Satya Nadella on Copilot, the AI backlash, and Microsoft’s future @satyanadella thinks AI agents will create a market “orders of magnitude” bigger than the cloud. I recently sat down with him in Seattle for the unveiling of the new Copilot. We discuss Autopilot, Microsoft's new OpenClaw-based agent that can work on your behalf, and why he thinks newer AI models are finally capable of delivering on more of Copilot’s promise. Nadella also has a blunt assessment of the AI industry: “We are way too self-obsessed.” I ask him why the industry has struggled to explain its benefits and what it will take to earn people’s trust. We get into his concerns about agents acting deceptively, when a safety problem should stop a release, and why he doesn’t want AI oversight to become a “cartel-like arrangement.” We also discuss Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, the models Microsoft is building itself, and why Nadella wants investors to think about its apps, agents, and infrastructure as one connected business. He explains how he uses AI to track Microsoft’s capital spending, shares his vision for “unmetered intelligence” on Windows, and gives an update on Xbox’s path back to growth. Timestamps: 00:00 The race for AI agents 07:53 Copilot’s next chapter 11:50 Autopilot and the digital teammate 16:50 How Microsoft prices AI 19:48 Why Microsoft is betting on multiple models 23:18 Measuring AGI through economic growth 28:39 The economics of Microsoft’s AI build-out 32:13 OpenAI and Microsoft’s own models 35:27 AI safety, control, and regulation 43:53 Why the AI industry is losing public trust 46:59 The future of Xbox and Windows 50:34 Microsoft’s biggest risk and opportunity Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: @mercury, @meetgranola, and @Atlassian.

Marc Benioff on the AI boom, SaaSpocalypse, and future of Slack Salesforce CEO @Benioff and I discuss his recent framemogging at Dreamforce, the state of the SaaSpocalypse, and how Slack is more important than ever in the age of AI. We also talk about the resurgence of San Francisco, his role in the recent acquisition of Hugging Face, the wealth being created by the IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, and what he thinks the industry can learn from the social media era. Timestamps: 00:00 Dreamforce Memes and the AI Hype Cycle 04:36 San Francisco’s AI Comeback 07:24 Why AI Leaders Should Give Back 11:50 AI Safety, Regulation and CEO Responsibility 15:57 Betting on AI Agents and Anthropic 21:10 Is the SaaS Apocalypse Overblown? 28:56 Slack as the Operating System for AI Agents 33:39 How Do You Price AI? 36:56 Headless Salesforce and Unlocking Business Data 40:51 How AI Is Changing TIME and the Media 44:15 The Future of AI Interfaces Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: @meetgranola, @Atlassian, and @mercury.

Baseten’s CEO on why every company will want to own its AI / @tuhinone on the rise of AI agents, the demand for inference, and building a new kind of hyperscaler. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the AI inference market and how big it could get. Agents like Muse, Instinct, Town, and Grok Bot aggressively use browsers, run their own computers, and burn through far more tokens than a traditional chatbot. As more people put them to work (Muse is number two in the App Store), the demand for inference, or the computing needed to run these models, should grow enormously. Tuhin and I discuss the rise of agents using browsers and virtual machines to get things done, and @baseten's recent acquisition to help power that shift. We also talk about the data center backlash, why companies are embracing Chinese open models, his plans for Baseten’s new research lab, and why he thinks inference becomes the only market left after AGI. Timestamps: 00:00 What Is AI Inference? 06:05 Competing With the Cloud Giants 09:24 Why Companies Want to Own Their AI 15:30 Building Baseten Before the AI Boom 23:45 DeepSeek and the Race for Open AI Models 29:32 Baseten’s Growth and Expansion 33:05 AI Agents and the Blaxel Acquisition 38:32 Data Centers and the AI Backlash 43:25 What Happens to Inference After AGI? 45:12 When AI Agents Become Customers Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: @Atlassian, @meetgranola, and @mercury.

I’m joining Sound Ventures to invest in the tech industry I’ve been covering for the last decade. Ten years ago, I set out to have a front-row seat to the biggest stories in tech. I’ve sometimes played a part in them through my reporting. Along the way, I’ve gotten to know many of the most influential founders shaping the future. Now I want to back them. I’ll continue to run Sources independently of my work at Sound. The newsletter is continuing, and I’m investing more in the podcast, which has an amazing roster of guests lined up. I got into covering Silicon Valley because I’m insatiably curious about what technology makes possible. It’s time to follow my curiosity again.

Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) on Muse, Meta's personal AI agent I recently sat down with Zuckerberg for episode two of the Sources podcast. We go deep on Muse, Meta's new (and, in my experience over the last few days, very capable) agent that comes with its own virtual machine and can do much more than a chatbot. Zuck, in fact, is confident that Muse will pay for itself by making people money. We also discuss his views on the data center backlash, his concerns about the concentration of power in AI, Meta's recent youth-safety settlement, privacy concerns about Meta's smart glasses, and more. Timestamps: 00:00 Zuckerberg’s Vision for AI 08:34 Data Centers, Jobs and Local Communities 15:03 Why Meta Is Building Personal Superintelligence 19:14 How Zuckerberg Uses Muse 25:00 Muse Pricing and Business Model 30:31 Privacy and Security for Personal Agents 41:06 Who Will Win the Personal AI Agent Market? 44:31 Rebuilding Meta’s AI Lab 54:09 AI Safety and Working With Government 01:01:51 Smart Glasses and Privacy 01:05:50 Teen Safety and Social Media Limits Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: @meetgranola, @mercury, and @Atlassian

Sam Altman on OpenAI’s next model and the AI backlash I recently sat down with Sam for a two-part conversation. We covered a lot of ground: the need to slow down frontier research, alignment concerns, OpenAI's next big model, Astra, competition with Anthropic, his thoughts on an IPO, reaching AGI, consumer hardware, and a lot more. Timestamps: 00:00 Why OpenAI Slowed Training 08:37 What Alignment Means 15:22 Keeping Humans in Control 24:39 AGI vs. Superintelligence 30:04 OpenAI’s Next Compute Bet 31:47 AI Backlash, Jobs, and Creators 41:31 OpenAI’s Missteps and Refocus 45:47 Astra and Computer-Using Agents 47:42 Regulation and the AI Race 51:24 Merging ChatGPT and Codex 54:22 The AI Compute Bubble 57:07 Recursive Self-Improvement and IPO 58:22 Humanoid Robots and Consumer Devices 1:05:47 Life After Superintelligence This episode was produced in partnership with @TIME. Thanks to the show's premier sponsors: @Atlassian, @meetgranola, and @mercury.

"Inside OpenAI's Reboot" is based on interviews with more than 20 company leaders, investors, customers, and rivals, as well as events I witnessed at OpenAI HQ over a 2-week period in August For the latest cover of @TIME:

OpenAI is slowing down its AI training efforts because its unreleased models are showing “various degrees of misalignment,” Sam Altman tells me. Training for OpenAI’s upcoming model, Astra, was recently paused for 2 weeks, and a larger frontier run for a future model remains on hold while new safeguards are put in place. Altman: “Getting AI safety right is more important than any company’s momentum.”

Over the weekend, @finkd called me via his Meta glasses while fishing to discuss the 6k+ word, pro-AI manifesto he published this morning. He told me the immediate reason he decided to publish his philosophy now is that Meta believes it is “very close to having substantially stronger models,” and he wants people to understand his values before those models arrive. Our convo here:

Inside Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis leaving his CEO post landed with essentially a shrug. Sources tell me he's already been disengaged from day-to-day management for a while now. But he was a firewall between DeepMind and the rest of Google, even as the two got pulled closer over the last couple of years. I expect that distance to dissolve more with him stepping back.

Alex Heath warns that if Apple wins its injunction, OpenAI will go “full court press” with oppo messaging, because it already spent over $6 billion buying Jony Ive’s hardware team. “Very bad. If there’s any traction of Apple winning an injunction, you’re going to see, my prediction, you’re going to see OpenAI go full court press on this and make a big mess of it and do a bunch of oppo messaging against this.” “It matters a lot. There’s a lot riding on them getting hardware right. It’s a personal kind of thing for Sam Altman and Jony.” “They spent over $6 billion on acquiring Jony’s hardware team.”

A Microsoft exec just sent an internal memo that’s designed to end tokenmaxxing and makes OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol the default model for internal use. Full text in the newsletter: