The Pulse: Firebase’s global outage & poor response

Google's Firebase iOS SDK crashed after a backend change, taking down all apps that used Firebase analytics for 2 to 6 hours, and Google did not update its status page or publish a postmortem. Separately, OpenAI is opening its platform so ChatGPT spend can be allocated to open models and AI offerings from 16 partners, while Vercel's AI gateway shows 60% of model spend going to open weight models and OpenRouter shows open models used more than closed ones.

The Pulse is a series covering events, insights, and trends within Big Tech and startups. Today, we cover: 1. Firebase: global outage & poor handling by Google. The Firebase iOS SDK crashed after a backend change, crashing all apps which used Firebase analytics for 2-6 hours. Google did not update the status page or offer any postmortem, which is a head-scratcher from a company known for standout incident management practices. 2. OpenAI’s platform play from AWS playbook? OpenAI is becoming a platform where it’s possible to allocate ChatGPT spend on open models and AI offerings from among 16 partners, not just OpenAI models. It’s fair to ask if Anthropic will consider a similar platform play. 3. More data on companies moving to open models. Vercel’s AI gateway shows 60% of model spend goes to open weight models, and OpenRouter also shows open models are being more used than closed ones. 4. Why CTOs and VPEs are quitting en masse: another take. What if it’s not “founder mode”, but about people who love building software, feeling like they can do it solo or with a small team with AI tools?