Good morning from a blustery, Christmassy New York City.
The great tech stories from Fortune continue with Jeremy Kahn’s dive into Anthropic, the “wonky” “doomer” “accidental” AI startup that’s proven to be a go-to for big business.
Come for the wonderful narrative, stay for CEO Dario Amodei’s hot takes on the state of the AI boom: “Business should care about bringing in cash, not setting cash on fire, right?”
Plus: “Can you buy so many data centers that you over-leverage yourself? All I’ll say is, some people are trying.” Some people!
Please do give it a read. Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Apple AI chief John Giannandrea heads for the exits
At long last, John Giannandrea is leaving Apple.
The company said Monday that the embattled exec—who quickly became the face of Apple’s AI struggles, from its underwhelming Apple Intelligence features to its relatively inept Siri assistant—would step down from his position as SVP for Machine Learning and AI Strategy and ultimately retire “in the spring of 2026.”
Giannandrea, who reported to CEO Tim Cook, will be replaced by fellow Google veteran Amar Subramanya. Subramanya will join as VP of AI, reporting to SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.
Subramanya will take over teams focused on Apple’s foundation models, machine learning, and AI safety. The rest of Giannandrea’s org—smaller than it once was after Siri and robotics teams were removed from his purview earlier this year—will report to either COO Sabih Khan or SVP of Services Eddy Cue.
Interestingly, Subramanya left Google after 16 years to join Microsoft just five months ago. Who says Apple can’t have some AI talent poaching fun? —AN
Netflix makes an aggressive bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
Who will go home with a storied Hollywood enterprise?
The media conglomerate known as Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly fielded a second round of bids on Monday in an auction that could end as soon as this week.
Among them: A mostly cash offer from Netflix, according to a Bloomberg report.
Netflix is vying for Warner Bros alongside CBS owner Paramount Skydance (David Ellison) and NBCUniversal owner Comcast (Brian Roberts).
It’s worth noting that none of the bidders are interested in WBD’s linear television stations—CNN, Discovery, Food Network, TLC, etc—which are planned to be spun out as Discovery Global.
No, it’s all about HBO and a film studio with attractive IP (DC Comics, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) and an even more attractive lot in Burbank, Calif. (LA real estate ain’t getting any cheaper, folks.)
These latest offers are binding; WBD’s board could very well sign off on a deal if it meets the $30 per share it’s looking for. (WBD shares are trading around $24.) And then, as Porky Pig famously says: That’s all, folks. —AN
Are we headed toward another crypto winter?
The price of Bitcoin plunged more than 6% on Monday, to below $85,500, in its biggest one-day drop since March.
That’s 30% lower than Bitcoin’s peak of about $126,000, set in the first week of October 2025.
Anyone holding tokens of the world’s most popular digital currency is certainly used to volatility, but they’d be lying if they said they weren’t a little nervous.
The Bitcoin pain has spread to other cryptocurrencies (e.g. Ether, Solana) and reignited worries that the asset might be headed toward another dreaded “crypto winter.”
In each crypto winter, investors lost faith. The 2022 plunge, for example, was predicted on concerns about fraud.
This time, crypto might keep sliding purely because it’s considered a riskier investment at a time when investors are pessimistic about the broader economy and looking for safer bets.
How low could it go? One investing pro told the Wall Street JournalthatBitcoin could drop to $60,000, effectively turning the clock back to September 2024: “We don’t think the pain is over.” —AN
More tech
—Instagram’s RTO mandate. U.S. staff must report to the office five days a week starting in February.
—Nvidia’s $2 billion stake in Synopsys. Yet another AI-fueled strategic partnership.
—Shopify suffers an outageon Cyber Monday, of all days.
—India’s gov’t orders phonemakers to preload devices with a security app called Sanchar Saathi.
—Amazon Now launches in Philly, Seattle. Thirty-minute delivery service for household essentials.
—The hottest new university major? AI, of course.
—Construction workers see an AI pay bump. Wanna build lots of data centers? It’s gonna cost you.