E41: Meta’s Open Source Strategy, Amazon’s Culture Drift, and What’s Going on With Character.AI

"The Riff" with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg

This week, Byrne and Erik discuss Meta’s open source strategy, Google’s hiring of Character.AI’s CEO, the calculus behind the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and more.

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LINKS:

Byrne’s writing: https://thediff.co

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X / TWITTER:

https://twitter.com/ByrneHobart (Byrne)

https://twitter.com/TurpentineMedia (Turpentine)

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Intro

(00:25) Meta's open source AI strategy

(07:42) Google's acquisition of Character.AI

(12:20) Sponsors: Brave

(13:49) Reddit's data deal with Google

(16:40) Strategic Petroleum Reserve Management

(20:26) Andrew Left's activist shorting troubles

(27:46) Job compensation and revenue generation

(33:39) Amazon's logistics and growth strategy

(36:57) Amazon's historical reinvestment strategy

(42:27) Amazon's culture drift and leadership

(46:50) Specialized vs Consolidated AI models

(52:05) Outro