Everyone’s talking about the new iPad ad, not the product itself

5/10/24 8:53AM

No such thing as bad press?

Apple’s new Crush! ad for its latest iPad received such a negative reaction that the company issued an apology just 2 days after its release, ditching plans to run it on TV, with Apple’s VP of marketing communications Tor Myhren conceding that the promo had “missed the mark”.

The one-minute video features various instruments of culture and creativity — a guitar, books, turntables, cameras, antiques — being pulverized by an industrial crushing machine, leaving only the new, admittedly very thin, iPad Pro in its wake. Some people wrote long indictments of the ad, outlining why it represented all that was bad about big tech, while others were more economical in their damnation: “Worst. Commercial. Ever.”

Rage bait

The tech giant now has an interesting opportunity to take the old “all publicity is good publicity” maxim out for a test drive. Preliminary Google Trends data suggests this might be the most buzzy bit of promotion that the iPad product line, quarterly sales of which peaked back in 2014, has had in years.

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a world where Apple’s marketing execs didn’t see some kind of strong reaction to a striking visual of creative objects being destroyed. The fact that they’ve pulled the ad, however, weakens the deliberately provocative argument. It’s also just not very Apple — which has found success with upbeat, uplifting ads in days gone by.

For now, the ad still sits on CEO Tim Cook’s Twitter feed, having racked up nearly 60 million views and thousands of enraged replies.

Rani Molla

Tunnel Vision

19h

Tesla gets permit to test autonomous cars in Nevada as autonomous driving heats up there

Amazon’s self-driving Zoox launched service this week, and Google’s Waymo is testing there.

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OpenAI and Microsoft reach agreement that moves OpenAI closer to for-profit status

In a joint statement, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” for their renegotiated $13 billion partnership, which was a source of recent tension between the two companies.

Settling the agreement is a requirement to clear the way for OpenAI to convert to a for-profit public benefit corporation, which it must do before a year-end deadline to secure a $20 billion investment from SoftBank.

OpenAI also announced that the controlling nonprofit arm would hold an equity stake in the PBC valued at $100 billion, which would make it “one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world.”

The statement read:

“This recapitalization would also enable us to raise the capital required to accomplish our mission — and ensure that as OpenAI’s PBC grows, so will the nonprofit’s resources, allowing us to bring it to historic levels of community impact.”

A joint statement from OpenAI and Microsoft

The statement read:

“This recapitalization would also enable us to raise the capital required to accomplish our mission — and ensure that as OpenAI’s PBC grows, so will the nonprofit’s resources, allowing us to bring it to historic levels of community impact.”

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BofA doesn’t expect Tesla’s ride-share service to have an impact on Uber or Lyft this year

Analysts at Bank of America Global Research compared Tesla’s new Bay Area ride-sharing service with its rivals and found that, for now, it’s not much competition for Uber and Lyft. “Tesla scale in SF is still small, and we don’t expect impact on Uber/Lyft financial performance in ’25,” they wrote.

Tesla is operating an unknown number of cars with drivers using supervised full self-driving in the Bay Area, and roughly 30 autonomous robotaxis in Austin. The company has allowed the public to download its Robotaxi app and join a waitlist, but it hasn’t said how many people have been let in off that waitlist.

While the analysts found that Tesla ride-shares are cheaper than traditional ride-share services like Uber and Lyft, the wait times are a lot longer (nine-minute wait times on average, when cars were available at all) and the process has more friction. They also said the “nature of [a] Tesla FSD ‘driver’ is slightly more aggressive than a Waymo,” the Google-owned company that’s currently operating 800 vehicles in the Bay Area.

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Jon Keegan9/10/25

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Oracle’s massive sales backlog is thanks to a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, WSJ reports

OpenAI has signed a massive deal to purchase $300 billion worth of cloud computing capacity from Oracle, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The report notes that the five-year deal would be one of the largest cloud computing contracts ever signed, requiring 4.5 gigawatts of capacity.

The news is prompting shares to pare some of their massive gains, presumably because of concerns about counterparty and concentration risk.

Yesterday, Oracle shares skyrocketed as much as 30% in after-hours trading after the company forecast that it expects its cloud infrastructure business to see revenues climb to $144 billion by 2030.

Oracle shares were up as much as 43% on Wednesday.

It’s the second example in under a week of how much OpenAI’s cash burn and fundraising efforts are playing a starring role in the AI boom: the Financial Times reported that OpenAI is also the major new Broadcom customer that has placed $10 billion in orders.

Exclusive | Oracle, OpenAI Sign Massive $300 Billion Cloud Computing Deal