2026-04-21 18:59:28
I remember the last time Apple transitioned CEOs quite well. The date was August 24, 2011.1 It was a Wednesday. Steve Jobs issued a press release. It was so short and shocking that I simply posted it to TechCrunch in full under the headline: Steve Jobs Resigns As CEO Of Apple.2
To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.
Steve
Yes, that's right, Jobs issued the statement ahead of the Board formally voting on Tim Cook to be Jobs' successor (though, as noted, the succession plan was in place and Cook, of course, had to step in before when Jobs was previously ill). Nor had they appointed him as Chairman of the Board yet. He was simply recommending these changes alongside resigning, effective immediately.3
As Cook now makes his transition out of that same CEO role – which yes, that Board did appoint him to later that day in 2011, as well as adding him to said Board while making Jobs Chairman – the contrast could not be any more clear.
First and foremost, Apple issued a release (and the 8-K filing) on a Monday, a bit after the markets had closed for the day.4 And actually, the Board met last Friday, April 17, to formally vote on these changes. Yes, they somehow, for once, executed a major course of action without it leaking. Of course, it was also widely known/believed that John Ternus was the successor, and Apple played their part in telegraphing that by raising his profile throughout the past few years, but stepped it up with profiles and the like in the past few months.
There was a parallel to the Jobs transition in that Cook is also being elevated to Chairman of the Board with his move out of the CEO role, and Ternus is being appointed to the Board – all effective at the same time: September 1, 2026. Again, this is not the abrupt Jobs exit, it's an actual transition, executed in orderly fashion.
The current Chairman is Arthur Levinson, who has held that title since shortly after Jobs passed away in 2011 (and has himself served on the board since 2000, shortly after Cook joined the company). When Cook is elevated, Levinson will shift to become the lead independent director. In fact, this bit is why I was pretty certain that Cook would be stepping down as CEO soon.
In January, Apple waived the guidelines which have long stated that Board members should step down at age 75. This impacted Ronald Sugar (77) but undoubtedly more importantly, Levinson, who was 75 at the time (and has since turned 76). Apple has had a lot of turnover at the top in recent months – including at the Board level with other retirements – and they clearly wanted to keep some stability, undoubtedly knowing Cook's reign was winding down. It would have been awkward to elect a new Board Chair if Cook would soon be stepping into that role. And it would have been weird to appoint new members if Ternus would soon be elevated. So yeah, I think I successfully read those tea leaves.
Still, Cook misdirected a bit about the shift in recent interviews. But I read that as Cook just being Cook. After years of honing the art of deflecting about Apple's future products, he finally got a chance to use the skill when it came to his own future. As I wrote last November, there were several reasons to think Cook was contemplating retiring this coming year, including undoubtedly wanting to go out on a high note. Sure enough, Apple issued truly blockbuster, record-breaking Q1 results in late January. And the stock is back at the $4T market cap threshold.
As for why exactly now, two more thoughts. First, we're less than two weeks away from Apple's next earnings results, on April 30. I wouldn't read this as an indication on if they'll be bad or good, but Q2 is simply never as good as Q1, which includes the all-important holiday quarter. So again, Cook gets to announce at the top. Second, and probably more importantly, Apple celebrated its 50th birthday on April 1. If there was any question how much that mattered to Cook, look no further than every single interview he gave and appearance he made where he was quick to note that while Apple, historically, never looks back, they were making an exception here. He was making an exception here. A well-deserved victory lap for the company and a sort of subtle parting gift from and for Cook himself.
As for September 1, the actual transition date. It's almost exactly one week after Cook's CEO start date 15 years ago. Again, August 24, 2011. More importantly, it's likely a week or two before Apple's next iPhone event. What better way to usher in a new CEO than on the biggest stage imaginable? Will John Ternus lead an in-person event, live from Cupertino, for the first time in years? I wouldn't rule it out!
And it gives Cook one final keynote as well, at this June's WWDC. He will obviously be there in person, so actually might we see one last Cook live keynote? Maybe, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that ship hasn't sailed for Cook. Clearly, he prefers the recorded keynotes, and who can blame him, as he had to fill the shoes of perhaps the greatest ever to grace such a stage...
Speaking of, I already talked about Cook's legacy in that post from back in November. I mean, the numbers are incredible. He nearly quadrupled revenue from an already insanely large base to over $400B. And he more than quadrupled profit over the same span to over $100B in the most recent fiscal year. Apple's market cap was just over $350B when Cook came in to the role. As noted, by that count, he has more than 10x'd Apple's value. Talk about insanely great.
Of course, the reign hasn't been perfect. In particular, there are complaints on the developer side in recent years. Meanwhile, on the product side, while Cook has unquestionably helped to make the Apple Watch and AirPods two huge hits, his true business legacy within Apple will be the continued growth of the iPhone base and wrapping a Services business around it that will one day surpass the device as Apple's biggest business.
Cook will undoubtedly want to be remembered for all the health initiatives, mainly tied to the Watch, and those are amazing, but history will undoubtedly look back to the numbers and the products. Again, the numbers are great, the products... less so. The two major would-be Next Big Things™, were to be the Apple Car and the Vision Pro. The Car, of course, never left the garage after a decade of work and shifts in strategy. The Vision Pro, meanwhile, could have used more time in the shop. It launched into a market that simply wasn't ready with a price that failed to move any needles. Maybe, like the Watch, Apple is able to whittle it into a good business, but it's going to take years.
And then there's AI. I probably don't need to write any more about that. Apple fumbled the bag badly here, though it's TBD how much that actually will matter in the long run. Apple could end up looking prescient in not spending hundreds of billions of dollars on their own data centers – or they could look foolish. The boring reality will probably be somewhere in the middle. For now, Apple seems to be sitting pretty with a new Google partnership in place and ready to roll-out soon – perhaps announced by Cook at WWDC and actually ushered into reality under Ternus during the iPhone event in the Fall.
Regardless, this will be on Ternus' shoulders now. Well, and Craig Federighi's, the other key Apple executive who is young enough to likely be around for a while, assuming he stays to correct Apple's AI woes.
Definitely staying will be Ternus' hardware counterpart Johny Srouji – aka the father of Apple Silicon. Clearly there was some truth to the notion that he was thinking about leaving Apple – which was reported, but denied – otherwise you wouldn't get a big elevation and press release at the same time the CEO change is announced. Apple needed to keep Srouji happy to keep him around, and they clearly have. And that will be vital for all of Apple's future products as Apple's silicon expertise – beyond just their CPUs – is arguably their greatest strength right now. And what if – just what if – they eventually parlay that into some kind of true AI business as well?
Back to Cook. Another key difference from the last Apple CEO change is that 'Executive Chair' role Cook will fill. But actually he won't fill it, he'll make it, because it's a different title than either Levinson or even Jobs commanded as Chair. It's important because it means that Cook very much intends to remain working at the company, just in a different capacity. It's right there in the second paragraph of the press release:
Cook will continue in his role as CEO through the summer as he works closely with Ternus on a smooth transition. As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.
I mean, Apple didn't write, "including engaging with Donald Trump", but they may as well have. This was always clearly going to be a part of Cook's future with Apple. For better or worse, Cook has been able to engage President Trump in a way that few other business leaders have. This has helped Apple immensely at times. And hurt them at others. Live by "Tim Apple", die by "Tim Apple" as it were.
It's hard to imagine John Ternus filling this role, because it's hard to imagine anyone filling this role. Because it's hard to imagine Cook wanting to burden anyone else at Apple with such a role. Again, I believe he's taken up this cause as his own burden to bear for the sake of the company. Yes, it simply must be soul-sucking at times – when you have to present a gold trinket for all to see in the Oval Office, or when you have to go to a movie screening at the White House just as citizens are being murdered on the streets – and Cook will have to live with that legacy, which undoubtedly will further tarnish when Trump is out of office.
But Cook also sort of did some soul selling much earlier in his career when he basically bet all of Apple on China – not the market for sales (though that's obviously vital for Apple now as well), but for manufacturing. It was insanely prescient when Cook was still COO in charge of such things, but it became more problematic over time as China itself changed and America's stance towards it as well. Still, Cook has managed to balance that situation to date – certainly better than, say NVIDIA has! – and presumably he'll continue to in his new role as Apple's Diplomat.
And just because I'm laying into him here, I will note that Cook deserves a lot of credit for standing up to the FBI when it came to iPhone device privacy. Something which has been playing out more recently in the UK as well. You have to pick your battles, as Cook has.5
And now his watch has ended. Or will, soon enough. I'll close with something I wrote back in August 2011, a few days after Jobs stepped down:
This fall is shaping up to be a great first act for Cook. All set up by the timing of Jobs’ resignation. The only real question is: is it Cook or Jobs that takes the stage at their event next month to announce these things? Will it be a “hello” or a “goodbye”?
Sadly, it was the "hello" for Cook, who oversaw his first keynote as CEO, introducing the iPhone 4S – the first device built around Siri – and Jobs passed away the following day. As I closed that piece:
Steve Jobs is a remarkable person. He’ll go down as perhaps the greatest business leader and one of the greatest innovators of not just our time, but of any time. But he is just a man. What he’s built in Apple is much bigger. We’re emotionally tied to Jobs because of the belief that Apple is tied to him. His last act is to show us that it’s not. That would be truly amazing.
In that way, Tim Cook successfully executed Steve Jobs' strategy, one last time.
1TechCrunch itself was in a bad state at the time, with founder Michael Arrington about to leave. Per my calendar at the time, I was meeting with VCs – not to fundraise, but to become one, just a few weeks later.
2For a time, I believe this post had the most traffic across all of TechCrunch. That's how shocking it was and how beloved/revered Jobs was within Silicon Valley and beyond.
3 Jobs' last official Apple event ended up being WWDC 2011, where the focus was on the iCloud, and getting it right this time. Making sure, "it just works." This was also, incidentally, the first and only time I got a chance to meet and sit down with Jobs, just after the keynote.
4 Jobs announcement was also after the markets were closed, but it was such a shock that the stock had to be halted for a brief period in after-hours trading that day. So far, Cook's announcement has Apple's stock little changed...
5 Lastly, on a much more somber note, but it simply must be mentioned because seemingly no one else is calling it out... Around the time of the initial Cook retirement reports, not one but two different stories at two different publications reported that Cook had been seen with a slight tremor in his hands and that some people internally and externally were worried about it. Apple has not officially denied such reports, but seems to be operating on background suggesting that they are not true, or that there's nothing to worry about. So it's hard to know what to make of that. But again, it's worth mentioning given Apple's history with CEO changes and health. Tremor or not, Cook is clearly not in the dire state Jobs was in when he (again, abruptly) stepped down. And again, he's clearly going to be continuing on in this new capacity and so now perhaps it's a moot point. Once he's no longer CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, his health can be his own private matter again (there are no firm rules about public Board members and health disclosures, though if Cook is truly acting as a diplomat of sorts that is material to Apple's business, there may be some gray area there). Anyway, hopefully there's nothing there. But it's weird that no one is even mentioning it – even if to firmly deny it – after the initial reports.
2026-04-21 00:48:45
Dossier is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
📲 Apple's New Siri UI – The WWDC26 graphic signals a UI tweak coming to Siri, according to Mark Gurman. A literal glow-up, it would appear. But I remain most intrigued by the notion that when triggered, Siri pops out of the Dynamic Island with a prompt: "Search or Ask". Why on Earth would these be two different options? I assume to replace Spotlight, but it's 2026, the system should just be smart enough to do that initial routing for you. I'm guessing Apple doesn't want to risk running an AI query if you're just, say, searching for an app you have installed? Or maybe, more worryingly, they're trying to deduce if you're trying to do a web search versus a chatbot query? Again, these are increasingly the same thing and at the very least, the system should do this for you. Having an option here is just an annoying cognitive load that feels like it was needed when AI was more rigid (or when it existed as "Dr. Know" in A.I. the movie). We'll see, but this worries me about Apple's AI implementation – shocking, I know. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🗣️ Jensen Huang on the Dwarkesh Podcast – Oh boy what a doozy. Jensen seems seriously pissed off by the time they start talking about China. It's a slow-boil up until that point, with Dwarkesh pushing first on the fact that arguably the two leading models at the moment – Claude and Gemini – were primarily trained on chips from Amazon and Google and not NVIDIA. Jensen's argument is basically that without the outlier situation of Anthropic, there would be no TPU or Trainium success at all – which of course isn't true given Gemini, but still, he's making the point that Anthropic surely would have gone with NVIDIA had Amazon and Google not made their massive investments into Anthropic early on, and he admits it was a mistake that NVIDIA didn't do so! Which, of course, points to why they're now making such massive investments into the various players, including Anthropic. (And perhaps suggests why Jensen went over-the-top with the OpenAI investment at first before pulling back.) But again, he's most pissed off when talking through the notion that Anthropic's "Mythos" model is proof that America needs to hold back chips from China. Jensen, who, of course, would really like to sell chips to China, more or less attacks Dwarkesh as ignorant on the matter. But it's Jensen who comes across as rattled and contradictory. (To be clear, I do agree with Jensen's thought that the nuclear weapons analogy – on which a lot of the rhetoric is based – is a lousy one.) Well worth the listen! Mainly because 80% of such podcasts – and roughly 100% involving Jensen – are full-on marketing at the moment. This stands out as decidedly not that. [Dwarkesh]
🏩 Airbnb Gets Into the Hotel Business – Well, boutiques, at least. Sort of surprised they didn't do this sooner – especially given the shitshow that is trying to book an Airbnb in New York City, for example – but yeah, it runs the risk of shifting the whole service away from the movement it created and towards more of a middle-man standard booking app. And it would seem that the (latest) attempt to becoming the "everything" app for travel (aside from those hotels!) hasn't really panned out. Still, the company has always had a good product sense – not to mention some outlandish ideas – so hopefully this offering slots right in. [FT 🔒]
"You're not talking to somebody who woke up a loser. That loser attitude, that loser premise, makes no sense to me."
– Jensen Huang, during the most contentious point of the above interview. And yes, he followed that up with, "We are not a car." Which obviously got quickly meme'd. (He was referencing Dwarkesh citing Tesla as an example of a company that operated in China but was overtaken by local players anyway.)
Yeah, Jensen was clearly beyond merely "delighted" here...
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• OpenAI Shedding Executives
• An Anthropic/Washington Detente
• Does Salesforce Have an AI Problem?
• and more...
2026-04-18 05:55:14
Been working on a tweaked/streamlined format, which will start next week. For now, enjoy a random barrage of thoughts/links.
Spyglass Dossier is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
✨ The Gemini Mac App – Pretty barebones, but still nice to have. And necessary to have for Google, if they truly hope to rival ChatGPT and now Claude, which is rising fast not just in the coding world, but in the day-to-day of my life. A tab on the web just isn't good enough. While baking Gemini directly into Chrome may be (and you have to imagine becomes problematic for regulators at some point), there are a few people here and there that don't use Chrome day-to-day (including me). One fun/funny bit: Google opted to use option+space as the default keyboard short cut to launch Gemini, which is interesting since it's the exact same shortcut that OpenAI uses for ChatGPT (Anthropic goes with double-tapping option for Claude, and Apple itself uses command+space for Spotlight and double-tapping command for Siri). That doesn't not seem like a coincidence. As OpenAI looks to bring more into ChatGPT to make it a "super app" what might Google layer in here? One idea: a native Gmail client. How killer would that be – especially if email is going to be one key agentic use case... [9to5Google]
🎬 Reed Hastings (Fully) Leaving Netflix – End of an era, but also not surprising. In terms of exits, this is about as graceful as you will see, with a long goodbye in the form of board chair role. (Undoubtedly what Apple would like to copy for Tim Cook soon enough.) By contrast, Bob Iger's final farewell from Disney – which, to be fair, was far more prolonged for other reasons – will be much more abrupt at the end of this year. It sure feels like Netflix is Ted Sarandos' company now. Yes, technically Greg Peters is co-CEO, but as the failed Warner Bros deal made clear, there's a sort of Sith master/apprentice situation going on. And Hastings clearly wasn't exactly gung-ho about the prospects of the Warner deal, but largely swallowed his tongue and ego to be a good board member for Sarandos. Now he won't have to do that anymore. And I look forward to his thoughts on future Netflix endeavors! [WSJ 🔒]
🍿 The Hunt for Gollum Cast – I think Jamie Dornan is a good choice for Strider – aka Aragorn. Yes, it would have been fun to have Viggo Mortensen return, but he's also 67 years old and would be playing a version of himself that's supposed to be about 15-20 years younger than he was in The Fellowship of the Ring. That movie came out 25 years ago so... you can do the math. They could have de-aged, but doing so in our current Age of AI probably just would have pissed people off. (Gandalf and Frodo are other stories – especially for the ever-elderly Ian McKellen – now 86! – and the ever-youthful Elijah Wood – now 45!) Leo Woodall as Strider's hunting partner certainly looks of that world. But mainly I'm excited that Lee Pace is also back as Thranduil. [THR]
M.G. Siegler
"Now, I know you’re all wondering when we’re going to announce who’s playing James Bond. Please know that we’re taking the time to do this with care and deep respect. It is the dream of a lifetime for all of us to bring audiences this next chapter, and it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly."
– Courtenay Valenti, Amazon MGM's head of film, addressing the elephant in the room at CinemaCon this past week. First, obviously that's nice to hear. Second, it sure sounds like they have not made a choice yet, despite endless, rampant speculation and reports. That also makes sense – director Denis Villeneuve just wrapped Dune 3. Those meetings/screen-testings are probably just underway...
Honestly this Street Fighter trailer, as ridiculous as it may be, gives me less pause than the recent He-Man trailers. It just seems more over-the-top in several ridiculous ways which I think may end up with a better vibe? Or maybe I'm just a sucker for Four Non Blondes and the fact that this is coming out the same year as the Mortal Kombat II movie (which also looks fun), just like the good old days...
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• Can Snap Cut Its Way To Success?
• Cleaning Up the Xbox Game Pass Mess
• xAI Gets Cursor to Cover Some Server Costs
• and more...
2026-04-15 06:47:00
Well would you look at that... despite Netflix losing out on the deal to buy Warner Bros, it seems like they're still interested in the box office business...
Ted Sarandos might be changing his tune when it comes to theatrical exhibition.
The Netflix co-CEO came to Las Vegas on Sunday night and met with several heads of exhibition, including AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron, Regal CEO Eduardo Acuna and Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble, talking over the possibility of putting more Netflix films into theaters, according to two individuals with knowledge of the meeting. He’s “dipping his toe in the water,” one individual said.
My guess remains that he's doing more than that. Of course, I've been guessing that for a while now. Long before the surprise Warner Bros offer, I wrote an entire post in October 2024 predicting that Netflix's next change in stance (following ads and sports) would be around starting to truly leverage movie theaters. Yes, they had "dipped their toes" here and there, but largely for awards qualification reasons. My bet was that they would fully embrace the theaters.
Well, maybe not fully, but only because it doesn't actually make sense in our current age to "fully" go all-in on theatrical. If a movie is going to bomb, what's the point? And Netflix makes a lot of movies that would bomb at the box office (but do quite well on Netflix). It would be a more hybrid approach, leveraging the theatrical window where it made sense. Which is also what all movie studios should be doing, obviously.
Anyway, my prediction looked great when Netflix announced the Warner Bros deal and Sarandos immediately changed his (quite loud and divisive) tune on theatrical. Netflix was going to keep the distribution system fully in tact for Warner's movies – note he specifically did not say all of Netflix movies, because again, that would be silly. But the implication was that because Netflix was buying this new "muscle" for how to do theatrical, the company would be leveraging it.
I mean, sure, on some level, what else was he going to say? Hollywood already hated the notion of Big Bad Tech swooping in to take out a historic studio – even though relative to the other giant companies that have bought studios throughout the years, Netflix looked like a relatively great buyer! – and Sarandos had to sell it. So he was telling anyone and everyone that he was all about theatrical now – even doing so under oath!
Still, I believed him! Perhaps because I was biased by my prediction, but I only made the prediction because it makes sense! Netflix absolutely should be leveraging theatrical more than they have to date. They clearly left a ton of money on the table with the Knives Out franchise. And Warner deal aside, I think the "stunts" like KPop Demon Hunters and releasing the finale of Stranger Things in theaters showcased this potential to Sarandos and team.
To the point where I kept saying that I would bet that Netflix continues down the theatrical path even if they don't get the Warner Bros deal. And well, here we are!
Further, the fact that now both Apple and Amazon – Netflix's tech brethren – have had big theatrical hits in the form of F1 (which, to be clear, likely didn't even break even at the box office, but that's only because of Apple pulling out all the stops, marketing and cost-wise, to make sure the film was a success – perhaps tied to their eventual takeover of the actual F1 sport broadcast rights) and now Project Hail Mary (which will end up a legitimately huge hit for Amazon MGM). For the right project, Netflix can also earn hundreds of millions at the box office, if not billions for their biggest hits, obviously. Why leave that money on the table?
Well...
In his meetings, he told the exhibitors that he is thinking about changing Netflix’s policy on theatrical, but that “the problem is it hurts the platform,” citing what he said were lackluster results for Apple or Amazon releases after a theatrical run, according to one of the knowledgeable individuals.
To which the theatrical side apparently noted that F1 has had an "incredibly successful" run on streaming. And one presumes Project Hail Mary may have an even bigger one given the relative size of Prime Video to Apple TV...
But even putting Project Hail Mary aside, Amazon has been able to leverage streaming to salvage clunkers that they put in theaters. And, you could certainly argue, that some such movies have done well on streaming because they were in theaters. Good or bad reviews aside, it gives them an aura that draws people in on the streaming services. Unlike Project Hail Mary, this is not rocket science.
Netflix has a huge slate for the rest of the year, including but not limited to the Russo Brothers-produced thriller “The Empty Man,” the animated fairy tale “Steps,” the David Fincher-directed, Quentin Tarantino-scripted follow-up to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” animation legend Brad Bird’s “Ray Gunn” and Greta Gerwig’s big budget fantasy “Narnia.”
“Narnia” has already secured a limited IMAX engagement on Thanksgiving — a first-of-its-kind release for Netflix — before streaming on the platform at Christmas. But if Netflix changes its strategy and goes wider with “Narnia,” it could go toe-to-toe with all of the big holiday movies this year, like Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Doomsday” and Sony’s “Jumanji 3.”
Yeah, Narnia will obviously be a big hit, and Greta Gerwig was clever in her "hacking" of the Netflix (and theatrical) system by doing the IMAX deal. And while Wuthering Heights hasn't been a massive hit at the box office, you can still certainly argue that Netflix should have done that to keep stars like Gerwig's Barbie collaborator, Margot Robbie, happy – and, with hindsight, all of Hollywood.
Anyway, just from a pure box office perspective, it makes sense for Netflix to do more theatrical – if they can do it more in line with their way. Again, not every movie, and not the unnaturally long windows that studios are suddenly backing into again. It's a business, all of these companies should do what makes business sense. That's some level of theatrical for certain types of movies, but that's not something theater owners and their lobbys are going to want to hear!
So Sarandos and Netflix will have to figure out a way to outsmart them to get what they want out of the business. And they have a long history of doing just that. But step one is definitely showing up to Cinemacon even after you lost out on a deal to buy a studio. Who knows, Netflix may end up owning some such assets yet. And if not, they're going to be putting more of their content in theaters regardless.
Don't be shocked if they start to dominate that business too...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
2026-04-14 03:43:44
Just when Meta thought they finally had a credible hardware answer to the iPhone, here comes Apple, with a number of advantages that are likely to make the "iGlasses" versus Meta Ray-Bans a fight in the way that Vision Pro versus the Quest was not (mostly because seemingly no one cared about that battle). Namely, the iPhone itself...
M.G. Siegler
Spyglass Dossier is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
💰 OpenAI's Path to $100B in Ad Revenue – Look, extrapolating future growth for startups is hard, if not impossible. Especially for high-growth startups and especially when launching new business lines. But suggesting that OpenAI's ads business will surpass $100B in revenue in 2030 – which is just four years from now – seems reckless? Even for internal projections. That would be 36% of the business that year as modeled. What if they don't hit it? What if they don't even come close? It's just a wild number. I mean, maybe they hit it, but there's basically no way they can know that now as again, they just started rolling out ads in tests on ChatGPT. So either this is an extremely loose model or they're planning to absolutely cram ads into the service over the next few years, perhaps regardless of the ROI. I will say, given Anthropic's very public – as in Super Bowl ad public – stance on ads, it's one area OpenAI can absolutely own versus their rival. Then again, there's Google sitting right there. Oh yes, and Meta. [Information 🔒]
💫 The Government Tries to Tackle Sports Streaming Rights – Well this will be a fun one for legal scholars. The DoJ is looking into if the NFL is being anticompetitive by spreading their games across so many different streaming options. Yes, in a sense, there is too much competition for their rights, which is spreading them wide, thus making it harder for consumers to watch. The old school networks, consumers, and the government will be on the same side of this, while the tech companies and the NFL will be on the other side. This was all inevitable given the splintered mess that everyone now sees because there is no true unifying layer to make this consumer-friendly – like, you know, cable. And because of the myriad streaming options, we're likely now paying more, certainly to far more players, than we ever did to... cable. But how might the government tell the NFL that they can't maximize their profits? By no longer allowing the teams to band together for such rights packages? Regardless, this all just delays the inevitable: Big Tech will fully control sports rights in a decade or two. [WSJ 🔒]
💻 MacBook Neo as the Best Thing to Happen to Windows – Tom Warren makes the case that Apple's new low-priced computer will force Redmond to wake up to the reality that the PC market is sort of a mess and Windows in particular, sucks. As he notes, Microsoft and the broader PC industry has historically performed better when a true challenger enters the picture – such as was the case with the shift to Apple Silicon. I mean, maybe. But it's also possible that Apple just eats the PC market's lunch here after years and years of refusing to compete at these price points. The MacBook Neo is that good, and the current state of Windows is that bad – in particular as Microsoft keeps trying to shove Copilot on to all surfaces – literally on the Surfaces. They're now pulling back after (predictable) backlash. But what other answer do they have here? [Verge]
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
"We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch."
– Andy Jassy in his annual letter addressing the notion that Amazon may be overextending themselves by ramping up CapEx to such levels – to the point where the company may flip into negative cash flow.
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• OpenAI is Sweating Anthropic
• Meta's Max Headroom Mark Zuckerberg
• The 'iPhone Fold' as the 'iPhone Ultra'
• and more...
2026-04-13 20:41:49
You know the scene in the movie where the kids thought they’ve fought off the killer only for him to reappear? Methodically walking towards them with a weapon? Yeah, to Meta, that must feel like Apple.
It was a mere two years ago when Apple unleashed their virtual reality – sorry, "Spatial Computing" – headset into the market to take on and potentially take out market leader Meta. Of course, the Vision Pro completely and utterly failed to make a dent in that market. Part of it was poor strategy, but the bigger issue was timing. For roughly the 30th year in a row, the VR market failed to materialize.
In a backwards way, Apple did hurt the Meta Quest. Because the Vision Pro failed to validate the market, even Meta is now pulling back. Sure the Quest still controls that world, but it's a tiny one. And one that's shrinking again. Meta's entire bet-the-company strategy – from name on down – on the metaverse now looks misguided at best. And certainly it was a distraction as the company looks to be competitive in the real battle: AI.
Still, Meta will say that without the billions burned on metaverse hardware, they wouldn't have ended up with their Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses. In yet another hardware market littered with bodies – AI wearables – Meta seems to have found an actual hit. As such, guess who's now coming for them?
Yep, theyyyyy'rrrreee baaaaccckkk...
