does have to speak to all of these big macro issues. And then, of course, there's the geopolitical stuff, which is important that Cook is still there, right? Like, that's, you know, new reports today about his pay package and just how important he clearly will remain, even though he's taking a step back out of the CEO role as executive chairman. He's getting paid CEO-level money, and that's for a reason, you would assume.

And that's including, you know, dealing with the supply chain stuff, presumably helping to deal with that, but also the geopolitical stuff. All right, what about AI? I really can't sort of put my finger on how important AI is going to be for turnus. I mean, obviously the answer is very important, but we are in this AI moment and Apple, like we said, there's surging in sales, they have new products coming. The AI first device just hasn't arrived yet. And so I'm curious, like, and I guess like with WWDC, Apple seems to have basically assuaged a lot of concerns with this new Siri that still hasn't fully rolled out yet, but, people are starting to say, okay, it's good. Where does AI fit for Ternus and how comfortable do you think he should be with where Apple is today? I think Apple is in a pretty good spot, honestly.

Like, you know, when we've talked over just a year ago and over the past many months before that, obviously that was a very different story and it was a, you know, a bit of a nightmare situation for Apple. It does feel like they've stabilized now. It feels I've been running the betas of the new OS, iOS and MacOS and all the other products. And they're, they're stable. They're good. Siri is not going to blow anyone away who's been day-to-day living with Open AI and Anthropa and Claude. But it's certainly going to be good enough for the masses.

And I think that they're going to get some new experiences that those are not as versed in AI that they'll like and more conversational Siri and whatnot. And so I think it's going to be a solid performer from that regard. We'll see what they have cooked, you know, cooked up for doing like more agenic workflows. I think that's stuff that will sort of roll out over time more so than, you know, be a focal point right now. But because I think we're early there. And I think Apple, again, is sort of timed that aspect of it well. You needed to have the conversational Siri. You needed to have Siri that could tell you the actual results of the Super Bowl and all the ridiculous stuff that Syria has not been able to do for years and years.

It seems like they fix that. Obviously, thanks in large part to Google. And so that's a good position to be in. And again, with these new devices coming out, with the foldable coming in, out and a bunch of other stuff in the pipeline. It feels like that will be, they're like at the table stakes level, right? Like you need to have this functional AI underpinning the operating system. The bigger question is what happens when, you know, the state of the art finally moves into

the mainstream in terms of agenic use cases and some newer devices, you know, that potentially open AI and obviously meta with the glasses and everything. And Apple's working on them. Like what that looks like will be a big test, I think. But for right now, it's table stakes. I think they're going to be okay. Now, you mentioned it, and we should talk about it. There's new reporting, again, from Mark German at Bloomberg,

about how much money Tim Cook is going to make. And I was sort of stunned by this. So now he's going to make $2 million as opposed to the $3 million he made as CEO and salary. Okay, so a little bit of a cut there. But then you look at the RSUs, and this is bananas, okay? This is from the Bloomberg story. In terms of restricted stock units for 2027, Turnus was given a target of 55.

million on top of the salary and an unspecified bonus while Cook will get 45 million so 55 million for the CEO 45 million for the executive chairman that feels more like co-CEOs to me than it does like one person's the CEO and the other person's the executive chairman I think the story had the previous executive chairman making like something under a million in our issues so what's going on here this is wild it is wild it's and another important caveat from what the reporting states. I believe Cook's, yeah, targets don't include as much, if any, incentives versus what Turnus do. So in other words, like, Turner's has major targets to it in terms

of the share price and different milestones that sort of unlock a lot of those. It's obviously a standard sort of CEO, big company CEO thing. Cook, it seems like doesn't have that. He's just sort of getting going to get these massive pay packages as long as he's around long enough to sort of, you know, vest all of them. And so that's super interesting. Again, that speaks to like how important his role will be going forward. I do think a lot of that is the geopolitical stuff that Apple obviously doesn't want to play up for clear reasons, but I do think that that matters. How that plays out will be fascinating if a certain president in the, in the White House right now is okay with continuing to talk to Tim Cook, even though someone else

as the CEO of Apple. Historically, he's wanted to talk to the CEOs of the companies, the actual decision makers. So does President Trump, you know, is he okay with continuing to talk to his boy, Tim Apple, or does he need John Apple in there, Johnny Appleseed? I think, as some people have said, Johnny Appleseed in there to be able to have those conversations. It might be a hybrid, you know, maybe Cook sort of slowly ushers turn us in to that role.

But I do think that that's a big part of it. why that package looks like that. And obviously, part of it is just like, it does seem like Cook will actually be very active. He's getting a new office. He's going to be on campus. It's not like the typical sort of executive chair. You brought up the previous one, Arthur Levinson, who's been in place for a long, long time since I think the Steve Jobs days. And his compensation was, you know, more normal looking package for that type of role. But he wasn't day to day, right? Like he would do the board meetings. He'd lead the board meetings, chair of the board meetings. and then, you know, was not the executive chair.

And that's, again, it's a new role for Apple. And I think that the pay package speaks exactly to what they think it's going to be. Because Cook, I mean, Cook for all, you know, whatever you think of him, like, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would, like, demand he's only going to take the role if he gets like, you know, this massive comp package. Again, I just view it as indicative of what they think he's actually going to be doing, which is still a lot of work. Yeah, $45 million a year to return. higher. Not bad. Clearly, like not a retirement. So let's, I think we should breeze through some of the products, some more of these products. Let's just do it quickly that we're going to see from Apple this week. There's the iPhone 18 and Pro Max. I'm just going to read from Bloomberg article. The pro-level

iPhones will look roughly the same as prior models other than a light blue and dark red color options. The big new features are mostly internal A20 Processors, NLC2 modems, battery life and improved vapor chambers to prevent overheating they'll also come with camera upgrades including a mechanical aperture for fine-tuning light adjustments and depth control at least on the Pro Max I guess I'm curious do you think the foldable phone is gonna take all of the because the 17 did so well I'm curious if the foldable phone will just kind of take all the attention away from the 18 I'm curious how Apple thinks about that right like how are they

gonna market these two next to one another right like obviously if they're going to call the foldable, the ultra, they're implying that, you know, that's the best one money can buy. But it's interesting, and I'm torn about this because by all accounts, it's not going to have the best camera system, right? The pro will continue to have the best camera system. Largely, it seems like simply because of laws of physics, right, in the way that the foldable is going to be more space constrained, you know, by its nature. And so it doesn't have the exact same optics. It doesn't maybe have some of these new features, you know, that the camera system will be beginning with the pro. And so,

I'm torn about that, right? Like, I use, primarily, I use, you know, the phone first and foremost as a, as a picture-taking device, especially as a father of young children. Like, I use that every single day, all the time, and I want to have the best camera on me. And if I'm really going to get the foldable slash ultra, like, I potentially won't have the best camera on me. Now, it'll still be a great camera system, obviously, and it will be, I think, you know, good enough for everything. But it'll be in the back of my mind that it's not, it's not going to be the, the best one, right? And that's a little weird from a marketing standpoint if you're indeed going

to call this the ultra. And then maybe that's like some of the pushback against calling it the ultra versus the duo or, you know, the fold or something more simple. And again, does Apple try to really, you know, to play up the notion there, they have a new software feature coming in iOS where you can basically transfer your phone number from one device to the next super easily. So you could just say like, I'm using this device now and it will take your phone number and put it over. That implies that, you know, they think that some people will, obviously, historically have had two phones for different purposes, maybe work and pleasure or whatnot.

But this also might suggest that they think some people will buy the fold, the foldable, and, you know, a regular, quote unquote, regular iPhone, which will be interesting. I think that that's a bridge too far for many people. But, yeah, that's a lot of money. Three grand just for a phone. So, okay, so I guess we've done this. We've talked about this for like 30 minutes. and I haven't asked you.

So I'm going to ask you straight up. Which one are you going to get if you're going to upgrade? I'm going to get the full. I'm going to get the ultra. You know, I will miss the color. It sounds like it won't be as colorful, right? And that new like burgundy red looks pretty nice. I have the cosmic orange, as they're calling, is it called it right now, which has been

great. And I'll, I'll miss that. And I'll honestly like, it'll be a bit jarring, right? To just have a different form factor after having this for years and years, the same one. That's the upside of it. But I'm ready to try something new, and I think it'll be a good experience. But if not, maybe I downgrade to that pro model again. But I think I'm going to like it.

But yeah, it'll be, it'll be take some getting used to. And it'll be an expensive proposition. And that's just, that's Apple. Yes, that is Apple. All right, I'll answer for myself. I'm going to stick with the 17 for one more year, I think, and make a determination. Is that you hold a model? go ahead, go ahead.

Is that you feeling like, you know, the sort of standard Apple playbook of like, look, they often don't nail the first generation of something. And so let's see if they can work out the kinks first. Are you like interested in the foldable and want to get it, but you're just worried about it or price or what's weighing on you there? Good question.

For me, I typically hold the phone for two years. So I had the 15, skip 16, went 17. And I was even thinking of waiting until 18, but I'm so happy that I upgraded to the 17 because it's amazing. and I think that when I upgrade, I will upgrade to the foldable phone.

But so part of it is like natural every other year upgrade and part of it is just like, yeah, I do kind of want to see how this works before picking one up myself. Yeah, if nothing else. Every month and we'll be able to get the feedback on how it's going. I'm sure I'll be writing about this. It'll be like a live diary, I feel like I'm not using this thing. And regardless of if Apple nails sort of the hardware form factor, it does feel like that they'll, again, having this thing in the hands of millions of consumers,

they're obviously going to be tweaks that they need to make certainly to the software side. And it feels like they'll learn quite a bit that they haven't been able to learn in sort of more closed testing internally. There's also, as I'm sure you've seen all the reports, a lot of reports suggesting that they'll be pretty constrained from a supply perspective going into it. And so will this thing launch at the exact same time, you know, as the other devices? Or will it be delayed a little bit? They've done that a few times in the past where it's been maybe a month off.

It doesn't sound like that they're anticipating a huge delay, but it does sound like it might be pretty supply constraint beyond all of the current supply issues going on, but related to them too, of course. Yeah, that's an important call out. Okay, briefly, there's also going to be MacBooks with touch displays, again from Bloomberg. After finally deciding around 2022 that it would enter the touchscreen laptop space, Apple is preparing the biggest overhaul to the MacBook Pro in half a decade

and a redesign model that sports a multi-touch screen OLED technology. and the dynamic island element found on the iPhone. What do you think about this new MacBook? Sounds interesting to me. It is interesting. It's overdue, obviously. And how Apple also deals with the marketing here will be fascinating. Because, of course, when they've been asked about this ad nauseum over the past several years

with lots of Windows, units on the market, touchscreen displays, they've said, like, look, we don't want a touchscreen Mac. We don't think you need one. We think we have the iPad. We've got the Mac. their separate devices, never show the two meet. And then, of course, behind the scenes, they were working on a touchscreen Mac book.

But I think it'll be a marketing challenge after years and years, but Apple's done that historically, of course, said that they weren't doing something until they come out to do it. I think the bigger issue is how they do MacOS to deal with this touch element, because that's been part of the talking point,

right, of why they weren't going to do a touchscreen Mac in the past. It's just a different beast. There's different touch targets. It's like iOS is, of course, an iPad OS are built for touch, and Mac OS is, of course, built for a mouse and keyboard. And so how do you do that? There's ways to do it. They've been doing things with the iPad where they, you know, big in the touch area when you switch from the keyboard accessory into using touch.

So there's ways that they're going to do it. But it's conceptually, it's going to be, I think, a bit of a challenge for people because Apple just hasn't done it historically. And again, how they market this thing will be fascinating. Is this the MacBook Ultra? Is this the ultimate tier of their personal computer? And what does that look like then for the iPad? Does it cannibalize the iPad Pro market? Because all of a sudden, you can have the best of both worlds potentially.

Yeah. Okay. And the last thing I want to talk about, well, actually, there's two more products I want to talk about. The last thing that's going to come out this week is the first smart home hub with a screen. This is from Bloomberg Apple's other major new product category due in the next few months is the home hub with a square. Oh, so it might not come this week, but it's a home hub with the square. Yeah, a square roughly seven inch screen. Seria AI and facial recognition abilities, which will serve up personalized content to the person looking at the device. It'll come with versions

that could sit on a nightstand or be affixed to the wall, run widgets, clock faces on apps and apps and allow for both FaceTime and smart home control. The product will represent Apple's biggest push ever into the smart home market. That's interesting. You know, to me, that's just a sign of confidence that they have in their artificial intelligence that, like, they're willing to make this push again. Obviously, AI is going to be central to any device like this and Apple must feel good about it. Well, and this is one of those devices that's apparently been on hold forever because AI wasn't ready, right? Siri was so bad that they had to postpone the release of this and maybe a few other devices, including new versions of the HomePod and Apple TV. And so they've had these things just sitting on ice, awkwardly, you know, by multiple reports at this point. And so it does speak to the point that they feel like the series finally in good enough space to be able to launch this. It is interesting how they'll actually, yeah, dole out with the cadence of this event versus do they do an October

event? It feels like it's set up nicely to have, you know, this new, this iPhone event. You've got the foldable. You've got the new pro models. And then maybe one or one other thing there. But then you've got potentially a home event, right? Like with this home hub. an Apple TV, HomePod, maybe they intermix them, you know, depending on availability and components, I would imagine is a huge, huge part of that, right? The supply chain stuff. And so maybe they intermix them a little bit. But it's setting up nicely to be, yeah, that one-two punch sort of in September and October for all of these devices. But from the, you know, the high-level strategy of the home pad, some people are calling it, device, I do think,

Homepad. I like that. Homepad. I think FacePod, Homepad. There's all all sorts of fun things that they could go there with. But I think, you know, it's setting up the foundation of what they've long been trying to do, which is making, you know, basically Apple products, the foundation of the home. There's, you know, all the talk now that they're going to roll out security cameras and a bunch of other stuff. And so this will be the base sort of layer about it. And I think people will be interested in it depending on what price points it is at, because I do think it's sort of an interesting conceptually idea to have it as like the main,

hub of the home, maybe iPad-like, but sort of running a new fangled version that they'll call HomeOS. And the most interesting thing about it, honestly, might be if you're a part of a family and the rumored features where it can basically have visual detection to be able to switch between users, which is something people have wanted forever on an iPad, right? Just be able to switch between users if multiple people use it in the home. And they've historically not done that, even though they have it on the Mac. And, you know, they've added other places. They haven't done that. So this will be nice for that. And it's, yeah, it's setting up a foundation, it feels like.

Okay, so here's the roadmap for 2027 and beyond. So Apple is also working on aside from the things that we've talked about today, AirPods with cameras, an in-home security sensor and system, smart glasses, a tabletop robot version of the smart hub, and potentially a pendant with a camera for artificial intelligence. This does not seem like a tabletop, the Apple of the last 10, 15 years. This seems like an Apple that is willing to take much more chances on products than it had previously. And now maybe part of that is sparked by AI or pressured

by AI, but it almost seems like a completely separate company from the one that Tim Cook has been running for a while. And we know it's not all John Turnus, or maybe it is, right? That Ternus, as part of the vision for CEO is, hey, look, I'm going to release many more products. And obviously, it comes from a hardware engineering back. background. But it just seems to me like a major strategic shift for Apple and I'm I'm scratching my head a little bit because I'm curious where this is coming from. So what do you think, MG? What is the deal with this new Apple, the one that ships many products and is willing to finally take some risks? Well, I think it's a few of the things that you mentioned sort of all

coming together at the right point. Like, you know, when you're talking about that, I'm again thinking through and we've talked previously about when Microsoft transitioned from Balmer to Nadella and, you know, one of the first moves that Nadella did was introduce Office for iPad, right? And everyone's like, oh, my God, it's a whole new Microsoft. And obviously, that had been in the works for a while. They didn't just code that overnight and be ready to roll with it. And the same thing here. Of course, a lot of these products have been in the pipeline under Cook for a while.

But again, it's interesting that it's Ternus, who's been the guy who's likely, you know, overseeing them at, you know, at the level just below Cook, hardware engineering. And so he's the guy. he got a lot of credit for the MacBook Neo, and he's going to get, I think, the rightful, a lot of credit for all of these new, you know, the touchscreen MacBook, as we talked about, the foldable iPhone. He's been overseeing a lot of that work. And so it's sort of a perfect position, right, for him to be elevating in the time that a lot of this work is coming in. But the other stuff that's not being released, you know, necessarily this year that you're mentioning, you know, that stuff that's going to be really interesting to see how it plays out under his

leadership because these will be, you know, the first, like, not just new devices, not a new version of them. Even the touchscreen MacBook is a new version of the MacBook. We're talking about things that are totally new to Apple that they've not had before in terms of wearables, in terms of AI first devices. And, you know, there's a lot of ways that those can go wrong. And there's a lot of ways that they go right. And so how Ternus actually deals with that? How does he coordinate software engineering, everything to come together to make these sort of the perfect polished gem that Apple likes to show? ship. Yeah, I'm going to say it. I like it. I mean, I think this is the direction that I've

been hoping that Apple would take. And when I say hoping, I mean like when I'm thinking through the business strategy, to me, this seemed like the way to go, which is take more risks. We're no longer living in a slow-moving technology ecosystem. Things are faster. And you're going to need more devices. Otherwise, you're going to fall. And Apple, I think, felt that a little bit. And the company, for whatever, however it happened, there's been a spark and it is rejuvenated. And I think part of it is like they realize like, look, they're looking at the AI revolution. I mean, they tried once to sort of come in there, fell on their face a little bit, but also took a step back, maybe, you know, not by choice. And it was forced to take a step back and realize, like, we still have the hardware advantage that no one else has.

And so how do we actually take advantage of that, not only with iPhone, with Mac, but also new devices that we can do? We have not only the prowess to be able to do this and the expertise in house, but we also have the retail chance. that no one else has. And so how do we leverage that to be able to be truly successful here? And I think that's what we're going to see all of next year. Yeah. No, it's a very interesting moment for the company. There's been some interesting plays on words in this episode. You know, Johnny, Apple Seed, I like that. The home, what was it, the Homepad? Homepad, yeah. That's one of the rumors.

And on threads I saw this, and I think because I saw it and I haven't been able to gather my head, I'm just going to, you might have seen it too, but I'm going to share it with everyone that what was it? It was Steve did the job. He let Tim Cook. Now it's John's turn. And it's, God, that's so cringy, but just stuck in my head. Yeah, nice work. Okay. So after the break, we're going to talk a little bit about the competitive dynamics between Open AI, Google, and Anthropic. So much news on that front that, of course, we can't sign off without having a discussion about that. So we will do that right after this. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat, the sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the T you somehow

always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Kintz does best. Kints focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and marino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. Personally, I'm kind of obsessed with my black zip down sweatshirt from Kins. It's great for planes and malls and easy to tie around my waist whenever it's warm out. Find your next fall favorites at Kints. Download the Kins app for app exclusive offers or go to KINS.com slash big tech. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com

This episode is brought to you by AvPoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now, copilot, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what AvePoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate.

data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf. It's how more than 28,000 organizations deploy AI with confidence. So innovation scales without scaling risk. AvPoint, the unifying trust layer for AI. Head to AvPoint.com to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at AVPT.com. executives are growing at an alarming rate. When a company experiences backlash, executives are the first people blamed. When their address and other personal details

are sitting online, the backlash can lead right to their front door. The team at Ironwall knows this better than anyone. They protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. As a White Glob Enterprise Security Service, they protect your people with continuous personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and human-led emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwall ensures they hit a dead end.

So here's what to do. Go to ironwall.com slash big technology, fill in the quick form, and request your free risk assessment. Their team will show you just how exposed your executives are and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. That's ironwall.com slash big technology. Learn how to stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. The link is in the show notes. And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with M.Gie Siegler of Spyglass. You can find Spyglass at Spyglass.org.

Highly recommend you sign up for the newsletter. Lots of good stuff. Lots of what we're talking about today. Stuff MG has covered on Spyglass. MG, let's talk a little bit about or kind of pick up from our last discussion. So you may remember last time we spoke, we talked all about the weird stuff going on within Google and the fact that I read this story about Google, giving up on the frontier race and it seemed crazy at the time but then just a few

days or hours later we had finished recording we haven't even published the episode yet Demisiziz stepped down as the CEO of Google D-Mine now of course he is involved within the company but it really does you know when you think about the competitive dynamic and we'll start with Google between Google Open AI and Anthropic it makes you wonder and while you were covering this you cited a semi-analysis post that I thought was very interesting where it definitively said and I'll just read it for all intents and purposes we believe deep mind is no longer a frontier lab we said as much a few

months ago and and we said as much a few months ago due to the large numbers of departures from their reinforcement learning teams and poor compute allocation Google will continue meandering on and releasing models but their odds of reaching state-of-the-art again have dropped to zero. Furthermore, the biggest beneficiary of today's news is neither, and this talking about Demas, is neither anthropic nor open AI, it's Google Cloud.

Whereas Gemini and Google Cloud Platform used to desperately fight for compute allocation, it's now clear that Thomas Curry, and the head of Google Cloud Platform, has one, we expect Google Cloud Platform revenue to grow meaningfully as, and to growth to meaningfully accelerate as a result. That's a, I mean, fascinating two paragraphs.

So the argument is basically like, They are no longer on the frontier. They're all about, you know, the platformization of AI and selling compute to others, which they think is a big business, which is a very kind of interesting direction to take. So what's your reaction here? And what do you think about the state of Google? I mean, I do think that that post is a little bit overzealous, perhaps. You know, I think that they didn't come out and refuted directly,

but I think, you know, there's been lots of whispers of a bunch of, of stuff going on, you know, and I should know it. Obviously, I used to work at Google, but I have no inside information. I've been gone for a couple years. And so I don't know what's actually going on there. But I do think just reading the tea leaves and sort of trying to triangulate based on all these different reports, it does seem like they just flopped when it came to 3.5 Pro, Gemini 3.5 Pro, which was announced on stage at I.O. this year. And they got it, you know, they got flak, including from us, right? When it seemed like it wasn't going to be released then and it wasn't and they talked about well it's coming next month

and that would have been in june i think right and it's now september we still have no 3.5 pro they haven't come out and said that it's dead but i think it's dead i think that now they only talk about four jemini four in training and that that's shaping up well they've launched all these flash models which by most accounts are good um but they're not frontier right they're not at the cutting edge of what google where google was before with jemini and so um you know they're competitive different ways, but again, they're not what was promised. And in some ways, it harkens back to what happened to Meadow with Lama, right? Like where they said, like, this behemoth, the llama is coming and they're going to be at the frontier. And then obviously, the next thing we knew,

they're resetting the entire company to basically, you know, acquire all these people and get a new team in place and go back behind the scenes and catch up again. And so I don't think that we're going to see that level from Google of reset. But clearly, a reset happened. you know, hours after we sort of spoke about it. And it felt like it was in the brewing. You could tell that something was happening behind the scenes with all of the various reports about them falling behind. And will they be able to get back to the frontier? I mean, it seems pretty clear, again, from the reporting, that from Demison down, they were getting pretty interested in world models.

They were seeing, like, maybe the LLM race is sort of maybe not winding down, but we want to go in a different direction to make sure that we're, you know, in the right direction of where the state of the artist is. heading and maybe they just made a wrong call there maybe they were too early we'll see about that but can they get back to that actual frontier it's an interesting time right it feels like that there everyone's like varying degrees of racing pausing you know rolling out things holding back on others and it's a very weird moment in time for this quote unquote race yeah and i'm absolutely not going to count google out but if there was an intentional decision to basically say you know we have compute we can use it to build new models or we can use it to, you know, basically make bank right now with Google Cloud Platform and we're going to do the latter. That's a very interesting strategic

decision. And it also feels like that's a bit how Microsoft has played it, right? Like they, they obviously famously had the open AI deal in place. They sort of renegotiated that and that, you know, all the talk was that that would unlock them to go after the frontier. There is talk that they are, you know, they've been doing that with Mustafa Suleiman trying to go for it. But we haven't seen them release anything yet on the frontier. They've released some smaller models. And all of Satya Nadell's talking points now seem to be about just being this, you know, quote unquote, Switzerland of, you know, the clouds for AI. And they're happy to use anything, be it open models from China, be it any of the competitive, you know, the frontier models products. They don't, they don't

necessarily care what you use as long as you're using it on Azure. Their cloud offering. And so Google in some ways probably is to think about that, right, in relation to all of this, too. It's like that's Microsoft strategy. Amazon is a sort of similar strategy. They've long had it where again, they want to be the Switzerland. They want to be the platform for their cloud, for AWS. And they're working on their own models, but not necessarily at the frontier again. And so is that where Google is moving.

Yeah. And it's also different for Google because they have TPUs. I guess Amazon to a degree has trainium. But the TPUs have shown that they can be used to build real state of the art models. And if you look at Google, so Google's market cap as we're speaking today, you know, is $4 trillion and Nvidia's market cap is $5.5 trillion. Now, I'm not saying Google is going to equal Nvidia. But if you make this strategic pivot and Dave Kahn on the show made this suggestion a couple of weeks ago, if you make this strategic pivot and you say basically AI models will commoditize

to a degree or will always need compute to work. And so what we're going to do is be, you know, the part of the value layer. We get effectively a tax whenever someone uses AI, whether that's through the cloud or through our chips, you know, maybe you're looking at a company that, that, you know, its potential, I mean, let's say Anthropic is going to be a $2 trillion IPO. Well, if you're going after the $2 trillion opportunity or the $5 trillion, maybe you want the five. I know that's overly simplistic, but it is an idea. And maybe that's what Google's doing. Yeah, you know, we've long talked about it. Google's in a unique position versus everyone else because of the basic, you know, things that they have in-house. be able to do and you talk about TPUs. And again, Amazon is some of it, but Google was able to sort of been, has been operating at a different level from a technical standpoint on some of this stuff,

simply because like they have the search revenues that's fueling it and the profits, most importantly. Amazon, of course, is also an awesome business, but doesn't quite have the level of profits that Google does, given, you know, their underlying business. And it was AWS that became sort of their giant profit center, right? And now if Google has search, which is obviously, you know, sort of the continued money maker, but not as vital as it as it was in yesteryear. And now they have cloud up and coming. And they're sort of layering on all of these layers to become like the biggest company in the world, you know, potentially if they have an NVIDIA like opportunity in TPUs or in chips in general. Like what's to stop them from doing that?

I mean, just themselves, big company problems, right? bureaucracy stuff. And so, you know, would I count them out? Of course not. And I think that like so many things, all these companies sort of ebb and flow, right? They go, they're hot and then they fall back. And it seems like, are they finished? Are they cooked? Like, and then they come roaring back and then they're cooked again. And so I feel like we're in a little bit of a down cycle as much as you can be as a $4 trillion public company. But it feels like they'll be back at some point soon. And they'll have sort of all these narratives that are compelling again. And speaking of this like cycle of they're the leader, are they cooked? They're back to the leader.

again. It seems like OpenAI has just gone through one of these where they were in code red. You know, speaking of where they were versus Google, like, what was it, nine months ago? They were in code red and trying to fend off Google, then falling behind Anthropic. Now they've released GPT6, Astra, Jensen Wong from NVIDIA's called it. AGI, although folks Jensen has said that we've reached AGI like months ago and nobody paid attention. But anyway, I'm not here to be the arbiter of that. But what do you think this latest model release does for Open AGI? and its competition with Anthropic in particular.

And on that note, why everybody's making these like 3D models and saying it's AGI, which is interesting. So what's your general read on why that's happening? I wrote about this a little bit at the end of last week. My general read on AGI of Greg Brockman proclaiming it with Astra is that it's full on marketing now. Like it's before we've joked that it's marketing,

but now it's like full on marketing. They're just deciding that they're going to declare it, you know, willy-nilly, Jensen, Willie, it's like, what does it mean? It never really meant, it meant different things to everyone always. I think we probably talked about that two years ago. And then, and now it's just full on in there, especially because, uh, that ABLE, A-Open AI, as noted, no longer has the AGI clause with Microsoft. So they can, they can sort of do whatever they want now and just declare AGI here,

here or there. And it doesn't, doesn't impact anything beyond, uh, public perception. But there's a risk in that, too, right? Like people, I think have been, um, spent the past years sort of being hyped up about AGI is coming and it's going to change everything. And instead like AGI is here apparently and nothing all that much has changed beyond yeah, 3D models. And, you know, I don't know, I still can't get grandma home from the airport. So, so how good is AGI? There was some cool stuff where this guy was building like his own simulated world where, you know, the agents, a bunch of, with a bunch of agents inside of it and they started talking to each other and they started building their own

simulations. So I think there is some cool stuff, but the whole situation is a little bizarre. And I do wonder, so I kind of foreshadowed this at the very beginning of the episode, I do wonder if a lot of what we're seeing now is just going to be the claims, the hype on the claims will just escalate as the IPO window opens. And we know that Anthropic is sort of on the way there. And I'm curious if this big push from, you know, Open AI has something to do with that, although I mean, the benchmarks look good, but I do wonder. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, a huge part of an IPO is obviously the marketing and the story behind it, right? And so as you're noting, like all these companies continue to battle, it does feel like Open AI has had a resurgence after being

downtrodden and sort of, you know, falling behind Anthropic because, you know, they obviously were more consumer focused. Well, Anthropic recognized the opportunity with, with coding and sort of have basically use that to slingshot ahead of Open AI and now all of a sudden they're going to go public before them and and everything's looking good. It's very interesting what Anthropic will do leading up to that IPO. Presumably we're going to get the, you know, the S1 any day now. It could be this week, could be next week. And, and, you know, the offering might be next month.

And, you know, what do they do to that marketing and product end ahead of that? What do they do to keep momentum? because it does feel like, again, opening eye has taken back some of it with this astro push. But obviously, Anthropic just released, you know, a new version of Mythos and Fable right ahead of OpenAI doing that. And the backdrop, of course, behind all of this now is everything going on with security and these breaches that are sort of being disclosed left and right. And these companies continuing, again, to sort of talk about the notion of the future is here and AGI is here. but at the same time, you know, writing blog posts and talking endlessly about like all the security implications of it. Very strange dichotomy.

Certainly not helping the messaging around this as, you know, it's like, what is the public to believe here? Is this the absolute future of everything and the future is going to be great or is the future going to be terrifying? And all of these guys, like, they really need to sort of figure that, figure out what the appropriate talking points are going to be. And you would think that they do that before going public, apparently not. No, clearly not. And I do think that they're both, both Anthropic and Open AI are going to need some like big reveal before they do their IPO, just like, you know, a real one more thing moment. There's some chatter on Twitter that maybe Anthropic will, you know, solve a Millennium Prize problem and, you know, sort of push that out right before the IPO or, you know, somebody's going to

come up with some scientific breakthrough. I don't know. It's as we get close to the public market, it is getting tougher to be able to discern what you should trust and what you shouldn't trust. I want to know who is going to choose AGI as their stock ticker symbol and who gets stuck with RSI. Oh. That'll be that'll be the battle. Ah, well Anthropic has the, uh, the first try at this. What do you think their symbol's going to be? A.A.A.A.A. It could be A&T. Open AI has to be, it will be AGI. We'll be AGI. I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. they'll want it at least. Maybe someone, some, uh, some smaller company can take it and make the, make open AIP you know, millions of dollars to get access to it, like a jersey on a sports team or something. Oh my God, MG. The silly season is just beginning, isn't it? Yep. Yep.

Yep. All right folks. Check out spyglass.org. It's always great to have MG with us to kick off the month. Um, G, I'm sure that we're gonna, we say this every week, every time and every month, every time we talk, but I'm sure that like, by the way, we're recording a month I'm sure none of this will hold for Wednesday and the month ahead is going to be even more insane than this past one. There's going to be some breaking new, like the iPhone Ultra will be left in a bar or something and someone will have it all of a sudden and we'll know everything about it before the event. Yep. Definitely. All right, MG, thanks again. Great talking to you as always. Thanks, Alex. Talk soon.

All right. Thanks everybody for listening and watching and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.