On Our "Virtual Route 99" Around the World This Week

 

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Friday Edition): On Oracle

 

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Weekly Edition): A Tribute To A Legend

 

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Sunday Edition): On SpaceX & Apple

 

SpaceX has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company closer to delivering the biggest-ever listing.

The filing puts it on track for a June listing, which would make SpaceX the first of what could be a trio of mega-IPOs, ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. 

SpaceX could seek a valuation in the IPO of more than $1.75 trillion, people familiar with the matter have said. A listing for SpaceX would raise as much as $75 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. At that size, it would dwarf the current record holder, Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion debut in 2019.

SpaceX is telling prospective IPO investors to expect briefings from company executives this month, people familiar with the matter have said. The company is considering a dual-class share structure in the listing that would potentially give insiders such as Musk extra voting power to dominate decision making. The IPO is expected to have a large retail component, with SpaceX potentially allocating as much as 30% of the offering to small investors, a person familiar with the matter has said.—Bloomberg

Apple @ 50

Fifty years ago, on April 1st, 1976, Apple Computer Company was founded. Today it’s one of the most valuable companies in the world, celebrated for producing ubiquitous products like the iPad and iPhone to now-nostalgia bait like the iPod Mini and PowerBook. Over the last five decades, the company has seen ups and downs but ultimately has left its mark on almost every part of our relationship with tech and culture, from entertainment to fitness to accessibility. In this package, The Verge looks back at the impact of the tech giant over the last five decades — from the triumphs and failures of the Jobs eras to its current incarnation as an antitrust juggernaut. We reminisce about some of our favorite products and take a walk down memory lane to look back at some of The Verge’s earliest Apple coverage.

Read more

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Edition): On Change & The Future As the New Quarter Dawns

A New Quarter is before Us.   Our team pulled together a retrospective on the realities of change and failure, looking back at Palm, mySpace et. al , which we hope to build upon as part of our mission for the Visions Property here at the Daily Outsider as we close out with a retrospective on Alphabet's Start-Up, Wings, making deliveries (some750,000 to date): 

 

Alphabet's drone delivery startup, Wing, expands service to the Bay Area

Wing is bringing its ultra-fast residential drone delivery service to the Bay Area. The company currently operates in limited areas of Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. It has completed more than 750,000 deliveries. Users can get drone delivery through eligible apps like Walmart and DoorDash, as well as Wing's own marketplace.

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Edition) As Spring is in the Air

 Spring is in the Air.   As we hope the community enjoys our features across our properties, we will be going dark through the end of the Quarter as we look forward to the privilege of serving.  Happy Spring and Happy Nowruz to all who celebrate it throughout the World: 

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Thursday Edition): Prof. G Reflects

 

Marcus Aurelius Reflects 

We present the following from Scott Galloway, the co-host of the podcast Pivot, on his thoughts on the State of the Market in light of the challenging times due to the ongoing War in the Middle East:  

On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Weekly Edition): On a Mid-Watch Tech Watch Around the World

 Our team presents the latest on the Tech Scene Courtesy the Team at the Information, as we are also privileged to reflect upon the greatness of Apple: 

 

1. Ex-Uber CEO Kalanick Plots Self-Driving Car Firm with Uber Funding By Jessica E. Lessin Source: The Information  Former Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick is preparing to launch a new self-driving car company with major backing from the ride-hailing giant, according to several people familiar with the matter. Kalanick has also been discussing acquiring the startup founded by Anthony Levandowski, who has been developing autonomous software for mining and other industrial use cases with Pronto.ai. Levandowski previously ran Uber’s self-driving car program under Kalanick but was forced out in 2017 after Google accused Levandowski of pilfering trade secrets from Google’s self-driving program, which Levandowski helped pioneer. Kalanick was also forced out of Uber that year after his board became concerned about the Levandowski affair and several other scandals.

2. Elon Musk Says xAI ‘Was Not Built Right’ is ‘Being Rebuilt’ By Theo Wayt Source: The Information  Elon Musk says he’s rebuilding xAI from the ground up after the vast majority of its founding staff left the company. “xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up,” Musk said in an X post on Thursday. “Same thing happened with Tesla.” Musk also said that xAI is contacting people it had previously rejected from jobs. “Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview @xAI. My apologies,” he said. Just three of xAI’s 12 co-founders, including Musk, still work at the company after the departures of many senior leaders in recent weeks. Three of the co-founders who departed were elevated by Musk as part of a reorganization just one month ago. On Thursday, xAI also hired two senior leaders from Cursor to work on the service’s coding tools, which Musk said aren’t as good as coding offerings from competitors. Musk’s dissatisfaction with xAI is especially notable because SpaceX acquired the company at a valuation of $250 billion last month ahead of a planned initial public offering. Musk said the merger would allow the combined company to train and run powerful AI models from data centers in space.

3. Meta May Lay Off 20% of Staff, Report Says By Laura Mandaro Source: Reuters  Meta Platforms is planning layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, Reuters reported Friday. The cuts would offset high costs of artificial intelligence spending and prepare for efficiency gains from AI assistants, said the report. The cuts, if they materialize, would be the latest reductions at the owner of Facebook and Instagram. Meta let about 10% of its Reality Labs unit go in January and has laid off about 25,000 people over the past three years. Even so, its workforce has continued to climb since 2023, hitting 78,865 as of December. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told The Information: “This is a speculative report about theoretical approaches.” Meta, similar to Amazon, Google and Microsoft, is spending aggressively on data centers and other computing costs to develop and run AI models. The company has forecast capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion this year, up roughly 73% from 2025.

4. TikTok Joint Venture Investors to Pay Trump Administration $10 Billion By Miles Kruppa Source: The Wall Street Journal  The Trump Administration will get $10 billion in payments from investors in a company designed to safeguard the user data of U.S.-based TikTok users, The Wall Street Journal reported. Investors in the company, which include Abu Dhabi-based MGX, Silver Lake and Oracle, paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the company was created in January and will make additional payments over time, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The total $10 billion fee would be much larger than what investment bankers typically receive for a deal of this size. Vice President J.D. Vance said last year the transaction valued the new company at about $14 billion. The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC formed in January will oversee the data security of U.S. users of TikTok, which will remain part of ByteDance. Its other investors include Michael Dell, Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic. MGX, Silver Lake, Oracle, TikTok USDS and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

5. China’s Second-Largest Chipmaker Develops Technology to Produce AI Chips By Qianer Liu Source: Reuters  Hua Hong Group, China’s second-largest chip manufacturer, has developed 7-nanometer chip-making technology for AI chips, Reuters reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. Chips made at that level of precision are powerful enough to drive AI applications and support model training. Until now, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, the country’s largest foundry, was the only Chinese company capable of producing 7-nanometer chips at scale. Hua Hong, backed by Shanghai’s municipal government, spent decades making less advanced chips for consumer electronics and cars before pivoting to cutting-edge manufacturing. Its latest breakthrough suggests Washington’s restrictions on China’s access to foreign chipmaking tools and suppliers haven’t stopped Chinese companies from making progress. Tighter U.S. export controls have pushed China to step up its domestic effort to build its own AI chips. Hua Hong has been collaborating with Huawei Technologies to develop chipmaking technology, according to Reuters. Biren Technology, a Chinese AI chip designer blacklisted by Washington, is using Hua Hong’s advanced plant to test prototypes ahead of full production, Reuters reported.

6. Musk’s $109 Billion Claim Against OpenAI to Proceed to Trial By Rocket Drew Source: The Information  The judge overseeing Elon Musk’s breach of charitable trust lawsuit against OpenAI said the court would not throw out testimony from Musk’s damages expert that OpenAI should pay Musk up to $109 billion if a jury finds OpenAI in the wrong. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, speaking at a pre-trial conference in Oakland, Calif. on Friday, said she would not grant OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the report from C. Paul Wazzan, an economist at economic consulting firm Berkeley Research Group. Even if Musk wins the case, the court could still decide OpenAI does not owe him the entire $109 billion. That’s because the statute of limitations could have expired on some of Musk’s claims, and the jury might find that Musk only deserves a fraction of the credit for OpenAI’s success or Wazzan’s report is otherwise unconvincing, according to the judge’s remarks. Judge Rogers did not announce a decision at the conference regarding Wazzan’s estimate that Microsoft owes Musk an additional $25 billion, which Microsoft has asked the court to throw out. Microsoft says that Wazzan failed to measure how much of OpenAI’s gains are specifically due to Microsoft’s alleged wrongdoing. Judge Rogers also delivered a tentative ruling that Musk cannot seek punitive damages, or additional damages to punish bad behavior, which could have amounted to multiple times the $38 million that Musk originally donated to OpenAI.

7. Nvidia Cloud Ally In Talks to Buy a Major U.S. AI Data Center Site By Amir Efrati Source: The Information  U.K.-based cloud provider Nscale, whose announced customers include OpenAI and Microsoft, is in negotiations to acquire a massive AI data center site in West Virginia, The Information reported. Amazon, Meta and a cloud ally of Google have also expressed interest in the site. The site is targeting 2 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2027, which would make it one of the largest such sites in the country, and up to 8 GW by 2030. Nscale, like other upstart AI cloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius, is a key ally of Nvidia and has discussed going public this year. But the proposed deal would also make Nscale more vertically integrated than its rivals, which typically don’t own the data center facilities themselves. Internal fundraising documents indicate that completing the transaction would triple Nscale’s 2027 revenue projections to an estimated $30 billion. The previously unreported materials reveal the cloud provider is actively negotiating a server rental agreement with ByteDance and may rent servers back to Nvidia as well.

8. Elon Musk’s xAI Hires Senior Thinking Machines Lab Staffer By Theo Wayt and Rocket Drew Source: The Information  xAI is hiring a senior staffer from Thinking Machines Lab to work on training its Grok models, according to a person with direct knowledge of the move, as Elon Musk says the AI company is “being rebuilt” after the majority of its founding team left. Devendra Chaplot, whose website describes him as a founding member of Thinking Machines Lab and a former member of the founding team at Mistral, will report to Musk, the person said. Musk said in posts on X on Thursday that “xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up” and that the company was contacting job applicants it had previously rejected. xAI also hired two senior staffers from Cursor to work on building its coding product after Musk said the company had fallen behind competitors. After The Information contacted Chaplot for comment, he posted on X about joining xAI. While Chaplot is one of a handful of senior staff to leave Thinking Machines Lab this year, the Mira Murati-led company has grown its overall headcount to approximately 120 people, four times its headcount at launch a year ago, according to a person with direct knowledge of the figure.

9. Amazon Prime Video Raises Prices on Ad-Free Tier By Catherine Perloff Source: The Information  Amazon Prime Video told customers today that it was raising the price for its ad-free tier from $2.99 a month to $4.99 a month. That’s in addition to the cost of a Prime membership. The price increase, which kicks in April 10, also comes with access to other features, like the ability to watch more content offline. Amazon first introduced ads to its Prime Video service in early 2024 by opting all of its subscribers in by default to advertising, and offering a pricier tier for those who wanted to avoid ads. Amazon’s approach was a contrast to how other streaming services such as Netflix introduced ads. Those companies introduced a tier with ads without forcing everyone into it. Show ads to more Prime Video viewers can help Amazon