Please enjoy Invictus with Matt Damon; & Morgan Freeman, as it rememembered the momentous achieved by South Africa having won the Rugby Word Cup
Monday, December 15, 2025
Friday, December 12, 2025
On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Edition): Yuval Noah Harrari Reflects......
Our team chose this from Chris Hunt's "Code of the West" Manual to have us think about our purpose in life (an interesting point made about the story of life) as we are proud to present Yuval Noah Harrari on Making Sense of our World as he made a startling comment: The latest book he's working on may be his last as he believes AI (what he deems Alien Intelligence) will take over as Algorithms will drive the World:
Monday, December 8, 2025
On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Weekly Edition): On The Tech Scene
Our team presents a snapshot of the latest on the Tech Scene, courtesy of the team at The Information on Oracle, Broadcom, Microsoft and other thoughts:
Step aside, young folks of tech. This week we hear from the industry’s, ah, elder statesmen—specifically Larry Ellison at Oracle and Hock Tan from Broadcom, whose combined age is about 150. Oracle and Broadcom are each reporting their latest quarterly earnings this week, when the status of their newish AI businesses will be in the spotlight. In the case of Oracle, we’ll be looking for an update on its AI-related cloud expansion while Broadcom will be reporting the latest numbers for its AI chip business. Both businesses, to be clear, are in their early days of expansion—at least if we believe Ellison and Tan.
Take Broadcom. Its AI-related revenue grew by more than 60% in the first three quarters of its 2025 fiscal year, and it has projected slightly faster growth in that segment for the October quarter, which it’s reporting on Thursday. That should bring AI revenue to $19.9 billion for fiscal 2025, compared with $12.2 billion in fiscal 2024. That’s peanuts compared with Nvidia, whose AI chip business made up most of the company’s $57 billion third quarter revenue. Broadcom isn’t likely to catch up to Nvidia—well, probably ever—but it will certainly grow. Its chip customers include Google, whose AI chip business appears to be taking off. Tan last December forecast that the AI chip and networking market he is aiming at will explode to between $60 billion and $90 billion by 2027, implying that Broadcom’s business can expand enormously in the next two years. We'll be watching for updates this week. (For more on Tan, see our Weekend profile, published on Friday.)
AI is only a minority of Broadcom’s business, by the way, but it is a growing portion, lately representing about a third. Overall, Broadcom’s revenue is expected to grow 24% to $17.5 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Oracle is in a similar position. Its cloud business, which is tiny compared with giants like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, has started growing at a 50%-plus rate in the past few quarters. It’s still small—quarterly revenue has been running at just above $3 billion, about a fifth of the total company’s. But Oracle’s disclosure in September that deals it has booked will lift cloud revenue to $144 billion by 2030—which sent its stock soaring—implies that its real inflection in growth is yet to come. By 2030, analysts expect the cloud business will account for the majority of its revenue.
Of course, 2030 is a long time away. Oracle’s customers include OpenAI, which still has to raise the money to pay for its future cloud commitments. Oracle, meanwhile, has to finance its data center expansion. So investors are a little nervous. Their mood, which has dragged down the stock in recent weeks, may not change after this week’s earnings update. Analysts estimate that overall revenue will rise 14.8%, according to S&P, which is an uptick on the single-digit percentage growth rate Oracle was reporting a few quarters ago but is far from the growth Oracle should deliver in the next few years. What we’re really looking for on Wednesday, when Oracle reports, is an update on its efforts to raise financing for its new data centers and the latest on the size of its long-term customer commitments. And given how bears have crowded into Oracle stock lately, Ellison may want to try to dissipate some of the skepticism.
The Ellisons, Warner and Netflix
The Ellisons have a lot on their mind these days, and it’s not all about data centers. On Friday, Netflix beat out the Ellison-controlled Paramount Skydance in the bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery. This contest is far from over, however. There’s a very good chance the Trump administration will block the Netflix-Warner tie-up on antitrust grounds. And given that the elder Ellison is close to President Donald Trump, there’s also a decent chance that Paramount would win approval for any deal it does.
On Friday, CNBC reported that Paramount was considering making an offer directly to WBD shareholders. Paramount’s regulatory edge would likely weigh heavily on the minds of shareholders. There may be some shareholders in WBD who held the stock back in 2016, when AT&T agreed to buy the company formerly known as Time Warner—only to see the closing delayed until mid-2018 as the Justice Department unsuccessfully fought the deal in court. It’s doubtful WBD investors want to go through that again.
In Other News
• Microsoft’s shareholders approved the board’s proposed compensation for CEO Satya Nadella and other top executives on Friday, raising his pay to $96.5 million, up from $79.1 million last year. The majority of his compensation will come from stock awards, while his base salary is $2.5 million.
• Japanese conglomerate SoftBank is in talks to acquire DigitalBridge, one of the largest publicly traded investors in data center companies, Bloomberg reported.
• The New York Times sued Perplexity for copyright infringement, adding to a mounting pile of lawsuits against the AI search startup.
• The EU hit Elon Musk’s X with a $140 million fine on Friday, citing several issues with the design and maintenance of the social media service. It’s the first time the EU has levied a fine under the Digital Services Act, a sweeping set of tech regulations it passed in 2022.
• Elon Musk’s SpaceX is considering an IPO in 2026, The Information reported on Friday.
• Google cannot require partners like Apple or Samsung to distribute its generative AI products like Gemini as a condition of licensing Google’s other apps such as Google Maps, a federal judge ruled on Friday as part of the final remedies judgment governing how Google must address its illegal search monopoly. More here.
• Meta Platforms has postponed the launch of its next-generation mixed-reality glasses, code-named Phoenix, from the second half of 2026 to the first half of 2027, Business Insider reported.
• The executive in charge of Apple’s hugely successful in-house chip design efforts is eyeing an exit from the company, Bloomberg reported. Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, has told the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, that he is “seriously considering” departing Apple in the near future, the publication reported.
• X has cut off the advertising account of the European Commission days after the agency imposed a €120 million fine on the platform for breaching the Digital Services Act, a set of regulations governing internet companies. More here.
Sunday, December 7, 2025
#OutsiderVibes (Special Sunday Edition) : Please enjoy In The Line Of Fire
We have the pleasure to present "In the Line Of Fire" starring Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo courtesy the team at YouTube Movies & Warner Bros (Soon to be taken over by NetFlix in a 83 Billion Blockbuster Merger)
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
On Our "Virtual Route 99" On the Tech/AI Scene
We present the following on recent discourse courtesy the team at the Information on the latest on the drama around Warner Brothers Discovery (as it has put itself up for Sale) and other thoughts:
The Ellison family will have plenty to talk about when they convene for Thanksgiving this week (assuming they do!). The price of Oracle has plummeted in the past six weeks, for one thing, reflecting AI bubble jitters centering on Oracle. In the same period of time, Larry Ellison and his son David have been—by all accounts—busy plotting the roughly $90 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Their interest—conveyed through the company they now control, Paramount Skydance—sparked a bidding war that is now coming to a head. Bids were reportedly due last Thursday, with both Netflix and Comcast reportedly in the mix, which means we could see some developments this week.
Could the Ellisons’ eagerness to buy WBD be affected by the diminishing value of Larry Ellison’s 41% stake in Oracle? It’s not crazy to imagine that at the very least, the Ellisons may be less willing to overpay than they might have been. A recent securities filing showed that as of mid-September, Ellison had pledged about 30% of his Oracle stake—or 346 million shares, worth about $69 billion currently—as collateral for personal loans taken out “to fund outside personal business ventures.” That’s up from the 277 million shares he had pledged a year earlier. As Ellison backed his son‘s purchase of Paramount this past summer, he may well have done so by borrowing against his Oracle shares. Even if he didn’t, the loans suggest Ellison would be sensitive to swings in Oracle’s stock price. And it certainly has been volatile.
You might recall that word of the Ellison family’s interest in WBD emerged a day or so after Oracle shares had rocketed 36% to as high as $327 in the wake of the company’s disclosure that its cloud unit had signed hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of business extending over the next few years, mostly with OpenAI. That translated to an increase in the value of Ellison’s stake of about $100 billion, enough to pay for WBD. But Oracle shares have fallen 39% from the high to just below $200 on Friday—costing Ellison about $149 billion.
The holidays are coming up, which means it’s time for another surge in SpaceX share prices.
The Elon Musk-founded company is planning to keep up its tradition of a twice-annual tender offer, with the new price expected to be set in December, according to multiple people familiar with the space giant’s plans.
It was last valued at $400 billion this summer in a sale of existing shares. At the time, it was the most valuable startup, but it wasn’t long before OpenAI surpassed that with its $500 billion valuation.
Rumors abound about how investors will next value the space and internet business. Could it be $420 billion, one of founder Musk’s favorite numbers? Or would it be $500 billion, tying the record for most-valuable startup, on par with Musk-rival Sam Altman? The company is surveying demand from investors but has not yet decided on a price, I’m told.
One thing that has become clear is that SpaceX’s formula of regularly allowing investors and employees to sell shares does not appear to be ending anytime soon. Demand is high and a potential public offering is a long way off, insiders say.
That’s a change from the past. A few years ago, Musk said he expected SpaceX would eventually spin off satellite internet service Starlink and take it public. But executives haven’t been working towards that outcome lately and a spinoff may never happen, the people said.
That’s because SpaceX’s rocket business is in better shape relative to Starlink than it once was. A few years ago, Starlink’s margins from selling subscriptions for $120 a month were expected to be higher than those for SpaceX’s rocket launches, making a spinoff of the stronger business more attractive. But its core rocket launch revenue has grown and there is ample demand from investors to buy part of the combined business.
Jared Carmel, founder and managing partner of Manhattan Venture Partners, which owns SpaceX shares sold by existing shareholders, said that he sees continued demand for the business “because it’s delivering on both proven revenue and moonshot potential.”
He pointed to strong market share, with SpaceX launching the vast majority of satellites and other payloads, by mass, into space globally. SpaceX’s overall business is on track for $15.5 billion in annual revenue, Musk posted on X in June. It has about $3 billion in cash, The Wall Street Journal reported in July.
“It’s rare to find a private company that’s both printing money today and positioned to define the trillion-dollar space economy tomorrow,” Carmel added.
Last year around this time, SpaceX received a large jump in demand from investors, which pushed up its valuation to $350 billion from $180 billion, in part due to Musk’s ties to newly-elected President Donald Trump after Musk poured $250 million into his re-election campaign.
The two now have a complicated relationship. Earlier this year, Musk publicly slammed Trump on the president’s landmark budget bill, prompting Trump to threaten to revoke some federal subsidies to Musk's companies. Musk was back at the White House last week for a dinner with Saudi officials.
But SpaceX has been unaffected by Musk-related drama, with investors saying they like the business fundamentals: namely that it’s growing, generates cash and has high barriers to entry. One person familiar with SpaceX’s business pointed to growth in the government business, like its recently reported $2 billion deal with the Pentagon.
Would SpaceX ever need to raise more money through private financing or an IPO? Possibly some day, said one insider. SpaceX has recently been buying costly spectrum, like the $17 billion it purchased from EchoStar to enhance Starlink’s mobile coverage for cell phones in hard-to-reach areas. The business could also spend money on artificial intelligence initiatives, with Musk tweeting in October that SpaceX will build data centers in space.
For now, SpaceX investors are still forecasting, dare I say, rocket ship-like growth.Now, there’s no guarantee the Ellisons’ Paramount will win the bidding for WBD. It’s a good bet WBD CEO David Zaslav would prefer not to sell to Paramount, which wants the whole company. After all, most public company CEOs don’t want to give up their job. Selling part of WBD to Netflix or Comcast, or sticking with previously announced plans to split WBD’s studio and streaming operations from its slowly shrinking TV channel business, would likely keep Zaslav employed. But the WBD board has to consider the interests of all shareholders, which means a sale of the entire company to Paramount can’t be ruled out. It also could make a difference to the board that the Ellisons—thanks to Larry’s closeness to President Donald Trump—will have the edge when it comes to getting regulatory approval for any deal.
No one could blame either father or son if they chose to pull back a little. After all, few other companies would buy all of WBD for the simple reason that half of the business is slowly evaporating. The risk that the Ellisons will be taking on in buying it, so shortly after acquiring Paramount, is not insignificant. It doesn’t help that Oracle is taking on enormous risk with the cloud expansion. At some point, maybe Larry Ellison will stop to wonder what on earth he’s doing.
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The narrative that OpenAI has an insurmountable lead and Nvidia a monopoly is fracturing. The dynamic in AI is shifting from a sprint for supremacy to a battle of attrition defined by financial staying power and vertical integration.
Google is waging a two-front war against incumbents. On one front, Google is leveraging $70 billion in free cash flow to pressure OpenAI—whose CEO recently warned of “rough vibes.” On the other hand, Google is deploying TPU infrastructure to erode Nvidia's dominance, convincing players like OpenAI and Meta to adopt its hardware.
We present the Minds of Modern AI courtesy the Financial Times' FTLive to close out, and also a tribute to the great Tesla (Nicholas Tesla that is) along with an admonition from Reid Hoffman:
Monday, December 1, 2025
On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Weekly Edition): On A Vision of the Future & Artifical Intelligence
As December Dawns, Our Team presents this from the historian Yuval Noah Harari on the redefining of Humanity as Artificial Intelligence becomes ever so a part of our lives in light of the collapse of the International Liberal Order and the advent of a chaotic post liberal order:
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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