Did you miss me while I was away? Not that I wasn't busy still writing in between planes and pools. But I come back bearing gifts. Well, a gift – albeit one long requested by many of you... *full RSS feeds for paid members of * The Inner Ring. Yes, over two years in the making – well, more like a few hours, thanks to our AI overlords helping me out – I finally cracked the code. Unfortunately, it still needs a fairly manual deployment at the moment – which is to say, if you're interested and
a paid member, shoot a note to subs [at] spyglass.org. If not, carry on. The current RSS feed will continue to work just fine, albeit truncated.
Happy last days of Summer. And Friday.
Thoughts On...
💸 Yet Another New Flavor of Hackquisition – NVIDIA is paying $6B to the investors in Poolside for... something. Technically, it sounds like a license to access their "open" model "factory", which sounds a lot like technology created – perhaps after a couple pivots – to be acquired by NVIDIA. After all, Jensen Huang's two favorite words of late are "open" and "factory". Not on that list is "acquired" – this is the word that shall never be mentioned in such deals, lest regulators come calling. Again, this is just a licensing deal and some job offers – 109 of them, to be exact. But interestingly, unlike most other "hackquistions" to date, this one explicitly does not include the founders. In fact, they're staying back with the remaining parts (if any) of the company, and raising $1B from NVIDIA at a new $12B (pre) valuation for their troubles. I mean, what?! What could possibly go wrong? The only thing that is clear here is that NVIDIA has way too much money on their hands, and they seemingly can't give it away fast enough. [Newcomer 🔒]
**💨 Pissing in the Wind – **While I've largely been on the side of Epic's Tim Sweeney over many years now with regard to the App Store rules – and I think I correctly read long ago the game he seemed to be playing to continuously bait Apple – his comments the last few days in light of Apple and the EC seemingly reaching a detente over the rules in the EU seem disingenuous at best and unhinged at worst. This would seem to be some last-ditch effort to keep the EC fighting, but come on, it's over dude. You got some of what you wanted! Distribution outside of the App Store is here and payments on the web are mandated – including, importantly, in the US, which was largely you're doing! It's true that those payments won't be completely free of charge, and I get that the EC de facto accepting that makes the US case even harder, but come on, this was never going to be some sort of flawless victory. Take the W. Or sell to Disney. [Xitter]
**⚖️ Meta's Make Or Break Trial – **"Big Techbacco" indeed. Unlike with the silly antitrust case against Meta, it feels like the stakes can't get much higher for the company here. Four states (representing 25 others) are more or less trying to take down social media (represented by Meta) much as yes, the tobacco companies were once taken down. While $200B is the headline potential damages number here, technically the fines could reach $1.4T – which is exactly Meta's market cap. So yeah, that feels pretty existential. More importantly, it could completely upend Meta's actual business, in a time when they need it to be pumping out cash more than ever so they can pump it into AI. While there is an 8-person jury here, they're merely meant to be advisory to the judge who will issue the verdict and award any would-be damages. That judge? Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, whose name may look awfully familiar to anyone who has followed the Apple/Epic ongoing situation (see: above). Meta should probably hope they don't piss her off as Apple did! So far, things seem up and down. [NYT]
💬 OpenAI Keeps Right On Poking the Bear – ChatGPT for Apple Messages support seems interesting, it also sounds like something Apple will absolutely hate. Given that this is on the Mac, and the ChatGPT app (
clearly) isn't distributed through the Mac App Store, I'm not sure what they can actually do here – certainly send some strongly worded messages to OpenAI and perhaps the public about security – while noting that Apple will be happy to do such AI things for you
[shortly](https://spyglass.org/siri-ai/), with
[new Siri](https://spyglass.org/new-new-siri/)– but if this was an iOS feature, well, such an app would never get approved. Add this to (
[allegedly](https://spyglass.org/openai-picks-an-apple-fight/)) threatening to sue Apple, then Apple (
[actually](https://spyglass.org/apple-v-openai-lawsuit-lines/)) suing OpenAI, and you have
[quite the](https://spyglass.org/openai-vs-apple-emails/)situationship
[here](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/20/apple-fires-back-openai-bid-toss-lawsuit/?ref=spyglass.org). I'm reminded when Twitter
[tried to connect](https://techcrunch.com/2010/06/23/twitter-facebook-friends-linkedin/?ref=spyglass.org)to Facebook's Friend Graph back in the day. That
[didn't last long](https://techcrunch.com/2010/06/23/facebook-blocks-twitter/?ref=spyglass.org). Nor did
[Instagram images on Twitter](https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/kevin-systrom-on-pulling-twitter-cards-integration-we-want-images-viewed-on-instagram-com/?ref=spyglass.org), after the sale.
[
9to5Mac**]**
**🪙 'The Stripe of AI' Joins Stripe – **With the clear disclosure that I invested in Stripe back in the day so of course I'm biased here, I found Ben Thompson's thoughts on the (then still rumored) OpenRouter deal insightful. This seemingly makes sense on a number of fronts – first and foremost if you consider tokens to be the currency for companies building with AI, as Patrick Collison clearly does. But at the highest level, nearly anyone else (who could afford to) buying OpenRouter would ruin, at least in part, their value proposition by destroying the "Switzerland" nature of the product. Stripe just enhances it. [Stratechery 🔒]
**🥒 The Vision Pro Pickle – **Beyond the layoffs within the group – following the defection of their leader to, where else: OpenAI, a couple months back – it's really pretty wild just how bad Apple's timing was here. I mean, I've been saying this from the get-go, but that was simply around product/market fit. Arguably worse is the fact that they released their most expensive device (at least from a starting-point perspective) just as the world of component prices were set to explode due to the AI boom. They couldn't have known that, of course. But also, maybe they should have? In a weird way, Apple is probably happy they're not selling too many because the price to manufacture them must have gone up dramatically. And while there was a price increase ($3,500 is now $3,700), they also can't afford to raise it too much here – again, it was already the most expensive device and clearly wasn't selling in no small part due to that price. Also, can you imagine a world where Apple would prioritize chips and memory for the Vision Pro versus, say, the iPhone, iPad, or Mac? Given the component issues are likely to last into 2027 and beyond, it's increasingly fair to wonder if the device will ever get another refresh (especially with so much else going on). Apple will support it as best they can given the numbers, but I'm fairly worried about true support here, even if they won't admit it right now. Which is too bad, as it was finallycoming into its own, content-wise. [AppleInsider]
I Wrote...
I Quote...
"If Mark makes something a priority, mountains move in months."
– Arturo Bejar, a former Facebook safety engineer and Instagram consultant, testifying against Meta in the opening of the aforementioned trial. Notably, he also testified in the New Mexico case which Meta lost.
Asides...
- SpaceX's record $75B IPO(which ended upmore like $86.2Braised) should hold for, I don't know, three or four months? CouldAnthropic's IPO hit $100B? I mean, OpenAI raised $122B in aprivateround.[Bloomberg🔒] - Meanwhile, Operation Revenue Ramp ( in ways that Anthropic cannot) is well underway atOpenAI, with** AI adsrolling out in 31 (!) new markets.[AdWeek]** - Lest they be left behindinthe "Super App" race, there's now aMeta AI Mac app. It's... fine? But unlike, Claude andnow ChatGPT, I think it's native? We'll see how long that lasts as theyinevitably tryto make it more "super".[Verge] - There's not only a growing backlash against " smart glasses" from consumers, even** ICEis now banning Meta'svarious wares you wear.Apple needs totread carefully as theyenter this world. And they will.Meta though...[NYT]** - It took a developer* a daytomakethePixel'** HiLight**' featureinfinitely more usefulthan Google could in months (years?) of development.[9to5Google] BlackBerry– yes,– is back! Positive cash flow for the first time in almost a decade,that one**which was just after they stopped selling phones! Now they're all about QNX and Secusmart – two deals done in the 2010s. Sure, they're a shadow of what they once were, but still, it's wild that both they and Nokia figured out and forged completely new paths.[FT🔒]- I missed this from a couple weeks back, but Sam Neil's last film will apparentlybenext year's...The Legend of Zelda![Deadline]*
I Spy...
I saved this chart a couple months ago, and it remains wild. The top 20 companies in terms of wealth creation over the past century in the stock market are... completely dominated by tech companies. Perhaps not too surprising given the state of the world right now. But this is since 1926!
Even crazier, as recently as 2016, Exxon still topped the list. Now they're all the way down at #7, with Apple having more than 3x'd them in that regard. Apple and Exxon – remember when that was a race? I do!
NVIDIA only went public in 1999 and is #2. Again of all public companies over the past 100 years. To highlight just how bonkers the recent run-up has been, SpaceX, which went public a whole two months ago, was briefly in the top 30 (before the slide post IPO pop).
🎶 Listening to Doors (Live) by Noah Kahan
🍺 Enjoying a Time Better Spent IPA** by Tap Social**
🇬🇧 Sent from London, England