Hat Tip to this week’s creators: @tedgioia, @benthompson, @stratechery, @peterwalker99, @omri_drory, @sama, @mariogabriele, @gruber, @giannandrea, @craigfederighi, @gregjoz, @alex, @MParekh, @waxeditorial, @romaindillet, @cookie, @ttunguz, @Kantrowitz Contents * Editorial: Checkmate! * Essays of the Week * Is Silicon Valley Building Universe 25? * Apple Intelligence is Right On Time * 2018 cohort graduation rates? * How VCs Become A******s * Startup Playbook * How to Find a Unicorn * Video of the Week * John Gruber, John Giannandrea, Craig Federighi, and Greg Joswiak on Apple Intelligence * AI of the Week * OpenAI's growth is one of the most astounding business results of all time * AI: New Focus on 'Accelerated' Local AI Devices. RTZ #387 * News Of the Week * visionOS 2: Spatial Personas Can Touch Fingers, High Five, Fist Bump Each Other With Visual and Audio Feedback * Raspberry Pi is now a public company * Carta’s valuation to be cut by $6.5 billion in upcoming secondary sale * LinkedIn Adds New Elements to Its Newsletter Creation Platform * Startup of the Week * Databricks' Accelerating Growth * X of the Week * 3, 3 Trillion Dollar Companies Editorial: Checkmate! Checkmate! That seems like the appropriate word if you analyze what happened with OpenAI this week. After being built into every conceivable Microsft interface, Apple announced that it would integrate OpenAI into all of its operating systems across devices via Siri. By locking up Microsoft and Apple, it has effectively locked out Google, at least for now. That will leave Google itself as the only large implementation of its Gemini AI family. This gives Apple a global advantage in the iPhone versus Android battle. Few will prefer Gemini to OpenAI. Beyond that, Apple successfully showed how its own ‘Apple Intelligence’ will face inwards to the device, interoperating with all apps and supporting ‘actions’ while leaving all user data on the device. And when you need more power than the device can deliver, the new Apple Intelligence Cloud steps up in a fully encrypted secure environment. Even Apple cannot decrypt your data as it has no keys. Ben Thompson from Stratechery sums up Apple’s play as follows: This is good news for Apple in two respects. First, with regards to the title of this Article, the fact it is possible to be too early with AI features, as Microsoft seemed to be in this case, implies that not having AI features does not mean you are too late. Yes, AI features could differentiate an existing platform, but they could also diminish it. Second, Apple’s orientation towards prioritizing users over developers aligns nicely with its brand promise of privacy and security: Apple would prefer to deliver new features in an integrated fashion as a matter of course; making AI not just compelling but societally acceptable may require exactly that, which means that Apple is arriving on the AI scene just in time. The concept of “just in time” seems appropriate. Although, as a developer possessing all of the beta products, I can say that very few of the features announced are yet available. The contrast with Microsoft couldn’t be more extreme. Its Recall product, which took a screen recording every five seconds and stored its findings in clear text on the device, got a backlash from journalists and privacy campaigners. Microsoft has all but canceled the product, and its PR tail is between its legs. Apple’s ‘Crush’ ad has almost been forgotten. Microsoft could make a mistake here. It is already working on products competing with OpenAI and might be tempted to go alone. What Bing is to Google, Microsoft AI will be to OpenAI. If it does so, it will once again shoot itself in the foot. OpenAI is far ahead in features and capabilities. Google cannot integrate it. Microsoft has gained an advantage from having done so. Apple too. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you seems an apt reminder. This week’s essays focus a lot on the social impact of