The Fight Tearing Apart Silicon Valley
For years, a debate has been simmering in Silicon Valley over the right way to build artificial intelligence. Should it be open and free for anyone to use, or should we tightly control how it’s made and who can access it?
Mike Isaac, who covers technology for The New York Times, explains why the release of two Chinese models pushed that debate to a boiling point this week, and how it could end up reshaping the future of A.I.
Guest: Mike Isaac, a New York Times reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering tech companies and Silicon Valley.
Background reading:
Silicon Valley splits over closing the borders to Chinese A.I.
What is open-weights A.I.?
Photo: Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Meta's big bet on "superintelligence"
Meta anticipates up to $135 billion worth of capital expenditures this year, nearly double the company’s outlay in 2025. One driver of that expenditure growth is what Meta calls its "Superintelligence Labs." This kind of spending puts it right up there with other tech giants pouring money into their AI capabilities. And it's a shift from a company that used to be hyper-focused on virtual reality. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes talked about this with Mike Isaac, a reporter for the New York Times, to learn more.
Leaving X? Where Next? On Bluesky, Threads and the “Fediverse”
Elon Musk’s social media platform X lost more than 280,000 global users the day after the US presidential election. Meanwhile, sites like Threads from Meta and newcomer Bluesky have seen huge surges in signups. Kara talks to a team of social media experts about the “X-odus”; who is migrating to Threads and Bluesky and why; how those federated protocols (or “fediverse”) differ from X’s algorithmic platform; and if the social media “town square” giving way to a more fragmented communities is a good or bad thing.
Guests: Nilay Patel, Editor-in-chief of The Verge and Host of Decoder; New York Times Tech Correspondent Mike Isaac; Wall Street Journal Tech Reporter Alexa Corse.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher
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Can you build a company like Uber without being a jerk?
On this week’ interview episode of The Vergecast, editor-in-chief of The Verge Nilay Patel sits down with New York Times reporter Mike Isaac. Isaac has been reporting on the ride-sharing company Uber for over five years now and just released a book all about Uber and the stories surrounding it called Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.
Nilay and Mike talk about how Uber got to where it is today, Uber’s interactions with companies like Apple and Google, and whether or not you have to be a “jerk” to start a company that changes the world.
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Is Uber super f*cked? Let’s ask “Super Pumped” author Mike Isaac
Kara and Scott bring on NYTimes reporter, Mike Isaac, to talk about his new book "Super Pumped: the Battle for Uber". They pick his brain about all the Silicon Valley drama around the ride-share company. Scott's win is Walmart for taking action in the gun-control debate. Mike comes prepared with his own fail and calls out Twitter for the hacking of Jack Dorsey's account. Scott is predicting that weWork doesn't ever actually go public.
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