Tech Brew Ride Home - Ain’t No Drama Like AI Industry Drama

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Apparently their ain’t no drama like AI industry drama, proven once again by some high-profile defections from Thinking Machine Labs. Grok says it’s cleaned up its act. TSMC is winning thanks to AI. More price rises from Spotify. And why is Ireland missing out on the AI datacenter boom? Two Thinking Machines Lab Cofounders Are Leaving to Rejoin OpenAI (Wired) Grok was finally updated to stop undressing women and children, X Safety says (ArsTechnica) TSMC delivers another record quarter as profit jumps 35% fueled by robust AI chip demand (CNBC) Ireland Is Trying to Get Back on the Data Center Bandwagon (Bloomberg) Spotify Raises Premium Subscription Prices in US to $13 a Month (Bloomberg) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Google Fi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride Home for Thursday, January 15th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apparently, there ain't no drama like AI industry drama, proven once again by some high-profile defections from thinking machine labs. Grock says it's cleaned up its act. TSM is winning, thanks to AI. More price rises from Spotify,

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has parted ways with its CTO, Barrett Zoff, with Saumith Chintala now set to take over that role. Sources say the termination of Zoff was due to, quote, unethical conduct. Later, Fiji Simo of OpenAI tweeted that Zoff and Luke Metz and Sam Schoenholz have returned to OpenAI from Thinking Machines Lab and, quote, this has been in the works for several weeks. What could possibly be going on here? Well, here's Wired, quote, two narratives are already forming about what prompted the departures. The news was first reported on X by technology reporter Kylie Robeson, who wrote that Zoff was fired for, quote, unethical conduct. A source close to thinking machines alleged that Zoff had shared confidential company information with competitors. Wired was unable

to verify this information with Zoff, who did not immediately respond to Wired's request for comment. According to the memo from Simo, Zoff told Thinking Machine CEO Mira Moradi on Monday he was considering leaving. He was then fired on Wednesday. Seymo went on to write that OpenAI doesn't share the same concerns about Zoff as Maradi. The personnel shakeup is a major win for OpenAI, which recently lost its VP of research, Jerry Tworrek. A third Thinking Machines staffer Sam Schoenholz is also rejoining Open AI per the company's announcement. The departures are a blow to thinking machines, which also lost another co-founder Andrew Tulloch in November when he took a new job at Meta. In a post on X, Maradi confirmed Zoff's departure and said that

Salmuth Chintala will replace him as the startup's chief technology officer. Zoff and Metz left OpenAI in late 2024 to start thinking machines with Maradi, the chat GPT maker's former chief technology officer. Zoff was previously OpenAI's vice president of post-training, where he led teams that made final improvements to AI models before they were deployed into products, like ChatGPT and OpenAIs API's API. Mets worked at OpenAI for two years during his first stint at the company and contributed. to projects like ChatGPT and the 01 AI reasoning model. Simo told employees in her memo that Zoff will report directly to her and Metz and Schoenholz will work under him. The hiring announcement timeline was accelerated, she said, so they still have to work out

some details about their roles. Thinking Machines Lab is one of several well-funded AI startups led by former OpenAI researchers, reflecting the incredible appetite among investors to cash in on the AI race. Last year, Marotti's startup was last valued at $12 billion and was recently in talks to raise more than $4 billion at a $50 billion valuation. The startup's main product today is called Tinker, which allows developers to customize AI models on their own datasets, end quote. Here is some further speculation from at fleeting bits on Twitter, quote.

Some quick thoughts on Barrett Zoff and Mets and Schoenholz going back to Open AI. Number one, Barrett Zoff was the vice president of post-training at OpenAI before he left for thinking machines. He left Open AI in September 2024. Number two, Barrett would have probably initially had options for about 10 to 30 percent of thinking machines. Post-training was one of the more valuable skills at launch. Number three, the seed round as $2 billion at $12 billion, so this would mean that he would have options now for about 8 to 25 percent of the current company. Number four, there were rumors back in November that thinking machines was in talks to raise at $50 to $60 billion, so this puts his equity at $4 to $15 billion in valuation.

Number five, thinking machines could probably exit at somewhere between $30 and $60 billion today, or at least at some point over the next two years. Number six, I think the most likely acquirers would probably be Microsoft, Apple, meta, Amazon, and Nvidia, a large-cap public company that wants to build a frontier model. Number seven, Barrett would have been just over his one-year cliff. So assuming he was not fired for cause or thinking doesn't want to litigate, he still has about $1 to $3.5 billion in thinking machines equity right now. Number eight, it would be interesting to know his Open AI pay package. The rumor is that OpenAI set aside about $50 billion for the equity pool for

the new PBC so they can afford a decent pay package for him. Number nine, my guess is that it was a personality dispute or a disagreement over the commercial direction of the company with the Mira slash executive team number 10. And if there is something behind the unethical conduct claim, it could be just a game of telephone over him talking to other labs and mirror interpreting that as him disclosing trade secrets, end quote. And some snark from Andrew Coran on X, quote, the OAI TV series will obviously end season one with the boardroom coup, so this is probably the dramatic climax of, say, episode 11 in a season three. That means we need a recognizable threat for the season finale, episode 12, return of the whale, to which at Baste Jensen tweeted,

Nah, season one will be Elon and Open AI parting ways. Season two would be the board drama. Season three would be XAI stuff. This would be a solid season four mid-season episode thing, end quote. X has updated Grock to prevent the quote, editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis, and is geo-blocking this for all users, quote, where it's illegal. Quoting RIS Technica, the update includes restricting, quote, image creation and the ability to edit images via the GROC account on the X platform, which, quote, are now only available to paid subscribers. This adds an extra layer of protection by helping to ensure that individuals who attempt to

abuse the GROC account to violate the law or our policies can be held accountable, X safety said. Additionally, X will, quote, geo-block the ability of all users to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear, and similar attire via the GROC account and in GROC in X, in those jurisdictions where it's illegal, X safety said. X's update comes after weeks of sexualized images of women and children being generated with GROC finally prompting California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate whether GROC's outputs break any U.S. laws.

In a press release Wednesday, Bonta said that, quote, XAI appears to be facilitating the large-scale production of deep fake, non-consensual, intimate images that are being used. used to harass women and girls across the internet, including via the social media platform X. Notably, Banta appears to be as concerned about GROC's standalone app and website being used to generate harmful images without consent as he is about the outputs on X. Before today, X had not restricted the GROC app or website. X had only threatened to permanently suspend users who are editing images to undress women and children if the outputs are deemed illegal content. It also restricted the Grock chatbot on X from responding to prompts to undress images, but anyone with a

premium subscription could bypass that restriction, as could any free X user who clicked on the edit button on any image appearing on the social platform. On Wednesday, prior to X safety's update, Elon Musk seemed to defend GROC's output as benign, insisting that none of the reported images have fully undressed any minors, as if that would be the only problematic output. Quote, I, not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grock, Musk said in an ex post, quote, literally zero, end quote. Musk's statement seems to ignore that researchers found harmful images where users specifically, quote, requested minors be put in erotic positions and that sexual fluids be depicted on their bodies, end quote. It also ignores that X previously voluntarily signed commitments to remove any intimate image abuse from its platform, as recently as 2024, recognizing that even partially nude images that victims wouldn't want publicize could be harmful. Banta pointed to news reports documenting Grock's worst outputs as the trigger of his probe.

The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual sexually explicit material that XAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking, Banta said. This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit. explicit situations has been used to harass people across the internet, end quote. Acting out of deep concern for victims and potential grok targets, Banta vowed to, quote, determine whether and how XAI violated the law, and quote, use all the tools at my disposal to keep California's residents safe, end quote. Banta's announcement came after the United Kingdom, seemed to declare a victory after probing GROC over possible violations of the UK's Online Safety Act, announcing that the harmful outputs had stopped, end quote.

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TSM has reported Q4 net profit up 35% year-on-year to a record $16 billion above the $15.17 billion that was estimated, as it is benefiting from surging demand for AI chips and has hit $100 billion in 2025 revenue. Quoting CNBC, the world's largest contract chipmaker has now posted year-over-year profit growth for eight consecutive quarters. In an earnings call, TSM's executive's guided revenue for the current quarter to hit between $34.6 and $35.8 billion, up 4% sequentially or up 38% year-over-year at the midpoint. We expect our business to be supported by continued strong demand for our leading edge process technologies, said TSM's chief financial officer Wendell Huang, during an earnings

call, adding that the company's profit margins have been increasing. TSM, Asia's largest technology company by market capitalization, has benefited greatly from the proliferation of artificial intelligence, producing advanced AI processors for clients such as Nvidia and AMD. The company's high-performance computing division, which includes artificial intelligence and 5G applications made up the majority of sales in the October December quarter at 55%. Demand from smartphones made up 32% of sales. TSM said advanced chips measuring 7 nanometer or smaller made up 77% of total wafer revenue during the quarter. For full year 2025, those chips made up about 74% of revenue up from 69% in 2024. In semiconductor technology, smaller nanometer

sizes indicate more compact transistor designs, allowing faster processing speeds and greater energy efficiency. The company is looking to further ramp up its cutting edge two nanometer offerings this year after rolling out mass production last quarter. With TSM further leaning into its advanced products, it said that its capital expenditure was expected to reach between $52 and $56 billion in 2026 as compared to $40.9 billion in 2025. The demand for AI remains very strong, driving overall chip demand across the entire server industry. Coutrepoint Research senior analyst Jake Lye told CNBC predicting that. 2026 will be another, quote, breakout year for AI server demand, end quote.

With all of this data center buildout around the world, you know who weirdly hasn't been benefiting as much as you might think? The country of Ireland, which was an early data center winner and poster child for the post.com busts sort of web 2.0 data center buildout. Ireland has apparently missed out on much of the AI boom now due to creaking infrastructure and a strained electricity grid, stopping projects. Quoting Bloomberg, companies have scrapped huge data center plans in Ireland or have been blocked by Irish authorities and officials estimate some 10 billion euros or $11.7 billion worth of investment has been lost because of constraints. Ireland's past success at luring the world's biggest names in tech and pharma turned it into one of the richest countries in the world. If overseas companies start to turn away, the damage would be huge. Aware of the risks,

the Irish government is making a fresh push to get back on the data center. bandwagon. It has outlined plans for special business parks where energy devouring projects can have easy access to clean power, balancing energy constraints with the need to stay attractive for investment. The move follows a decision by the energy regulator on new rules for electricity grid connections after a long-running review that left businesses in limbo for years. We risk missing an enormous wave of European AI and cloud investment, Nile Mali, Chief Executive Officer of Eschelon Data Centers, which operates facilities in multiple countries, said after the regulator's announcement last month,

if they can't locate in Ireland, we are running the risk of major problems in our foreign direct investment and our tax strategy. It's an especially pressing issue because of the economic risks. Foreign-owned multinationals drive growth employ more than 600,000 people and are the main reason the government can run annual budget surpluses. Those companies accounted for almost 90 percent of corporate tax. income in 2024. The power tensions reached ahead in 2021 amid growing concern about blackouts. The energy regulator, CRU, started a review leading to a de facto freeze on data center grid connections around Dublin. Since then, only two centers secured a connection agreement from operators' IRGrid and ESB networks. A final decision on connections was published by the regulator

only last month. The clarity was welcomed by the industry, but there are concerns about new strict requirements. Operators will be required to install energy generation or storage capable of meeting their full demand, and 80% of each facility's annual electricity must come from renewable energy projects in Ireland. That will put additional costs on business at a time when Ireland needs to be as competitive as possible to win back their trust. While Ireland's infrastructure has vastly improved, the problem is that it's been progress from what was a very low standard. It was a relatively poor country for much of the 20th century, lacking investment resources, meaning work in recent decades has been a case of playing catch-up.

And there are still huge gaps. In the IMD World Competitiveness Index, Ireland is ranked 44th for, quote, basic infrastructure. And after years of warnings, Ireland paid a real price last year when Amazon Web Services scrapped plans for a new industrial facility in Dublin. That decision was linked to a delay with a grid connection. The government has acknowledged it needs to do more, and last summer announced an infrastructure investment package worth around $112 billion. It has the money, thanks to corporate tax revenue, but there are other roadblocks from a shortage of workers to a cumbersome planning system.

Meanwhile, Kirby is going where there's work. It built its first data center in Ireland in 2007 and has seen rapid expansion in recent years. Revenue has more than doubled since 2020. A lot of it started in Ireland, said CEO Henry McCann, but in 2026, quote, more than 65% of our revenue will be generated by projects outside Ireland, end quote. Finally today, Pocketbook News, Spotify has announced plans to raise its premium subscriptions by $1 per month to $1299 per month in the U.S. Oh, and also price increases in Estonia and Latvia, too, but this is Spotify's first U.S. price hike since July of 2024. Quoting Bloomberg, Spotify, which has more than 280 million paid subscribers, has been under pressure to raise prices to keep them in line with inflation and increases by other consumer service platforms such as Netflix. The company has fiercely loyal listeners who have spent sometimes years building music and audio libraries.

Reports have shown Spotify listeners are the least likely to cancel among the major video or audio streaming services in the U.S. Over the past two decades, Spotify has grown into the most powerful company in the music industry and proven it can be profitable. But growth has slowed as streaming matured in major markets. Spotify has been working for the past two years or so on a new, more expensive service that would capitalize on the site's most ardent fans, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.