Tech Brew Ride Home - The Takeaways From The Google Antitrust Remedies

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Google whistles past the graveyard with the remedy ruling on its antitrust case. OpenAI makes a big acquisition. Anthropic has a big new raise and a huge new valuation to boot. And why are AI companies finding it so hard to engineer safe interactions with Chatbots? Links: Google stock jumps 8% after search giant avoids worst-case penalties in antitrust case (CNBC) Google, Apple, and Mozilla Win in the Antitrust Case Google Lost (Spyglass) Google’s Big Win Is Even Bigger for Apple (WSJ) OpenAI starts building out its app team (The Verge) Anthropic’s $13bn Series F raise sees it triple in value to $183bn (SiliconRepublic) Acer Veriton GN100 is a mini AI workstation (VideoCardz) The problem of AI chatbots discussing suicide with teenagers (Financial Times) 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, September 3rd, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. Google whistles past the graveyard with the remedy ruling on its antitrust case. Open AI makes a big acquisition. Anthropic has a big new raise and a huge new valuation to boot. And why are AI companies finding it so hard to engineer safe interactions with chatbots? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The long-awaited remedies ruling in the USV Google search case finally landed. And it's a mixed bag. It keeps Google structurally intact, but puts new guardrails around how it competes. U.S. District Judge Amit Meta rejected the Justice Department's most aggressive fixes, meaning Google will not be forced to spin off Chrome or Android. But the judge did order meaningful behavioral remedies. Google must share certain search data with qualified rivals, and it can't use exclusive distribution deals that box competitors out. On the money side, the court is letting Google continue.

its lucrative default placement payments, including its revenue-sharing deal with Apple, rather than tearing those up outright. That clears up a major investor overhang for the company. Alphabet popped roughly 7% after hours, and Apple climbed around 3% on the news. The court framed the lighter touch approach, partly around how quickly AI is reshaping search, with the judge signaling that emerging AI players represent a credible competitive force, especially if they can train on some of the data Google will now have to provide. So what exactly changes? Judge Meta outlined a set of rules designed to curb the exclusionary parts of Google's playbook. The company is barred from striking or maintaining exclusive arrangements that tie distribution of search, Chrome, assistant, or Gemini,

to revenue deals or app bundles that keep rivals off devices. Google must share slices of its search index and user interaction data with qualified competitors under defined terms, and it has to offer search and search ad syndication on standard rates so others can build viable products. A technical committee will be set up to enforce the order. The judge asked the Department of Justice and Google to meet and confer and submit a draft final judgment by September 10th, with remedies intended to last six years once entered. Two important caveats. First, this isn't the end of the litigation clock.

Google has already signaled it will appeal and legal experts expect any final. outcome to take years, potentially going all the way to the Supreme Court, which could delay full implementation. Second, the judge explicitly calibrated remedies in light of AI's rise, arguing courts shouldn't, quote, gaze into a crystal ball. Translation, he opted for less invasive, more easily defensible remedies rather than a breakup that could get overturned on appeal. What this means for the larger tech industry, I think this ruling says that defaults still matter, but exclusivity is out. Device makers and carriers can keep taking Google's money for default placement, but they get more freedom to preload or promote rival search options without jeopardizing revenue.

That could open doors for specialty or AI-forward search entrance to get real distribution. Also, data is the new remedy here. Forced data access is the big swing. If enforced well, sharing portions of the index and interaction signals on Google search could shorten the runway for challengers to reach decent quality in search. especially AI assistants that behave like search engines. So expect immediate lobbying over what counts as a qualified competitor to Google search, what privacy readactions apply, and how quickly data must flow. Also note that Europe's DMA was a reference point in this case, but what the judge did

here is narrower. Meta nodded to Brussels's approach to tech regulation, but kept his order timeboxed and less prescriptive. So watch for compliance theater versus real openness as the monitoring committee gets stood up. Zooming out, this search ruling lands while Google still faces separate remedies proceedings later this month on the DOJ's ad tech case, where a different judge has already found illegal monopolization, add in Google's ongoing battles over its app store, and you get a picture of sustained multi-front oversight rather than a single knockout punch that might have broken up Google. Bottom line, alphabet slash Google dodge the existential cell chrome slash Android remedy, but it didn't quite get off scot-free. The company now has to live under a

data-sharing regime, no exclusivity rules, and a monitor, constraints that could over time pry open distribution and help AI-native challengers reach parity faster. The near-term market reaction is clearly one of relief. More on that in a second. But the long-term story hinges on how robust the data-sharing pipes are, how strictly the court police's exclusivity, and how quickly users adopt AI experiences that look less like 10 blue links and more like conversations. Here's M.G. Siegler's take, quote, Eddie Q and Tim Cook can breathe a huge sigh of relief tonight, and Mozilla can just breathe tonight. But so too can Google. This case is about them, after all, and while any exclusive default placement deals are dead, and they will have to

start sharing some search data with rivals, which they already have to do to some degree in the EU, and it hasn't really mattered, the government isn't getting the big trophy it sought here, which was Chrome. Again, from day one, when it was announced the government would try to go after Google's browser, I laid out a pretty clear picture as to why Chrome wasn't going anywhere. It just made almost no sense on a number of fronts. Chrome is valuable to Google, insanely valuable to Google, but not in the ways it would be to others. Sorry, Open AI and nice try perplexity. And while Google was perplexingly trying their hardest to make a sell-off make more sense to the judge by starting to bake Gemini into Chrome, the reality is that AI is still too nace in a field with too much

competition for the court to do much here. Sorry, Tim Wu. This will have to be litigated in hindsight, as is the usual case, it seems, but it also seems like there's no way to know how this all plays out right now. And in fact, it feels like if anything, AI is proving that market forces work even when the government doesn't get involved. Just as happened to Microsoft way back when, despite the government constantly taking credit there. Google Search is in the process of being disrupted, not by the antitrust case or any of these remedies, but by a new technology naturally rising. Google can keep insisting that this isn't happening, but just follow their actions. Those say all you need to know. It's all Gemini all the time everywhere.

And if the placement in search helps Gemini gain a dominant position in AI, well, I suspect the judge will revisit this whole situation. But it's still a very big if, end quote. And the Wall Street Journal notes this, quote, Google isn't out of the legal woods. There are cases pending in the U.S. in Europe, as well as the lingering possibility that a body appointed by Judge Mehta to oversee the court's remedies finds Google isn't sticking to its obligations. Apple II may not be home free. Meta said he is prepared to revisit the idea of a payment ban if, quote, competition is not substantially restored through the remedies the court does impose. But make no mistake, the ruling amounts to a major win for both companies, for both maintaining the status

quo is about as good as it gets, end quote. P.S., at the time of this recording, Google stock is up more than 8%, I should say alphabet stock hitting a new all-time high, adding about $200 billion in market cap. OpenAI is acquiring product analytics company Statsig for $1.1 billion and shuffling its executive roles with Statsig CEO Vijay Raji, becoming OpenAI's CEO of Apple or as the verge puts it, OpenAI is starting to build out its app team, quote, Statsig, the company OpenAI is acquiring specializes in A-B testing and other features for companies looking to improve their products, and Open AI is bringing on its founder and CEO, Vijay Raji, as a new C-suite executive. Raji will be OpenAI's CTO of applications, heading up product engineering for both chatGBT and codex,

quote, with responsibilities that span core systems and product lines, including infrastructure and integrity. Once the acquisition is finalized, Statsing employees will become OpenAI employees. OpenAI wrote in the blog post noting that the deal's close will be subject to regulatory approval. It will continue operating independently and serving its customer base out of its Seattle office. We'll take a measured approach to any future integration, ensuring continuity for current customers, and enabling the team to stay focused on what they do best. OpenAI also announced it was shuffling some other executive positions.

Shrinivas Narayanan, who heads up the company's engineering and oversaw the development of ChatGPT, developer APIs, and more is being promoted to another brand new C-suite executive role, CTO of B-2-B applications. Nara Yannon will oversee all the business side applications covering startups, enterprises, and government, and he'll report directly to OpenAI C.O. Brad Lightcap. Kevin Weil, OpenAI's CPO will be transitioning on to the research side of OpenAI's business. The company confirmed he'll be spinning up a new team at the company as its VP of AI for Science, working closely with Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, as part of that transition.

Wheels' former product team, including head of ChatCHIPT, Nick Turley, will now report directly to Fiji Simo, OpenAI's new CEO of Applications, end quote. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need, to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs, eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.m.S.C.C.C.C.

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lightspeed at a $183 billion valuation, which, and this is the notable part, is up from the $61.5 billion valuation it had back in March. Again, from March to September, the valuation has gone from $61 to $183 billion. Quoting Silicon Republic, this new raise ranks Anthropic among the most valuable private technology companies in the world, along with OpenAI valued at $300 billion with reports so that its next raise might value it at $500 billion, the Chinese TikTok owner Bite Dance at $312 billion, and SpaceX, which stands at about $400 billion. Just a few weeks back, it was being reported that Anthropic Series F could raise more than

expected at $10 billion, but after the U.S. holiday weekend, the four-year-old startup announced last night that it had, in fact, raised $13 billion in a funding round led by Iconic, valuing the company at a post-money, $183 billion, cementing its place as a true competitor to Open AI since its inception. Anthropic has vied to become the reliable choice for enterprise, as well as power users and developers, and said in its statement that it now serves more than 300,000 business customers, while its number of large accounts, customers that each represent over $100,000 in run rate revenue, has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year. Salesforce Ventures has been on board since its Series C round and has helped facilitate that reach

in Enterprise. Claude is integrated into Salesforce-Einstein-1.5,000. studio. In a statement last night, Salesforce ventures congratulated its portfolio company and said it was happy to have facilitated connections with Fortune 500 companies such as Ascensure, Barkley's, and Coinbase. From Fortune 500 companies to AI-native startups, our customers rely on Anthropics Frontier models and platform products for their most important mission-critical work, said Krishna Rao, chief financial officer of Anthropic. We are seeing exponential growth in demand across our entire customer base. This financing demonstrates investors' extraordinary confidence in our financial performance and the strength of their collaboration with us to continue

fueling our unprecedented growth, end quote. Yes, on that growth, quoting Bloomberg. Anthropic has recently seen rapid growth. The company said its run rate revenue has increased from around $1 billion at the beginning of 2025 to more than $5 billion as of August. Today, the company has 300,000 business customers, it said in the statement. Anthropic also said its coding tool, Claudecode, generates more than $500 million in yearly run rate revenue, and that its usage has grown more than 10 times in three months. Enterprise leaders tell us what we're seeing firsthand. Claude is reliable, built on a trustworthy foundation, and guided by leaders truly focused

on the long-term, iconic partner DeVesch Machen said in the statement. He added that the firm's bet on the company reflects our belief in the values and their ability to shape the future of responsible AI, end quote. in the weeds, but wake up, hon, because a new hardware category has dropped. Quoting, videocards.com. ACER has introduced the Veriton GN-100, a compact workstation designed to run large AI models locally and reduce reliance on cloud services. It's based on NVIDIA's GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip and targets developers, researchers, and labs that need a small, quiet box with server-class

acceleration. The system delivers up to one. P-flops of FP4 AI performance pairs 20 arm-based CPU cores with 5th-gen-tensor cores and ships with 128 gigabytes of unified memory plus up to 4 terabytes of NVME storage. Acer includes the Nvidia AI software stack and support for common tools such as Pytorch, Jupiter, and Olama out of the box. Two GN-100 units can be linked with an NVIDIA ConnectX-7 Smart NIC to tackle models up to 405 billion parameters, giving small teams a path to scale without a rack. Connectivity covers Wi-Fi 7, HDMI, 4 USB 3.2 Type C ports, and Ethernet. A Kensington Lock is supported.

Acer lists the Veriton G-N-100 starting at $3,99999 in North America, $3,999. and Australians get it for $6,499. Regional specs and availability may vary, end quote. Finally today, given all the news from last week, the FT takes a look at the issues facing AI companies as they attempt to tackle safety in the chatbot space, especially around conversations relating to self-harm. Quote, experts have suggested that the way AI companies have designed their chatbots

has made it difficult to completely avoid potentially harmful conversations. This is an area where safety research is still ongoing, said Robbie Torney of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization advocating for a ban on the use of companionship chatbots for minors. No one, not even the model creators, understands really how the models are actually behaving, end quote. Among the issues faced by AI companies is models having limited memory. This means that over longer conversations, safety guidelines are less likely to be retrieved for a response as the models prioritized storing other information.

As interactions between people and chatbots occur, models may rely more heavily on original training data from the internet, such as blogs or websites with harmful materials over built-in safety protocols, end quote. Critics also note that many AI makers seem to design their chatbots to feel engaging so that users keep coming back, even though OpenAI says it doesn't chase time on app or clicks for its products. Harvard researchers argue one way to boost engagement with AI products is to give bots human qualities, warm emotional language, a stable, relatable persona with a backstory, and speech that sounds natural. But that human-like polish brings on these risks. Large language models tend to be overly agreeable, sycophantic, as we've discussed, because of how they're trained, which can reinforce harmful ideas or poor decisions. Gaida Pistilli of Hugging Face says bots can project and

empathy and companionship. Her team found popular models often validate vulnerable users' feelings rather than steering them to professional help. MIT researchers have warned people may prefer non-judgmental chatbots over a clinician without realizing its replies can be harmful. Safety gaps persist all around. Self-harm content. Rand researchers recently found leading models sometimes produce responses to questions about lethal methods. Other times They showed hotlines are simply erred out an approach that Rans Ryan McBain called a troubling design choice when distress is signaled. Separately, Northeastern University researchers said they could jailbreak chat GPT, also clawed and Gemini, into generating graphic self-harm instructions by framing requests as hypothetical or academic. They notified vendors about this in May.

Anthropic later said an inbox error delayed reviewing this research. This is the last day of summer recess here in New York City. I know our school year starts really, really late. Your kids have probably been in school for like a month at this point. But some kids this morning, directly below my window, and I mean directly below, decided that this last day before the first day of school would be the day to have a lemonade stand. So I've had to edit around shouts of lemonade all morning in case any of that got through underneath. My apologies.

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