2026-04-28 19:06:37
Back in 2012, I wrote a post comparing Apple's method of product development to the opening (and closing) of Christopher Nolan's 2006 film, The Prestige. The opening dialogue of that film explains the title:
Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird, or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.
My post was entitled, "Apple’s Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige" and it was specifically about how while some viewed the unveiling of the iPhone 5 at the time as boring, they were missing the point. The point, per my title, was "the turn". How Apple does what it does to transform the ordinary, a smartphone, into something extraordinary, the iPhone.
Here I am, nearly 14 years later, thinking about that movie and that point again with regard to Apple.1 But this time, the context is a bit different. If you'll forgive the turn of phrase, the key this time isn't "the turn" but yes, the Ternus. And to take it a step further, while John Ternus' focus has been on "the turn" over his nearly 25 years at Apple, ultimately the key, as he takes the reigns as CEO, may actually be in "the prestige"...
I already wrote up my thoughts about Tim Cook and his tenure at Apple – including a few months ago when the news of his stepping down as CEO was just rumored, but seemed likely, soon. Now my thoughts turn to Ternus, and his path going forward – which will be Apple's path going forward.
The reality is that a lot of that path, just as it was for Cook when he took over for founder Steve Jobs in 2011, is already locked-and-loaded. All companies working with hardware have to have roadmaps that are set years ahead of time. And development cycles require product work to start at least a couple years in advance. With Apple, that's often even longer because of their complex supply chain and early access to new technologies. That is to say, Apple's pipeline of products are probably locked in for the next couple of years, at least.
Some may slip, of course – as has been the case with Apple in particular over the past few years as AI has upended not only their software, but their overall product strategy. But for the most part, we know what we're going to get this Fall and next Fall too – and a lot of that is obvious even without leaks. It's the years after that where things start to get more interesting as it relates to Ternus. Because he will start making calls this Fall when he takes over what will set those wheels in motion...
Of course, leading up to his ascension, it sure seems like Ternus already has been doing that, at least a bit. With the MacBook Neo, Ternus got a lot of credit – and, of course, "stage" time – for ushering in that product. While it seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight that it would be a huge hit, it was also quite antithetical of Apple's normal approach, certainly with regard to the Mac lineup.
That's why I immediately framed it as the smartest announcement Apple had made in a long time. It signaled a sea change when it came to their strategy. For the past many years I had been worried that Apple had become completely calcified when it came to changing their ways – which seemed like it could be particularly problematic in the Age of AI, where everything is moving at light speed. That obviously proved to be true, but shakeup of the AI divisions aside, it was this MacBook Neo that signaled the possibility of real change for Apple.
The company has famously been run by leadership that for the most part had been there for decades. This type of stability obviously has huge benefits, but also some pretty big downsides, as I believe we saw play out with AI. And Ternus was in this boat too as someone who has been at Apple for that quarter century – nearly half his life!
Steve Jobs may have famously told Tim Cook not to focus on what he would do, just to do what's right (for Apple, when he took over), but the truth is that Apple has spend the past 15 years of Cook's tenure largely doing what it thought Jobs would do anyway. And for the most part, this was the right call! Stock prices may deceive, but sales figures do not. But now that we're on to the next generation with Ternus and a leadership team that is naturally going to turn over as many of them are at or near retirement age, there truly is an opportunity to "think different".
Ternus will say all the right things right now about staying the course that Apple is already on. But again, he has little choice at the moment, that path is pretty much set. Sure, there will be choices here and there – in particular with partnerships around AI and elsewhere – but the product pipeline is pretty locked. The question is really what Ternus chooses to set in motion for 2028 and beyond.
Again, a lot of that is in process too, but in such a way that things can and do get tweaked or prioritized or cancelled. And new projects can get started depending how Ternus and his team read the tea leaves.
Cook, famously, had a bit of a rough time in this regard. Yes, there's the Apple Watch – but per above, that project was undoubtedly actually kicked off while Jobs was still alive. AirPods were likely truly post-Jobs, but I mean, they are EarPods without wires. They're great! But not exactly an entirely new product category. The car project was probably more nuanced, as the Apple Board was said to have been discussing it when Jobs was still around, but "Project Titan" definitely started under Cook. Of course, it never really went anywhere! And then there's the Vision Pro. Certain parts and technologies may have dated to Jobs, but it was clearly a Cook package. And well, it's perhaps the most to-be-determined product Apple has ever launched. It hasn't looked good to date, but they could morph it over time into something solid, not unlike the Apple Watch. We'll see.
Really, the only slam dunk Cook can take credit for is Services (well, and his Chinese supply chain, if you want to consider that a product!).2 Yes, some of those – notably iTunes and the App Store – kicked off under Jobs too. But it was Cook who put most of the wheels in motion (thanks largely to Eddy Cue) to get the division to where it is today – to the point where it will someday overtake even the iPhone itself in terms of revenue.
Anyway, my point is that while Cook couldn't exactly "coast", he could coast far more than Ternus will likely be able to. Especially as the aforementioned wave of AI threatens to upend every corner of technology.
In the near term, I believe Ternus and Apple are going to be in a great position with the iPhone because it's still the most-used and best device. That means that it's going to be the most-used and best device for AI too. But it will be under assault in a way it hasn't since its earliest days. Both with new AI hardware coming and, I imagine, new smartphone entrants built more specifically for this moment.
But even if Apple remains sitting pretty with the iPhone, they cannot afford to be sitting still. They still need to be funneling the proceeds from the device into the What's Next™ product. This is obvious, but again, Apple hasn't really been able to do this post-Jobs. They have a great satellite constellation of products, but nothing that moved Apple from the Mac business to the iPod business to the iPhone business, as Jobs did. Nearly 20 years later – Cook's entire tenure – and Apple is still the iPhone business.
Again, it's a great business to be in! But even it won't last forever. It still very well could last as the key business driver throughout Ternus' tenure too, but I mean, just assuming he gives the same 15 years of service, that will take us to 2041. Yes, the years are short, but the decades are long in tech. That's a long ways away. Especially when you think about it on the timescale of AI.
So what is Ternus to do? I don't know, that's above my pay grade. But at a high level, I do think he needs at least an iPad-level new hit product. And perhaps an iPod-level one in terms of relative game-change. I'm not saying Apple will die without one, but I am saying Apple will likely be seen as dated and in decline without one.
I do think the 'iPhone Ultra' – the artist formerly rumored to be the 'iPhone Fold' – will be a hit for Apple. But at the end of the day, it's an iPhone. The smart glasses? Certainly Apple could make them work, and perhaps piss off Meta in the process. But are they going to be a massive stand-alone product? I suspect that even in the success state they'll be viewed as one of the iPhone "satellite" products. Ditto with AirPods with cameras and any sort of AI pendants, obviously.
What's the next truly new product? Maybe full AR glasses? Perhaps taking cues from both smartglasses from below and the Vision Pro from above? You could certainly see that. But there's also a lot to be determined, both technologically and societally between now and then.
And wouldn't it be more fun for Ternus to truly come out of left field with something? Again, like the iPod. What category can Apple zero in on to truly revolutionize? As much as I still might like a true Apple Television set, that ain't it.
Robotics is probably the most obvious path here. It plays both to Ternus' hardware background and to our AI future. And beyond the rumored table top devices, Apple already has public research products that look... well, awesome. Very Apple, but also very Apple-of-the-future. If Apple can make Wall-E a reality, can you think of a better love letter to Steve Jobs?3
Apple looking around the landscape and taking with Tesla has (at some point) done with Optimus, and others have done and swooping in to do it "right" would be the Apple playbook, of course. Is that feasible by 2040? Again, we'll see...
Regardless, it feels like it's time for Apple to take some risks again.
Lastly, I would just note that while Ternus' focus and strength has been on "the turn", he will need to learn a new trick to cement his legacy atop Apple. Again, it's something Cook never quite nailed. The Prestige.
Cook as a presenter was fine. He got better as time went on, but that was also because Apple made it easier for him as time went on by taking away the live studio audience! I mean, to be fair, the pandemic really did that. But Apple, unlike their peers, never brought it back. They need to. Ternus needs to. He needs to tap into the energy of Apple's ecosystem again with live events. I suspect he will – perhaps even with his first iPhone event in the fall.
Ternus is obviously no stranger to MC'ing such events – again, digitally. Beyond the aforementioned MacBook Neo unveil, he's actually been "on stage" for years now – to the point where I called his continued presence out as interesting even before the rumors that he might be the next CEO started... But he should aim to forge his own type of presence on stage, unveiling new products.
I'm not saying he has to be Steve Jobs. It remains too tall and order, and really, he should want to be his own person in this – again, this is about Apple's future, not about the past. Others like Evan Spiegel at Snap and Jensen Huang at NVIDIA show a potential path here. Ternus, while an engineer, is not nearly as stilted as Mark Zuckerberg has been (though also obviously better over time), so he has a real shot at pulling off "the prestige" at such events.
While the key to Apple remains "the turn", Ternus nailing "the prestige" would give everyone, from the employee base to the user base to Wall Street, confidence in the path forward. As I see it, Ternus' tall task is twofold: he needs both a new trick and to reveal it, as well as Apple's old tricks, in a way that conveys the true magic of the products. As The Prestige taught us, "You have to bring it back."
1 That movie is perhaps also top of mind as I'm about to record a podcast about Christopher Nolan's film as it approaches its 20th anniversary... ↩
2 Maybe Apple Silicon, but that really launched under Jobs with the 'A4' chip in the original iPad. ↩
3 I mean, hopefully without the destroyed world and morbidly obese human population that's unable to move from their seats. But you know, the optimistic version of that. ↩
2026-04-28 03:36:07
"The Clause" is dead. Long live, the clause.
That's the easy read of this out-of-the-blue update to the agreement between OpenAI and Microsoft. I say out-of-the-blue because the two sides just spend months hammering out an updated agreement that was finalized just six months ago. This is an update to that update.
Of course, it wasn't really out of the blue. This update is all about letting OpenAI offer their models on AWS. For proof of that, look no further than Amazon CEO Andy Jassy tweeting, "Very interesting announcement from OpenAI this morning." As he notes, there's an AWS event in San Francisco tomorrow. So yeah, they wanted to get this squared away before that.
Why would Microsoft agree to that? Clearly, OpenAI finally agreed to kill "The Clause". Long a main point in the relationship between the two, it basically gave OpenAI a position of power over Microsoft because it allowed them to pull back their AI if and when they achieved "AGI". Of course, this was also a main sticking point in that aforementioned last update to their agreement, but while Microsoft successfully defanged it at that point – notably by ensuring OpenAI's nonprofit board could no longer unilaterally declare AGI achieved, but also by maintain rights to some models and technology even after AGI is achieved – it didn't fully go away. Now it's going away. It's simply replaced by a date: 2032.
That date was also a part of the last negotiations, but this makes it cleaner. It's hard to tell if it's some sort of acknowledgement that AGI might not be here by then or that it really no longer matters – at least for business purposes. Regardless, what matters is OpenAI having more optionality when it comes to offering up their products on other clouds. This is one big way in which Anthropic has started to eat their lunch. Now fresh clouds are back on the menu.
Sort of. Maybe. Probably.
The weirdest part of the announcement – which is a mere 242 words, and because there can't be any sort of announcement between these two without a weird part, it's just the rule – is the following:
Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities. OpenAI can now serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider.
That's seemingly a pretty important "and" there. In other words, at least in this telling, Microsoft still has a right of first refusal of sorts here. It's not enough for them to not be able to support something that OpenAI wants to do with some new offering on another cloud provider, Microsoft has to explicitly say they will not support it, making it seemingly okay if OpenAI looks elsewhere.
In practice, this probably means that Microsoft will continue to get first look rights to all of OpenAI's models in Azure, but over time, Microsoft will be okay with those models trickling down elsewhere.
I can't wait to see what trips up this new clause! Because you just know something will. OpenAI will work on something with Google or Amazon that they'll say Microsoft can't technically offer – perhaps around TPUs and/or Trainium chips? – and Microsoft will get pissed.
But for now, clearly Microsoft signed off on OpenAI's deal with Amazon here – otherwise we wouldn't get that Jassy tweet – though kind of a dick move not to acknowledge Microsoft there? Then again, Microsoft had been threatening to sue over the new OpenAI/Amazon deal, believing it violated their exclusive OpenAI rights. So...
It's still somewhat surprising that Microsoft is giving in here seeing as it's Amazon, owners of the only cloud bigger than their own. But it's also sort of a win/win. Beyond the aforementioned removal of The Clause, Microsoft still owns upwards of 27% of OpenAI (perhaps more like 25% after the dilution of the last mega round). OpenAI getting access to AWS definitely boosts the value of OpenAI because it should massively boost the business of OpenAI. Again, not only against Anthropic, but overall as the company tries to go public.
For all the bickering between OpenAI and Microsoft over their relationship for years now, Microsoft would probably rather own their percentage of a larger number rather than a smaller one. On some level, it's just math. Yes, even between these two star-crossed lovers.
And yes, the two will have to keep working together – at least for the next six years or so.1 Though you have to believe Microsoft will appreciate even more distance from their old bedfellow. Especially as they work towards AGI/Superintelligence fully on their own now. And they'll certainly enjoy not having to send back a 20% cut to OpenAI any longer – and you can imagine Wall Street will like that too, ahead of Microsoft's earnings later this week.
OpenAI will still be paying their 20% cut for sales of services hosted on Azure, but they get to pull that end date forward a couple years, to 2030. And it's also now apparently capped at some level, but they're not sharing what that level is. This is a smaller win for OpenAI which had wanted to bring this rev share down, and it will be a better story for the IPO roadshow.
Anyway, I'm no divorce lawyer, but that's my read. While OpenAI was somewhat free to see other people under their last updated agreement, this gives them much more freedom (provided Microsoft doesn't fall back in love with OpenAI and/or isn't spiteful of their new relationship potential – famous last clause). And Microsoft, in turn, gets to rip-up that pesky AGI prenup once and for all.
One more thing: while this actually doesn't seem to have anything to do with the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI/Microsoft, it's interesting timing giving that it just kicked off today. Might some of this come up? In particular, the AGI bit?
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 I think we can easily predict when Microsoft may dump their stake in OpenAI – though they might do so in chunks before then depending how the IPO goes! ↩
2026-04-27 22:00:07
Just when you thought OpenAI and Microsoft couldn't possibly further consciously uncouple, they find a way, it seems. This is just breaking as I publish this – and there's seemingly some weird/vague wording in here – so I'll have more thoughts later. But it definitely seems like something OpenAI wanted – to be able to fully date other clouds. While Microsoft gets even more distance and to keep more money.
Weird timing too with the trial in which OpenAI and Microsoft are defendants vs. Elon Musk just kicking off (more below). Perhaps related?
Update: some thoughts!
M.G. Siegler
Inklings is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
💰 Google's (Up To) $40B Anthropic Investment – You know how I know that Anthropic is freaking out over being compute-constrained? In the past week, they've now agreed to sell (up to) $65B worth of equity to the investors which are already their two largest backers in Amazon and Google. And they're doing it – well, at least the first tranches – at the price of the last funding round, even though they have offers to raise at far higher valuations already. This will mean Google has around $13B invested into Anthropic now, and up to $33B if milestones are hit. Amazon, meanwhile, also has $13B invested now, and up to... $33B. These numbers align so nicely that they don't seem like coincidences. But then again, Amazon has more money at lower entry prices, so their ownership stake should still be higher than Google's. This would buy Amazon another 1.3% now and Google another 2.5%. [NYT]
📱 The OpenAiPhone? – First, are we sure this isn't a chip meant for another piece of OpenAI hardware? Obviously, Ming-Chi Kuo would check on that but still, the report is weird enough. Not because the idea is bad – as I've stated before, of course Amazon and everyone else would still want to control their own smartphone as it means controlling their own destiny. (This is why I suspect Meta, the most annoyed about the Apple/Google stranglehold in the space, will try again at some point.) OpenAI, on the verge of their own hardware, would obviously want such control for the same reasons. The difference, of course, is that they're a "startup", one that's trying to focus after years of "side quests". A smartphone would be the ultimate – and ultimately expensive – side quest. Maybe it's just something to explore if the true AI device – undoubtedly tethered to the iPhone – is a massive hit? Mainly I want to ensure we see that device, with so many billions yet to be burned on just model training and inference alone. [@mingchikuo]
💬 XChat – While I think I was asking for a stand-alone Twitter DM app in the past, that was at least a dozen years ago. I don't really understand why it exists now. There are way too many chat apps and this is seemingly just a carbon-copy of direct messages already within Xitter, but more buggy (I guess more iOS-native). Further, Elon has long talked up the notion of X as the "everything app" which seems more complicated when you need three or four apps for the everything app. Speaking of, it sounds like the X Money app is coming shortly too – though perhaps "a day late and dollar short". Zero surprise there. Porn-y names aside, this is like watching Meta's obsession with bundling and unbundling their apps, but in slow motion. Yes, XChat app hit #1 in the App Store for a day or so, but obviously you can do that on the back of the parent app with millions of users. The fact that it's fallen into the 20s just a couple days later seems like a bad sign. Who is this app for? Even the security folks are skeptical of that angle. As is Grok! [TechCrunch]
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• Elon vs. OpenAI, the Trial
• China Blocks Meta's Manus Deal
• and more...
2026-04-25 03:07:10
Everybody already assumed that after Xitter merged with xAI and xAI with SpaceX that Tesla would be next. But Cursor – and possibly Mistral – throw some interesting new wrenches into these bonkers equations to build this Voltron of a company...
M.G. Siegler
Inklings is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
🍁 Cohere + Aleph Alpha – Begun, the great AI consolidation has. The newly combined $20B AI startup seemingly has a better shot at government and business contracts across the EU now, given Aleph's German roots and Cohere's bigger scale and more well-known pedigree. Still, beyond OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and everyone else (all the "open" Chinese models and players?), they'll presumably be running head into Europe's bigger AI champion: Mistral. That is, unless Elon Musk can successfully buy them as well, which, while perhaps good for Mistral's tech and fundraising capabilities would immediately shove them into the US 'Big AI' bucket. And that plus the Musk factor would likely push more business Cohere's way. We'll see. Regardless, this is clearly the start of more consolidation in the space, following the news that SpaceX has a call option to buy Cursor later this year. Cohere – by my count, backed by AMD, Cisco, NVIDIA, Oracle, and Salesforce clearly needed an answer beyond being Canada's AI champion, and they found one, but is even that enough? [FT 🔒]
🥔 GPT 5.5 – "Spud" seems nice and fast thus far. Greg Brockman, when not constantly saying "I see things a little differently..." to every single (good) question put forth by Alex Kantrowitz still gave a pretty good overview of the state of the model – generally how it can do more with less guidance. And it puts OpenAI back at the top of most (but not all) of the key AI benchmarks, beating out last week's Anthropic Opus 4.7 and even the mythical Mythos here and there (but Mythos still seems like it will be ahead if and when it's released broadly). Of course, that performance comes at a cost, quite literally, a higher cost on the API (though OpenAI is saying it's far more "token efficient" which should negate that). Mainly, I want to see how/if this alters the perception of OpenAI vs. Anthropic. Does this (plus the impressive new image model) help them regain momentum? 5.5 will apparently power the forthcoming "Super App". More importantly for them, does it help power Codex versus Claude Code? It also sure feels like there's an effort to change the tone and tenor when talking about such releases by OpenAI's outward facing folks from Sam Altman on down? Though that could be just as much about the fact that Altman (and Brockman) are about to be thrown head-first into a very public trial against Elon Musk next week... [Axios]
🐳 DeepSeek V4 – Do you hear that? No you don't hear anything? That is the sound of everybody talking about the latest version of DeepSeek. "No one cares." That's not fair, of course – it may end up another step for open source models with regard to coding and agentic usage – but relative to the "DeepSeek Moment" last year, it's sort of wild how few shits anyone gives now. The stock market is not only not crashing, it's up at the moment. All of this is undoubtedly because of what ended up being the actual fallout from the famous "Sputnik Moment" – which was... not a whole lot. Some cheaper models, sure. But it's not like the top model makers were displaced, let alone world economies. If anything, it just opened up Big Tech's eyes to the potential problems of distillation and the US government to looking into the situation, including, potentially, with unauthorized usage of NVIDIA chips. Anyway, a couple new DeepSeek models are here now in preview. One seems to be the largest open model ever and the other is perhaps the cheapest. But they're also not on par with the top frontier models – which unlike DeepSeek, are getting updated left and right at the moment (see: above). So... the question remains if open models truly reach "good enough" status for their cost advantages to eat into frontier's take. Meanwhile, some key models in China are following Meta and going the other way, locking down the cutting edge... [Bloomberg 🔒]
📈 Intel's Bounce Back – With the stock up – checks ticker – 25% today, Intel share price is now past its Dot Com era peak. This is wild any way you slice it – that was 26 years ago – but especially given how downtrodden Intel has been over the past many years after famously failing to capitalize on the shift to mobile and then, at first, to AI. But the broader chip boom is raising all boats. Intel may not make GPUs, but their CPUs are still vital for data centers (and yes, some PCs) and now it seems like Pat Gelsinger's big foundry bet may be starting to pay off, with Tesla signed on to use their advanced '14A' node (eventually). Sadly, Gelsinger didn't survive the Board and Lip-Bu Tan was smart in playing the game on the field, as it were – which meant giving the government a taste of the upside here. That $8.9B for around a 10% stake is now worth around $40B.Might Apple get back on board with using Intel for at least some of their chip needs – maybe modems, the business they bought from Intel? Even just packaging? Seems like Amazon and Microsoft are hanging around the rim. Intel isn't quite back at their peak market cap, which was just over $500B in August 2000, but they're close. The only problem? NVIDIA's market cap just shot past $5T again today by taking advantage of an opportunity Intel missed at first. [NYT]
"When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to 'kiss my ass'."
– The President of the United States of America, giving his honest assessment of the power dynamic between himself and the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world who just announced he's stepping down from the role – but not fully leaving Apple as he'll still be in charge of interacting with said President.
With new leadership in place, Microsoft is very clearly trying to make Xbox great again. "Microsoft Gaming"? Goodbye. Game Pass prices? Cut. Call of Duty? Back to being sold to start – perhaps for a year or more, which just makes sense. Exclusive titles? May be back too. I would still put some of the games on other systems after an exclusive window as it could entice players to switch to your platform for sequels, etc. This is all so obvious, it makes you wonder what the hell Microsoft was going for these past few years. The answer, I fear, is nobody knows.
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• OpenClaw Struggles
• Big Tech Layoffs Amidst AI Boom
• and more...
2026-04-23 21:22:08
Well, it won't be a small bet. In fact, in the Age of AI, with the biggest bets ever around technology unfurling in front of our eyes, it may end up the biggest of all. I guess you'd expect nothing less from Elon Musk.
I speak, of course, about SpaceX, and xAI, and maybe Cursor, and maybe Mistral, and probably Tesla. And fine, I guess even Xitter too. As much as I hate to invoke it, we may be seeing an almost Jobsian-unveiling of a grand plan here: these are not three (or four, or five, or six) separate companies. These are one company. And we're calling it... SpaceXaiCursorMistralTesla.
Honestly, he should probably just call it all X, fulfilling the prophecy. One I've been writing about for nearly a decade, mind you...
2026-04-22 22:01:29
Yes, yes, another new title and format tweak. But this time, I'm fairly confident in the path forward here. As I've said from the get-go, the aim of the newsletter component of Spyglass is for it to be a less formal, more parseable delivery mechanism of links and thoughts. And as the Spyglass columns have crept longer, so too has the newsletter, as the email size-limit overflow indicators have made me acutely aware of over time. So I'm trying to whittle it back a bit to the basics. I aim for it to be something simple to open, scan, digest, and close. And then repeat on regular intervals at regular times.
Inklings is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
💫 Cursor + SpaceX – In noting a compute deal between the two last week, I wrote, "Would be very curious how this deal came together/was structured" – because while the high level notion made some level of sense, it sure felt like there would need to be a lot of structure around it for both sides. As it turns out, that structure is a $60B call option for SpaceX to buy the entire company! And if they don't, they'll pay a "mere" $10B – sort of a de-facto break-up fee, albeit tied to compute deals. Price aside, this actually makes more sense to me. Cursor is under immense pressure from the foundation labs who have decided their space is the most important one to own at the moment. They clearly had an option on the table to keep going, which seems to say a lot (though also perhaps bullishness around SpaceX pre-IPO shares, obviously). And SpaceX – meaning, the xAI subsidiary – is under immense pressure because they can't compete in that um, space, yet. And why buy two utters when you can get the whole cow? Next question: will Anthropic and/or OpenAI now fully pull their models from Cursor? Sure, that means forgoing money, but Anthropic in particular could undoubtedly use the capacity back at the moment. The real loser here may be Meta, which has no viable coding option yet. Forget Space Twitter, and Space Data Centers, now we have Space Vibe Coding! [NYT]
🐦 Xitter Custom Timelines – This feels a lot like a feature created to try to put Grok to use rather than any sort of actual user demand. Xitter would undoubtedly say this is the holy grail for casual users, but I think it's sort of the opposite: they want one feed built for them, not 75 they have to hunt and peck between. But really, are "casual" users still even on Xitter? I guess they want to try to lure them, and the growth hacks seem to be doing that to some extent, but this would also seem to be an indicator that they still don't stick around. The service still has an edge in breaking news (and sports) but Threads now eats their lunch algorithmically for those non-vital times. If Meta can bridge that gap... Xitter is increasingly a mess content-wise. They keep insisting links aren't being "de-boosted" (anymore), but then they do things like jack up the price of posting links by those using the APIs (so, news orgs) by – checks notes – 1,900%. But that's just to combat spam, you see. How about you task Grok with that. Mainly, it's nice to see that from Twitter to X, the people building the product are continuing the legacy of not understanding what the user base actually wants and instead focusing on random stuff to try to win battles they lost years ago. [@nikitabier]
🖼️ ChatGPT Images 2.0 – It's good. Very good. Does it eat 'Nano Banana'? Time will tell – presumably, Google has an answer in the works... will they save it for Google I/O in a month or move it up? – but in general, it's good to see OpenAI back on offense, product-wise after the past few months playing full-on defense. And it's obviously smart to play up image capabilities as it's something that Anthropic simply does not offer with Claude. You might say that focus has helped them – and certainly, OpenAI was doing far too much a few months ago – but image generation feels like a fairly core competency – including in the enterprise, by the way – that Anthropic will likely have to match at some point. For now, it's OpenAI vs. Google (and yes, xAI, Microsoft, Midjourney, Black Forest Labs, and others to lesser extents), and it feels like OpenAI is back out front again. (Though I do miss the 'DALL-E' name – we've come a long way – it seems like this is a new set of models, including with "Thinking" and web search capabilities.) [TechCrunch]
🍏 Tim Cook's "Textbook Succession" – One focal point of my piece about Cook's transition from CEO was "why now?" and in his town hall with Apple employees, he seemingly confirmed the notion that it was a convergence of factors, notably: the business doing great, a robust pipeline of products, and John Ternus being ready. I'm still guessing the 50th anniversary of the company was at play too (as well as his 15th anniversary as CEO, which he'll pass in late August just before he steps down – and the fact that he'll get to perform his new role on the Board for a nice, round 10 years, if Apple still cares about the 75 age limit at that point), but I do generally believe the blockbuster Q1 earnings (and the market cap being back above $4T – a proxy for investor confidence) with so much uncertainty looming made this a sort of a perfect storm, in a good way for Cook. You don't want to exit when everything is going to hell – just ask Bob Iger, which (as a former Apple board member) Cook probably did! In his remarks, Cook also clearly wanted to get in front of any health whispers – which as I noted in a footnote, have been out there, but seemingly not addressed... I have many more thoughts on the Ternus side of this equation. Likely for a post tomorrow. [Bloomberg 🔒]
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• OpenAI's Forward-Deployment Company
• Amazon's $25B Anthropic Investment
• Google Falling Behind in AI Coding
• and more...