Software In Shambles, OpenAI vs. Anthropic Super Brawl, Amazon’s Struggles

18:12Big Technology Podcast:You know, one of the interesting lines that we're picking up here is there was a time where robotic process automation was the hot new thing in software. And that wasn't, you know, necessarily AI. It wasn't AI. It was like sort of hard coded ways to teach a computer the ways to use your computer so you didn't have to do these menial tasks. And one of the things that made it so interesting was that it stitched together a lot of these broken parts of software. Like that's one of the things I think we should point out here. And I think you really hit on it is that software isn't perfect and it kind of got away because it beat excel it got away with it and people were talking about like these duct tape ways to stitch together software programs and if they could ever do that it would be a very big market opportunity and now that has potentially arrived just uh with llms and not in the robotic process automation way that i'll imagine well hold on one thing i want to

19:09Ranjan Roy:kind of really get across and i i see this that like and because remember and this is i fault the industry for how agentic was talked about is like a few months ago even now many of the conversations i have people still think of agentic as take an existing process and just add some ai to it like but you basically recreate that process with ai like the big change and difference and like this is a whole cloud code. You didn't, you're, you're no longer like using AI to generate individual bits of code. You're just reinventing the entire process. You're like, what do I actually want an outcome to be?

19:48Ranjan Roy:Go do it. And I think that's the, in any kind of knowledge work. So you take a legal zoom, like now you don't even care about what that process is. You just say, I need a document that does this, go out, research all the different types of reference documents and laws. Here's my information figure out what you need for me and create the document so so like yeah i think the promise is very clear more and more i agree it's going to take time like it's not happening tomorrow i think the stock market reaction is interesting because it feels like everyone is just getting

20:23Big Technology Podcast:this all at once yeah ronjan okay so you're clearly a believer in this uh why don't you give like the best steelman argument in terms of like how why this might not work Don't know tapping out on this one. Like where is the vulnerability that you're not seeing and we're not seeing?

20:39Ranjan Roy:I think – who should I be? Should I be monday.com here or LegalZoom?

20:46Big Technology Podcast:Yeah, let's run with either of those.

20:48Ranjan Roy:All right, all right. I think the value in those tools, there was – and I mean you brought it up. Like companies are slow. the value in those tools was never about the ui or the actual ease of use because god a lot of these tools are brutal to use is literally just having a safe compliant place for people to enter data so like when people say it's just a dumb database and ai is going to be a layer over it that there actually is value in them being that dumb structured database and that they're going to be able to fight and hold on for a bit i think like people it's true people are not going to rip them out anytime soon whether they can grow and stuff we'll see but they they have a they're not going away without a fight i'm sure this is definitely this is something that brett taylor

21:39Big Technology Podcast:brought up when we spoke uh a couple weeks ago and ben thompson also writes about this he says writing the original app is just the beginning there is maintenance security patches features new features changing standards uh writing an app is a commitment to a never-ending journey a journey to return to the original point, which that has nothing to do with the company's core competency, right? Something close to what you were saying. And then he says, in selling software, isn't just about selling code. There is support. There is compliance. There are integrations with other software. The list of what is actually valuable goes far beyond code.

22:12Big Technology Podcast:This is why companies don't purely open source software. They don't want code. They want a product and everything that entails. Would you say that that's basically the biggest counter argument against this? And if you're a bull on like today's software industry, you kind of like hold on to that and imagine that they're going to be able to build their chatbots or agents, you know, fast enough.

22:34Ranjan Roy:So I think I've been thinking about this a lot. Like it, even though I tried to take the steel man position for a Monday.com, like I really don't see the prices they charge relative to the value. I think what could happen is maybe there's like studios of AI native developers that actually create just tons and tons of new software that's highly customized and they do the management and they do the like versus if you're like, I don't know, like a paint distributor, you're not going to vibe code your own CRM. And there's companies that do that, but just do it a lot cheaper and at a different type of scale and model than these large SaaS companies.

23:20Big Technology Podcast:What's going to be interesting is that we're not going to be 100 % sure who's going to use these software platforms. And that's kind of like where it gets interesting. We talked about that a little bit. This is going back to Thompson. Human will be using software at least for a while, but increasingly so will agents. What isn't clear is who will be creating the agents. I expect every SaaS app to have their own agent, but that agent will be definitionally bound by the borders of the application. Different horizontal players, meanwhile, will be making a play to cover broader expanses of the business with the promises of working across multiple apps.

23:57Big Technology Podcast:So I think this is interesting, right? Like if you could get, let's say, a ChatGPT to a point where it's good enough to use your Monday.com and bring that data into, let's say, a ChatGPT pulse, you might get all the benefits of the Monday.com, but just not having to use Monday.com. And then, you know, effectively, you don't become a software program. You become a custodian of a database with better compliance. That's it.

24:22Ranjan Roy:You got it. I mean, that's the big debate. And if that's the future here, then that's exactly what it can look like. And then slowly you start to ask yourself, do I need to pay a lot of money for someone to just enter a task into this one system that's just going to be accessed and thought about in a completely different system?

24:43Big Technology Podcast:That's the threat. And time will tell, right? But I think one of the important things here is this is a shift in the market. A couple of months ago, I was watching Josh Brown on the halftime report earlier this week on CNBC, and he made a great point. He said, listen, the market in just a couple of months has gone from, is this a bubble to AI is going to work so well that software is dead. It really has happened in like, what, like less than a half a year. It's very interesting to see that shift.

25:09Ranjan Roy:I think what I, I think cloud code is at the basis of it is, is enough people. And again, I've brought this up for months now, like I've seen the power of autonomous knowledge work. Cloud Code introduced basically autonomous coding. And but that that shift in mentality of wait, I can actually do things, go off and work like it really changes the way you look at it when you're really thinking of it as like a person or a team going and doing work for you. So and then suddenly, I think the more people have seen it with their own eyes or done something, that's where all these light bulbs start going off.

25:51Big Technology Podcast:A couple of things before we move off the subject. This is from Derek Thompson. For me, the odds that AI is a bubble declined significantly in the last three weeks. And the odds that were actually quite underbuilt for the necessary levels of inference and usage went significantly up in this period. Basically, I think AI is going to become the home screen of a ludicrously high percentage of white-collar workers in the next two years, and parallel agents will be deployed in the battlefield of knowledge work at downright Soviet levels. Your response. That seems like a Ronjan take right there.

26:22Ranjan Roy:I like that one. I mean, this is what I am seeing firsthand. Like, I mean, that autonomous knowledge work, white-collar work, that's the stuff that's going to get completely disrupted and seeing it firsthand. But I think he makes one point there that I actually would push back on. Anyone listening right now can hear how convinced I am that this is going to happen. Now, what does that actually mean for any of the players involved, whether it's OpenAI or Anthropic or my company, Ryder? I have no idea how this plays out. I mean, the economics, no one has figured out. Are they going to IPO? Can OpenAI make money?

27:06Ranjan Roy:Are they going to win any of these individual big bets that they're taking? Is Google going to kill everyone? I actually think the landscape is more uncertain than ever. While I think at a high level, this is going to be the future, undoubtedly. It's even muddier than ever how this plays out.

27:29Big Technology Podcast:That's right. I think we still don't quite know who gets the value. Is it the foundational model builders? Is it the chip makers? Is it the application layer? Is it the consultants? Right? And I think that's why. Or nobody.

27:42Ranjan Roy:Yeah. Or does everything get so cheap? Is it just the complete value destruction? Yeah. It gets everything. No, the AI just codes, vibe codes itself. It removes the work and puts us all out of a job anyways. Yeah. Who knows? No way.

27:55Big Technology Podcast:Like, if it's powerful enough to just remove the job, then somebody is going to get value there. Like, there will be value to be found. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's still a question. but i think that's why we're seeing just to go back to that's why we're seeing the volatility in software that's why we're seeing the volatility in big tech every time there's like a number that's slightly off the market like again they're tanking amazon stock today which we can get to even though the market by the way the market's rebounded nicely dow just hit 50k again so but because of this uncertainty of who gets the value we're just going to be living in this moment of volatility

28:24Ranjan Roy:for a while i'm going to ask you and we don't make forward-looking statements on this show but But do you think, so again, there was like fear gripping the market, especially in software. The last month has been brutal. Do you think looking at today, the rebound, do you think we're a month from now, two months from now, do you think we're higher or lower across kind of like these software stocks that we're generally talking about?

28:54Big Technology Podcast:Yeah, again, this is not investment advice. I think we're higher. I really do. I think that like it's easy to tell yourself a story of what's going to happen. It's harder to really envision all the bureaucracy that has to sort of embrace it for that change to actually go through. Yeah.

29:12Ranjan Roy:That's what I think it's worth looking at. I think the most important thing is going to be in these conversations and the directional guidance, the kind of directional renewal rates, all these kind of things with these companies to see, is this really happening right now? Or is this something that we can see will happen eventually, but is not happening anytime soon?

29:38Big Technology Podcast:Here's one more stat from Dylan Patel, the founder of SemiAnalysis. 4 % of GitHub public commits are being authored by CloudCode right now. At the current trajectory, we believe that CloudCode will be 20 % plus of all daily commits by the end of 2026. While you blinked, AI consumed all of software development.

29:59Ranjan Roy:Yeah, I'm telling you, that was my, in December, that was my prediction for 2026 on this show, that what happened in software development is going to happen in knowledge work this year. end of this year it's happening maybe dario was right after all everybody left at his prediction that 50 of entry-level work was going to be gone actually it's a good point i mean i really have been thinking about this a lot like to me i actually like what it feels like when you're working in this way is that you're basically a manager you're managing all these different agents to do different type of work. So like you start to realize managerial skills become more important than ever.

30:43Ranjan Roy:So like who gets displaced and when and how is gonna be a really interesting thing. Is it like, if you're entry level, but AI native, are you gonna be better positioned? Or if you're kind of older and a manager, but you know how to delegate work, are you gonna be better? I don't know, it's gonna be, that's another whole direction. It's gonna be interesting to see how it plays out.

31:05Big Technology Podcast:Are you saying that the future of work is just going to be being in a chatbot window, being like, is it ready yet? How's it looking? How's it looking? Almost there? That's the future of work?

31:14Ranjan Roy:It's not even chatbot though. That's why I think on the Sierra episode with Brett Taylor, I was hearing you'd said chatbot. Chat's the UI right now, but maybe I'm using my agenticmonday.com to manage tasks and I see that they were completed by my agent and then I'm like, okay, I'm going to sign some other tasks. like but yeah i think that's that's going to be part of what you do for work we wake up

31:41Big Technology Podcast:is uh is my podcast prep ready oh god i mean it's already useful for that all right uh speaking of we have a war going on between him and sam altman uh in the most unlikely of battlefields shall we say the super bowl uh two companies with ads not dueling opening eyes that is all about building and ThropicStat is about trying to take OpenAI down a peg. And we will discuss this as we put on our ad agency hats right after this. Starting something new isn't just hard, it's terrifying. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will work out. And it can be hard to make that leap of faith.

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33:43Big Technology Podcast:We're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition. Well, it's Super Bowl weekend and Anthropic decided that this was the moment to take a shot at OpenAI. Hitting it where it hurts in the ads program. This is from Business Insider. Anthropic Super Bowl spot skewers chat GPT. Ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude. Anthropic is taking a shot at OpenAI on the biggest stage possible. On Wednesday, Anthropic rolled out a glitzy ad campaign that will air nationally during Sunday's Super Bowl, which implicitly centers on OpenAI's plan to bring advertising to ChatGPT. Ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude, the ad tagline reads.

34:24Big Technology Podcast:Oh my God, there was one that I saw. There's four of them, I think, and one I saw was really funny. It was in a therapist's office and a guy goes to the therapist, how do I communicate better with my mom? And the therapist says, and she's an older lady, and she says, great question. Improved communication with your mom can bring you closer. Here are some techniques you can try. Start by listening. Really hear what she's trying to say underneath her words. Build conversation from a point of agreement. Find a connection through shared activity, perhaps a nature walk. Or if the relationship can't be fixed.

34:55Ranjan Roy:If the relationship can't be fixed, find emotional connection with other older women on Golden Encounters, the mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars. What? The guy's like, what? These were so good. Did you see the personal trainer one? Yes. Yeah. But again, like, I think, OK, let's first talk about how good these were. Like, I think it nailed and remember South Park was the first one kind of like really that like skewered the sycophancy of ChatGPT. But even just nailing like the cadence of how ChatGPT responds much more than others. Great question. But then slowly degrading into the ad.

35:45Ranjan Roy:It was it was so good. And yeah, I think like Claude, it's kind of fun too, that this is actually probably giving them more name recognition, I think, than anything. Because remember, like the name Anthropic, most people, normies don't even know what that is. Claude is not a massive product at a kind of consumer scale. So I think they did a good job here. What do you think?

36:12Big Technology Podcast:My perspective is, first of all, the ad wasn't even intended for the Super Bowl. The ad was intended, by the way, they released it pre-Super Bowl. You know why? They wanted that ad to take off. People will pay attention to it if it's a Super Bowl ad, and they wanted it to take off so the potential business users of Anthropic would circulate that in the office, drop it in Slack. It makes it on Big Technology Podcast on a Friday, maybe. And that is the intended audience. I don't think they really care about the broader consumer audience. It's not like they're trying to make Pod gain a bunch of users.

36:45Big Technology Podcast:So from that standpoint, I think potentially successful. They also got OpenAI to respond. Should we go into the way that OpenAI responded? Because it seems like they went a little overboard in the response as well. They were baited.

36:57Ranjan Roy:I think we should.

36:59Big Technology Podcast:So here's what Sam Altman said. So he says, first, the good part of the Anthropic ads, they are funny, and I left. This is just me. By the way, I think we'd all agree they were pretty funny. He says, I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says we won't do exactly this, which we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that. I guess it's on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren't real. But a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it.

37:33Big Technology Podcast:More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access. Maybe even more importantly, Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI. They block companies they don't like from using their coding products, including us. They want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can't use AI for. And now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be. What do you think about this response? Oh, one more line. One authoritarian company. We care a great deal about safe, broadly beneficial AGI. and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare.

38:09Big Technology Podcast:One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It's a really dark path. It's a dark path. All right.

38:17Ranjan Roy:All right. So many layers to this one. Thank you, Sam, for giving us this gift of a response. One, I actually think it was like a pretty good idea to say. It's like they're using an ad in a deceptive way to criticize or to raise concern around deceptive advertising.

38:40Big Technology Podcast:So, like, I think it's kind of. There's a point there.

38:43Ranjan Roy:There's a point there. It's a little nuanced, but it's a point. Then you have the more Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use the cloud in the U.S. So we have a differently shaped problem. they do. This one I thought was so ridiculous because I think there's the chief marketing officer of open AI use the exact same line, which suddenly then anyone who sees that it feels so corporate. It feels like there's like a crisis comms team in there that coming up with like workshopping ideas. Someone says, I got a good one. Let's use Texas. And then everyone starts to kind of like in lockstep post that so i thought that part really weak and i actually think that kind of like undercut any value they potentially got out of posting this stuff then the last part what a weird thing to end on but the authoritarian company won't get us there on their own like how did he make that logical leap to anthropic is authoritarian was it because i think the the The implicit idea there is Anthropic keeps warning about the dangers of AI.

39:52Big Technology Podcast:Anthropic is very engaged in Congress for the way to regulate AI and, you know, almost dismisses other companies' attempts to take a different approach to AI. And so therefore, like, you know, and it's them basically, that's why he was like, they're trying to tell us what our business model is. And that's where he would say they're authoritarian.

40:11Ranjan Roy:I feel that's a little flippant on the authoritarian card. Like, come on. You can't, like, explain what you're trying to exactly say there. But even what you just described isn't authoritarian. I know you're just trying to help Sam out here. But that, to me, that was... Not even help him out.

40:31Big Technology Podcast:Just explain what he was saying.

40:32Ranjan Roy:Yeah, exactly. You're right, because it is a little opaque. it's it's just it's it's trying it's a little cavalier about authoritarian especially in this day and age so i think like uh yeah overall i'm gonna i'm gonna give this a c minus rating on uh on replies the key to beer the head of product at x i guess he's like i don't know

40:55Big Technology Podcast:what he is now now that spacex owns xai he says uh comms advice never respond to playful humor with an essay. Just say, damn, they cooked us or make a joke about them. There you go. That's that's all all you had to do. Or like, actually, how would you have

41:11Ranjan Roy:responded? What would be your response or would you have responded?

41:16Big Technology Podcast:I like the idea of responding deceptive ad about deceptive ads. I thought that was a good line. Yeah. I wouldn't have written, damn, they cooked us. It is a little too flippant.

41:27Ranjan Roy:what about what about something like sorry what's claude never heard of it or something like that

41:33Big Technology Podcast:just like no that's a little too teenagey also yeah but i mean like what what do you have over

41:40Ranjan Roy:them vast majority people don't know what it is are not going to know what it is what do you what kind of name even is anthropic of a company you know like there's so many if you want to respond But I agree. Like, otherwise, just just let it go.

41:54Big Technology Podcast:But that also gets to like, is this a good use of not only money for Anthropik because it's costly, but like an opportunity to make a splash? And we've always talked about like I just published some data in big technology about how more than half of people never use these these AI apps. And the Super Bowl is an opportunity to get a lot of consumers, a lot of people to try your thing. This is from Rachel Horowitz, a Silicon Valley comms professional. I don't know. Anthropic is spending a lot of money on a Super Bowl ad that talks about open AI. That's pretty good for open AI. People don't care about ads.

42:27Big Technology Podcast:They like free a lot. Pretty sure I saw Netflix have seen their ad-supported user base triple in like two years.

42:34Ranjan Roy:That's a good point. That's a good point, actually. That's a fair point that like it's funny within people like deep into it. It definitely everyone like enjoys the kind of Sam versus like anthropic beef. But but yeah, you're right. Like, is it really going to turn people off? Maybe not. Like people certainly are OK with ads in all different formats. We talk regularly that meta might be the ones that actually figures out how to run a first ads. But whatever it is, I think that's a good point that is it really going to turn average people off, especially the entire percentage of the population that have not used any kind of AI app before?

43:24Ranjan Roy:That's where you should be trying to go after. And it's certainly not for them.

43:30Big Technology Podcast:Here's part two of that tweet. We also know from loads of research that going hard at a competitor with virtually the same user experience as you just drags down the whole sector because people can't differentiate. The way that Anthropic ad makes AI chat experience seem creepy and obsequious is a bit of a self-own in that way. I don't know.

43:51Ranjan Roy:Possibly. I think like, I don't know. I actually, I have found ChatGBD to be degrading like over time. I don't know. Have you felt this at all? Like it's getting more obsequious. like even just like i've had to change my system prompt again to like you do not have to agree with everything i say but like i've been testing it against gemini and claude as well like for just basic queries everything has to be great you're right that's a great question um i don't know you haven't you haven't been noticing this at all i've had a different experience it definitely has

44:28Big Technology Podcast:been pushing back more than me more on me but i yeah i've had in my system prompt for a long time do not be sycophantic.

44:36Ranjan Roy:Actually, hold on. Do you, do you want to hear a great one that I just run this one? Just like, okay. So, and actually this can be a whole other rant for another day, but the photo tax now Google cloud and Apple keep making me pay more and more money to just store my photos. And I had both services and I'm paying, I think Apple$40 a month, Google$20 a month. And I'm like, this is getting ridiculous when I think about it. Yeah. How much I'm paying in a year. So Google, I'm going to, photos, I'm going to get rid of. So I asked ChatGPT, I want to export all my Google photos so I don't have to pay for storage.

45:12Ranjan Roy:What's the best way to go about this? And ChatGPT says, you're thinking about this the exact right way.

45:21Big Technology Podcast:I don't get that. That's interesting. Maybe you're just responding to this stuff, Ranjah. Maybe you like this.

45:27Ranjan Roy:The cleanest, least regret path is export once, verify locally, and then slowly unwind uh google photos but i literally was like all right how do i get my google photos and you're thinking about this the exact right way oh tell me more you don't get that at all

45:45Big Technology Podcast:you don't get that i don't get that maybe it is the system problem um okay but okay i i think just to sum this up uh i think anthropic wins but bottom line in my perspective it's just it was the funniest ad and maybe in long term there's some hurt but it's it's very difficult to make an ad uh with humor i know i was sitting at my desk cracking up seems like sam altman was too half of the maybe more of the you know tech industry who's considering using this they laughed uh it's that that is tough and they did it so i would say that's overall a win for agreed agreed uh the ad a minus sam altman response c minus i will give the ad i will give the ad an a give sam a b b plus response i don't hate it okay i don't hate it okay why can anthropic throw punches and open a i can't i don't know yep make it a good punch make you come back come back strong but just make it make it a good one yeah yeah okay so so interesting moment for open ai more broadly i just want to talk about this briefly we have talked about this over the past couple shows this week in on big technology i did publish some data looking at the market share of chat gpt versus the competitors first of all going to your like what's claude perspective claude is like the basically the floor at the bottom uh very few people actually use claude you know But when they do, they use it a lot.

47:11Big Technology Podcast:But that being said, OpenAI's, ChatGPT's market share has dropped from 69 % in January. This is according to Aptopia, from 69 % in January 2025 to 45.3 % in January 2026. Now, it is growing. But in that same time, let's see, Gemini has gone from 14.7 % chatbot market share to 25.1%, and Grok has gone from 1.6%, surprisingly, to 15.2%. What do you make of this? I mean, it's very interesting to see that OpenAI really has company now.

47:49Ranjan Roy:Yeah, I was, okay, so with a grain of salt here, I think, because this is mobile app daily active user. And then if you think about the mobile app experience for any of these individual tools, like Claude, all the hype is around using it at your desktop with Claude code or even the Claude app or whatever. Like it's not especially because mobile app usage is a very consumer type of thing. I think Gemini is definitely the most notable part of this. i think grok is interesting but i'm also curious like probably that's going to get counted i'm guessing every twitter reply like at grok explain this you know i'm talking about like

48:31Big Technology Podcast:the grok app itself really yes do you have the grok app on your phone no wait i don't think and i'll tell you where grok usage went up and i'm gonna publish this too i think dear oh no oh no It is when people... Okay, by the way, Grok, it's called the World's Smartest AI Advisor. It has 931 ,000 ratings on the App Store.

48:56Ranjan Roy:Okay, okay.

48:58Big Technology Podcast:Anyway, usage went up when it started to bikinify young ladies. Yeah, yeah. Not good. No, no. And it's almost entirely male, not surprisingly.

49:10Ranjan Roy:Interesting. Okay, yeah. No, I think... And actually, one thing I will say, do you know what's notable to me on this chart here is perplexity and perplexity should if they're going to compete that was like a very mobile first consumer friendly experience and i don't know i'm wondering what's what's your prediction

49:30Big Technology Podcast:for perplexity i think it's done i mean yeah i don't see how it really serves a purpose outside of um you know different than what you could do with gemini or chachi yeah personally it was a

49:43Ranjan Roy:cleaner search type of experience for a long time yeah and now it's not ai mode and google probably killed it yeah yeah you're right i think so and that one again like they there was a strong bump last fall for perplexity that's completely disappeared so i want to ask you something

50:04Big Technology Podcast:that i was asked on cnbc this week and i'm actually kind of curious how you would answer So like there's been all this talk about how NVIDIA and OpenAI have some friction in their relationship. Like Jensen has gone from we're going to invest up to 100 billion to like we will evaluate round by round and we hope that OpenAI invites us to invest again. And in the Wall Street Journal, there was some reports that he had some concerns about the way that OpenAI did business. And then, you know, I was asked, well, are there concerns about the way that OpenAI does business? To me, basically, my response was, look, OpenAI had the lead.

50:44Big Technology Podcast:They use publicly available technology to build ChatGPT. They built the lead. It was inevitable that there would be others that would build, you know, similar technology and they would catch up. And then, you know, so what is the health of OpenAI there? You know, is it like just, OK, it's normal that others are catching up because it was inevitable? And if so, then what is the value proposition for OpenAI and ChatGPT moving forward if they're one of the pack? What do you think? I think, I mean, to take the OpenAI side here, like when we're even looking at this chart, for example, it's all relative market share.

51:26Ranjan Roy:It's not total usage and total consumers. So as long as the pie is growing and they are still the vastly dominant player, I think they're certainly an interesting company. I do then, we've talked about this plenty, they have to nail one of these kind of peripheral business ideas beyond just ChatGPT$20 a month subscriptions. um is whether that's a lack of focus is is an asset then because they they just need one or a couple yeah but they have to they have to land it they've tried a lot of stuff like yeah have you sora recently out of curiosity i'm just asking on between grok's or all these yeah no i mean they they're really good at big flashy exciting moments but then they haven't had anything that's felt like staying power the way chat gpd itself and those early model updates and stuff would just completely kind of take over for a long like a prolonged period of time so so i think i mean they have to be relatively interesting jensen was definitely a bit cagey i felt between

52:37Big Technology Podcast:the reporting and then like what do you read about like the jensen open ai relationship in some way they need each other in some way. It doesn't look like Jensen's all that happy.

52:46Ranjan Roy:Well, but that's where my, like how I felt about it is he does need open AI to succeed. He does like Nvidia at the current valuation and story needs all these like AI to just be an unquestioned success and open AI. If it completely flops, even if a lot of that value accrues to a Google or Microsoft. I really think a lot of the shine, even on an NVIDIA takes a hit.

53:17Big Technology Podcast:Well, if it accrues to Google, that's just like a TPU success story. Well, yeah, that's an even more dangerous one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. We'll be watching this. It's going to be a very interesting story. All right. Bitcoin. Very briefly, Bitcoin has gone from what? Was it like$110,$115 a year? At the beginning of the 61k as of yesterday it's back up to 61 now it's at 70 yeah um let's see oh it's at 124 in october so that's uh you know not a halving but down what a good good percentage since then um obviously bitcoin doesn't have earnings so you can't just fall back on the earnings like our beleaguered software companies might over time what is going what is your take on what's happening with bitcoin

54:03Ranjan Roy:So I was thinking about this a lot. So down 35 % this year. I mean, that's after the, I think, 11, 12 % rebound yesterday or today. The most fascinating thing about Bitcoin so far this year for me has been, I don't see anyone talking about it. And again, I'm sure within certain circles, there's still pretty intense things. Actually, I was in Dubai last week and the hotel I was staying at, there was like a crypto event going on. And my God, that was just something crazy to see. But like overall, I mean, I don't know, are you hearing or seeing? Like, it's just kind of quietly fading off. and which I think is possibly one of the most dangerous things because it really depends on kind of an energy to keep it moving.

54:54Ranjan Roy:So yeah, what do you think is happening?

54:57Big Technology Podcast:I don't know. I just think it's one of those things that sort of it's built on, I don't want to say groupthink, but built on a story, right? And I don't know, the story, the story, when the story doesn't work, Bitcoin drops. We've seen this so many times. And when the story works the story is okay like you know the president is a you know a supporter of this and now you could be able to own it from mainstream financial institutions then it works but i i i mean i've oh and i hold some i'll admit it but i've always felt that there was weakness in the underlying story which is you know if it's not going to be useful as a currency and what is it store value okay that's just depends on people's belief in it but but i also it's a good it's a

55:41Ranjan Roy:point because i don't actually know what the story is that's actually the most dangerous part to me is like like is it a hedge against the hyperinflationary u.s economy because of debt is it better way for a manage i don't know like payments is it whatever there's no compelling storyline right now is it even yeah as you said the president is going to just make it a thing like the actually the only big story i've read recently was the world liberty financial story with like the uae recently yeah there's just no compelling narrative right now around it which is a problem yeah this is again this is from henry blodgett

56:26Big Technology Podcast:the problem with bitcoin and crypto is there is no level at which it is cheap it is only worth what someone will pay for it this is not true for most stocks and currencies most stocks have some future cash flow that you can estimate and discount to today. And most currencies can be traded for things that have value, even if the currencies themselves are gradually depreciating. But Bitcoin, it could trade down to 1000 and still fall 99%. And yes, it could also go to 1 million, as I suggested back in 2013, or 100 million. Psychologically, of course, we are most optimistic about the price the next guy will pay when the price of something keeps going up.

57:01Big Technology Podcast:And we get pessimistic about it when the price is plunging. So here's to predicting what the next guy will pay. I think that sums it up. I mean, yeah, I think that's how it's felt for a long time.

57:14Ranjan Roy:But yeah, I think that's about right. It's also interesting hearing from Henry. Is he off Twitter?

57:22Big Technology Podcast:I actually think that he, no, he's on Twitter and I think he actually built, oh, maybe this was on LinkedIn. I think he built a publication that has AI's writing for it, but I haven't seen a lot of

57:30Ranjan Roy:people paying attention to that okay i feel i kind of miss henry blodgett my feeds um so glad

57:37Big Technology Podcast:to hear i've brought him back back here glad to see him back here all right last story for this week amazon uh stock is down six point about seven percent uh today what happened uh they beat earnings expectations at least their cloud unit went up aws went up 24 in the fourth quarter which is kind of astounding. But they said they were going to spend$200 billion in CapEx, a 60 % increase from last year and far above Wall Street expectations. Obviously, they are in the AI game. And that is no longer seen as like a ticket to your stock going up. And so the stock market reacted poorly. Overreaction or is Amazon in some sort of trouble?

58:22Ranjan Roy:I think with Amazon, again, I guess this is going back to like, I mean, they have so they have some very big different types of businesses that have some kind of synergies between them. But like overall, yeah, it's hard to see where there's going to be any kind of massive growth. I think that's like the I mean, again, Azure, Google Cloud have been like massively. they had the lead in that market and uh that certainly contracted their advertising business has grown tremendously but like they're especially i think like agentic commerce presents a threat whatever it's going to look like maybe they'll rufus actually i've been using a lot more i do find pretty good but like i think they're gonna there's no it's hard to see what's the big growth story with Amazon right now.

59:19Ranjan Roy:Do you see any? If you're to be outlining at Amazon Investor Day and you are Andy Jassy, what are you talking about?

59:27Big Technology Podcast:The one I just cited is that it's the biggest cloud services company and it just grew 24 % after going like 17, 18 % for a bunch of quarters in a row. That's pretty good for Amazon. But I think there is starting to be some concern about Jassy. And this one Twitter user, discountedtrashflow. I'm just reading, I don't agree with this, but sort of the extreme view on Jassy. Calls him a bean-counting bureaucrat who lucked into the CEO chair after brown-nosing Bezos for decades. Inherited the greatest e-commerce machine ever built and immediately started breaking it. Oversaw the biggest layoffs in Amazon history.

1:00:02Big Technology Podcast:27 ,000 heads chopped in waves while he pocketed 200 million in comp packages. Forced a brutal five-day return to office. mandate that sparked internal revolts, leaked memos and mass quiet quitting, led retail bleed billions in over-expansion hangover, closing warehouse he helped overbuild, AWS growth decelerated hard on his watch as Azure and Google Cloud closed the gap, stock flatlined or lagged behind peers for years, post-transition until AI hype and rate cuts bailed him out, faces massive FTC antitrust lawsuit for the monopoly abuses he pretends were in his fault. Zero vision, infinite corporate jargon, toxic spreadsheet obsession, preaches day one culture while turning Amazon into a soulless cost-cutting machine.

1:00:51Big Technology Podcast:Just another over-promoted middle manager destroying a founder's legacy. I mean, probably, it sounds like it might have been a, that Anon account might be an ex-Amazon employee upset about what's going on. And you could probably tell a story like that about most tech company CEOs. I think the concerning thing is, I don't know, you read that and you're like, maybe.

1:01:13Ranjan Roy:Not my man Sundar. Not my man Sundar. Don't say that about Sundar. Taking pure managerial class, but just kicking ass over the last year and a half.

1:01:25Big Technology Podcast:Full McKinsey. But yeah, Amazon is down 13%. Full McKinsey, yeah. Amazon is down 13 % over the past year. up 25 percent 24 percent over the past four years and definitely doing well since uh december 2023 when it hit this this low and the whole market sort of started collapsing but the past year

1:01:45Ranjan Roy:performance not great yeah like i mean would you ever bet against amazon it's a it's a risky bet but even on the like shopping commerce side i feel there's like a long period of time where they would just do amazing things and nothing's really, I mean, I don't know what the next innovation would be, but they haven't really done too much. Again, Rufus is kind of like interesting for search on the site itself, but like overall Alexa plus I'm, I'm liking it's, it's, it's not bad. I like it.

1:02:20Big Technology Podcast:It's very good. But what are they going to do with it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. And I don't think bringing Jeff Bezos back is the answer. I think someone said, you know, if you bring Jeff Bezos back, you better be prepared for, you know, 90 % staff cuts and$800 billion in CapEx. And given what he did to the Washington Post this week, I don't know if he still has the Bezos touch, as they say. Yeah.

1:02:44Ranjan Roy:No, I don't think it's got to be. They just need some. You know what? They should hire McKenzie to tell them what the pitching is. Oh, my God. It's all about McKenzie. They're going to be the big winners.

1:02:57Big Technology Podcast:Truth is, software might die, but consulting lives. That's our lesson from this week. Yeah. It's all about the consultants. Large-scale management consulting is the future. They will not die. All right, Ranjan, great to have you back. What a week. I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about next week as well. All right. See you next week. See you next week. Thank you, everybody, for listening and watching. Again, Sarita Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake, will be on the show on Wednesday to talk about all this craziness with software and handicap the AI race overall. Of course, he spent time at Google and competing against Google.

1:03:29Big Technology Podcast:So he's the right person to have on the show. Great, as always, to have Ranjan on. Great to have you all listening and watching. And we will see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

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