Happy FAFO Friday, folks!
Here’s some of what Kwaku Aning and I get into this week…
Murderbots, mass layoffs, and media takeovers — all in one news cycle. Anthropic told the Pentagon it will “not accede." Block cut half its workforce overnight (blame AI!). And Netflix walks away from Warner Brothers, giving CNN (and my friends there) over to the family Ellison.
Also, thanks to Nicolás Maduro's fashion sense, my 13-year-old got a new nickname — Lil Tator — at school and honestly? The kids are all right.
Plus, we play Past, Present, Future… the game that’s sweeping America!
This is a good commute home / washing the dishes kind of episode for your Friday evening. Enjoy!
Chapters:
00:00 Three Stories Broke Last Night
03:16 Anthropic Tells the Pentagon No
06:24 Murder Bots, But Human in the Loop
09:28 Why This Is a Win for Anthropic
15:05 The Paramount-Warner Brothers Deal
21:13 CNN, Independent Media, and the Employee Perspective
23:55 Block Lays Off 4,000 People
24:14 The Citrini Research Fiction That Tanked Stocks
27:49 AI Washing and the Real Reason for Layoffs
30:11 Will Vibe Coding Replace Real Companies?
34:41 Past, Present, or Future?: State-Controlled AI
35:18 Past, Present, orFuture?: Independent Media
40:23 Past, Present, or Future?: Knicks Championship
41:44 Come See Us at South by Southwest!
If you don’t already get Future Around & Find Out emails, go ahead:
Future on…
~ Dan