Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 07/16 – Can Intel Acquire Its Way Back Into Contention?

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Intel is considering a major acquisition to leapfrog back into semi-conductor contention. Valve releases its long rumored hardware device. Why they were able to make a deep face of Anthony Bourdain’s voice. And of course, the weekend longread suggestions. Sponsors: CreditKarma.com/podcast Cybereason.com Links: Intel Is in Talks to Buy GlobalFoundries for About $30 Billion (WSJ) Valve’s gaming handheld is called the Steam Deck and it’s shipping in December (The Verge) New Anthony Bourdain documentary deepfakes his voice (The Verge) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: THE GAME MAKERS AND ARTISTS PUSHING ROBLOX TO ITS LIMITS (The Verge) Obscure Cyber Agency Becomes Nemesis of China's Tech Giants (Bloomberg) Tiger Global vs. SoftBank: Inside the investing playbooks that upended Silicon Valley (Protocol) Moderna’s Next Act Is Using mRNA vs. Flu, Zika, HIV, and Cancer (Bloomberg Businessweek) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Friday, July 16th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Intel is considering a major acquisition to leapfrog back into semiconductor contention. Valve releases its long-rumored hardware device, why they were able to make a deep fake of Anthony Bourdain's voice, and of course the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Sources say Intel is exploring a deal to buy global foundries, valuing global foundries. Valuing global foundries. at about $30 billion and giving Intel a shot in the arm with its recent plans to go head-to-head

with TSM and also its recent attempts to regain relevancy in the semiconductor market, quoting the journal. Global Foundries is owned by Mubadala Investment, an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, but based in the U.S. Any talks don't appear to include Global Foundries executives, as a spokeswoman for the company said, it isn't in discussion. with Intel. Intel's new chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, in March, said the company would launch a major push to become a chip manufacturer for others, a market dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor manufacturing company, or TSM. Global Foundries is one of the largest specialist chip production companies. It was created when Intel rival advanced microdevices in 2008 decided to spin off

its chip production operations. Global Foundries has about 7% of the Foundry market share by revenue according to Taiwan-based research firm trend force, end quote. Quoting Daniel Newman on Twitter, this is huge news and enables Intel to finally go after TSM at both the leading and lagging edge. Big price tag, but a bold move that I can see working out well for Intel, end quote. Quoting Patrick Moorhead on Twitter. On Intel acquiring global foundries, I can see why it would want to, as it would make Intel a full-stack provider with specialty tech for 5G, Internet of Things, and automotive. But the regulatory hurdles would be immense, end quote.

Actually, I'm not sure about that. Maybe given the geopolitical nation state competitive layer to the semiconductor industry that we've been discussing at length all year, I can see governments, to the contrary, actually encouraging moves like this that would make their domestic chip companies stronger. And finally, here's Matthew Prince, quote, Fascinating to think about Intel being forced to disrupt itself, to survive. Microsoft from Windows-centric to cloud-centric pretty successfully. Now, maybe Intel from OEM to ODM. Wish Clay Christensen were still with us to comment, end quote.

Valve finally announced Steam Deck, its long-rumored Switch-like handheld video game device with a 7-inch touchscreen display. It's available in December from $399, though, pre-orders began today, quoting the verge. The device has an AMD APU containing a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units worth of AMDRDNA2 graphics alongside 16 gigabytes of LPDR5 RAM. There are three different storage tiers, 64 gigabytes for $399, 256 gigabytes for $529, and 512 gigabytes for $649, according to Valve. You can also extend the available storage using the high-speed micro-SD card slot. The Steam Deck has a huge number of control options. There are two thumbsticks,

but also two small Steam controller-style track pads beneath the thumbsticks, which could give you more precision for things like first-person shooters. The front of the Steam deck also has ABXY buttons, a D-PAD, and a 7-inch 1280 by 800 touchscreen for 720P gameplay. The device also has a gyroscope for motion controls, and like Nintendo Switch, it has two shoulder triggers on each side, and there are four back buttons, two on each side, as well as built-in microphones. As for the battery, SteamDeck's onboard 40-watt-hour battery

provides several hours of playtime for most games, Valve says. For lighter use cases like game streaming, smaller 2D games or web browsing, you can expect to get the maximum battery life of approximately 7 to 8 hours, end quote. Valve tells IGN that, quote, you can play Portal 2 for 4 hours on this thing. If you limit it to 30 frames per second, you're going to be playing for 5 to 6 hours, end quote. And if you need to pause your game, the Steam deck offers a quick suspend slash resume feature built into Steam OS that will let you put the device into sleep mode and pick up where you left off later.

Valve will also sell a dock you can use to prop up a Steam deck and plug it in. into external displays like a TV. You won't need a dock to plug it into a TV, though. Valve says that the deck can be plugged into your TV, monitor, or even your old CRT if you have the right cables. The deck comes with fully fledged USBC ports that contain HDMI, Ethernet, and USB data, as well as standard Bluetooth. You'll also have native Bluetooth audio, something that's missing from the switch. On the software side of things, the Steam deck runs what Valve is calling a new version of Steam OS that it's optimized for the handheld's mobile form factor. But the actual OS is based on Linux and will use Proton as a compatibility layer to allow

Windows-based games to run without requiring that developers specifically port them for the Steam Deck, end quote. You might have heard the maker of a new documentary about Anthony Bourdain says he used AI to recreate Bordane's voice and synthesized the audio of three quotes from the deceased TV host in the documentary. Quoting The Verge. The deep faked voice was discovered when the New Yorker's Helen Rosner asked how the filmmaker got a clip of Bordane's voice reading an email he had sent to a friend. Neville said he had contacted an AI company and supplied it with dozens of hours of Bordane speaking, quote, and my life is sort of shit now. You are successful and I am successful. And I'm wondering, are you happy? End quote, Bourdain wrote in an email and an AI algorithm later narrated in

approximation of his voice saying thus. Neville told Rosner that there were three lines of dialogue that he wanted Bourdain's voice to orate, but he couldn't find previous audio to string together or make it work otherwise. There's no shortage of companies that can achieve this kind of AI voice replication, and there's actually a burgeoning industry of companies that can specifically generate voices for video game characters or allow you to clone your own voice. But whether it's ethical to clone a dead person's voice and have them say things they hadn't gotten on tape when they were alive is another question, and one Neville doesn't seem too concerned with. Quote, we can have a documentary ethics panel about this later, he told the New Yorker, end quote.

Yes, that is interesting. Aside from the implications of resurrecting dead celebrities, this is another case of people taking your data and doing something else with it that you might never have intended. We've discussed how almost everyone in North America can be turned into a deep fake using all of the pictures and video. We've voluntarily posted to social media. They've been training AI on our faces for years at this point. But this made me realize that deep fakes of voices is probably harder to do because unless you're a somewhat famous person or someone who's done a fair amount of work in the media, how many hours of audio of your voice do you think is floating around out there in the world? Probably not that much, right? Unless you're a radio or TV host or maybe an audiobook reader slash voice artist.

or unless you're a podcaster with nearing a thousand episodes of a podcast where you're pretty much the sole voice. I figure there's about 270 hours of my voice just from this podcast, and then if you add in the over 200 hours of the internet history podcast, you'd have more than enough data to train a vocal deep fake of me. Not that anyone would want that, but if they did, so long as my airs get paid for it, I'm giving you all. preemptive permission now to use my voice for whatever you want after my death. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. It was by far one of the biggest IPOs of the last year. So let's check in on how Roblox is doing. This is from The Verge, quote,

When I asked Sheldon how he feels about outsiders migrating to the platform, he described it as awesome, and absolutely inevitable because of both the strength of the platform's tools and the opportunities that increasingly exist on it. But for those game makers looking to professionalize their work, there's one big caveat. Roblox remunerates developers at the inverse rate of how video game stores tend to operate. Rather than taking home 70% of each transaction as they might on Steam, content creators actually see just 27%. There's also the fact that Roblox, despite being publicly listed on the stock exchange with a valuation of $41 billion in March this year, isn't yet profitable. It reported a net loss of $253 million in 2020 alongside further losses of $97.2 million

and $86 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively. While outsider game makers migrating to the platform won't likely impact the fortunes of the company in the long run unless, say, Hideo Kojima joins the party, such curiosity could yet spark interesting results that reverberate beyond it. One only need to listen to Ricky Haggett, whose credits include cult video game hits Wilmets Warehouse and Ho-Hocum in addition to I Am Dead for one possible peak at the ways Roblox's seamless multiplayer components might impact video games more broadly. Quote, our new game has definitely been influenced by playing a lot of Roblox, he says. It's been such a good expression of faf-free hanging out with friends in a pandemic.

There's almost no barriers to entry. Roblox feels frictionless, end quote. This is perhaps Roblox's most enticing offer to gamemakers. Online infrastructure that can accommodate either many plays. players, or just a handful in games that encompass everything from gigantic commercial projects to small meditative titles. For Pipkin, it's precisely these social elements that make the platform special, quote, regardless of the fact that Roblox itself is a company whose goals sits somewhere between laudable and questionable, people find a way to make meaningful spaces

and interactions with one another inside of it, and they do so with vigor and abundance, says Pipkin. It's compelling to be a part of, end quote. Next, we've spoken a lot recently about the cyberspace administration of China, the regulatory body that has been bringing the hammer down on startups like DD and Bytance. So what is this once obscure agency? Bloomberg digs in for the details, quote. At its inception, the agency, also known by its Chinese name of the state internet information office, was charged with asserting control over China's social media, curtailing online debate and instituting stricter rules on content. It flourished under Lou Wei, who took over as director in 2013, growing in size and absorbing other cybersecurity departments. In 2014, the watchdog

began dispatching delegations to international cyber events and brokering meetings between Xi and technology chieftains, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook. It also established an international internet conference in the town of Wuzhen that attracted industry leaders from around the world. Lou was removed from office in 2016 on charges of corruption, however, so Xi appointed Jule, a longstanding party official as his replacement. The Chinese president had wanted the CAC to become a highly centralized agency for content regulation and cybersecurity policy coordination, and the agency soon expanded its policy and regulatory coordination capacity, quote, across internet content sectors and broadly the entire cyberspace,

according to Plenum's Fang. Under Zhu, the agency also recruited and promoted more cyberspace and technical professionals to replace propaganda officials. Its present director, Zhang Rong Wen, once worked as an engineer before becoming a vice minister at the propaganda department. Two of the four current deputy directors also come from the telecommunications and IT industry, end quote. Next, from Protocol, I've been waiting to do a long read for you on Tiger Global, the big new fund that is giving SoftBank a run for its money in terms of being aggressive, in terms of writing huge checks to global startups. So here's a piece contrasting the styles of the two. quote. In 2021, there's been an explosion in venture capital investment as all that cash has sought places to land. The first half of 2021 shattered records with $288 billion invested in startups globally.

Leading the pack is Tiger Global Management, which has emerged as this year's funding jockey, setting a blistering pace with venture firms racing to keep up. Tiger Global has invested in over 120 startups already this year, according to an analysis by Pitchbook for Protocol and shows no signs of slowing down with a $6.7 billion fund announced in April and a rumored $10 billion fund on its heels. Their strategy right now seems to be hinging a lot on money is still cheap. The public markets are still accepting these unicorns and VC-backed companies and sustaining those high valuations that they're seeing in the private markets, said pitchbook analyst Kyle Stanford. Sometime last year, Tiger Global saw the opportunity to just put as much money to work in the market

right now as they can, and that's what they did, end quote. SoftBank, meanwhile, has returned to the market after the WeWork deal's fallout, cooled outside investors' interest in its Vision Fund 2. The firm rebounded after mega hits like Kupang and DoorDash and is now as much of a player as it was when it first shook up the venture capital world. SoftBank recently up the size of Vision Fund 2 to $30 billion of its own money and has made 90 investments from the fund. Tiger Global and SoftBank are now the two largest investors when it comes to dollars invested

in startups in 2021. but the approach to how the two deploy capital is incredibly different, end quote. And finally, Moderna, one of the MRNA companies that gave us the COVID-19 vaccine in record time. What's next for Moderna? According to Bloomberg, vaccines for everything. Quote, for Moderna chief executive officer Stefan Bancel, the COVID vaccine is just the beginning. He's long promised that if MRNA works, it will lead to a giant new industry, capable of treating most everything from heart disease to cancer to rare genetic conditions. Moderna has drugs in trials for all three of these categories, and Bancel says his company can also

become a dominant vaccine maker, developing shots for emerging viruses such as Nipa and Zika, as well as better known, hard-to-target pathogens such as HIV. In the past 40 years, more than 50 new human viruses have been discovered. Only three have authorized vaccines. Bancel views that as an opportunity, quote, we are going to totally disrupt the vaccine market, he says during a late May interview at Moderna's Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters. The company has vaccines for 10 viruses that are in or about to be in human trials. These include three types of COVID-19 boosters that are in mid-stage trials, a seasonal flu shot that began its first human study in July, and HIV shots that are slated to begin studies later this

year. The furthest along, besides the COVID shots, combats cydomeglow virus, a ubiquitous bug that spreads through bodily fluids and is a common cause of birth defects. It's set to begin a phase three trial this year in women of childbearing age. In the long term, Moderna is aiming to develop an annual super shot that could suppress numerous respiratory ailments, including COVID, the flu, and others. Our goal is to give you several MRNAs and a single shot at your local CVS or GP every August or September, Bancel says, end quote. Ride Home Plus subscribers. You're getting an interesting raise episode as soon as I can finish editing it this afternoon.

Everybody. I'm also going to drop the Twitter space from the other afternoon into all the feeds since we talked about so many things in that conversation that were directly related to stuff talked about on the show yesterday. It's like immediate meta-commentary. And that's it. Have a good weekend. Talk to you on Monday.