Good morning. Is anyone as fascinated by Mark Zuckerberg’s conversation with Joe Rogan as I am?
There’s a lot to sift through, but the portion I’d like to highlight is the Meta CEO’s extensive criticism of Apple. Its rules? “Arbitrary.” Its iPhone sales? “Declining.” Its revenue? Accomplished by “squeezing people.” And the kicker: “They haven’t really invented anything great in a while.”
It’s one heck of a heel turn for a guy who’s been chipping away at his reputation for sweaty anxiety.
Has Apple shifted from revolution to evolution under Tim Cook? Unquestionably—though its financial returns are hardly worse for it. And the company has failed in a number of ways big and small: Apple Card, FineWoven cases, HomePod, Maps (at launch), Vision Pro.
But all of this coming from the CEO of a company where 98% of sales are from a single type of business (advertising), a third of revenue is from an acquisition (Instagram), and a number of its greatest product innovations were fast-follows of competitors’ ideas?
C’mon, Mark. Let’s be real. I know you’re still itching for a cage match, but as they say in jiu-jitsu: Leave your ego at the door. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. On Friday we included an item about product and pricing changes at X, Elon Musk’s social media service. The story it was drawn from was subsequently retracted, and so we must do the same here. We sincerely apologize.
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Supreme Court likely to uphold TikTok ban, favoring security over speech
A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices appear likely to uphold the Biden administration’s divest-or-ban order for TikTok.
The law is set to take effect on January 19—the day before Inauguration Day—unless the high court temporarily blocks it. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and used by 170 million Americans.
During oral arguments on Friday, several justices indicated through questioning that they see the ban more as an attempt to regulate foreign control of a popular app than a First Amendment concern. TikTok’s legal argument is based on the latter.
In an exchange, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress was “fine with the expression” of TikTok but “not fine with a foreign adversary…gathering all this information.” The chief justice also noted the lack of precedent of using the First Amendment to strike down a law that regulated a company’s corporate ownership.
Justice Elena Kagan was similarly skeptical—“this foreign corporation…doesn’t have First Amendment rights”—as was Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who noted that a TikTok ban would only be the direct result of a choice by ByteDance not to divest it.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, however, questioned the government’s use of a ban as a First Amendment remedy: “Don’t we normally assume that the best remedy for problematic speech is counter speech?”
The clock is ticking: Six days to go. —AN
Disney, Fox, WB Discovery quit Venu Sports streaming venture
Venu Sports—the not-yet-launched streaming service cofounded by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery—will be discontinued in favor of “existing products and distribution channels,” they said.
The three media companies announced the joint venture in February 2024. The service, planned for launch this past fall, was intended to attract sports fans tired of paying for pricey cable TV bundles.
Venu would have featured content from Fox’s broadcast networks and FS1, Disney’s ABC and ESPN, and WBD’s TNT—which together have rights to major pro sports leagues including the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA—for $43 per month.
But the venture immediately ran into legal trouble. Competing streamer Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit and a U.S. district judge issued an injunction that delayed Venu’s launch. Satellite services Dish (EchoStar) and DirecTV later piled on with their own legal action.
Fubo dropped its lawsuit after it announced that it would merge with Disney’s rival Hulu + Live TV service; Disney would majority own the combined venture, but Fubo’s executive team would run it. The deal is pending regulatory approval. —AN
Zuckerberg allegedly allowed Meta AI to train on pirated books
Authors who have been suing Meta over alleged copyright violations in its AI model training data now say CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself green-lit the use of “pirated” versions of their books.
The authors, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, said in a filing that Zuckerberg had been warned by other executives that the LibGen dataset was known to be pirated, but he went ahead anyway.
This was apparently made clear in internal Meta communications, with one message reading: “Media coverage suggesting we have used a dataset we know to be pirated, such as LibGen, may undermine our negotiating position with regulators.”
As the Guardian reports, LibGen comes from Russia and has already been nailed in a New York federal court, which last year said it had to pay publishers $30 million for using copies of their books in its “shadow library.” —David Meyer
More data
—AI will slash bank jobs, study says. Global finance firms could cut 200,000 in the next three to five years.
—Watch Duty is the hottest app around. More than 1 million people downloaded it to track the Los Angeles wildfires.
—Smartphone market rebounds slightly. 2023 was its weakest year in a decade, says Counterpoint Research.
—Zuckerberg says Meta needs more “masculine energy.” Fewer than 4 in 10 Meta employees identify as women.
—Databricks, OpenAI, SpaceX IPOs? After huge fundraises, don’t hold your breath, traders say.
—Microsoft tests huge 365 price hikes in six Asian nations. The price of AI comes into view.
—Which streaming service has the greatest share of ads? Hint: It’s owned by the House of Mouse.
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