Builders vs reviewers
Google says no to politics. MKBHD controversy. Bitcoin halvening.
Entitled Google workers sat in the office of the CEO of their cloud division, chanting “Google, Google, you can’t hide, We charge you with genocide”. Is it just me or do activists always use the same tune for their chants?
Google is getting tired of their employees playing politics on their time, and fired all 28. With their core ad business under threat from numerous AI competitors, they are realising they don’t have time for their employees to be playing political games any more. Back in 2020, the “no politics at work” position was a lot more controversial, but now the pendulum seems to be swinging back and politics at work is out.
Perhaps Googlers will have to spend less time in nap pods and more time doing work so they can avoid generating any more racially diverse Nazis.
Tech YouTuber MKBHD is not used to courting controversy. But this week he was the centre of a Twitter storm after his critical review of a new product, the Humane AI Pin. Here he is modeling it for us.
Yeah. Cool.
The AI Pin is like a mini projector connected to the internet that can answer questions. I haven’t used it and I am not a tech reviewer, but can you imagine using this thing on the subway? Or on a plane? Or anywhere near another human being?
No, I don’t think so. You don’t even have the luxury of being able to just stare at a screen and text like you can with your phone.
The controversy was that MKBHD was “killing the company” with his review. This is after he gave a scathing review to a Fisker car a few weeks ago, which people decided might be connected to the 40,000 cancelled orders and the company’s imminent bankruptcy.
This controversy is silly. The man’s a tech reviewer, sharing his honest opinion, which is his job. The Humane AI Pin might not be great at the moment, but who knows, it could be the future? I’m glad someone is trying something new, or are we just going to have endless iterations of the same glass rectangle?
What Humane should have done is say “this is a developer preview” or an alpha product or whatever, something to make clear they know this is early days. With $250m in the bank they should have enough ammo for a v2.
Over in the crypto circus, Bitcoin fees spiked to over $240 per tx after the halvening took place and are currently sitting at $120. At the time of the event, someone paid $500,000 to be included in one of the halving blocks.
Finally, you can check out this great AI video of our esteemed political leaders leading a DJ set.