Down Round Down Round
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The number one podcast about tech business and culture, from James "JR" Hennessy and Raph Dixon.
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Now It's Meta's Turn To Go All In On AI
Everything is chatbots now. Every company must become a purveyor of bespoke chatbots.The latest cab off the rank is Meta, which just unveiled Llama 3, the latest version of its open source LLM. But this time they have integrated it deeply into Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, whacking a big nasty chatbox over the searchbar in all these apps.
In this episode, we talk about Meta's strategy in AI, and what Zuck might be cooking.
Links
The Dwarkesh pod with Zuckerberg
Down Round on X
Down Round on Instagram
Down Round on TikTok
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Have We Replaced The Smartphone Yet? (PREVIEW)
This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
As Downies will know well, one of the themes we're keeping an eye on is the number of products and product categories that are trying to replace the smartphone, which has been lagging in sales and hype of late. Two devices which pitched a bold new path forward are the Humane AI Pin and the Apple Vision Pro.
Based on reviews, neither of them are looking very good at all. We discuss.
Links
Humane AI Pin review: not even close – The Verge
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The Coming Tsunami Of AI Music
Over the past few weeks, there has been a surprising amount of movement in the AI music space. Suno and Udio are two lavishly funded AI music generation startups which just launched new models, which allow you to make songs in a wide range of genres from prompts. While not perfect, they both sound pretty good.
At the same time, Spotify is trialling AI-generated playlists, seemingly laying the groundwork for their own generative music. In this ep, we talk about the new models and what they might be used for.
Links
AI-Music Arms Race: Meet Udio, the Other ChatGPT for Music - Rolling Stone
Former Google DeepMind researchers launch AI-powered music creation app Udio
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Capital Inferno Heaven (feat. Kyle Harrison)
This week, we're joined by Kyle Harrison, who is General Partner at Contrary, a US venture capital fund. As well as investing, Kyle writes the newsletter Investing 101 2.0, where he shares his various insights into the VC ecosystem – including where, in his view, it's all gone wrong.
Kyle joins us to chat about the state of VC after the end of the tech boom, why he doesn't think anyone has learned their lesson, and what he thinks will happen with AI on both the tech and the investment side.
Links
The Puritans of Venture Capital – Kyle Harrison
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The Worst Tech Acquisitions Of All Time (PREVIEW)
This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
Sometimes a company merges with or acquires another, and it turns out to be a bad idea. That's OK. We all make stupid decisions. There's nothing to be ashamed of, even when we're talking about multibillion-dollar deals.
Some of these bad acquisitions aren't just about a culture mismatch or poor due diligence, though. Some of them speak to executives making a bet on the future of the economy – and betting wrong. In this ep, we go through some of the worst tech acquisitions of all time, and why they're interesting.
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Vapes: Smoking, but less cool and more illegal
One of the great turnarounds in 21st century was the tobacco industry's shift toward a so-called 'smokeless' future – agreeing that cigs are pretty bad for you, and that a range of hi-tech vapes could be a less bad replacement. Of course, it hasn't actually worked out that well, with public health bodies and governments around the world cracking down on vapes for targeting kids with flashy influencer marketing campaigns and cool flavours.
In this ep we talk about the rise of vapes, the changing tobacco industry, and new trends (Zyn, etc)
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