Tech Brew Ride Home - Thursday, 7/12 - New MacBook Pros

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

Surprise MacBook Pro updates, Broadcom goes for Plan B, the fate of Gawker and The Onion, who will be the first to a trillion dollars, and who wants to be the Pixar of VR. Links:APPLE’S NEW MACBOOK PROS HAVE THE LATEST INTEL PROCESSORS AND QUIETER KEYBOARDS (The Verge)Broadcom reaches deal to acquire CA Technologies for $18.9 billion in cash (CNBC)The Race to a Trillion (Above Avalon) 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 Foundry, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme ride home for Thursday, July 12th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, a surprise MacBook Pro update.

Broadcom goes for Plan B. The Fate of Gawker and the Onion. Who will be the first to a trillion dollar market cap? And who wants to be the Pixar of VR? There's what you missed today in the world of tech. This morning, Apple announced a surprise upgrade to its MacBook Pro line, giving those computers the late. latest Intel CPUs, the 8th generation I7 or I9 chips, as well as the ability to have

DDR for RAM for the first time, and a storage bump that now maxes out at 4 terabytes. But these updates are only available on the higher-end models, the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros with the touchbar. As Dieter Bone pointed out at the verge, at least one complaint about the MacBook Pros has been laid to rest. The processor options are no longer woefully out of date. But what about the louder, more persistent complaint, the one about the keyboards basically sucking? Well, Apple says that these updated machines also got a new third generation of keyboard,

as they have all been tweaked to be quieter and not so clicky to type on. But the sound they make is the only thing that has changed. Travel remains exactly the same, and the butterfly design of the keyboard remains the same as well, so that presumably means that their propensity to malfunction remains the same. Indeed, as Dieter Bone notes, quote, we got only minutes and no more to interact with the new hardware. So at best, I can tell you that the keyboard does seem a bit less clacky than current MacBooks, though key travel is the same. That's all for the good, but it's not what people are worried about. Instead, it's just hard to trust the keyboard after so many reports that it can be

rendered inoperable by a grain of sand, and that is incredibly difficult and expensive to repair or replace. This new third-generation keyboard wasn't designed to solve those issues, Apple says. In fact, the company representatives strenuously insisted that the keyboard issues have only affected a tiny, tiny fraction of its user base. There's now a four-year repair program for the keyboard in case it fails. When we asked Apple representatives at the event exactly how the keyboard was changed to make it quieter, they declined to specify, end quote. As Marco Arment summarized on Twitter, the 2017 MacBook update also made the keyboard noticeably quieter, which wasn't even worth mentioning then, and they seem to have the same reliability problems as the 2016 model. They keep fixing small problems and

ignoring big ones. No SD slot or more ports, same entry prices. If you hated the 2016-2017 MacBook pros, you'll probably hate the 2018. If you'll recall, mere months ago, Broadcom attempted to take over Qualcomm in a proposed $117 billion deal. But that acquisition was scuppered by the Trump administration and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States on national security grounds. Well, don't call it a rebound relationship, but Broadcom announced overnight that it has reached a deal to acquire IT management software company CA Technologies for just $18.9 billion in cash, or $44.50 a share, which is a 20% premium on the value CA stock was trading at yesterday. CNBC had this to say, quote, the acquisition represents a strategic win for Broadcom,

furthering its mission to acquire, quote, mission-critical technology businesses, following its failed takeover bid for rival Qualcomm. CA Technologies, which manufactures cloud-based and traditional enterprise software, could help diversify Broadcom should it gain antitrust approvals in the U.S., the EU, and Japan. The boards of both companies have already approved the deal, end quote. TechCrunch notes that it's a bit of a surprise to see a chipmaker like Broadcom acquire a software and services company. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan released a statement that said, quote, This transaction represents an important building block as we create one of the world's leading infrastructure technology companies. With its sizable installed base of customers, CA is uniquely positioned across the growing and fragmented infrastructure software market,

and its mainframe and enterprise software franchises will add to our portfolio of mission-critical technology businesses. We intend to continue to strengthen these franchises to meet the growing demand for infrastructure software solutions, end quote. But as TechCrunch notes, that statement doesn't exactly explain the rationale behind this deal, other than by merely hinting at a product line diversification. Attempting to buy a fellow chipmaker like Qualcomm had the obvious logic of industry consolidation, but this purchase essentially means Broadcom is entering an entirely new business. Though this deal does have the advantage that it's unlikely the U.S. government will try to block it. Axios says, quote, The Qualcomm experience suggests that Broadcom, which was based in Singapore before redomiciling to the U.S.,

is unlikely to get regulatory approval for another chip deal. So it's going with a software play instead, kind of like when Intel bought McAfee. Though as Axios's own, Enafreed tweeted, quote, dear Broadcom, you know Intel is trying to get out of McAfee, right? This afternoon in an auction at the law firm Ropes and Gray, LLP in New York City, the remaining assets of Gawker. More than 50 domain names,

an archive of 200,000 articles going back nearly 20 years, some social media accounts and assorted trademarks, were all purchased by Bustle and Bleacher Report founder Brian Goldberg. At the time of this recording, I could not confirm the actual purchase price, but the opening bid did come in at $1.13 million, and some have tweeted that the winning bid was $1.3.3.4.5.000. million. If you'll recall, Gawker Media was forced into bankruptcy after losing a lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan, a case which it later was revealed had been secretly financed all along by Peter Teal. Other Gawker properties, including Gizmodo, Jezebel, Kotaku, and Deadspin were bought by Univision Communications for $135 million, but nobody wanted to pick up Gawker and its archives until

today. No word on what Brian Goldberg intends to do with Gawker yet, but as many have pointed out on Twitter, Goldberg was the target of some fairly scathing Gawker posts back in the day. Gawker once called Bleacher Report, quote, an enormously popular sports site written by and for idiots, end quote. So will Goldberg resurrect Gawker, or did he simply buy it to bury it? Time will tell. This actually hasn't been a happy week for the memory of Gawker Media. In a related story, just two years after buying the former Gawker Media, which has now been renamed Gizmodo Media Group, Univision Media is reportedly putting that property back on the market. Also up for sale, the Onion, which Univision bought around the same time. So not only are Gizmodo and company looking for a new home,

the Onion, Clickhole, and the AV Club are as well. In classic Union, Onion Fashion. The AV Club has even posted a for sale notice on its site, writing quote, The AV Club is for sale, and it could be yours for the low, low price of whatever our parent company Univision Inc. can get. Obviously, this pitch is most especially aimed at all the billionaires in our audience. Dear Elon, now's your chance, buddy, and not to add any undue pressure, but we did just hear a bunch of online trolls say that you couldn't buy the GMG and Onion Inc. Even if you wanted to, which we know couldn't possibly influence your decision to buy. Or hey, Bezos, you want an epic Game of Thrones-esque drama?

Just wait until you see the slack arguments that break out every time we have to collectively decide what to order for lunch. I think I mentioned this briefly recently, but there's a bit of a parlor game going on on Wall Street over the last few months. Sort of a horse race where traders and analysts are taking bets on which company will become the first in history to achieve a market cap of $1 trillion. The leading contender is Apple, of course, sitting at the time of this. recording on a market value of $923 billion. But over at Above Avalon, Neil Seibert took a look at this sort of arbitrary contest to see if there was anything more profound going on here. Among the contenders for the trillion dollar club alongside Apple are Amazon at a $848 billion market cap, Alphabet at $814 billion, Microsoft at $782 billion, and the Dark Horse, Facebook at $587.87 billion.

As Cybert notes, quote, combined the five preceding companies total 4.0 trillion of market cap, representing 16 and a half percent of the entire S&P 500. This development has raised concerns that we may be in some kind of tech bubble or worse, that today's giants are gaining too much power over the broader market. History offers a different viewpoint. Wall Street has been no stranger to corporate giants. In fact, power was much more centralized at the top, in the 1960s and 1970s, when the top five companies made up more than 20% of the S&P 500, end quote.

I'll let you look at Cybert's analysis and his charts and stuff for yourself. There's a link in the show notes, of course, but as Cybart notes, even when there are a bunch of huge companies sitting atop the stock market, they tend to turn over with a fair degree of regularity. The Kings of the Hill tend only to be king for a decade or so before new companies come and take the crown. and in the past it's true the oligarchy has been more diversified. There was always usually a big oil company, a big bank, a big industrial company, etc. So lots of people are taking note that right now, at the top of the stock market, it's all tech.

Quote, some market observers are wondering if the combination of software prowess and sheer scale has resulted in a different kind of corporate giant. Have today's largest companies gained so much power thanks to their capabilities and loyal customer bases that they will be able to avoid the inevitable fall from grace? Cyber doesn't think so. I'll get to that in a minute, but he also interestingly points out that if you squint a little bit, the five biggest tech companies in this race are all tech, but they're doing slightly different things.

Apple, for example, designs devices. Amazon is focused maniacally on retail. Microsoft wants to help people get work done. Google wants to organize the world's data, and Facebook wants to connect people. I'd quibble a bit with those last two. That's what Google and Facebook say they're doing, but what they're actually doing in reality

is just taking advantage of the secular shift of advertising spend from offline to online, and they're both just capturing attention and monetizing it. But anyway, Cyberc concludes that it's unlikely that this oligopoly will last forever, or even for very much longer. All five of the trillion-dollar wannabes have their individual challenges, of course, and size, in and of itself, can bring its own problems.

quote, the strongest opponents in the Giants battle to remain relevant end up being themselves. The natural aversion to change will simply be too strong for most giants. Strong balance sheets, billions of users, and access to seemingly unlimited user data will all prove futile in their bids to remain relevant, end quote. But probably not before at least one of them breaches that trillion-dollar barrier, barring, of course, some serious global economic setback. Finally, today, I'm trying to make more of an effort to highlight more up-and-coming startups on the show.

On the one hand, I do tend to shy away from covering the daily deluge of funding announcements of some company I've never heard of saying it's raised this many millions of dollars in a series B round or whatever. If I read all those headlines every day, it would be really kind of mind-numbing. But at the same time, sometimes I feel like I just read stories about the same five big companies every day. And I know I just did that last segment on the horse race for those five tech giants' race. to get to a trillion-dollar market cap. But I really do want to mix it up a bit so that we can all keep abreast of the new wave

of companies coming up behind the big guys. Maybe because I just hope to God there is a next wave and the pessimists aren't right to worry about the big guys basically stifling innovation by buying up every little company that looks promising. If some new company comes to the fore and will be going toe to toe to with a Google or a Facebook for tech industry supremacy a decade from now,

I think there's a fair chance that it could come from the VR space. Now, of course, VR has not exactly taken the world by storm as quickly as VR Bulls may have hoped, but that doesn't mean there isn't some interesting work being done out there. So let me point you to Penrose Studios, maker of narrative-based VR content. The quickest analogy to make is that a lot of people say that Penrose has the potential to be the Pixar of the VR space. and frankly, no matter what the medium, video, animation, gaming, if you've got a gift for good entrancing narratives,

that's something that will tend to shine through no matter what industry you're in. Penrose Studios today announced a $10 million series A round led by TransLink Capital, but other investors in this round include Salesforce founder Mark Benioff, pop star Will I Am, and Korea Telecom. Previously, Penrose raised an $8.5 million seed round,

making it VR's largest seed rays to date. Penrose specifically produces narrative-based, almost cinematic VR experiences, as opposed to VR games. And their efforts have been available on most of the bigger VR platforms for a while now, like Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC, V, etc. The company's most recent high-profile project was called Arden's Wake, which many people have said is one of the most compelling VR experiences they've ever had. Some of their other releases include Alumet and The Rose and I. So if you have a VR system, look those up.

I believe they're free to download. And actually, that's the obvious reason why Penrose could use all of the millions of dollars it just raised. These films is obviously the wrong word, but whatever they are, they look gorgeous, and they look like they're pretty expensive to produce. But because the audience for VR content is still so nascent, Penrose doesn't feel like it has the ability to charge heavily for its content yet. It's still all about proving the market. But as TechCrunch's Josh Constine said when he first wrote about Penrose a few years ago,

quote, if VR truly is the next big computing platform, a first to market position could pay dividends for years. Pixar did it with computer rendered 3D animation on the silver screen. Now Penrose could do it on the initial wave of VR headsets, end quote. If Penrose could build a Pixar-like brand, and a reputation for quality entertainment, then when the market can actually support charging for that quality content?

Well, as a famous movie once said, if you build it, they will come. The people will most definitely come, Ray. That's sort of the fundamental mantra of entrepreneurship, isn't it? If you build it, they will come. At the very beginning, every startup kind of feels like a sun-dappled baseball field in the middle of Iowa.

You're just sure that everyone will see what you see in it and it will be a success because it just has to be a success, right? The most fun part of a startup process for me is always the very beginning when everything feels possible. And then, you actually launch, and you have a hard time getting people

to even sign up because they don't like the font you chose. Ah, the startup game. Fun to start, confounding as hell, to actually win it. You're going for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course. Only $20 bill pressed.

They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it. Played as money they have and peace they like. Ray, just signed the papers.