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Daily Tech News Show

23 Jul 2025 · 33m · 15 chapters

Episode artwork

Apple Makes Warranties a Subscription Business - DTNSB 5066

In short

Daily Tech News episode covering AppleCare One (Apple turning AppleCare maintenance into a $19.99/month subscription for up to 3 devices), plus tech/security/business briefs (SharePoint vulns, Uber women-matching, Proton’s Lumo chatbot, Microsoft Surface Laptop 5G, Amazon buying Bee, Meta wrist gesture prototype, fusion update from Avalanche Energy, Mistral LLM environmental footprint), and a deeper segment on AI/politics at Sun Valley.

Guests

Andy Beach (media/tech analyst; reports on Sun Valley’s billionaire retreat and AI/political influence). No other human guests appear; DTNS hosts are Tom Merritt and Jen Cutter.

Key claims

AppleCare One covers unlimited repairs, 24/7 tech support, and loss/theft; it’s designed for multi-device households and can convert from AppleCare Plus. Sun Valley discussions centered on AI infrastructure and how media/entertainment companies use AI while navigating lawsuits.

Notable examples

AppleCare One pricing ($19.99 for 3 devices; $5.99 per extra), SharePoint compromise estimate rising to 400+ orgs, Uber’s women-driver matching test, Proton Lumo end-to-end encrypted chatbot, Meta wristband “out-of-the-box” generalization, Mistral Large 2 footprint comparisons, Avalanche Energy “hours” of desktop fusion at 300,000 volts.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

3:06

AppleCare One: A New Subscription Model

Discussion on Apple's new subscription model for AppleCare services.

“Let's start with what you need to know with the big story.”
6:43

Considerations for Extended Warranties

Exploring the pros and cons of extended warranties for devices.

“And with the new phone, I can then start the plan and add the other two.”
14:00

Microsoft SharePoint Vulnerabilities Update

Learn about the recent increase in compromised Microsoft SharePoint organizations and the implications.

“A few more details have come out related to the two Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities that we've been talking about.”
15:00

Uber's Women-Only Driver Feature Expansion

Explore Uber's new feature that matches women drivers with women riders and its implications.

“Reuters reports that the vulnerabilities were first identified in May at a bug hacking competition in Berlin.”
16:10

Dahlman's Sentencing for Copyright Infringement

Understand the legal consequences faced by Christopher Lee Dahlman for running Jetflix.

“or if they have specified their gender as female, they'll get the option to be matched with a woman driver.”
18:10

Proton Launches Lumo Chatbot

Find out about Proton's new chatbot Lumo and its privacy features.

“Dahlman operated Jetflix, not Netflix, Jetflix, which would go out and find pirated content around the Internet, store it on its own servers in the U.S.”
20:40

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 5G Launch

Get details on Microsoft's new Surface Laptop 5G and its targeting of enterprise customers.

“They've got, you know, now they've got this chat bot in here.”
22:40

Amazon Acquires Wearable Company Bee

Discuss the implications of Amazon's acquisition of the wearable company Bee.

“So, yeah, I think it's got a niche case.”
24:40

Meta's Gesture-Detecting Wristband Prototype

Learn about Meta's new wristband prototype that allows gesture control for computers.

“And so I think the future integrations of this will be a lot more interesting.”
26:50

Mistral AI's Environmental Footprint Report

Discover Mistral AI's report on the environmental impact of its chatbot compared to Bitcoin.

“Yeah, I am also the person that handwrites and writes on whiteboards and uses chart paper on all of my walls.”
Show all 15 chapters
28:00

Environmental Impact of AI and Bitcoin

Explore the environmental comparison of AI usage and Bitcoin's resource consumption.

“Mistral says that's equivalent to watching 10 seconds of streaming video, using water to grow a small pink radish, or using materials to produce a two-cent coin, which is a really interesting comparison.”
30:21

Introduction to Sun Valley Retreat

Learn about the exclusive Sun Valley retreat and its significance.

“Sun Valley's billionaire retreat came back and this year, AI and political power quietly dominated the guest list.”
30:38

AI Discussions at Sun Valley

Delve into the discussions surrounding AI at the Sun Valley retreat.

“You didn't get to go to Sun Valley, did you?”
34:58

The Secrecy and Implications of Sun Valley Meetings

Understand the implications of secretive meetings at Sun Valley and their impact on the industry.

“And, and there's no doubt, like, again, this is the kind of room where he may well be having conversations with others about who, who amongst the ones that he's thinking about are, are rightful heirs to that, that chair.”
36:58

Promoting Engagement Through Discord

Encourage listeners to engage with the show via Discord and Patreon.

“Where should people go to follow your work?”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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2:41Jenn Cutter: Oh, this? This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on context and try to help each other understand this crazy mess.

2:52Andy Beach: Today, Andy Beach tells us what really went on with AI when the billionaires met in Sun Valley, Idaho, and Apple has turned its AppleCare maintenance plan into a monthly subscription.

3:03Jenn Cutter: Oh, how Apple of them. I'm Tom Merritt.

3:05Andy Beach: I'm Jen Cutter.

3:06Jenn Cutter: Let's start with what you need to know with the big story. Yes, Apple has introduced a new option, at least starting in the United States, for its AppleCare maintenance service. You can call it insurance or extended warranty. I like to think of it as paying for extended maintenance. The new offering is called AppleCare One. Starting July 24th, you'll be able to buy the service for up to three devices. So your iPhone, your iPad, your Mac, your watch, your Vision Pro headset, your display, your headphone, your Apple TV, your HomePod speakers. Three of those can go under the plan for$19.99 a month.

3:46Jenn Cutter: And if you want to add additional devices after the first three, each additional device is$5.99 each. The plan is pretty generous. It covers unlimited device repairs. So you drop it, you spill something on it, it's covered. Battery replacements, unlimited tech support 24-7, and something that is not always included in these sorts of plans, loss and theft. You must add it to a product within the first 60 days after you buy it, or if you've got an active AppleCare Plus plan, you can convert that to be one of these new Apple Care One plans. However, after you've added a device under one of those two qualifications, you can then add any other device you have as long as it's less than four years old and in good working order.

4:35Jenn Cutter: The plan automatically transfers to a new device when you trade it in as well. So if you're part of a trade-in plan, that should keep you covered. Apple gives any customer a one-year limited warranty with 90 days of tech support for free if you didn't realize that. So you don't have to pay to get some coverage. And if you're like, I only got one Apple device, I don't need three, you will continue to be able to pay for AppleCare Plus for individual devices if you want it. So Jen, when this comes to Canada, are you going to spring for it?

5:05Andy Beach: I did, when I saw the story, immediately checked to be like, ooh, is this in Canada? So I recently bought a phone and I did pay for the extra coverage, but I paid for the fixed coverage. I didn't want to be in another subscription because anytime I hear the word subscription, it just makes my brain make the angry face. But this is a pretty good deal for people who do have multiple Apple devices. So I I have my watch. I have my new phone. Both of them have, I bought the extended coverage. So this doesn't help me in also being Canadian. But if I had more devices like the Vision Pro and AirPods and stuff, I would be looking at this pretty hard.

5:45Jenn Cutter: So you've got to watch a phone. You don't have a Mac?

5:48Andy Beach: No, no Apple devices anymore. It's all PCs here.

5:52Jenn Cutter: So you're the person who's like, I only got two devices. It's not going to help me.

5:57Andy Beach: I'm right on the fence. If I had a third or like if my mom switched back to iPhone, And then I'd be like, OK, I'd like to take care of her because battery replacements. Oh, man, I guided a friend through that and they could pay multiple hundreds of dollars to Apple or go to a mall kiosk. And they settled on the mall kiosk.

6:13Jenn Cutter: Yeah, a lot of people do, right, for that very reason, because it's so expensive. It does work with family plans. The way Apple put it is, as long as everyone is associated with the same account, they can be part of this. That was an answer to, does this work with family plans? So I'm like, that wasn't a clear yes, but okay. I think that means you can. So yeah, this is designed for converting you. You've got two devices. If you were to go buy a third, or like you said, if you buy your mom a new phone, you might be like, oh, that's three. And with the new phone, I can then start the plan and add the other two.

6:54Jenn Cutter: So it is kind of well designed for that.

6:56Andy Beach: I do have questions about the trade policy. So I had an 11 Pro and when I was like, oh, I'll trade this in for getting it towards a new phone. The amount offered was so paltry, I kept the phone because I'll just use it as a camera. So it kind of like they want you to trade it in, but it's not the best value there.

7:17Jenn Cutter: Maybe not always, yeah. And it's not like you can't pull a device off and replace it with a new one at some point. You don't have to do a trade-in to swap out the phones. It sounds like they're making it easier. Like if you trade it in, they'll just automatically do it for you. You don't have to go and request it. I think this is a classic example of it's right for some people, right? As you very well illustrated there, if you've got three devices, and you're hard on devices. I am generally, I presume an extended warranty is not worth it because you end up paying more than you would if you need to fix something.

8:00Jenn Cutter: Otherwise, these aren't worth it for companies to offer, right? They wouldn't offer them if they always worked in your favor. So if you're like, no, I'm pretty hard on devices, then maybe get it. Or if you've bought something extremely expensive, Uh, I actually added Apple care plus to my iPhone when I bought it because I was buying one of the top end iPhones. And I'm like, if I drop and break this, you know, I don't want to pay for another one. Uh, and thankfully I did exactly that. I dropped it and broke it, uh, and got the, uh, express replacement. Uh, so I, I, I got a replacement without having to pay anything extra.

8:36Jenn Cutter: So in certain situations, I think these make sense. I don't think everyone should just go for it. And I think Apple priced it at$20 because some people are like, well, just to be safe. I might as well just pay it. What's the heck?

8:51Andy Beach: Hockey season's coming up and I wear my watch on the ice now. So I was like, yeah, I am definitely paying for it. And thank goodness the single device things are still available for people like me.

9:02Jenn Cutter: Absolutely.

9:04Andy Beach: DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to Ken Hayes, Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and Mike Villareal.

9:13Jenn Cutter: Yay, patrons!

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12:53Jenn Cutter: All right, there's other news to talk about today. Let's get right to the briefs.

12:57Andy Beach: If you recognize Ken Pillanell's name, it might be because you remember his mod of an iPhone to use USB-C instead of lightning back in 2021. Of course, new models of the iPhone now come with USB-C, but some folks still have the lightning port and most folks won't want to mod their phone the way Pillanell did. Not to worry, Pillanelle has created phone cases that fit iPhones with lightning ports, but have USB-C ports in the case. He put up a video showing how he designed the case, and the cases range between 40 and 50 Swiss francs, which is about 70 to 80 Canadian dollars.

13:33Jenn Cutter: Yeah, so that's not too bad. I mean, there's some cases that don't do this that cost that much sometimes. times. And I think everybody probably will have fun watching the video of how he designed this, because that's really the attractive part is like, how did you fit that in? Because that was the big thing when he did it in 2021. It's like, how did you fit that into an existing iPhone enclosure? Because these cases don't look particularly bulky compared to other cases you might get. A few more details have come out related to the two Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities that we've been talking about.

14:12Jenn Cutter: iSecurity now estimates that at least 400 organizations have been compromised. That number was at 100 yesterday. So they're saying it's at least 400. It might be more. And that crosses government agencies and corporations, most of them in the United States, but also in Mauritius, Jordan, South Africa, and the Netherlands, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. It was hard for me to say because I don't like the idea of this, but the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration is among the organizations that have been compromised. That agency is responsible for maintaining and designing nuclear weapons.

14:51Jenn Cutter: Now, a source told Bloomberg that no sensitive or classified information is known to be compromised. But people point out that even just business plans that aren't technically classified could be useful to an adversary. Reuters reports that the vulnerabilities were first identified in May at a bug hacking competition in Berlin. A researcher who works for VTEL, which is a telecom run by Vietnam's military, identified the bug above board at the hacking competition, received a$100 ,000 bug bounty for it, and Microsoft patched it on July 8th. But within 10 days, attackers were circumventing the patch.

15:29Jenn Cutter: The patch did not work. That happens sometimes, but with all the problems Microsoft has been having, not a good look. And of course, Microsoft has since issued new patches that do verifiably fix the vulnerabilities. So if you're a SharePoint administrator and you haven't patched this, you need to patch it. And with these increased developments, I think it's even more important to act as if you have been compromised, even if you don't think you have, just to make sure you kick anybody out of your network that shouldn't be there.

15:59Andy Beach: Uber is expanding a test of its service that matches women drivers with women riders in the U.S. cities of Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. If a rider has a name that Uber's system identifies as female, or if they have specified their gender as female, they'll get the option to be matched with a woman driver. Female drivers can also choose a preference for women riders. The preference can be set per ride or as a default in the settings, and Uber launched the feature in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and expanded it to Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, and Mexico, and is testing it in Germany and France.

16:36Andy Beach: Lyft has had a similar feature for about two years.

16:39Jenn Cutter: Yeah, I'm curious if you've ever used this feature either on Uber or Lyft.

16:45Andy Beach: I am the holdout who takes normal city taxis. Yeah. I have none of the apps.

16:52Jenn Cutter: You just don't use Uber or Lyft. I don't.

16:54Andy Beach: I also love driving, so I tend to drive myself everywhere.

16:57Jenn Cutter: Gotcha. Well, it's so Canadian of you. You love your cars. No, I'm just kidding. I think this is interesting. I can see things people would object to immediately, which is like, oh, well, what if there's no women drivers? They do give you the option of like, hey, it'll take longer if we force a match with a woman driver. Are you sure you want to do that? And you can say, okay, it's fine right now. It's not a hard like, well, once you're in the system, that's it. But it's also meant to try to encourage more women to drive and become drivers for these services. And it's had that effect in the places where it's rolled out.

17:33Jenn Cutter: I was raised an eyebrow at like going by the first name, but apparently that has not caused a problem in any of these other markets. So they must be using that very sparingly and not for names like Dana or Laura or any of these names that you think of one way, but sometimes are used across genders. 42-year-old Christopher Lee Dahlman of Las Vegas, Nevada, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Dahlman was also found guilty by a federal jury of money laundering, criminal copyright infringement by distribution, and criminal copyright infringement by public performance.

18:13Jenn Cutter: Dahlman operated Jetflix, not Netflix, Jetflix, which would go out and find pirated content around the Internet, store it on its own servers in the U.S. and Canada, and then sell it to tens of thousands of subscribers to stream or download for cheap. Jetflix operated from 2012 until it was shut down by the FBI in 2019.

18:32Andy Beach: See, I get the last two, but I did not know that there was a conspiracy to commit copyright infringement as an issue. Because like back in 2020, when the team executor thing went on for Nintendo hacking, they got hit by a whole bunch of conspiracies. So conspiracy to commit wire fraud, I get. Conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and traffic and circumvention devices, I get. And now conspiracy to commit money laundering, like, okay, fair. Like, yeah, that one you have to commit. But like, if you were already getting hit for the copyright infringement, you actually did. How are you also getting hit with the conspiracy?

19:13Jenn Cutter: I don't know for sure, but my guess is, and lawyers, please write it and clarify if you know for sure. My guess is it's because there are two other people who are also indicted on these charges. So it's criminal copyright infringement for Dahlman to do it himself. It's conspiracy when you get a bunch of other people together and create an organization that does it on the organizational level. That's usually where racketeering laws come in. It's like maybe you didn't do it yourself, but you created an organization that would do the crime.

19:50Andy Beach: Proton launched a new chatbot called Lumo, which you can use for free without an account. Folks with a Proton account can save chat history and paid subscribers get more features like unlimited chats, web search, multiple file queries and priority support. Lumo end-to-end encrypts your conversations and does not save logs. Proton does not use chats to train its models, since it can't access your chats. Proton does not name the model it runs, but says they are based on open source and run on European data centers. It does say the models are not from U.S. or Chinese companies. And Lumo is available on the web and in apps for Android and iOS.

20:31Jenn Cutter: I'm telling you, man, Proton is doing some good stuff. I use it, but I'm tempted to start just using it more. They have a great document storage system that's encrypted and private. They've got, you know, now they've got this chat bot in here. It's an excellent suite of systems that you can run. Microsoft just launched the Surface Laptop 5G with, as you may have guessed, built-in 5G service, but also significantly not running on an ARM processor like a lot of its laptops have recently. This is running on an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chip, aka Lunar Lake, as well as the Intel Arc integrated GPU, and of course has a neural processing unit that qualifies it for co-pilot plus status.

21:19Jenn Cutter: The Surface Laptop 5G begins shipping on August 26th. No price yet, but this is targeted at the enterprise companies that are like, we have specific software that really doesn't run well in emulation or at all on an ARM processor. So we need Intel machines for our employees. Yes, regular people will be able to buy these, but they'll probably be a couple hundred dollars more expensive than they would otherwise.

21:42Andy Beach: I am one of the people that desperately wants to like the Surface. I love the idea of the Surface. I keep my Lenovo X220 alive, now on Pop! OS for Linux, because I love having the whole tablet feature and touchscreen feature. And this does interest me because it's like, okay, it's still got Intel. I can run all of my stuff. But yeah, the 5G is definitely going to push the price probably a little out of my range.

22:08Jenn Cutter: Well, and I am always tempted to get a laptop with the 5G service until I think through and I'm like, okay, that means you have to pay for the service and it's not always going to work. And then when it doesn't work, you're going to have to find Wi-Fi and you're going to question, why did I pay extra for the 5G modem and the 5G service?

22:27Andy Beach: I was in Fredericton this weekend and I had barely any cell service. And I was like, well, if I had a laptop, it's not really going to make any difference if I don't have cell service.

22:36Jenn Cutter: Yeah, exactly. And I can tether. I tether to my phone and it works. So, yeah, I think it's got a niche case. And it's usually in business where somebody is like, I don't want to worry about tethering. I just want to have it built in because that speeds me along and it makes me more productive. I get that there are situations like that.

22:57Andy Beach: Amazon has acquired the wearable company Bee. That is B-E-E, like the bug and not just the capital letter B, which you would assume. So Bee makes a smart bracelet and an Apple Watch app that can record conversations and create reminders and to-do lists. Bee's current policies let users delete transcriptions anytime, and it does not save, store, or use voice recordings for training.

23:23Jenn Cutter: Now, this is one of those stories that, especially because Amazon is buying it, everyone's reporting it as, B, a device that records you all the time, 24-7, which it can do. But I don't know that that's the way people use it. I've seen people using devices like this, and they generally turn them on at the beginning of a meeting and then turn them off. Not that many people just use them to record all the time. I understand that that is a use case that a lot of these device makers say, like, you'll never have to think about it. You just record it all the time. B has done some things to say, you know, we're going to come up with ways to get consent from people to record them, but they haven't done it yet.

24:05Jenn Cutter: And like you said, they've got policies that it's only the transcription that gets uploaded, not the voice recordings and all that, which is good. And so I get why Amazon would want to buy this. It's a product that fits into their portfolio of, you know, Amazon Echoes. This is like it could become a wearable Amazon Echo for them. I just remember that you don't have to leave them on all the time if you buy them, is what I would say.

24:31Andy Beach: Yeah. So right now, I don't see a huge use case for it, especially if you have an Apple Watch and you can set reminders that way. But a lot of parents and families love their Alexa for just setting reminders, for having everyone leave notes. And so I think the future integrations of this will be a lot more interesting.

24:48Jenn Cutter: I had somebody record a talk with one of these kinds of devices. I don't think it was a bee. And then show me the transcript immediately after my talk. And it did a pretty good job of like, here are the bullet points. You know, here are the takeaways. And I found it illuminating to see that. So I get the uses too. But again, you just don't have to leave them on all the time. A couple of science notes here. Scientists from Meta's Reality Labs published an article in Nature, or paper, I should say, in nature, describing a prototype for a wristband that can detect gestures and let you control computers.

25:21Jenn Cutter: So you can move a cursor around, pinch to select, just wearing the bracelet. It can also transcribe handwriting at 20.9 words per minute. So you just write like you would normally write, and then the wristband can turn that into text. The scientists use training data collected from thousands of participants to create generic decoding models. That is the big deal here. This works for anybody. You don't have to train it on you. In the paper, the scientists say this is the first high-bandwidth neuromotor interface with performant out-of-the-box generalization across people. Translation, first time we've been able to just give you a band and it works without you having to train up on it.

26:03Jenn Cutter: For our second science-y story, Avalanche Energy says it has operated a desktop fusion energy machine for hours while maintaining 300 ,000 volts. Remember, fusion is the one that is a lot safer because it doesn't have the byproducts that fission does. The company believes it can scale this up to a larger machine that would generate more energy than it consumes. That is what we're waiting for with fusion is sustained generation of energy. Avalanche uses electrical currents instead of magnets, so it can draw ions into tight orbits around an electrode. And then that's how the ions collide. And when they collide, they fuse, hence the fusion and release their energy.

26:42Andy Beach: Well, you heard it here first. The future is bracelets.

26:47Jenn Cutter: Yes, not from the fusion, but from the motion detection.

26:52Andy Beach: Yeah, I am also the person that handwrites and writes on whiteboards and uses chart paper on all of my walls. And I've raised an eyebrow at the works for everybody thing. If you remember the Nintendo DS and Brain Age, I'm left-handed. and it did not like my stroke order for a lot of letters.

27:13Jenn Cutter: No, it's not going to work 100 % of the time, but it's got a really high percentage. So it might, and it's certainly a big advance for it to work for a lot of people out of the box most of the time, rather than most people does not work out of the box and you don't have to train it. So it's definitely an advance. It may not be perfect yet.

27:34Andy Beach: Yeah, because I've resorted to, for things that I need to move over, I will take a picture of it and see how close OCR can get.

27:41Jenn Cutter: Yeah, yeah.

27:43Andy Beach: Now, Mistral's AI has published a report of an evaluation of the environmental footprint of its Mistral Large 2 LLM. An average 400 token response from its chatbot called LeChat emits 1.14 grams of CO2, uses 45 milliliters of water and 0.16 milligrams of minerals. Mistral says that's equivalent to watching 10 seconds of streaming video, using water to grow a small pink radish, or using materials to produce a two-cent coin, which is a really interesting comparison. Also by comparison, according to the Cambridge Centre, one Bitcoin transaction emits more than 600 kilograms of CO2 and uses more than 17 ,000 litres of water.

28:33Andy Beach: Even if those are overestimations, as some contend, it still uses more. Mistral encourages other companies to publish environmental transparency reports as well.

28:44Jenn Cutter: I love this. I'm so glad Mistral did this. I sometimes get accused of like, you don't care about the environment, you're defending AI when I ask questions like, how does this compare to other things? Yes, I know it uses energy, but how much energy does it actually use compared to other things. And I felt that way about Bitcoin too. We're like, it uses a lot of energy. I'm like, a lot of things use a lot of energy. Making concrete has way more emissions, uses way more water than either one of these things. So I want to know where it stands. That doesn't mean I think it's fine. It means I want to know where it stands in the priority order.

29:23Jenn Cutter: And having Mistral go out and study this and publish it transparently is a huge help in understanding what the impacts are. And I love that they're like, everybody should do this so that we can get in a little race to figure out how do we reduce these emissions? How do users make it so that they are more efficient in their chats and things? More data is good is what I'm saying, I guess.

29:47Andy Beach: Yeah. It's great to have the information available. And I know it kind of gets to overload. It's like people who want to be very conscious about this stuff, have to keep track of a lot of things. What are you eating? How are you getting around? How are you using your computers is a new computation on top of that.

30:03Jenn Cutter: Yeah, yeah. And so if you can get to a point where you understand like, oh, this is the same as if I did this versus, you know, building a building out of concrete, maybe you won't be as worried about it. But also you can be aware and have the numbers, which is great. Those are the essentials for today, though today we got something to dive a little deeper in.

30:26Andy Beach: Sun Valley's billionaire retreat came back and this year, AI and political power quietly dominated the guest list. Andy Beach breaks down what really went on.

30:38Jenn Cutter: Andy, thank you for joining us. You didn't get to go to Sun Valley, did you? You know, weirdly, I got left off the list again. Me too. What is up with that? Billionaires are going to be billionaires. So real quickly, for people who aren't familiar with this or haven't seen the episode of Succession and featured it, what is the Sun Valley Retreat? Yeah. So Sun Valley, Idaho has a relatively famous retreat annually that really draws in a variety of tech, media, political operatives who meet in a closed door session. Uh, it's really a chance for them to have conversations in almost, uh, I I've heard this called, and it repeatedly gets called this a summer camp for billionaires.

31:26So it's sort of a, a sharing of like-minded ideas in a secured or semi-secured close experience. So you get to control the message coming.

31:35Jenn Cutter: Yeah. You get, uh, people who can afford the same things as you for the most part, uh, with, with a few journalists and people that get a window into it as well. What is significant about this year's Sun Valley in relation to AI? Yeah. So there was absolutely conversations that crossed, I think, all of those forums that I talked about, media and entertainment, AI infrastructure generally, rights deals, the politics of AI, all of that sort of became same discussions at various parts of it. And I think part of the tone of this year's media often has been sort of front and center in it. It felt like maybe that the tech was slightly more in the lead this year, given the prominence that AI has taken in the discussions.

32:26It's taking up a lot of the oxygen in the room, if you will. So I think some of the big takeaways that I saw in it were We're really talking about some of the larger deals that have gone on, what some of the what basically looking to avoid things like the the the scenarios that that NBC finds itself in trying to cleave off parts of itself as is Warner and Discovery. what the implications for those are, where it makes sense to pull things together, and then sharing ideas again for how are they directly trying to bring AI into the messaging for what they're doing and how they're able to legally follow up on it.

33:18I'm sure, and this is, again, just speculation, but you know that there had to be a great deal of discussion around the mid-journey lawsuits that Disney and Universal brought as part of it, because everybody's sort of keeping an eye on that publicly in this. And there will be representatives from all of those corporations there who are no doubt giving folks updates on what it looks like on the inside.

33:42Jenn Cutter: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's kind of an all-star cast, right? Just from the tech side, you've got OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. You've got Alphabet CEO, or I'm sorry, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella. You have Tim Cook from Apple's CEO there. So on the one hand, you might expect big things to break out of this, but it seems like you won't know what comes out of Sun Valley until maybe a little while down the road. And even then, you might not know it came out of Sun Valley. 100%. Like the, the, often the conversations that go on here have ripple effects for months, uh, as deals start to roll out.

34:27And actually there's one that they called out in the variety article, uh, that I, I got a lot of this info from. This is probably Bob, Bob Iger's last hurrah. Uh, they, they've, uh, you know, been public about the fact that they're going to announce, uh, the successor CEO, uh, CEO role at Disney in early 2026. which means this could very well be his, his last official trip as Disney CEO again.

34:56Jenn Cutter: His second, like the, he's finally doing a goodbye tour. And, and there's no doubt, like, again, this is the kind of room where he may well be having conversations with others about who, who amongst the ones that he's thinking about are, are rightful heirs to that, that chair. Yeah. A literal episode of succession, except with bob eiger in the starring role um now because these are secretive it allows them to have conversations that they wouldn't be able to have otherwise right they can be candid with each other as much as they want to be but it also means that there's a lack of transparency and there's there's some people are concerned about that yeah and that's uh you know totally fair at the same time and and this is purely i've certainly again uh never never been confused as a billionaire in my life, but I will say having, having been a corporate worker, uh, it sometimes becomes very hard to have frank and transparent conversations with people that you think of as colleagues in the industry, but, but we'll be, you know, seen as your competitors.

36:01Yeah. Uh, it just, you know, it's never, it's, it's always makes for, for awkward timings and conversations. So I think this allows for that without it still getting to an area where it becomes collusion or something else that would most definitely be illegal. There's still enough eyeballs on this that you're going to be able to piece together where some of the conversations came out of. But I promise you, every one of the people that report to these various titans of industry are going to have a lot of marching orders that come out of this. I know I personally was on the, I received plenty of updates and info on what my new priorities were when I was at Microsoft coming out of Sun Valley.

36:47Jenn Cutter: Yeah. Well, yes. If you think Jackson Hole is the place, you're not up to date. It's Sun Valley, folks. Andy, thank you for helping us understand this. And of course, as those things trickle out, you'll be talking about that, I'm sure. Where should people go to follow your work? Absolutely. I am on Substack. It's called Engines of Change, and the URL is Engines of Change.ai. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Tom.

37:13Andy Beach: 2025 is definitely the year of messaging. It really feels that way for the first time in my career. It is who can get stuff out the loudest? Who can keep dominating the news cycle?

37:25Jenn Cutter: Yeah. Yeah. I think social media acceleration of that is, I want to say, paying off, showing up, emerging, having a bigger impact. So please message us in our discord and be part of that trend. You can join our discord by linking your Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTNS.

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39:31Andy Beach: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today, Rob Bugslife just has a thank you.

39:38Jenn Cutter: Yeah, thank you, Rob. Rob says, thank you, Tom and Jason, for your continued moderated views and takes. I was worried many people were going to hit the brakes on these tools, referring to AI tools. It's good to hear the full context reported and the reminder that it's not the end of the world, but as with any tool, their limits should be tested and understood. Thank you, Rob, for sharing that.

40:01Andy Beach: What are you thinking about? Do you have some insight into a story or are you a lawyer and can help clear some things up for me? Please share it with us at feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com.

40:12Jenn Cutter: Big thanks to Andy Beach and to Rob Buggslife for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. you keep us in business, folks. Become a patron. If you're not already, patreon.com slash DTNS. Talk to you soon.

40:30The DTNS family of podcasts, helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

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From the publisher

Plus, Mistral AI discloses its environmental impact and Nuclear Fusion gets closer.


Starring Tom Merritt, Jenn Cutter, and Andy Beach.


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