Platformonomics TGIF is a weekly roll-up of links, comments on those links, and perhaps a little too much tugging on my favorite threads.
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So many favorite threads require pulling this week.
News
Navigating Nuclear Obstacles: The Utilities
Deploying and utilizing nuclear power in the US is an endurance race through a labyrinth of licenses, lobbies and Luddites.
Exhibit A for this week: two utilities challenged Amazon’s recent deal to power their new data center adjacent to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant.
An advanced civilization’s quest for abundant energy continues.
Previous:
The Nuclear Call to Action, Nuclear: To SMR or Not to SMR?, Nuclear: To PPA or Not to PPA?, Cloud Power Up, Starting to think my nuclear power cheerleading work is done…, Yay Google: Nuclear Edition!, It’s Time to Build: Energy Edition, An Even More Nuclear-Powered Cloud, The Nuclear Power Vibe Shift Continues, Not That Kind of Nuclear Cloud, Better Late Than Never, Power Crunch, Behold the Nuclear Cloud, Nuclear Powered Cloud Data Centers Are Happening, A Nuclear-Powered Cloud, When Nuclear-Powered Data Centers?
Navigating Nuclear Obstacles: The Bees
Exhibit B(ee).
An advanced civilization’s quest for abundant energy continues.
The Arc of the Generative AI Universe Bends Towards Cash: Anthropic Edition
At one point I thought the relationship between Amazon and Anthropic was destined for major culture clash given Anthropic was the doomer-i-iest of AI companies:
“At times, I felt like a food writer who was assigned to cover a trendy new restaurant, only to discover that the kitchen staff wanted to talk about nothing but food poisoning.”
A couple weeks ago Anthropic dismounted from their safety-ism high horse and started uttering industry-standard banal platitudes about regulation:
Judicious, narrowly-targeted regulation can allow us to get the best of both worlds: realizing the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks.
Which set the stage for:
Why? One speculates it is because GPUs are very expensive. So now the culture clash between Amazon and Anthropic is merely over whether they have to use Amazon’s chips to get Amazon’s cash.
Previous:
Culture Clash Conjecture: Amazon and Anthropic, Amazon Even More Bullish on Finding a Compression Algorithm for Experience, 326 Features into a 10k Race, Existential Corner: How Many Steps into the 10K are We?, Team Primitives: What Sayest Thou?, Amazon Desperately Seeks Compression Algorithm for Experience, Most Greatest AI Company in Entire Universe Makes Major Strategy Pivot, SEC Embraces Platformonomics ClownWatch™, Warns Amazon and IBM, The AWS Generative AI Soap Opera, The Amazon AI Inferiority Complex
Checking the GPU Debt Market
Wall Street still Wall Streeting. Which always ends well.
Not Available in Europe: Better Late Than Never Apple Edition
Previous:
Not Available in Europe: This Week’s Edition, Not Available in Europe: Coming Soon to a Continent Near You, Not Available in Europe: Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned (by Meta), Not Available in Europe: A Tipping Point?, Not Available in Europe: Stratechery Edition, Not Available in Europe: Apple Edition, Not Available in Europe: Meta Edition
Not Available in Europe: Apple’s Math
Beyond the 10% number, I’m not sure those numbers are accurate, but it frames directionally the analysis Apple is doing.
Apple Acquires Pixelmator
I’ve argued that “Apple is likely to invest more in its own applications to drive that virtuous cycle of more information and context. The App Store equilibrium is over.”
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It is tough being just a thin layer on an relational database.
And his media misadventures are probably not helping his mood. He’s looking to dump Time magazine (after doing his best to further devalue it). And this tweet was probably the last straw for him. With Time off his plate, he can get back to figuring out who will take Salesforce off his hands.
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Benioff’s Blizzard of Bluster, Media Self-Harm: Declining Time Magazine, Media Self-Harm: Time Magazine Edition,
Salesforce + Indian Mystic + AI = ???, “There’s an art to this kind of horseshit, and Benioff is its Michelangelo”, The Hard Thing About “Hard Pivots”, Thought Leadership (in Mascots), Salesforce Rallies Its Deep Bench of AI Experts (and Cartoon Characters), Bluster, Bombast and Bullshit: Just Another Day at Salesforce, Salesforce’s Shamelessness is Staggering, Salesforce Gonna Salesforce, The Spectacle that is Dreamforce
Fractional CEO Adds to Responsibilities
Forget Elon v. Zuck. We’re swapping out Zuck for the Federal Government. Unstoppable force meets immovable object? Can the Department of Transportation “move fast and break things”? Founder mode or Founding Fathers mode? Minimum Viable President?
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Elon’s “Just Irresponsible” Gigafactory of Compute, Can Elon Build a Data Center?, Pollyanna Showdown, The Supreme Court has Ruled, Elon Musk Threatens to Ban Oracle?,
Who’s Getting the GPUs? Elon Shell Game Edition, Platformonomics ClownWatch™: Tesla, Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Elon Musk Part II, Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Elon/Twitter, Company Killed By Its Customers, Elon Cashes in All the Trust He’s Banked with Twitter, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 147, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 148, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 149
Living in a Glass House: Crossing the Virtual Picket Line
It isn’t just me that sees the New York Times first and foremost as an “aspiring tech company/cookie colossus/puzzle purveyor” — so too their union:
The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as Wordle, and not using the Cooking app. It added that it had filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against The Times with the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s return-to-office mandates…
The Times did have a pretty good day after the election despite the strike:
Previous:
Living in a Glass House: Pet Bereavement Accommodations Edition, Living in a Glass House: It’s a Union Shop, Living in a Glass House: Inflation Numbers, Existential Corner: What is the New York Times? Living in a Glass House: The New York Times On Tech, Living in a Glass House: What is the New York Times?, Aspiring Technology Company Neither Interested in Technology Nor Understands Technology
Software Industry Trade Association Migration Alert: CompTIA
Private equity buys software industry trade group, which is weird, but you know what to do.
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Private Equity in Action: Fast Casual Restaurant Edition
The best bull case for private equity’s ability to not run software businesses into the ground is there are a lot more software podcasts than there are fast casual restaurants podcasts (“because every finance bro who has listened to a few podcasts thinks they can run a software company“).
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Private Equity in Action: WP Engine, Perfidious Private Equity, Private Equity in Action: Thrasio, Private Equity in Action: “How PE Keeps Planes in the Air”, Private Equity in Action: OtterTune,Private Equity in Action: PluralSight, Software Migration Alerts, Private Equity Will Buy and Ruin More Software Companies