Apple After Tim Cook, OpenAI’s New Mojo, Meta’s Internal Tracking Escapade

What does Apple look like after Tim Cook? We have a preview of new CEO, John Turnus's opportunity and challenges. OpenAI seems to be getting its mojo back and meta employees are now part of a weird AI tracking experiment. That's coming up right after this. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. If you want to see where enterprise AI is actually headed, knowledge 2026 is the place to be. It's ServiceNow's annual conference, May 5th through 7th in Las Vegas, where thousands of business and tech leaders come together. Expect headline keynotes from ServiceNow chairman and CEO Bill McDermott, real stories from companies running AI at scale, and major partnership announcements turning AI ambition into actual business results. I'll be there in person, sitting down with some of the most influential voices in the space, and we'll be bringing those conversations back to you here on Big Technology. This episode is brought to you by True Diagnostic. 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Choose TrueAge, TrueHealth, or the combo kit as a one-time purchase or a subscription. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today. A lot to cover. We're going to talk about what's ahead for incoming Apple CEO, John Ternus. We're also going to talk about what seems to be an improvement of messaging for OpenAI. And we'll also discuss meta employees getting their keystrokes tracked with screenshots that may be training the next generation of AI. So a lot to cover today. And we are joined, as always, by Ranjan Roy of Margins. Ranjan, great to see you. Should I be this excited because this new Apple CEO, John Ternus, is going to fix Siri? I am a little bit excited this week, and that's all I'm thinking about. But we're going to have to talk about this. And that's the only thing I care about about this monumental announcement. So when we were recording a podcast this week, Joanna Stern and I, I had the message come through mid-podcast that Ternus was going to be the new CEO and Cook was stepping down. And we put it out there, and some people were just like, why are you focusing on the AI? Like, stop focusing on the AI stuff. It doesn't matter. And I strongly disagree with these people. I think it does matter. And so does John Ternus. And we're going to get into, after this, a handful of products that he is expected to release as CEO. So stay tuned for that. But first, very interesting challenge awaits him, according to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. Gurman says Apple's new CEO will need to stave off exodus of top talent. After years of relative calm, the company has suffered a wave of recent departures, both among C-suite executives and rank-and-file engineers. It's up to Ternus, who succeeds Tim Cook in September, to stabilize the workforce. I mean, goodness gracious, going through this story, there's so many people that have left or considered leaving. Mike Rockwell, who created Vision Pro and is working on Siri, has considered leaving. He has reservations about reporting to his new boss, Craig Federighi. By the way, Craig Federighi might not be happy that he didn't get the CEO job. By the way, I told you all, I'm pretty sure, when Jeff Williams left, the supposed heir apparent of Apple, the COO, when he left, it meant that Tim Cook was leaving. And lo and behold, that's what happened because he wasn't the pick and Ternus was the pick. Here's more from the story. Several leaders, including marketing chief Greg Joswiak, retail head Deidre O'Brien, Apple Store Head Phil Schiller, answers leader Ed Q, are approaching four decades at the company. There's also a Fortune article from December that shows that there was a whole heck of a lot of turnover at the end of the year last year. Interesting. I will ask you this. Is it a challenge or an opportunity for Ternus that seemingly the entire senior suite of Apple may just kind of sweep out, either because they're not happy, they all thought they might get the CEO job and they're unhappy, or they just they've spent enough time there. Is this good or bad? I'm going to have to go with opportunity. And the reason being, Apple today, and any regular listener will know that as someone fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, it's just not been an exciting company you love any longer. It's a company that you're stuck with and it's just felt like that for a long time. And I think the decision to have a hardware leader of the caliber of Ternus actually take the job is actually, it's important. And I think having others who've kind of built these very heavy things like very successful, but like the services business or, you know, just overall, like we haven't seen hardware innovation that's succeeded from Apple in a long time. And that's what they need. And I think, again, another Craig Federighi, like, you know, big announcement of him kind of getting excited. Like, I feel a little bit of turnover and a little bit of new blood is not the worst thing for Apple. Would you agree? I agree wholeheartedly. And I think people might have heard from my, you know, my first comments about Ternus that I had some reservations about him just because he comes from the hardware side of things and we're moving to more of a software world. And has the hardware of the iPhone changed all that much? No, he, you know, obviously the chips have been important, but the phone that I have now, the latest generation, doesn't look very much different than the 16 or the 15, the 17, that is. So, so I would think that maybe you'd want somebody more services or software oriented, especially because services been showing like all the growth within the company. But then I thought about it and you know what? I'm a Ternus head now. I'm a full on Ternus head. I think that he is going to be that new blood the company needs, like you said. And this is what he said when he came in. He said, I'm especially excited to be stepping into this role at this moment because I am telling you we are about to change the world once again. He said Apple had an incredible roadmap ahead. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most exciting time to be building products and services at Apple in my entire career. AI is going to create almost unlimited potential. We're going to be able to keep unlocking possibilities that are going to create entirely new opportunities for our products and services. And I'm so excited about what that's going to mean for our users. Seems like the right message to be sending if you're taking over Apple. And I just I thought about the same thing that you thought. This company needs new blood. They have not been inspiring. You know, yes, their products are great. Yes, I'll choose an iPhone over any other phone any day of the week. Sorry, Android users. My personal preference. I just think it's a great phone, but they became uninspiring, stale as a company, unable to ship the products they announced, like Apple intelligence. Clear out the upper, clear the decks, bring in new blood. The leader seems like he knows what he's doing. And Yeah, I think I’m on the Team Ternus tribe, maybe. We’ll have to think through, take a moment on that one. But I think Team Ternus, I think works better. Turnus head does not sound right. No, no, Team Ternus tribe. I don’t know if you can say tribe, but we’ll go Team Ternus for both alliteration and it’s safer. So I think it's interesting, the idea, like, for, I mean, the services part of the business though, I hate right now. And that’s someone who I realized I’m paying like $40 a month for iCloud because I just have more photos and I am stuck and I will never be able to get out of it. Like, overall, the way they’ve grown that business has been, it was $110 billion in revenue last fiscal year, which is insane when you think about it, but no one is actually excited to be paying Apple that money, they just kind of have to. So I think taking services, taking software, and I’ll put AI under that, and starting to rethink how that lives within whatever world of hardware they’re going to, actually is exciting. Like, we’ve talked about this a lot, like the interface with which you interact with AI, no one knows what it’s gonna look like. We’ve had our pins. We’ve had our RIP Humane. We’ve had, what was the Rabbit R1 was like an effort. Like, people have been trying things and no one has nailed it. So the idea that at scale there could be someone who might figure this out in a pretty compelling way, I think that could be exciting if he starts to do something. And you have a list we’ll get into about these potential new products. And that’s like the most excited I’ve been about Apple just reading that list as we get into it. So I think, yeah, I’m gonna, this, this at least makes me want to wish Apple well and hope for the best. Oh, yes, most definitely. I mean, the, again, like if you look, and this is, of course, products that were developed under Cook, but this is something that Gurman spoke about on TBPN this week, the list of product categories that Apple is, you know, working to build new product categories that Apple is working to build, to me, make a lot of sense. There are these AI AirPods. There are smart glasses. There’s the pendant, a smart display, a tabletop robot, and a security camera. Now again, this has been under development under Cook. But Turnus basically said, again, most exciting time that I'm, you know, I’ve been working on products and of course, he’s been central to the iPhone, obviously going to shepherd a lot of these products into production. Seems to care somewhat about Siri. Maybe let the guy running Siri leave. I don't know. And is prioritizing what the future is going to be. So yeah, I think that this is bright. What has you most excited about that list you just read? I will say that the AI AirPods really do. I mean, you would imagine that they’re gonna have a better assistant and maybe again, like let’s believe it when we see it. You would imagine they would have a better assistant now that they’re like, I think, just stealing Gemini and turning that into new Siri. And if they do that and they have an idea of what to do with When you put that in the AirPods, then you’re looking at, you know, and immediately the most mainstream AI device in the world may be out of outside of the Amazon Echo. I don't know. What do you think? No, no. And it could be less intrusive and more accepted because I myself and many, many other people around the streets of New York certainly are just wearing their AirPods. I wear them even when I’m not listening to anything. That’s weirdly comforting as I walk around. So to have that as a kind of always-on device. I don't know. tabletop robot. I don't know what that means, what it is, but I want it. I’m excited. I’m pre-ordering. I’m pre-ordering whatever you need, John. Whatever you need, Ternus. I will take your tabletop robot. Pendant, kind of exciting. I think like… No, no, it’s not. A pendant? No, it’s the pin, the pin, the pendant. One of those, one of those will be something. Will be something. Please no. Really? We're gonna be wearing all this stuff now. We're gonna have AirPods, a pendant, a watch, the glasses. Do we need any more stuff on our body that can do AI? I think so. But actually, in terms of new blood, I was thinking... I know, no, I mean, I, you know what? If it’s good, I’m putting it all on. But in terms of new blood, it is crazy to me, like, I mean, you had just brought up the launch of Apple intelligence. In any other company, how botched that rollout was. If, if like listeners remember, what's her name from last of us Bella something the actress, like, Bella Ramsey, those ads were so misleading, just flat out lies about the capabilities that were existing at the time. I mean, Apple, very few companies have ever done any, like, have done something that egregious. So the fact that heads did not roll in a public way actually is kind of a sign of like overly being comfortable, I think, but also, I mean, even more now that I’m thinking about it, like, most companies there would have been some serious ramifications around that. And if you do, I remember that interview where like Craig and I think it was Eddie were just kind of talking about how AI takes time. And they just had like the most, no one took responsibility. So I think if John Ternus starts having people take some responsibility for what has happened, and again, financial results notwithstanding, when you have an ecosystem monopoly, I think like new blood actually is needed rather than it's just okay to have. Yeah, that's right. Let me tell you one more thing about this because, you know, a lot of this is speculation, but we can at least talk a little bit about the position that Apple is in right now. And doesn't it seem like John Ternus is going to be the make or break CEO for Apple? That they are really at a place where they can go one of two ways and one is sort of nail this moment and just become the ultra company or, you know, they can sort of become the company that like, two generations after Jobs kind of got stuck under the weight of its own body and stalled. Yeah, I fully agree. Make or break moment. Like, the financial results don't reflect, and I know I sound ridiculous saying that, the actual state of where the company is because it is a monopoly in terms of like, the way they've locked people into the ecosystem has been brilliant in terms of its execution, but it’s not going to last forever. I think already that they, I actually saw this one tweet where apparently the green bubble in iMessage has like a slightly lower resolution even. So like, they created this, you don't want to be the green bubble person in your group text. Like, you want iMessage. They created that luxury feel for so long, but now no one I talk to is excited about Apple products in any way, which is not a good thing in terms of the future of the company. And they can kind of ride out the ecosystem lock-in for long enough. But this is it. Ternus, no pressure. They need the tabletop robot. That will make people excited again. Tabletop robots will solve everything. Everything. Everything. I mean, until it decides to come down off that tabletop if you’re mean to it. But that’s for another day. I mean, all people. Stop, just stay on and we're okay. I don't know if you've seen these videos of… Do you remember… This is actually an important point to just talk about robotics for a moment. Do you remember last year there was the robot half marathon in China and all these robots were hilariously like slamming into the floor? These things, I think one ran the half marathon in under an hour this year. I mean, I want my look out… About running. I want my robot running a marathon in less… A half marathon in less than an hour. Like a robot should be faster than a human. That doesn't scare me, I think. Like if we're putting them out there, it's going to get you. You're not going to outrun a robot. I think you're fully underappreciating how difficult it is to get a robot to move that fast, a human to move that fast. But I guess it was inevitable. My… Yeah, okay. I guess the mechanics of it do seem like something very important to for the robotics industry. But as long as the tabletop robot is not leaving the table and I don't even know what it does. Like what does it do on the table? By the way, I just want to say that this is your humanoid… anti-humanoid bias coming out. You're like, if it runs, I don't care about it at all because folks, if you've been listening, Ranjan is not a fan of humanoid robots. He wants purpose-built robots. See, this is why I like the tabletop robot. I've been saying this for months now. I don't understand why robots need a human form factor. I want purpose-built and whatever this tabletop robot is doing on that table, I'm sure it's something very helpful. It's moving stuff around. It's working. Actually, I don't even know what it would be doing on the table. I mean, from what I've read, I'm pretty sure it's like a robotic arm with a screen attached that like rotates and shows you shit. Okay, that doesn't sound that exciting. Sorry to take the air out of this discussion. I thought it was like fixing me. I thought it was fixing me a drink or something like that. I think that's a few generations away. Okay, so that's Apple. I think ultimately a good moment for Apple. Honestly, kudos to them because this was like the smoothest CEO transition ever. And their stock is actually… Well, it hasn't happened yet. You're good. What? You think there's going to be some last moment like Tim Cook sitting on the throne being like, I thought I could leave, but I'll never replace me. I mean, have we done our background checks on Ternus? I'm a Patriots fan and Mike Rabel. Good God, what's happened this week? So let's just Apple, do your background checks. That's all I ask. I want to just say there's been great willpower on us to not bring up the Rabel situation, but this is not a sports podcast. We're going to just glance past it. But that is a crazy story. That's the only reference. That's the only reference. All right, let's be… So let's speak about OpenAI and the controversies there. You know, they released, we're talking right after the release of GPT-5.5, a.k.a. Spud. And I think one thing that I've learned is to not judge a model the day of. You got to give it some time so people find the uses. But you can judge the rollout. And one of the things a lot of people have noticed is that the rollout has been much smoother, maybe than typical. This is a tweet from Cree Bibois. I think that's how you pronounce it. This feels like someone inside OAI, OpenAI, is doing work. They realize that Anthropic Dario are gaining more traction, mostly because they have a good product, but also because people like them and want them to win. First, there was a night of funny drunk tweets, which I think Sam tweeted at Anthropic growth employee, okay, boomer, after this person was like trying to explain away something Anthropic did. And now this new product announcement feels noticeably more personable and, dare I say, humble. My take, this is going to be a war of authenticity. And that was above a tweet from Sam Altman announcing GPT-5.5 with a kind of different tone than usual. He wrote, GPT-5.5 is here. We hope it's useful to you. I personally like it. Like that is, that's the Spud tweet. Compare that to the Mythos rollout. Do you think that OpenAI is getting its act together on comms? I do. I do. I think this is what I've been saying, like, everyone in any of these cycles within AI, everything is so heavy and fast that I think we forget how quickly things move. And because again, Anthropic, it's been the last, what, four to six months that it's just been on a tear, especially from like a public perception standpoint. But the last, since the launch of Opus 4.7, there's been a lot of negative sentiment around the launch of the model. And if we can get into Mythos overall and how it's been rolled out. And I got to say, GPT image 2, like the way that was the most excited I've seen people about kind of an advance in model, even at 5.5, I haven't really heard much. I think that was today, right? Or as we're recording. It's like the 5.5 part is just kind of quietly rolled out. But GPT image 2, like, and I saw more excitement around that than I've seen in a long time. I went in, I started trying stuff. It was actually, it felt like a step change from NanoBanana, which kind of had people excited by last. So I think on that side, they are doing something right in the last few days they have not done in a while. I think also, I don't know, did you see what Sam Altman changed his Twitter bio to? Yeah, it's something understated like, I kind of like AI or something like that. Yeah, no, no, it is, it is, AI is cool, I guess, lowercase I. Like, so I saw you had pointed out that one of the reasons that they bought TBPN was from a comms standpoint, and it was interesting because like, it felt like this was a very purposeful thing. When you're changing that, when he's starting to kind of like snarky tweet back at Anthropic, when he's just doing like, we hope it's useful. I personally like it. I mean, this is, this is a decision. And I think it's a good one. I do think that we could be seeing some TBPN influence here. I definitely, I tweeted that over this one about, that was praising OpenAI's comms strategy and it was definitely liked by someone high up at TBPN. We'll put it that way. So, you know, maybe that's what's going on. But certainly the rollout has been, you know, fairly smooth. It's not been something that they have inflated expectations on. You know, remember when, before GPT-5, like Altman was on Theo Vaughn and was talking about like all these like massive things that it was going to do. And then it just was felt, it was, he built it up so much, it was going to inevitably be a letdown. I mean, obviously Brockman talked about it on this show beforehand. So I think the expectations were managed. They also did something interesting, which is that they gave access to GPT-5.5 to the entire company of Nvidia. And obviously Nvidia is locked in this battle with Google and Amazon and Anthropic, which have, you know, together basically trained two competing models against the Nvidia OpenAI axis. And then Jensen sent an email out to all of Nvidia, obviously praising GPT-5.5 and talking about how well it's done. And Sam also tweeted that. So that was like another smart move. And lastly, they are positioning it against Mythos. And that's something that I want to get your perspective on. Mythos, of course, cybersecurity capabilities. capabilities, and they portion it off. And this has not been the case with 5.5. And Sam, in a tweet on launch, said, we believe in iterative deployment. We believe in democratization. We love you, and we want you to win. Basically saying, we're doing it completely different than Anthropic. Maybe they're seizing the moment. What do you think? OK, you know what? I'm already having to back off. I was getting excited about Sam's new face in this launch. But we love you and want you to win. Come on. My whole career has largely been about the magic of startups. Like, I think enough has come out. Do you think people are going to take this as sincere? I'm sure that plenty of people will. But do you think, like, he's going to be able to maintain this sincerity of, we love you and want you to win? I also noted, and I remember, there was this one, after replying to an Anthropic engineer, OK, Boomer, he quote tweeted, tonight I have had a couple of drinks, misspelling tonight. I actually looked up, like, does Sam Altman drink? And it's saying, he's had a lot of public statements about for sleep optimization, he does not consume alcohol. And then very rarely might. So again, is he actually just sitting there a little tipsy, tweeting, or is this now, now that I'm looking at it, it's feeling a little bit insincere. It might work, but it might backfire too. Well, OK, so let's talk about this, because ultimately what this comes down to is Mythos versus Spud, or Mythos versus 5.5. And I think that, I'm curious what you think the right approach is. I totally hear Anthropic's perspective on this, which is, like, we know that this thing can do cyber attacks. We're going to roll it out really slowly with a series of trusted partners. And then I kind of hear OpenAI's perspective as well, which I spoke with Greg Brockman about that. And you can listen to that show on the feed. That was yesterday. And what he said is basically, like, we're pretty confident in our governance. We've built this in a way that is not going to be permissive towards cyber attacks. And you can, you know, you might get more refusals because of it, because of the walls around cyber attacks, but we want everybody to have it. What do you think is the right approach here? I think there's got to be a middle ground between our next model release will destroy humanity and crush the world economy and Sam telling everyone that he loves them. There's got to be. I mean, like, take a Microsoft announcement or an Adobe summit this week. There's some software releases. There's some upgrades. Not everything has to be Earth shattering and world-defying. Like, it's just the next iteration up the model. Like, if these companies weren't in the position of having to kind of keep this drumbeat of hype being pushed until they go public in the markets, do we need this much hype for every new model release? It makes for good conversation fodder, but my wish is these would just be kind of like, They would be in release notes, maybe. Maybe there's, like, a press release, and that's it. It doesn't have to be this all or nothing type of way of communicating around it. Is that unreasonable? So, are you a truther on the, well, I guess it sort of depends on whether you believe these things have real cybersecurity capabilities or cyber offensive capabilities as well. If they have cyber offensive capabilities, then you can't just, you know, sort of say, all right, go for it. So, what's your perspective on that? Do you think it's real? Because I think it's real, from the people that I've spoken with, I've done enough reporting on it that I believe it's real, at least to some degree. So, if it is real, this week, Bloomberg reported there was a breach for Mythos where an unauthorized group, they tried a number of different strategies and were able to gain access to the model. They worked for a third-party contractor that works for Anthropic. And the way they did it is they literally, like, made educated guesses about the target URL to access the model. If your model is truly as dangerous as you have made it out to be over the last two weeks, if I am Anthropic, this announcement, you should be hair on fire running around, because if they did it by guessing a URL and having contractor access, God knows who else has it. China already has it. The whole Jensen Dworkish thing just becomes moot. Like, if it is so powerful and dangerous, this should be the biggest story in the world. They should be telling the world how not only are they incredibly sorry about what has happened, they are doing everything in their power to actually fix this. And nothing. This is just, like, they don't care. I don't know. Like, if it's truly breached in such a pedestrian way, like, shouldn't they care more? Well, first of all, I'll say, just because a couple of dorks in the Discord got access to mythos doesn't mean that the cyber offensive capabilities of mythos are a lie. If you would have given it to everybody and had a nothing burger, then I would have said something. But it's not on its face disqualifying. Then I'll say, we're already now in week three of, is Mythos real? And I appreciate your skepticism around it. I really do. I think that we kind of hear our, this is our new product or the model. I think you and I are kind of at an impasse. And we're just going to have to wait and see to get that answer. No, no, but I want to ask, shouldn't that be more important if a couple of guys and a couple of folks in the Discord are able to access your, like, potentially world-destructive model? Shouldn't that be, if you are working for Anthropic, if you're leading Anthropic, shouldn't that be the most terrifying thing imaginable if it is real? I mean, let me put it this way. Hasn't Anthropic had a number of similar situations? The source code for, like, Claude code leaked and all this stuff. And it's just like, they're, I think it's almost like they're leaving too much to Claude. And they probably should have thought this through. Why didn't Claude tell them to change the naming convention if they were working on this release? No, you're right. I think it's just more, like, the kind of whiplash from most dangerous thing on earth, sandwich in the park, the model is coming to life and you're anthropomorphizing it and it's, like, going to come out and take you and send emails and posts without your, like, going from that to, oh, yeah, by the way, anyone can access it by guessing a URL and some contractor access. And, ah, whatever. To me, it just doesn't square. You and I brought this up in the Greg Brockman conversation yesterday, but you and Sam Altman have a similar perspective on this. So, Sam Altman was on Ashley Vance's podcast this week and he talked about mythos. And he said, it's clearly incredible marketing to say, we have built a bomb. We were about to drop it on your head. We will sell you a bomb shelter for $100 million to run across all your stuff, but only if we pick you as a customer. That's good. That is good. Okay. Maybe Sam does love us. Maybe he wants to make magic at scale, which is, I think, what the rest of that tweet said. Yep. Well. Magic at hyperscale. Magic at hyperscale. Yeah, I mean, that's who wants that. Come on. Well, I did get Dario back into the White House. Looks like they're going to have a deal with the White House again to start working with the whole government. Magic at hyperscale. That's all I'm thinking about right now. That's my new purpose in life, to deliver magic at hyperscale. I don't know how, but that's what I want to do. You're now having this skepticism around AI. So this might be a good opportunity for me to read a comment that we got on the Brockman video and see what you think. We're closing in on four years since LM models were broadly released to the public. And you guys are still talking about how the next model will be so amazing, always the next one. Meanwhile, Oracle laid off half its company. Facebook is currently in the process of laying off half its company. Data centers are being canceled one after another. ChatGPT now has ads. It was a good run, and time to pivot to the next topic. That's a good, our listener, You got some spicy listeners. We have smart, by the way, I appreciate our reader feedback, our listener feedback, our viewer feedback, just as long as it's not two stars in the Apple podcast or Spotify app. But when people disagree with us, I like it. It's mind expanding. You know, we are because we are again in this world where it's like, all right, the next model is going to be so good. But I would say they've improved. I would say it's really hard to argue that they haven't improved. I will say they've dramatically improved. Again, I work in the industry. I was the one who said when everyone said 5 or 5.1 was a dud, that reasoning and tool calling were going to be the next big thing. There's been dramatic step changes along the way. But I also fully empathize with the listener that, like, I hate the talk about the next model. And it's what I was saying a few moments ago. I want the next model release to be as boring as whatever Adobe launched at Summit this week or Microsoft launched at whatever else. Co-pilot for CoWork or whatever else. You know, like, that's what it should be, not, like, beware humanity, our next model is dropping. You want to know what I think is getting underplayed this week? And you already mentioned it, but I think we should just say this before we go to break. The ChatGPT images 2.0 is insane. It can search the web. It can edit images. I mean, it is, I've tested like crazy every one of these image generators from DALL-E on out. This thing is insane. Insane. No, no, this is why this was genuinely, I would put this at step change on the image generation side. The thinking side wasn't as interesting to me because any recent model should be able to do this kind of multi-step reasoning and if web search is part of it. But, like, just seeing the outputs, and I've seen a lot of kind of what got us all excited about Nano Banana 2. Or Nano Banana Gemini Flash 2, like, looks cartoonish already compared to what ChatGPT image 2 is doing. So I think this was big. This was actually a very impressive thing. Do I think, but it's interesting. It's a software update that is good. Do I think it's going to change humanity? No, but it was very impressive. This was the first one that actually had me worrying about the future of graphic designers. It's that good. I'm not even kidding. Oh, I guess, I mean, I've worried about the future of graphic designers who do traditional graphic design for a long time. And actually, I mean, Claude design and what it's able to do. I think this has been coming for a while. And I think like just being able to do some kind of like image alteration or improvement or even like UX layout of a website. I think that kind of skill has been going the way of someone kind of like writing email subject lines for a long time. But I don't, I guess to me, that didn't change that much. It is interesting, like, visual communication. And because what I saw happening much better with this is actually kind of communicating an idea. Like Nano Banana could do some kind of like good cartoonish flowcharts, but like GPT image 2 actually was communicating visual concepts much, much better. Or like communicated visually, not even visual concepts. Agreed. All right. Let's take a break and talk about these cuts at Meta and whatever else we can fit in until we have to go. We'll be back right after this. Your IT team wastes half their day on repetitive tickets. And the more your business grows, the more requests pile up. Password resets, access requests, onboarding, all pulling them away from meaningful work. With Serval, you can cut 80% of your help desk tickets. While legacy players bolt on AI, Serval was built for AI agents from the ground up. Here's the transformation. When a manager used to onboard a new hire, the old process would take hours. They'd ping Slack, email IT, wait on approvals. Meanwhile, new hires sit around for days. With Serval, a manager asks to onboard a new hire in Slack. The AI provisions access to everything automatically in seconds with necessary approvals. IT never touches it. Companies like Perplexity, Verkata, and Mercur automated over half their tickets immediately after setup. 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And I'm seeing more serious startups lean into it. Nothing.tech, 1X.tech, Aurora.tech, CES.tech, Ultra.tech, Alice.tech, Neuron.tech, Blaze.tech, Pi.tech, and so many more. If you're building something tech first, don't settle. Secure your .tech domain from any registrar of your choice and make your positioning obvious from day one. When I found out I was going to be a parent, I immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry. So I went on to BetterHelp to try to look for a therapist to help me with that. My relationship with my family and with my boyfriend and with myself were suffering. I really needed help. I was ruminating a lot. Really getting those thoughts out to a therapist and getting feedback was just life-changing. Discover what BetterHelp online therapy can do for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today. We're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition. We're here with Ranjan Roy of Margins as we typically are on Fridays. And we have kind of a depressing story or set of stories out of Menlo Park, California. This is from Bloomberg. Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs and push for efficiency. Meta Platforms plans to cut 10% of workers or roughly 8,000 employees in an effort to boost efficiency and offset its heavy spending on artificial intelligence. The company disclosed the move in a memo sent to employees Thursday. Meta also won't hire workers for 6,000 open roles that it had intended to fill. The job cuts come as chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg is spending aggressively on the talent and infrastructure needed to develop state-of-the-art artificial intelligence products, including LLMs and chatbots. Well, as if that was not enough, this is from Roy. Employer mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data, Meta is installing new tracking software on US-based employees' computers to capture mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes for use in training its artificial intelligence models, part of a broad initiative to build AI agents that can perform work tasks autonomously, the company told staffers in an internal memo seen by Reuters. One hand laying people off. On the other hand, those that stay have the pleasure of their movements and keystrokes and whatever they're doing on their computers being used to train AI. Your reaction? Okay, let's separate out the two. The first, it actually shocked me, or it didn't shock me, but it's just, it's incredible to me that for years on the Metaverse spending and reality labs, they never would tie any kind of cost-cutting efforts. The entire year of efficiency, was that 2024? 2023? 23. 23. Like, he never directly attributed it to because we are spending so much on the Metaverse. And it's kind of like amazing that now, we are cutting 8,000 people to offset our heavy spending on artificial intelligence. So, the market, I get, loves hearing that. So, investors love hearing that. So, people will continue to do it, but I don't know. I feel, do you think it's the right way to communicate for these companies just because they know it'll pop their stock into the short run? Well, this is one I don't think is about calms at all. I think this is legitimately like, they are doing what they said they're doing, right? But is it over-hiring in a bloated company that just needs to actually trim itself, which is, I think, very true for many, many of these big companies, especially over the last five years? Or is it really, like, we need to cut costs so we can invest more in artificial intelligence? I think it's the latter. I mean, they've spent so much money on AI. They're spending on the data centers. The market is actually much less forgiving if you don't have margins, right? And they don't have a, I mean, they have some ROI on the AI because it's helping optimize their creative stack. And I think there was a headline recently that they're going to pass Google as the largest advertising business. So they see the results there, but they're not a platform that's sort of benefiting from this surge in demand for AI compute. They haven't built super AI super intelligence. So they are in a position where they cannot remain this bloated, especially as they don't have the leading model. Well, but normally, they've spent a lot of money. So just saying we will spend more money, to me, isn't a reassuring message. Like, as a headline, it sounds like, okay, this is good. This is what everybody needs to be doing. But, like, money has not been the problem. What were they paying people a couple of months ago to join? They basically, I mean, this is facetious, but they effectively spent 15 billion to hire Alexander Wang. Yeah. I mean, so more money is not the answer. So, like, again, I get if the company is just bloated, if he wants to kind of, like, start to make things leaner, go into Zuck beast mode, year of efficiency type stuff. Like, I mean, if anyone is able to do that well and better than others, it's Zuckerberg. But, like, I don't know. Just because it means we'll be able to invest more, I still, I don't quite buy that. But that's separate from the key tracking. That is... Yeah. Talk about that. It's one of those that it starts to make, like, purely technically, it's almost kind of interesting. Like, if it's terrifying, but it's interesting in terms of, is everyone essentially training models to do the things they're doing repetitively, which is efficient, I guess. I guess, like, yeah, why do you work there then? I think if the goal is, maybe there could be an inspiring, all right, here's my attempt here. In the future, the type of work you will need to be doing is, and I believe this, like, moving a little bit of information from system A to system B, making a little presentation around it, doing a little kind of like adding your own tiny bit of insight or analysis and being that cog in a larger process, is not going to be a lot of knowledge work. So maybe Zuckerberg can stand up and he can just be like, I am preparing you all for the future. So you can be the best positioned out of any kind of tech company employee to kind of meet the needs of this future. That's my inspiring message behind this. I mean, I hope he'd be doing it, like, on, you know, locked in his office on like a conference room phone because he would get vegetables thrown at him from the meta cafeteria if he said that. You know, in the history of labor and transitions of this nature, there was a practice back in the day called Taylorism, where they measured the movements of people working in the factory and they got them to move as efficiently as possible. They literally controlled their movement to be like a machine so there wouldn't be any wasted movement. And then eventually they replaced many of them with machines. I just don't see stories like this ending in the right way for the worker. And I will say there's one interesting wrinkle here, which is that, do you remember Scale AI, Alexander Wang's old company? They told me recently that most of the training that they're doing is reinforcement learning, where you build environments for the bots and they go and they try to figure out what to do. And, well, if you're, what do you need to do to build these great reinforcement learning environments? You sort of need to show them forms and web behavior and stuff like that, and then you try to get them to model it. And with Alexander Wang within meta, I wouldn't be stunned if that is what's happening, is that, you know, maybe the other way to read this is, instead of, like, a complete AI automation move, it is effectively building gyms for bots that need more environments to do reinforcement learning within. That is fascinating. And if Alexander Wang is adding value post-acquisition in this way, maybe that $15 billion was worth it. I was kind of fascinated. Like, they also, there was no denial at all of this happening. Like, part of the reporting was that the CTO bought Andrew Boz. Like, he responded in the thread that there is no option out of this on your work-provided laptop. This comment received a mix of crying, shocked, and angry face emojis. But also, the official response from meta to Business Insider was there are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content and the data is not used for any other purpose. Like, it is amazing to me that they just, they said it. There's no backing off of what they're doing. So, this is kind of nuts. It's happening. This is crazy. Yeah, there's definitely a few jobs that I've held in my life that I really would not want this software to be installed on because I had nothing to do and spent a lot of time on, like, collegehumor.com. See, this is actually... Everyone is just on Twitter, is on not doing work, and that's what all the training data is received and like, the agents just, like, they start, he starts to put them to work, and then they're just scrolling, and then they go to Instagram, and then they, like. You're going to see these agents. You're right. They're going to be tasked with like, you know, writing a deck for you. You're going to have it take over your computer. Midway through, it's going to be on YouTube watching dogs on skateboards, and you're going to be like, what's going on here? It's like, well, I learned that this is the right way to do work. Trust the data. Trust the data. Trust the training. I'm sure we'll end up seeing some ridiculous study about this, and it'll be like, AI models that procrastinate are actually more effective than AI models that stick to task. Actually, did you see, I think she's like the anthropic ethicist. There was all these videos going around, around, like, this interview. Basically, the idea was, like, she was, she's like the one who's supposed to understand, like, the emotional underpinnings of Claude and the model, and like, was talking about Amanda Eskill, yeah, and how it is anxious. And so, maybe you should let your agent watch a little YouTube, surf a little X. Just, it will get the job done in a more efficient way. When you push it too hard, it's just not going to do a good job. Give it a break. Don't, don't we all, don't we all need a break? Don't we all just need some time to divert from task and try something completely meaningless? That's what being human is all about. And it will learn as it tracks your behavior if you're a meta employee. I could just imagine all these meta employees, like, having AI TokenMax doing some dumb shit while spending the whole day, like, watching videos on the phone. That's the, that is, that is the future of work in 2026. If there was a Silicon Valley, if that show existed now, I wonder if there'll be a new version of that, but there was just so much material. Kind of hard to parody at this point because it is so ridiculous as it is. You're right. There's no parody. All right. So look, as, as we come to a close, we've had this basically comparison of streaming prices in our prep doc for weeks now, and we have an opening for a rant. So why don't you take us home, Ronjon, with a little exposition here on the increase in streaming prices and what it means. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that the consumer price index rise in the last year was 2.6%. Now, as someone who subscribed to too many streaming services over the last years and does not know when to cut what and has a son who won't let them cut Disney Plus and a wif who said the idea of Netflix or HBO ever leaving or even Hulu or Peacock, you know, these things. So I was curious because Netflix the other day just raised prices to $15.99 for the individual plan, but they severely restrict to you in number of devices. So I think I'm paying $27 now, which is insane. So I went back and looked. It's since 2019, because I was kind of like pre-pandemic, how much have prices gone up? And we all knew there was this moment where the streaming business did not make sense, and this was a loss leader for all these companies other than Netflix. So Disney Plus came out at $6.99. It's currently $18.99. Hulu went from $11.99 to $18.99. HBO Max actually, to their premium positioning, only $14.99 to $18.99 now. Peacock, basically $5 to $11 bucks. Paramount Plus, $5 to $8 bucks. Apple TV, again, going back to my hatred of their services business now, comes in at $5, bundles you in. Now it's $13 a month. Like, all of these things, I think, I don't know, when you look at your monthly expenses, then deciding what you're going to have to cut, and you see this across everything. It was the Uber mentality as well. But I think, I don't know, I was thinking, like, there needs to be an inflation metric relative to the average, probably, big technology listener, tech industry participant, just kind of like, I don't know, just like upwardly mobile, tech savvy person that is just stuck subscribing to all of this. Do you, Spotify has been jacked up as well. And there's no backlash. There's no big consumer, like, movement to actually, like, cancel these services. Are you cutting any of these? I have tried for a while to, like, just be subscribed to the one that I use most often, but I've given up. I'm like quite fatigued at like trying to cancel Netflix and then reinstalling it and stuff like that. So now I have Netflix, I have Prime Video, HBO, and I think, I think I subscribed to like Paramount Plus for like $30 bucks for the year. I wanted to watch the South Parks with AI. But then you have Peacock for Premier League, Paramount and NFL, Paramount Plus for NFL. I don't know. I, like, it is interesting to me that I was at my parents' place who still have cable, and it actually kind of made me miss cable. And they're spending like $180 bucks, which I think I'm spending more now. But, is all this AI hype going to end up with us longing for the days of basically what streaming has done, making me wish and miss cable? Is that what's going to happen? Well, first of all, it's just going to get worse for two reasons. One is, we're starting to see consolidation in this space. Like you have Netflix as this clear winner, and then Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery are going to tie up, right? So, like, you're going to see, well, it is actually good that the two will balance each other out. But, like, the days of every streamer competing with every streamer, kind of on even footing and price matters, seems to be away. Seems to be going away. And then, of course, with AI trained on human screen behavior, they now are required to watch at least five hours of Netflix during the workday. And that is a demand signal that we're all going to get screwed by. And then Apple, in turn, will somehow solve it all and unbundle all their subscription services and actually make it just a product I'm excited about and I don't feel trapped by. That is something that Apple could do. So maybe they will. Apple, again, iCloud frickin' photos. I'm paying $40 a month. I don't even know how. It literally was telling me that, like, it was telling me, telling my wife, we're on a family plan, like, you will lose access to your photos, your entire life, like, if you do not pay us gun to head. That is the Apple services business model now. They certainly have, I will say this, they certainly have some mafioso-esque business practices in there. So, I mean, In turnus, of course, will have to make money to bring it full circle, but hopefully he, like, looks at this and realizes it's gonna be his legacy and decides not to do stuff like this because that sucks. Eddie, do you think there's subscription revenue tied to the tabletop robot? I hope so. I hope so. It's consumption-based, token-based. Oh my God. The more complex it does, you just get an iPhone notification. You've been charged another. Oh my God. I can just imagine the ad. The scene fades in from black, standing next to a beautiful glass table with a tabletop robot and a screen attached to its hand, is one Ronjon Roy. Here's how the ad begins. Hi, I'm Ronjon Roy. I hope you're enjoying your tabletop robot and I hope you keep paying $10.99 a month for the pleasure of being able to preserve everything in your house. Because once your subscription lasts, I will be using these robots to smash your shit up. That is the turnest business model and the stock is going to skyrocket. That's it. That's it. Now we figured it out. We at least figured it out. Figured out what the tabletop robot is for. There it is. It's merely a threat. It's merely a threat to keep paying your services bill. Gotta have something. That thing will knock you the fuck out if you... Now that is innovation and that is how we will end another week here on Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition. Ronjon, great to see you as always. Thank you again for coming on. See you next week. 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