Tech Brew Ride Home - NOT Alright, Alright, Alright

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Nvidia can officially sell its chips in China, but not if China doesn’t let anyone buy them. Tesla will stop selling FSD beginning next month. Matthew McConaughey says NOT alright alright alright to unauthorized AI use of his voice. And another story about how AI is disrupting the consultancy game. Exclusive: China's customs agents told Nvidia's H200 chips are not permitted, sources say (Reuters) Meta is closing down three VR studios as part of its metaverse cuts (The Verge) Tesla Driver-Assist System FSD Will Switch to Subscription-Only, Musk Says (Bloomberg) Matthew McConaughey Trademarks Himself to Fight AI Misuse (WSJ) Microsoft’s Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million (The Information) Apple Struggling With Key Material Shortage as AI Chips Drain Supply (MacRumors) McKinsey challenges graduates to use AI chatbot in recruitment overhaul (FT) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride Home for Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough today. InVIDIA can officially sell its chips in China, but not if China doesn't let anyone buy them. Tesla will stop selling FSD beginning next month. Matthew McConaughey says not alright, all right, all right, to unauthorized AI use of him. And another story about how AI is disrupting the consultancy game. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

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predictable operational posture. Learn more at Threatlocker.com slash tech brew ride home. That's Threatlocker.com slash tech brew ride home. So a case of conflicting headlines here, the U.S. has finally, officially given a formal green light to sales of NVIDIA's H-200 chips to China, with the stipulation that China cannot receive, more than 50% of the total amount of chips sold to U.S. customers. But at the same time, Reuters says Chinese officials have told customs agents in China that Nvidia H-200 chips are barred from China and instructed local tech companies not to buy them unless necessary.

Quote, the wording from the officials is so severe that it is basically a ban for now, though this might change in the future should things evolve, said one of the people. The H-200, Nvidia's second most powerful AI chip is one of the biggest flashed, points in current U.S. Sino relations. Though there is strong demand from Chinese firms, it remains unclear whether Beijing wants to ban it outright so that domestic chip companies can flourish, or is still chewing over restrictions, or whether these measures could be used as a bargaining tactic in talks with Washington. The chip, formerly approved by the Trump administration for export to China this week, with some conditions, is also a hot-button issue in the U.S.,

with many China Hawks concerned that the chips could supercharge the Chinese military and a road U.S. advantages in AI. The Sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said authorities had not provided any reasons for their directives and had not given any indication whether this constitutes a formal ban or a temporary measure. Reuters was not immediately able to ascertain whether the directives applied to existing orders for H-200 chips or only to new orders. The information on Tuesday reported that the Chinese government this week told some tech companies that it would only approve their H-200 purchases under special circumstances, such as for research and development conducted in partnership at universities. Exemptions are being discussed

for R&D purposes and universities, said one of the sources. Analysts say Beijing's move could be aimed at exerting leverage on Washington in the run-up to U.S. President Donald Trump's April visit to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping as both sides navigate an uneasy truce on trade. Beijing is pushing to see what bigger concessions they can get to dismantle U.S.-led tech controls, said Riva Gojohn, a political strategist at research firm Rodium Group. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H-200 chips priced at around $27,000 each, far exceeding Nvidia's inventory of 700,000 chips, sources said last month. It remains debatable, however, which side has more to gain from the sales of H-200 chips

to China? Reentry into the Chinese market would mean huge profits for Nvidia and the U.S. government, which will take a 25% fee on the chip sales, end quote. As part of its recently announced Reality Labs cuts, meta is closing three VR gaming studios and will stop developing new content and features for its VR fitness app, Supernatural, quoting the verge. Twisted Pixel Games, the developer of Marvel's Deadpool VR,

Sanzaru Games, the developer of the Asgard's Wrath franchise, and Armature Studio, which worked on the Resident Evil 4 VR port, are all being closed down, according to an internal memo viewed by Bloomberg. The team behind the VR Fitness app Supernatural will no longer develop new content or features for it, though the existing product will still be supported, Bloomberg says. Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton confirmed to the verge that Bloomberg's reporting is accurate. Laid off staffers have posted about the closures online. Meta acquired supernatural developer within in 2023 after a fight with the FTC.

twisted pixel and armature in 2022 and Sensaru in 2020. The company closed Echo VR developer Ready at Dawn, which had also acquired in 2020 in 2024. And a statement about the broader reality labs layoffs, Clayton said that we said last month that we are shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward wearables. This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year, end quote. Elon Musk says that Tesla will stop selling FSD after February 14th and will offer it only as a monthly subscription. Quoting Bloomberg, Tesla has been selling the system, which requires active supervision and doesn't make its vehicles autonomous, for an $8,000 one-time payment or $99 per month.

Although Musk didn't offer any rationale for the switch, his compensation is partly dependent on growing the business. Reaching 10 million active FSD subscriptions is among the targets Tesla must hit for the CEO to earn additional shares under the pay package shareholders approved in November. Achieving a series of market capitalization and operational milestones could net him around $1 trillion worth of stock. Tesla hasn't disclosed how many of its customers have bought or are paying monthly subscriptions for FSD. Musk acknowledged challenges with the product early last year when he was asked if the company would need to retrofit older vehicles equipped with less capable computing systems. The honest answer is that we're going to have to, Musk said,

an earnings call. That's going to be painful and difficult, but we'll get it done. Now I'm kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package, end quote. Tesla fell well behind China's BYD in Global Battery Electric Vehicle deliveries last year. In the midst of back-to-back annual sales declines, Musk has placed greater emphasis on initiatives including FSD, Robotaxies, and humanoid robots, and quote. I can't remember if I told you that Matthew McConaughey signed a deal with 11 Labs to make his voice available on 11 Labs as one of their AI options. Well, news now that that actor has also secured eight trademarks of himself from the USPTO in the past several months to protect his likeness and voice from unauthorized AI use. Quoting the journal, over the past several months,

the Interstellar and Magic Mike Star has had eight trademark applications approved by the US patent and trademark office featuring him staring, smiling, and talking. His attorneys said the trademarks are meant to stop AI apps or users from simulating McConaughey's voice or likeness without permission in increasingly common concern of performers. The trademarks include a seven-second clip of the Oscar winner standing on a porch, a three-second clip of him sitting in front of a Christmas tree, and audio of him saying, all right, all right, all right, his famous line from the 1993 movie dazed and confused, according to the approved applications. My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it's because I approved and signed off on it.

the actor said in an email, we want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consistent and attribution the norm in an AI world, end quote. McConnees lawyers say they aren't aware of his likeness being manipulated by AI, but hope that trademarks can be used broadly against any unauthorized duplications of him. In a world where we're watching everyone scramble to figure out what to do about AI misuse, we have a tool now to stop someone in their tracks or take them to federal court, said Jonathan Pollock, one of McConaughey's attorneys. The lawyer said they aren't aware of any other actors who have secured broad trademarks on themselves, particularly in the age of AI. They acknowledge that if a defendant fights one of McConaughey's trademark claims, the outcome is

uncertain. I don't know what a court will say in the end, but we have to at least test this, said McConaughey lawyer, Kevin Yorn, who represents numerous top Hollywood actors, including Scarlett Johansson and Zoe Saldana. McConaughey recently announced a partnership with AI voice company 11 Labs to create a version of his newsletter Lyrics of Livin in Spanish. McCona Hay is an investor in 11 Labs, as is Yorne, through venture capital firm Broadlight Capital, where he is a partner. U.S. law lets individuals and companies make a trademark claim on images closely associated with them, even if they haven't been filed with the USPTO.

But many seek approval in order to ensure the law is on their side. Mark McKenna, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, whose studies intellectual property, said the trademarks, granted under existing U.S. law without registration, as well as state right of publicity laws, protect against most commercial uses. But on internet video platforms where creative work generated by AI can be monetized with advertisements, the law is murkier, end quote. Studies and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds.

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See you this summer. The information says that Microsoft has quietly become one of Anthropics' top clients and was recently on pace to spend nearly $500 million a year for Anthropic to power Microsoft products. Quote, at the same time, Microsoft is putting more emphasis on selling Anthropic AI models to its cloud customers, which could generate more revenue for both companies. To that end, Microsoft recently told some salespeople in its Azure cloud unit that selling Anthropic AI models to Microsoft Cloud customers will count toward their sales quotas, just like Microsoft made software, according to two Microsoft employees.

Microsoft doesn't typically offer such a sales incentive for non-Microsoft products, as such products are less lucrative to Azure. The current Anthropic sales incentive runs through the end of June, one of the people said. Microsoft has offered salespeople the same incentive for selling OpenAI models, which Microsoft also sells through Azure. The new quota system functionally means salespeople have just as much incentive to sell anthropic models as OpenAI ones, the people said. The moves show how Microsoft, similar to other established tech firms, is spreading its bets by working closely with multiple AI developers that represent both a major revenue opportunity for and a potential threat to some of its core businesses.

Microsoft is racing to use OpenAIs and Anthropics technologies to make its own AI automation products useful for corporate customers to avoid the risk of ceding such business to the AI upstarts, which have their own enterprise software ambitions. Microsoft's growing ties to Anthropic follow its decision in September to invest up to $5.5.5. billion in Anthropic. As part of the New Deal, Anthropic became a customer of Microsoft servers, and the startup agreed to let Microsoft sell its AI models to businesses the same way cloud rivals, Google, and Amazon have long done, end quote. Well, add this to the list of weird AI supply chain disruptions. Quoting Mac rumors. Apple is said to be struggling to secure sufficient supplies of high-end glass cloth fiber, a material that plays a critical role in the printed circuit boards and chip. substrates used in iPhones and other devices. The most advanced forms of this glass cloth are

apparently produced almost entirely by one supplier, NitoBoski. Apple began using Nitobo's premium glass cloth in chips years before AI computing drove widespread demand for similar materials. As AI workloads have expanded, however, companies such as NVIDIA, Google, Amazon, AMD, and Qualcomm have moved aggressively into the same supply pool, placing unprecedented pressure on Ntobo's limited capacity. In response, Apple has taken several unusual steps to protect its supply chain. The company reportedly sent staff to Japan last autumn and stationed them at Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, which produces substrate materials and relies on Nitobo's glass cloth. Apple is also believed to have approached Japanese government officials for assistance

in securing supply. Each glass fiber must be extremely thin, uniform, and free of defects as the glass cloth is embedded deep inside the chip substrate and cannot be repaired or replaced after assembly. Because of this, major chipmakers have been reluctant to adopt lower grade materials even temporarily, end quote. Finally today, the FT says that McKinsey is overhauling how it recruits its next generation of consultants, now asking candidates to use its AI tool Lilly to analyze a case study during initial interviews. Quote, candidates who were part of the pilot were asked to use the chatbot during one of their interviews, to replicate how the firm expects its consultants to work as the technology transforms office jobs. The candidates used Lilly to help analyze a case study and refine their conclusion, one person said.

The interview tested how applicants prompted Lilly and whether they had the curiosity and judgment to, quote, take stuff that Lily spits out and work with it, challenge it, put it into context of the client's specific requirements, they added. The move underlines how AI-driven disruption is reaching even one of the world's most competitive recruitment processes at a firm that has long been a training ground for chief executives, including Alphabet Sundar Pichai, city groups Jane Frazier, and Lloyd's banking groups Charlie Nunn. McKinsey would roll out the test to all junior recruits in the coming months if the pilot proved successful, the people said, adding that it was just one evaluation rather than a pass or fail exercise. Mayank Gupta, chief executive of case basics, which trains

McKinsey hopefuls for the rigorous interview process said other prestigious consulting firms such as Boston Consulting Group and Bain were also likely to incorporate AI into the interview process. Many consulting firms are buying or building AI expertise as they spend less time on traditional strategy advice and more on helping companies adopt the technology. Last week, Accenture agreed to buy faculty in a $1 billion deal to improve its AI abilities and to install the startup's chief executive on its own global management committee. Major consulting firms could be forced to shift away from their traditional pyramid setup, which uses a relatively small number of senior consultants to oversee armies of junior analysts. McKinsey encouraged its weakest-performing consultants to quit in 2024 and shrank its workforce by more than a tenth between 2023 and the middle of last year amid a consulting industry slowdown after hitting a peak of 45,000 staff.

It is also planning more job cuts in part to reflect efficiencies from AI, according to a person familiar with the matter. It reportedly set a target of axing 10% of non-client-facing roles over the next two years, potentially more than a thousand jobs. At the same time, McKinsey has increased its internal use of AI agents. Chief Executive Bob Sternfels told a podcast this month that the firm had a workforce of 20,000 agents on top of its 40,000 staff. That figure would grow over the next 18 months to, quote, get one agent per human, he added. We're migrating pretty quickly away from pure advisory work to much more of an outcomes-based model, he said, on Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast. The stuff that I did when I joined as an associate, 32 years ago, we wouldn't

consider even doing right now. Why? Because clients do that stuff themselves. The imperative will then be to move to the even more complicated questions, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow. All. Pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of The Monopoly, big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all.

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