Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 05/29 – Somebody Knows Victoria’s Secrets

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Nvidia had solid earnings, though they’re quite concerned about being boxed out of China. The apparent hack of Victoria’s Secret gave me a dad-joke-title for today’s episode. Why DeepSeek’s recent R1 update is a bigger deal than even they are letting on. And why the CEO of Anthropic says we should be more worried about the AI he’s unleashing than people are aware. Links: Nvidia beats on earnings and revenue as data center sales jump 73% (CNBC) Nvidia CEO Warns That Chinese AI Rivals Are Now ‘Formidable’ (Bloomberg) NVIDIA GeForce NOW launches a native Steam Deck app, unlocking 4K cloud gaming & extended battery life for Valve's handheld (Windows Central) Victoria’s Secret takes down website after security incident (BleepingComputer) Apple to Launch iOS 26, macOS 26 in Major Rebrand Tied to Software Redesigns (Bloomberg) DeepSeek Quietly Drops AI Update That Outperforms Google's Best (Implicator.ai) Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath (Axios) 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 Thursday, May 29th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. NVIDIA has solid earnings, though they're quite concerned about being boxed out of China. The apparent hack of Victoria's Secret gave me a dad-joke title for today's episode.

Why Deep Seek's recent R1 update is a bigger deal than even they are letting on, and why the CEO of Anthropic says we should be more worried about the AI he's unleashing than people are currently. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. At the time of this writing, Nvidia is back to being the most valuable company in the world. That comes after Nvidia reported Q1 revenue was up 69% year over year to $44.06 billion above the $43.31 billion that was estimated. Their data center revenue was up 73% to $39.1 billion,

and their net income was up 26% to $18.78 billion. quoting CNBC. NVIDIA says it expects about $45 billion in sales in the current quarter versus LSEG estimates of $45.9 billion in sales in the July quarter. The company said its guidance would have been about $8 billion higher, except for lost sales from a recent export restriction on its China-bound H-20 chips. During the quarter, the U.S. government informed NVIDIA that its previously approved H-20 processor for China would require an export license.

NVIDIA said it incurred $4.5 billion in charges related to excess inventory for the chip and would have recorded $2.5 billion in extra sales if the chip hadn't been restricted. NVIDIA said its gross margin of 61% for the quarter would have been 71.3% if not for the China-related charge. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told investors on an earnings call that the $50 billion market in China for AI chips is, quote, effectively closed to U.S. industry. The H20 export ban ended our Hopper Data Center business in China. Wang said. Despite the political tension, NVIDIA's report shows the company is continuing to grow aggressively powered by demand for its artificial intelligence chips, which are used to build and deploy

applications like OpenAI's chat GPT. Global demand for NVIDIA's AI infrastructure is incredibly strong, said Huang in a statement, end quote. More on that China angle from Bloomberg, quote, Wang said that Chinese AI rivals are filling the void left by the departure of U.S. companies from the market and their technology is becoming more powerful. The Chinese competitors have evolved, he said Wednesday, in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Huawei Technologies, a Chinese tech company blacklisted by the U.S. government, has become, quote, quite formidable, he said. U.S. restrictions on exports to China have effectively locked Nvidia out of the country, the largest market for chips, and as a result, the company expects to

lose out on $8 billion in sales this quarter alone. During a quarterly earnings call, Wednesday, Huang spent much of the time arguing that the American government should ease the curbs, Rather than keeping AI technology out of Chinese hands, the intended purpose, local companies are just finding alternatives, he said. Tencent Holdings and other major purchasers of his products can't be blamed for turning to Huawei because they can no longer depend on U.S. suppliers, he said. Like everybody else, they are doubling, quadrupling capabilities every year, Huang said, and the volume is increasing substantially. Huang cautioned that the gap between U.S. products and Chinese alternatives is decreasing. Huawei's latest AI chip is similar to the performance of Nvidia's own H-200, a component that was state-of-the-art until its replacement in recent months. You cannot underestimate the importance

of the Chinese market, Wang said. This is the home of the world's largest population of AI researchers. Wang said he wants all of the world's AI researchers and developers to be using American technology. Irrespective of the near-term revenue success we have had, we can't ignore the fact that the Chinese market is very important, he said, end quote. I actually have some Nvidia news not related to AI. Remember, Nvidia is also a gaming hardware company. Invidia has debuted a native G-Force Now app for stream deck, supporting games in up to 4K at 60 frames per second. If you're into gaming, you know that the stream deck and similar handhelds is where the growing action is in the gaming sector, and having one of the most powerful streaming platforms on that platform now is a pretty big deal.

Quoting Windows Central. Invidia's G-Force now has rapidly become my favorite cloud gaming service as it dramatically outperforms Xbox's own cloud platform. Today, following up on Nvidia's promise earlier this year, you can download NvidiaGForce now on your Steam Deck as a native app built for SteamOS and stream the latest and greatest titles in up to 4K, with a dock, naturally, at 60 frames per second,

with HDR-10 support and DLSS4 upscaling on select games. I've been testing it out for a, few weeks now on my Steam Deck. Not only does it give my battery a much-needed rest and extend its lifespan by up to 50%, but it's simply the only way I can run games at the performance levels I enjoy, which Valve's Steam Deck isn't always capable of with local rendering. First announced at CES 2025 for Steam Deck, the Nvidia G-Forse Now native app presents a more seamless way to use your Nvidia subscription and access your full library of games. We've always been able to use the service via a web browser on the deck, but this app runs straight from gaming mode on streamOS and is much less of a fuss

to set up and jump into your favorite games. Graphically intense AAA titles are now possible on my handheld, and there are up to a whopping 2,200 supported games from across Steam, Epic Games, Xbox, Ubisoft, and Battle.net, with over 180 supported PC GamePass titles. The native app should give the performance of an RTX 4080 GPU with an ultimate subscription and predictably lower if you opt for the middle grade performance tier. It's also worth noting that while you can enjoy up to 4K streaming at 60 frames per second with the Steam Deck docked, Nvidia is looking into 90 frames per second support for a future release. Everything is done on GForce Now Cloud Server, so you needn't worry about storage space,

streaming textures, and downloading game updates, end quote. I tried to come up with some sort of pun joke to go here, but I wasn't able to think of anything, so here you go. Victoria's Secret has taken down its website and replaced it with a message saying we identified and are taking steps to address a security incident. They've also closed some store services, quoting bleeping computer. Victoria's Secret manages approximately 1,380 retail stores in nearly 70 countries and reported an annual revenue of $6.23 billion for the fiscal year ending February 1st, 2025. The company says in a message replacing the website that it's Victoria's Secret and Pink stores remain open while operations are being restored. Valued customer we identified and are taking

steps to address a security incident. We have taken down our website and some in-store services as a precaution, it says. Our team is working around the clock to fully restore operations. We appreciate your patience during this process. When asked for more details, a company spokesperson has also told bleeping computer that Victoria's Secret has hired external experts to investigate the incident impact. Victoria's Secret has yet to reveal the nature of the incident. We immediately enacted our response protocols. Third-party experts are engaged, and we took down our website and some in-store services as a precaution.

We are working to quickly and securely restore operations. We continue to serve customers in our Victoria's Secret and Pink Stores, bleeping computer was told. Hillary Super, the retailer's chief executive officer, also told employees that, quote, recovery is going to take a while in a note sent to employees and seen by Bloomberg News. Two weeks ago, French luxury fashion brand Dior disclosed another cybersecurity incident, after unknown attackers accessed data on some Dior fashion and accessories customers. German sportswear giant Adidas has also revealed a data breach last week after threat actors who hacked a customer service provider stole some of its customers' data.

These incidents follow a series of other attacks targeting retailers across the United Kingdom over the last several months, including Herod's co-op and Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer is now bracing for a potential profit hit of up to 300 million pounds, approximately $402 million after the breach led to widespread sales and operational disruptions, end quote. More from Bloomberg. On Wednesday, some employees were locked out of email accounts with passwords not working, according to a person familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified

because they weren't authorized to speak on the matter, end quote. All right. Fine. Here's Nick Frischett on Twitter, quote, Somebody knows Victoria's Secret. Maybe a lot of them, eyes of them. emoji, end quote. Mark German says Apple is about to do something I think they should have done a long time ago. Quote, the next Apple operating systems will be identified by year, rather than with a

version number, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That means the current iOS 18 will give way to iOS 26, said the people who ask not to be identified because the plan is still private. Other updates will be known as iPadOS 26, MacOS 26, watchOS 26, TVOS, 26 and VisionOS 26. Apple is making the change to bring consistency to its branding and move away from an approach that can be confusing to customers and developers. Today's operating systems, including iOS 18, watchOS 12, MacOS 15, and VisionOS 2 use different numbers because their initial versions didn't debut at the same time. The company will announce the shift at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9th. The branding will accompany fresh user interfaces

across the operating systems, an attempt to ensure a more cohesive experience when people move between devices. The new look, dubbed Solarium internally, will include TVOS, watchOS and parts of Vision OS, Bloomberg News reported this week, end quote. Okay, now do this for the phones. I think they should name the phones based on years as well. I do this for a living, and even I can't, off the top of my head, tell you what iPhone number I currently have in my pocket or what this year's model number will be. So they should just call it the iPhone 26. You're welcome, Tim Cook. Deep Seek says a recent update to its R1 model can perform mathematics, programming, and general logic better than the previous version, and comes close to O3 and Gemini 2.5 Pro in terms of benchmarking.

Quoting the Implicator AI newsletter, Deep Seek release an update to its R1 reasoning model early Thursday morning, no press release, no fanfare, just a quiet upload to Hugging Face that might reshape how we think about AI competition. The Chinese startup called it a minor trial upgrade. The performance numbers tell a different story. R1.0528 now ranks just behind OpenAIs 04 Mini and 03 models on coding benchmarks. It beats XAIs, GROC 3 Mini, and Alibaba's Quen 3. More telling, DeepSeek achieved these gains while using the same basic architecture

that sent tech stocks tumbling in January. The upgrade shows dramatic improvements across the board. On the AIM 2025 math test, accuracy jumped from 70% to 87.5%. That's not incremental progress. That's a leap. The model now uses 23,000 tokens per question compared to 12,000 in the previous version. More thinking equals better results. Simple concept, harder execution.

Coding performance saw similar gains. Live code bench scores rose from 63.5% to 73.3%. The model also improved on complex math competitions like HMMT 2025, where pass rates increased from 41.7% to 79.4%. These aren't abstract benchmarks. They measure skills that matter, solving hard math problems, writing working code, reasoning through complex scenarios. DeepSeek's model now handles these tasks at levels that match or beat models from companies spending billions on AI development. The original R1 model disrupted the AI world by proving Chinese companies. could build competitive models out a fraction of typical costs. U.S. export controls were supposed to limit China's AI progress, but DeepSeek showed those limits might be more theoretical than real.

This update reinforces that message. The company didn't just maintain its position. It improved performance while competitors scrambled to respond. Google introduced discounted access tiers for Gemini. Open AI cut prices and released O3 Mini, which uses less computing power. Both moves suggest established players feel pressure from Deepseek's cost-effective approach. R10528 brings several practical improvements. The model now supports system prompts, making it easier for developers to customize behavior.

Users no longer need special formatting to activate the model's thinking mode. Hallucination rates dropped, meaning fewer made-up facts and responses. Function calling improved, allowing better integration with other software tools. These changes matter more than benchmark scores for real-world applications.

Deepseek also created something unexpected. R-1-0-5. 2.8 Quen38B. This smaller model distills knowledge from the larger R1 into an 8 billion parameter package. The result performs as well as models 30 times larger on some tasks. This distillation approach could democratize access to advanced AI reasoning. Smaller models cost less to run and work on less powerful hardware. If DeepSeek can maintain quality while shrinking model size, it changes who can afford sophisticated AI capabilities. Deep Seek's update arrives at a crucial moment for AI development. The industry faces questions about

sustainability, cost, and access. Can current approaches scale? Do we need better chips or smarter algorithms? DeepSeek success suggests algorithms matter more than raw computing power. The company achieved top-tier performance without access to the most advanced hardware. That lesson applies beyond China's borders. The quiet release also signals confidence in ongoing development. Companies that need marketing campaigns often lack confidence in their product. deep seek lets the technology speak for itself, end quote. Finally today, this has gotten a lot of chatter online, so I thought I'd share it with you. In an interview with Axios, Anthropic CEO Dario Ammodai, said AI may wipe out half of all

entry-level white-collar jobs and spike U.S. unemployment around 10 to 20 percent in the next one to five years. Quoting Axios, Amo Dai said, companies and government need to stop, quote, sugarcoding what's coming, the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting, and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs. Amo Dai 42, who's building the very technology he predicts could reorder society overnight, said he's speaking out in hopes of jarring government and fellow AI companies into preparing and protecting the nation. Few are paying attention. Lawmakers don't

get it or don't believe it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it. Many workers won't realize the posed by the possible job apocalypse until after it hits. Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen, Amadai told us. It sounds crazy and people just don't believe it. Amo Dai, who had just rolled out the latest versions of his own AI, which can code at near human levels, said the technology holds unimaginable possibilities to unleash mass good and bad at scale. Quote, cancer is cured. The economy grows at 10% a year. The budget is balanced. And 20% of people don't have jobs, end quote. That's one very possible scenario rattling in his mind as AI power expands exponentially. Amadai agreed to go on the record with a deep concern that other leading AI executives have told us

privately. Even those who are optimistic AI will unleash unthinkable cures and unimaginable economic growth, fear dangerous short-term pain, and a possible job bloodbath during President Trump's term. We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming, Amadai told us. I don't think this is on people's radar. It's a very strange set of dynamics, he added, where we're saying, you should be worried about where the technology we're building is going. Critics reply, we don't believe you. You're just hyping it. He says the skeptics should ask themselves, well, what if they're right? Here's how Amadai and others fear the white-collar bloodbath is unfolding. Number one, Open AI, Google Anthropic, and other large AI

companies keep vastly improving the capabilities of their large language models to meet and beat human performance with more and more tasks. This is happening and accelerating. Number two, the U.S. government worried about losing ground to China or spooking workers with preemptive warnings, says little. The administration and Congress neither regulate AI nor caution the American public. This is happening and shows no sign of changing. Number three, most Americans, unaware of the growing power of AI and its threat to their jobs, pay little attention. This is happening, too. And then, almost overnight, business leaders see the savings of replacing humans with AI and do this en masse.

They stop opening up new jobs, stop backfilling existing ones, and then replace human workers with agents or related automated alternatives. The public only realizes it when it's too late, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.