Why do I write this newsletter? To be known well, not to be well-known. Follow me on X , Threads & Instagram .
1/ Google is the dark horse in AI
Only Google can mess up a good thing multiple times. Google has struggled to play the perception game that has turned against it after the launch of ChatGPT and with Sathya’s offense on all things AI.
Google released an impressive Gemini AI preview series and the success lasted for two days. Before media started to observe that the demo is not so much as a demo but series of well constructed prompts. Or a series of good demos complied to one great demo.
This is obviously putting Google back again in the perception wars of AI. The keyword here is perception.
If everything is perception & marketing than nothing in the world will be a surprise. In case of Google in AI, don’t let the perception confuse you. Google is still the dark horse in AI. Google was talking about AI in every Pixel device launch since last 5 years while the tech industry and VCs were saying that Crypto is the next big thing.
The day to day news cycle exists to take your attention and make you click & confuse you. AI is a continuous innovation not a discontinuous one. Google has strong fundamentals in AI and the AI cycle is much longer than 12 months of ChatGPT. Google has shipped more AI products via Gmail, Google Search, Ads and most importantly Google Pixel than any other company. So just because Google has failed to market itself doesn’t mean its a loser in AI.
Google is still a dark horse in AI.
2/ Sports teams are at their peak. Its a downhill from here.
Middle east sovereign wealth funds are being sold by Private Equity that investing in sports teams is the best use of their money for a post oil world. Or to just build cultural equity on a world stage.
This fueled a massive inflows into sports teams, top players being paid insane amounts. But I think this will do little in terms of economic and cultural equity of the middle east.
Economically it looks like they are buying these teams at their peak instead of being smart and buying them at a low and create new equity. Take Ryan Reynolds for an example, he bought a soccer team for 2M euros and not for 220M. Instead Ronaldo was paid $220M to play for Saudi football club.
Best investments are buy low and sell high. Not buy high and sell somewhat higher.
3/ Who is the winner of OpenAI’s Weekend War?
As I think more and more about the Open AI’s bloody weekend. Its more and more clear that employees at Open AI are the real winners in all of this. They have successful saved their multi-million dollar stock exits by empowering Sam Altman come back.
Any other outcome would have costed them years to rebuild the same equity. The rumored secondary transaction worth $4B led by Thrive Capital is said to be on hold. But I think we can expect a secondary transaction happening in next 12 months that will benefit the employees.
Some have lost principles, some lost friends, some lost board seats, but Open AI employees sealed their exits.
Till Next Time, Stay Above Average.