Tech
tech
Jon Keegan
12/5/24

On the first day of “shipmas,” Sam Altman gave to me...

Yesterday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that to wrap up the year, the company would celebrate “shipmas” and launch and demo a new product or feature each day for the next 12 days, or as he put it, “The 12 Days of OpenAI.”

For the first release, OpenAI announced the “full” version of its latest OpenAI o1 model and a new $200 per month ChatGPT Pro tier that offers unlimited access to the company’s latest models. OpenAI o1’s biggest feature is its ability to use multistep “reasoning” to solve complex problems.

For that extra fee, you can ask ChatGPT to solve the “most challenging” math, science, and programming problems, which it can answer in one to three minutes.

OpenAI seems to be taking cues from its business partner Microsoft by embracing some confusing branding for its growing portfolio of services.

Now, when you pay for ChatGPT Pro (not to be confused with the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus), power users can choose to use “o1 Pro Mode,” which can be used to “ask the model to use even more compute to think even harder on some of the most difficult problems,” one engineer said.

In the livestream of the announcement, Sam Altman sat with three male OpenAI developers who worked on the products and walked through some pretty wonky and boring demos.

In one example, which lives up to a viral TikTok moment, one of the developers asked ChatGPT to “list the Roman emperors of the second century, including their dates and accomplishments.” It took the o1 model 14 seconds to answer.

Another demo involved uploading a hand-drawn sketch of a theoretical space-based, solar-powered AI data center to ChatGPT and asking it to estimate the surface area for a part of the contraption. After 10 seconds, ChatGPT returned an estimate along with a step-by-step solution including formulas and explaining its assumptions.

The demo for “Pro Mode” involved identifying a protein based on six criteria, which it completed in 53 seconds.

Introducing ChatGPT Pro

Introducing ChatGPT Pro

For the first release, OpenAI announced the “full” version of its latest OpenAI o1 model and a new $200 per month ChatGPT Pro tier that offers unlimited access to the company’s latest models. OpenAI o1’s biggest feature is its ability to use multistep “reasoning” to solve complex problems.

For that extra fee, you can ask ChatGPT to solve the “most challenging” math, science, and programming problems, which it can answer in one to three minutes.

OpenAI seems to be taking cues from its business partner Microsoft by embracing some confusing branding for its growing portfolio of services.

Now, when you pay for ChatGPT Pro (not to be confused with the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus), power users can choose to use “o1 Pro Mode,” which can be used to “ask the model to use even more compute to think even harder on some of the most difficult problems,” one engineer said.

In the livestream of the announcement, Sam Altman sat with three male OpenAI developers who worked on the products and walked through some pretty wonky and boring demos.

In one example, which lives up to a viral TikTok moment, one of the developers asked ChatGPT to “list the Roman emperors of the second century, including their dates and accomplishments.” It took the o1 model 14 seconds to answer.

Another demo involved uploading a hand-drawn sketch of a theoretical space-based, solar-powered AI data center to ChatGPT and asking it to estimate the surface area for a part of the contraption. After 10 seconds, ChatGPT returned an estimate along with a step-by-step solution including formulas and explaining its assumptions.

The demo for “Pro Mode” involved identifying a protein based on six criteria, which it completed in 53 seconds.

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Rani Molla
Tunnel Vision
17h
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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tech
Jon Keegan
9/11/25

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

A joint statement from OpenAI and Microsoft

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.”

tech
Rani Molla
9/11/25

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.

APPLE INTELLIGENCE

Apple AI was MIA at iPhone event

A year and a half into a bungled rollout of AI into Apple’s products, Apple Intelligence was barely mentioned at the “Awe Dropping” event.

Jon Keegan9/10/25
tech
Jon Keegan
9/10/25

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

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

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.

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