Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 03/04 – The First IPO Of The AI Era

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

We have our first official IPO of the AI Era coming. Anthropic has a big new round. New iPads from Apple. New phones from Nothing. Waymo rolls out in Austin, Texas. And how the Kinnect technology lives on, as a tool for Ghostbusters. Sponsors: FreshBooks.com IQBar: Text TECHMEME to 64000 Links: AI cloud provider CoreWeave files for IPO (CNBC) Anthropic Finalizes Megaround at $61.5 Billion Valuation (Bloomberg) Apple launches a new M3-powered iPad Air (The Verge) Waymo is now available exclusively on Uber in Austin (The Verge) Nothing’s Phone 3A and 3A Pro use AI to organize all your stuff (The Verge) Ghost hunting, pornography and interactive art: the weird afterlife of Xbox Kinect (The Guardian) 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 Tuesday, March 4th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. We have our first official IPO of the AI era coming. Anthropic has a big new round, new iPads from Apple, new phones from nothing. Waymo rolls out in Austin, Texas, and how the connect technology lives on as a tool for Ghostbusters. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. We officially have it. The first IPO of the AI era, CoreWeave, which provides cloud-based GPUs, has filed for an IPO on the NASDAQ, under the the symbol CRWV and says it generated $1.9 billion in revenue in 2024, up 737% year-on-year. So to be clear, this isn't an AI company in the way that Open AI is.

They basically help AI companies get the chips they need to make the AI. Quoting Investors Business Daily. New Jersey-based Corweave rents cloud computing power with Nvidia chips to AI developers. The company has seen a big jump in sales as companies race to train AI models. Corweave's revenue grew more than. 700% year-over-year to $1.9 billion in 2024, according to its IPO prospectus filing. The company posted a net loss of $863 million for 2024. The company has not yet listed the number of shares or price it will target in the listing. Bloomberg reported last week that Corweave's

IPO filing was imminent, with the company likely to seek evaluation of more than $35 billion. Corweave raised private funding in November at a reported valuation of $23 billion, end quote. Worth pointing out that 77% of their revenue is coming from just two customers, with 62% coming from just one of them, Microsoft, but they apparently have a pipeline of over $15 billion in coming contracts. Quoting CNBC. Originally known as Atlantic Crypto, the company got its start in 2017 by offering infrastructure for mining the Ethereum cryptocurrency. After digital currency prices fell, the company bought up additional graphics processing units or GPUs and changed its name to Corweave with an increased. focusing focus on graphics rendering and artificial intelligence. At the end of 2024, Corweave's 32 data centers housed over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs with a majority using the previous generation Hopper architecture, according to the filing. Running data centers full of GPUs requires

considerable energy. Corweave had 360 megawatts in active power and a total of 1.3 gigawatts had been contracted, the filing said. Corweave gained popularity after OpenAI released chat GPT in late 2022 because the company could quickly provide GPUs to businesses in need. Microsoft, whose Azure Cloud Unit has supplied computing power to OpenAI, started working with CoreWeave in 2023 to meet OpenAI demand, end quote. Also in AI news, Anthropic raised a $3.5 billion series E, led by Lightspeed at a $61.5 billion valuation. According to a source, its annual revenue run rate has grown by 30% in 2025, from around $1 billion in late 2024, quoting Bloomberg.

The latest deal for the maker of large language models best known for its chatbot named Claude was led by lightspeed venture partners, which contributed $1 billion, said Anthropic. Other investors who participated in the series E deal include General Catalyst, Jane Street, and Fidelity Management and Research Company, according to an Anthropic statement. Existing investors including Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, also backed the company in the latest round, the company said, Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI, has positioned itself as a reliable, safety-conscious firm that users can trust. The company was originally planning to raise $2 billion

in the latest financing, but ended up raising more than anticipated in an oversubscribed round. People familiar with the discussions previously told Bloomberg. The new funding will fuel Anthropics competition with Open AI, which is currently in talks for an even larger $300 billion valuation. Both deals underscore Silicon Valley investors continued enthusiasm for funneling big sums to leading AI firms despite the recent entrance of smaller companies like China's Deepseek, which claim to develop similar technology more cheaply. Anthropic says that it will use the capital to develop the next generation of its AI systems, expand its computing capacity, and further its research efforts, including in safety-related areas.

The company also said it plans to accelerate its expansion in Asia and Europe. This investment fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve while deepening our understanding of how these systems work, Anthropic Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao said in a statement, these capabilities are driving remarkable outcomes for our customers as our business and consumer usage continues to grow rapidly, end quote. The round follows additional investments from two major tech companies who had previously backed Anthropic. Amazon invested $4 billion in the company in November,

and Alphabet's Google invested $1 billion in January. Anthropic is also helping power Amazon's new AI version of its Alexa assistant Alexa Plus, end quote. Apple has released updated 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air, with an M3 chip and unveiled a new $269 plus magic keyboard with a larger built-in trackpad, quoting the verge. The new Air is primarily a spec bump over last year's device. It has an upgraded M3 chip and, of course, supports Apple intelligence. It's not Apple's most modern chip. That would be the M4, but Apple says it's twice as fast as the M1 powered air and the A14 Bionic powered air. Those are older

devices and Apple's comparisons notably don't include last year's model. It comes in four colors, 11 and 13-inch models and starts at 599 for the smaller model and 799 for the larger. There's also a new magic keyboard attachment, $269 for the smaller model, and 319 for the larger, which includes the extra row of function keys and larger trackpad you could previously only get on the pro, end quote. But wait, there's more. We now have an 11th generation iPad, the entry-level device, adding an A-16 bionic chip and now starting at 128 gigabytes of storage for the base model with options up to 256 gigabytes and 512 gigabytes for the same $349 starting price.

Quoting Mac rumors, it is available in blue, pink, yellow, and silver, and continues to start at $349. Customers can pre-order the new iPad starting today with launch scheduled for March 12th, quoting Apple itself. The A-16 chip provides a jump in performance for everyday tasks and experiences in iPadOS while still providing all-day battery life. Compared to the previous generation, the updated iPad with A-16 is nearly 30% faster. In fact, compared to iPad with A-13 bionic, users will see up to a 50% improvement in overall

performance, and A-16 makes the updated iPad up to six times faster than the best-selling Android tablet, end quote. Uber has launched Waymo rides in Austin, Texas, operating within a 37-square-mile area, including Hyde Park and downtown. Quoting The Verge. The former rivals have joined forces in the hopes of accelerating the transition to autonomous vehicles, and as of today, any Austin resident with a desire to take a trip in a fully driverless robo-taxie can open up their Uber app and hail away. But of course there are some limitations.

Waymo only operates within a 37-square-mile area in Austin, which includes Hyde Park downtown, Montopoulos and other popular destinations according to the company, so the trip will need to originate and end within that service area in order to qualify for Waymo. It also doesn't operate on highways yet, so the route will only comprise local streets. Another thing to consider, simply calling an Uber in Waymo's geofence doesn't guarantee a roba taxi will show up. Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli declined to share the size of the company's fleet in Austin, but acknowledged that it was small at launch. While smaller at start, the fleet will grow to hundreds of vehicles over time,

Benelli said, end quote. Now, last they revealed these numbers in August of last year, Waymo had a fleet of about 700 vehicles to service their existing San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles areas, so maybe we can extrapolate several dozen vehicles for Austin. I don't know. Quoting and gadget. Unlike the Waymo One service offered to riders in San Francisco and Los Angeles, interested Austin riders will get a chance to ride in a Waymo just by ordering an UberX, Uber Green, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric ride, similar to how things are handled in Phoenix. You're not guaranteed to receive a Waymo when you do order one of those rides, but Uber says you can

increase your chances of receiving one by changing your ride preferences in the app. Up front prices remain the same, whether you get a Waymo or not, though if you do end up in a Robotaxie, you won't be prompted to tip. You can use the Uber app to unlock the Waymo, open its trunk, and start your ride too, end quote. And quoting TechCrunch. The structure of the Waymo on Uber service forecasts how each company envisions its role in the nascent autonomous vehicle industry. Under the arrangement, Waymo will be responsible for vehicle testing, roadside assistance, and certain aspects of rider support. Uber will manage the fleet services such as vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging, and depot operations through a

company called Move Cars, which is rebranded to Avomo. In 2021, Uber acquired a 30% minority interest in the European company Move Cars, not to be mistaken with Move, which coincidentally is managing Waymo's AV Fleet and Phoenix. Uber has partnered with 14 autonomous vehicle companies that cover ride-hailing, delivery, and trucking, a handful of which are operating commercially. In December, Uber launched Robo Taxi rides with We Ride in Abu Dhabi. The company also has commercial deals with sidewalk delivery bot companies Avride, Cartaken, and serve robotics, end quote. Some other hardware for you today.

Nothing. Unveiled the $379 Phone 3A and $459 3A Pro, both with 6.77 inch displays, Snapdragon 7S Gen 3, and new AI tools to help organize files shipping this month, quoting the verge. The 3A and 3A Pro are mainly differentiated by their camera, which you'll notice just by glancing at the two devices. The 3A Prox-Round camera housing includes a 3X periscope telephoto lens. The 3A offers a standard 2x zoom, but both phones include a 50-mapixel, 1.8 main camera,

and an 8-mapixel ultra-wide. The telephoto cameras on each use a 50-mepixel sensor for a lossless crop zoom, 4X for the 3A, and 6X for the 3A Pro. They're big phones, each with a 6.77-inch display, and the 3A Pro feels especially chunky with the protruding camera housing. Both use nothing's striking translucent back panel design for a bold look, which balances an awkward camera bump on the 3A Pro. When I started using the phone, I felt like my fingers were constantly bumping against the housing,

but I've adjusted to it after a few days and dig its popsocket-esque functionality. The phones come with Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 chipsets, 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage, which is generous for the mid-range class. They ship with Android 15, and nothing is promising three years of OS updates and six years of security patches. A decent, if not the best, software policy for a budget phone. They're being offered in the U.S. through nothing's beta program. The glyph interface and LED light strips are still present, but nothing seems to be shifting its efforts towards software features. Something called the Essential Space is a new place to save screenshots, voice memos, and images like Google's Pixel screenshots app.

It answers to the eternal question, what do I do with this thing? Is your photo gallery cluttered with pictures of stuff? You want to remember? Do you wish you had somewhere to keep all those inspiration photos for your bathroom makeover? Do you yearn for a place to put the information in an email you keep searching your inbox for every time you need it? Then you get what the essential space is all about. You save stuff there. It uses AI to pull out relevant bits of information, and it helps organize what would otherwise be left floating around your phone somewhere.

Using the essential key to add things to the essential space took a little adjustment. It's right where I'm used to the power button. sitting, so I kept pressing it unintentionally. A single press will capture a screenshot and a double-tap opens the app so you can browse through your collections. This feels backwards for reasons I can't quite explain, but I've mostly gotten used to it. Nitpicking aside, I think nothing is on to something. I added screenshots of travel information for an upcoming flight that are otherwise spread across emails and apps. The essential space keeps it in one tidy spot and is good at pulling key timing and dates from the screen grabs. It'll even make a little to-do list for you.

It didn't quite get everything right about my connecting flight, but I think that's because the date wasn't visible in both screenshots. The software seems to do a decent job when it has complete information to work with." Finally today, remember the Xbox Connect? Briefly around the year 2010 or so, it seemed to be the hot new technology. Then it drifted a bit and was actually discontinued in 2017. Well, The Guardian points out that the Connect technology has lived on actually finding applications beyond gaming, including interactive art, pornography, and ghost hunting. Quote, technology was soon eclipsed by freely available open source sensors and more advanced motion sensing devices. But since Microsoft's cease manufacture of the Connect line in 2017, the little

camera has enjoyed a spirited and not entirely untroubled afterlife. It has watched over the Korean demilitarized zone and worked on topography and patient alignment in CT scanners. Reports have emerged of it being used in airport baggage halls as a security camera in Newark Liberty International Airport's Terminal C. United Airlines declined to comment on this. and even to gamify training for the U.S. military. It's been attached to drones, rescue bots, and even found a brief application in pornography. I'm not sure anyone had a firm vision of what interactive sex involving the Connect would be, says Kyle McClice, founder of Butplug.io, and another member of the OpenConnect team.

The camera was deployed mostly as an over-complex controller for 3D sex games, fulfilling, quote, most of a futurist marketing role than anything the actual consumer uses, Michaelis says in that role it was successful. It attracted a flurry of attention and threats from Microsoft to somehow ban porn-involving Connect. It was an interesting experiment, but it turned out that the addition of a novelty device was not a turn-on for many porn users. Besides, as Mecholus says, when the camera malfunctions, it looks pretty horrible. Unreliability is of less concern for ghost hunters who thrive on the ambiguity of aging technology and who have rebranded the Connect as the SLS, structured light sensor camera. They deploy its body tracking to

find figures the naked eye cannot see. Ghost hunters are thrilled by the connect's habit of seeing bodies that aren't really there, believing that these skeletal stick figures are representations of disembodied spirits. The paranormal investigation industry doesn't care much about false positives, so long as those false positives can be perceived as paranormal, which is just as well, says John Wood, a freelance science performer who has a show devoted to examining ghost hunting technology. It's quite normal for ghost hunters to be filming themselves in the dark with infrared cameras and torches. You're bathing the scene with IR light while using a sensor that measures a specific pattern of infrared dots, he says. Given that connect is designed specifically

to recognize the human body in any data it receives, it would be stranger if the connect didn't pick up anomalous figures in this context. There's a certain poetry in the connect living on among those searching for proof of life after death. In the right hands, the camera is still going strong. Dia Watson points me in the direction of Connected Worlds, an exhibit that has run in the New York Hall of Science since 2015. of the many connect devices that power the installations only two have had to be replaced in the decade since it opened. And one of those was only a few weeks ago. Watson started stockpiling the device when Microsoft ceased production. Half the projects on the website wouldn't exist without the connect, he says.

If we had this camera for another decade, we would still not run out of things to do with it, end quote. Hey, I haven't mentioned this in a while, but why not follow me on the socials? I'm at Brian MCC on Twitter and Threads, but I'm at Brian MCC on Twitter and threads, but I'm at Brian MC, not CC, Brian MC on Blue Sky. Come from my snarky thoughts about tech that sometimes don't pop up on this show. Talk to you tomorrow.