Good morning. Who doesn’t love a good feud?
That’s what’s going on between the investor Paul Graham and the serial entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, who have been trading social media barbs over the relative merits of H1-B visas and labor policies that either level the playing field for global talent or give American citizens a leg up for jobs in the U.S.
Graham: “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
Luckey: “If I try to replace all my American engineers with foreign engineers who scored a few points better, I should be stopped by the law or worse.”
Graham: “Do you have employees working in America who aren’t American?”
Luckey: “You know a tiny handful of my 10,000+ employees aren’t citizens. I am pro-American, not the strict polar opposite of your traitorous ideology. And I won’t play 20 Questions with you as you try to bait me into saying something we both know is against California law.”
It goes on from there.
Complicating things, of course, is that Paul is an England-born-and-residing dual citizen and “accidental moderate” and Palmer is a California-born-and-residing American and a “true Trump OG.” Seeing eye to eye would require a long-haul flight, two complete series of The Office on DVD, and several containers of tea to dump in a harbor. (Don’t forget to declare it at the border.)
I’ll let you decide the winner of this spat. My take? Elon Musk, the owner of the arena playing host to the brawl.
More tech news follows. —Andrew Nusca
Thoughts? Suggestions? Hot tip? Drop me a line.
THE BIG STORY
Meta debuts lightweight virtual reality glasses
Meta on Wednesday upped the ante in its rivalry with Apple by announcing new lightweight virtual reality glasses that make Apple’s Vision Pro look like bulky old tech.
Mark Zuckerberg showed off his company’s new frames, named Meta VR Glasses, at its annual Connect event in Menlo Park, Calif. The spectacles weigh 100 grams, the CEO said, making them light enough to compare to a regular pair.
The glasses, which Meta said will ship in spring 2027, are designed for cinematic experiences such as watching movies, spatial computing, and gaming.
They will cost $1,299.
Meta’s new product is a clear shot at Apple and its Vision Pro headset, which has failed to take off as a consumer device in part because of its large frame, its weight, and its cost (around $3,700).
Apple is also reportedly working on smart glasses, as well as camera-enabled AirPods. Apple recently held its own hardware event, where it unveiled its first foldable phone, named the iPhone Duo, but didn’t have any updates on the Vision Pro.
Despite ample privacy concerns, Meta has taken the lead in the post-smartphone world in large part because of its lineup of smart glasses, which have become the most popular on the market.
Zuckerberg spent his hour-long presentation showing off new styles of Meta smart glasses, including updates to its flagship Ray-Ban camera-enabled glasses, its Meta Display glasses, which feature a small digital box on the right lens, and its first audio-only glasses, which will ship in Ray-Ban’s Clubmaster and Burbank styles.
“A lot of people are less interested in wearing a headset,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’ve built a new kind of VR device.” —Sebastian Herrera
THE BLIND BOX
“Unfortunately, tech bros are always rehabilitated. Especially if they’ve returned billions in capital.”
THE RUNDOWN
—SoftBank raised some $11 billion in debt through its junk bond sale.
—Meta’s Muse Charm: A Tamagotchi for the company’s AI agent, designed by ex-Apple creative chief Alan Dye.
—YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on joining Meta's multistate child safety settlement: Nah.
—An OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a public-facing Medicare portal, Australian PM says.
—How much is Kalshi worth? About $42 billion—if everything goes to plan.
—The Trump administration is reportedly considering promoting dollar-denominated stablecoins overseas.
—YouTube rolls out an AI storytelling assistant as it competes with Netflix for creators.
—Inside the UAE’s space strategy: satellites, security, and plenty of sovereign cash.
THE PARTING SLOP
Hey, did someone say something about The Office? Jim Halpert always seemed like a vibe coder, come to think of it.