\u201cAll I know is I\u2019m good for my $80 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rarely does a one-liner so perfectly capture the state of the moment. Here, you have Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella<\/strong> saying he\u2019s \u201cnot in the details\u201d<\/a> about Stargate, the supposedly multi-hundred-billion AI infrastructure project driven by his marquee investment, OpenAI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nadella not being read in on the nebulous details<\/a> of Stargate says a lot about how much Microsoft and OpenAI have drifted apart. Microsoft is mentioned in the Stargate press release<\/a> since OpenAI\u2019s models are still exclusive to Azure. But the most striking aspect of Stargate is not that the money isn\u2019t there for it yet; it\u2019s that OpenAI\u2019s biggest backer has decided to not participate in what Sam Altman<\/strong> is calling \u201cthe most important project of this era.\u201d As Nadella made clear on CNBC this week, he\u2019s running his own, $80 billion AI infrastructure buildout and, going forward, OpenAI can get additional compute \u2014 with his blessing<\/a> \u2014 elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While it received fewer headlines this week, I found Nadella\u2019s response to Elon Musk<\/strong> on X<\/a> even more illuminating. In his response to Musk saying, \u201con the other hand, Satya definitely does have the money,\u201d Nadella responded: \u201c\ud83d\ude02 And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That post can only be interpreted as a dig at Altman. Nadella could have funded<\/a> Stargate for OpenAI. He didn\u2019t. What does he know that the rest of us don\u2019t?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The splashy Stargate unveiling at the White House certainly accomplished its goal, which was clearly getting everyone to talk about big numbers. The headlines it generated prompted Mark Zuckerberg<\/strong> to make sure<\/a> everyone ended the week knowing his<\/em> data center will be even bigger<\/em> than Stargate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a Friday post on his Facebook page<\/a>, Zuckerberg said that Meta\u2019s planned 2GW data center in Louisiana<\/a> \u201cis so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan,\u201d with a map view of the square footage overlaid on the city to send the point home.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n From his post (my emphasis added): \u201cWe\u2019ll bring online ~1GW of compute in \u201825 and we\u2019ll end the year with more than 1.3 million GPUs. We\u2019re planning to invest $60-65B in capex this year while also growing our AI teams significantly, and we have the capital<\/strong> to continue investing in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I have no doubt that Altman, Masayoshi Son<\/strong>, and Larry Ellison<\/strong> will be able to raise the billions they need to lessen OpenAI\u2019s dependence<\/a> on Microsoft for compute. (The US government isn\u2019t giving money to Stargate, which makes the optics of announcing it alongside Trump all the more bizarre.) Ultimately, this all points to the theme that is quickly coming to define 2025: Big Tech sees AI as the most existential technology of the coming era and will keep spending like hell to make sure OpenAI doesn\u2019t completely run away with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Few companies had as good of a 2024 as Reddit. Since going public last March, the company\u2019s stock has soared 300 percent, giving the social network a valuation of $32 billion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s an about-face from where Reddit was before going public, when its moderators were raging against its hurried platform changes and there was backlash to the company selling its data to Google and OpenAI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With those controversies now seemingly in the rear-view mirror, Reddit is focused on growing its user base, staying profitable, and using AI to help people search its site more easily<\/a>. I caught up with CEO Steve Huffman<\/strong> at CES a few weeks ago to hear his priorities for 2025, how he\u2019s leading Reddit, his thoughts on the AI scaling debate, content moderation, and more\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The following interview has been edited for length and clarity:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Your IPO did very well. What have the last nine months or so been like for you personally?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n We have a saying at Reddit that good numbers make good meetings. So we\u2019ve had some good meetings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Preparing to go public was intense. It\u2019s telling the story over and over and over, which I enjoy doing, but it\u2019s a lot of work. I think more than most new companies, we are in the public company rhythm already: close the quarter, do the audits, do the board meeting, earnings, and all of that. So it hasn\u2019t been a major change for us from an operating point of view.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s a really exciting time for the new investors and employees. You won\u2019t catch us complaining. What I keep telling the company is that everyone should be very proud of the work they\u2019ve done and don\u2019t take these moments for granted. I just tell them, look, enjoy the view. If you look at our history, there are lots of ups and downs. No doubt there are challenges in our future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With your market cap where it is now, are you thinking of making swings you didn\u2019t think you could make a year ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n There are two classes of things that we would do. One is to execute the core strategy. We\u2019ve got to hire. We\u2019ve got to build. I think we\u2019re very reasonable in terms of our investment size. The one sentence strategy for us is to grow the product and stay profitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What can you do with a high stock price? Maybe you can look at M&A that you wouldn\u2019t otherwise. I\u2019d say that\u2019s not really our orientation right now because the acquisitions we\u2019ve done over the last two years have been these 25-to-50-million-dollar deals. It\u2019s kind of a sweet spot for us to get tech and teams. I\u2019d say we\u2019re always watching the market, but we\u2019re not pursuing anything big or crazy right now because I like the core strategy. I think we can do what we want to do within our current capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What\u2019s the main product focus for Reddit this year?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first is the core of Reddit, which is community conversations. Everyone has a home on Reddit, but do you see that home in your first session? There\u2019s a whole other dimension to our work, which is Reddit as an information source. Reddit has all of this incredible information. For the users who have a question that needs an answer, can we give them that answer? We just got into testing Reddit Answers. I\u2019m finding that really helpful for searches about current events. A year from now, it\u2019s a monetization product. It\u2019s one of the few products where it kind of scratches every itch, so it\u2019ll be a big focus.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What do you make of this debate about whether the AI industry has run out of data?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I think we\u2019d have a different answer to that question literally every month. We want to have good relationships with other people in this space. We\u2019re open for business.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the same time, we want to maximize the value we get out of our own data. We have not experienced conflict between the two at this point. I love the [data licensing] relationships we have \u2014 the major ones being Google and OpenAI. At this point, we don\u2019t need to make any particular partnership. I\u2019d say they\u2019re all nice to have but nothing is existential for us.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of the challenges is that the AI companies don\u2019t know what product they\u2019re building. It\u2019s not a bad thing. They are iterating themselves. ChatGPT itself, the central product in this conversation, was a demo. Then, a year later, it\u2019s the most important piece of enterprise technology on Earth with questionable economics. That makes it very exciting. I don\u2019t think any of these companies would be offended to hear me say that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You were one of the first social media CEOs I saw to be very critical of TikTok. How does a US ban affect Reddit?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you look at Reddit\u2019s traffic graph over the last 19 years, you will not see the rise and fall of any particular platform. I think every content type should work on Reddit. Video on Reddit is largely camera-out \u2014 what I\u2019m looking at \u2014 as opposed to camera-in, or who am I? That\u2019s social media. I think the ban is the right thing to do for reasons I\u2019ve mentioned<\/a> that honestly have nothing to do with competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With Meta\u2019s moderation changes, the broader conversation around social media feels like it\u2019s changing right now.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n For the last 10 years, people have been talking about whether speech is the problem,\u00a0 which is a crazy thought. You can\u2019t have freedom without speech. I think that detour through questioning and relitigating core values of America, hopefully that era is coming to a close.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Are people playing politics? Of course, people always are. On the topic of moderation, we always just try to do things the right way, which, not coincidentally, are aligned with American values. It\u2019s a Democratic platform. We believe very much in the power of people and the wisdom of crowds and voting processes. That is Reddit. So I\u2019m glad to see a return to where we have been most of my life, which is an appreciation for free speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you haven\u2019t already, don\u2019t forget to subscribe to The Verge<\/em><\/a>, which includes unlimited access to Command Line<\/em><\/a>, all of our reporting, and an improved ad experience on the web.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As always, I want to hear from you, especially if your data center is even bigge<\/em>r. Respond here, and I\u2019ll get back to you, or ping me securely on Signal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAMA with spez<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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