Ain’t No Drama Like AI Drama

0:00Welcome to the Techbury Red Home from Monday, April 6th, 2026, I'm Brian McCulloch today. There might be and I know this is going to shock you some drama going on over an open AI. Why is Anthropic cutting off claw to access to open claw? Why are VCs covering the red for founders and maybe that two-person unicorn I shared with you in the Long Reads is not what it was cracked up to be. The information says, well, like I said to Sebastian Malibu on last Friday's interview, the AI space continues to be the most drama-heavy space I've ever seen, quoting from the information. Sam Moldman has committed open AI to spend $600 billion in the next five years and privately said he wants to go public as soon as the fourth quarter of this year, despite expectations, his company will burn more than $200 billion before it starts generating cash.

1:02But behind the scenes, Sarah Friar, his chief financial officer, has voiced concerns that reflect the tensions and risks inherent in the CEO's extraordinarily ambitious plans. Friar has told some colleagues earlier this year that she didn't believe the company would be ready to go public in 2026 because of the procedural and organizational work needed and the risks from its spending commitments according to a person who spoke to her. She said she wasn't sure yet whether open AI would need to pour so much money into obtaining AI servers in the coming years or whether its revenue growth, which has been slowing, would support the commitments the person said who spoke to her. It isn't clear whether the company's announcement this week that it had received investment commitments, totaling $122 billion has delayed some of her concerns. Open AI is due to receive the capital in stages and it mostly will come from Amazon and Nvidia which supply the cloud servers and chips open AI uses. The deal is part of a series of circular financial arrangements involving the biggest AI related

2:03companies. Outside open AI, Sam Altman 40 and Sarah Friar 53 have generally presented a united front that was the case at a dinner for investors that they hosted at Altman San Francisco home earlier this year said one attendee. At times though, their divergent embassies have fueled the perception of strains in their relationship among some people who have worked closely with them since Friar joined Open AI in June of 2024. Those people said Altman has excluded her from some conversations related to the company's financial plans. For instance, in recent months, he left Friar out of a conversation about server spending with leaders at one of Open AI's top investors, one of those people said her absence was noticeable and awkward given that a previous conversation on the same topic had included her according to an attendee. A different person who attended a senior level meeting at Open AI with Altman earlier this year said it was unusual that Friar was not invited as it involved a discussion of major financial decisions. In an unusual move for a large company where CFOs almost always

3:08answered directly to the CEO, Friar stopped reporting directly to Altman in August last year and instead began reporting to Fiji Simo who had joined as head of Open AI's applications business. Simo last week told staff she would take a short medical leave. Altman and Friar have starkly different personalities and backgrounds. He has long positioned himself as a world changing visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. She is a former Goldman Sachs equity analyst who later worked in finance at Salesforce helped Square now block Go Public and spent around six years as CEO of next door a local social network before being replaced as the business struggled. She was then brought into Open AI to help it raise funds and reassure investors about what Altman has described as the most capital intensive company in history. Friar has a hard job said someone who works closely with her and Altman. She is working for a founder with big ambitions who wants to push the envelope as hard as he can on spend. The throttling of stuff continues. The one wonders

4:20if this is in aid of preserving compute or clearing the lane for their own stuff or maybe both. Anthropic has essentially banned Open Claw. Using Open Claw with Clawed AI is about to get a lot more expensive thanks to Anthropic's new policy changes. Beginning on April 4th at 3 pm Eastern users were no longer able to use your Clawed subscription limits for third party harnesses including Open Claw according to an email sent to users on Friday evening. Instead if users want to use Open Claw with Clawed they will have to use a pay as you go option that will be built separate from their Clawed subscription. With Open Claw creator Peter Steinberger now employed by Open AI. Anthropic may be encouraging subscribers to use more of its own tools like Clawed Cowork instead. Steinberger says that he and Open Claw board member Dave Morin tried to talk sense into Anthropic best we managed was delaying this for a week. According to Anthropic Clawed

5:24code exec Boris Cherney quote starting tomorrow at 12 pm pacific time Clawed subscriptions will no longer cover usage on third party tools like Open Claw. You can still use these tools with your Clawed login via extra usage bundles now available at a discount or with a Clawed API key. We've been working hard to meet the increase in demand for Clawed and our subscriptions weren't built for the usage patterns of these third party tools capacity is a resource we manage thoughtfully and we are prioritizing our customers using our products and API. Subscribers get a one time credit equal to your monthly plan cost. If you need more you can now buy discounted usage bundles to request a full refund and look for a link in your email tomorrow. We want to be intentional in managing our growth to continue to serve our customers sustainably long term. This change is a step toward that end quote. This is a pretty big deal for the largest subset of Android owners

6:27out there. Samsung plans to discontinue its messages app in the US starting in July and is instead offering instructions for users on older Android versions to switch to Google messages quoting nine to five Google. This has been a long time coming once the Samsung messages app is discontinued sending messages via Samsung messages on your phone will no longer be possible except for emergency service numbers or emergency contacts defined in your device. The app will no longer be available for download in these Galaxy Store after July Galaxy S26 users are already prevented from downloading Samsung messages. This is for Galaxy users on Android 12 and newer with the notice spotted today on Samsung's US site older devices are not affected by this end of service. Samsung messages will guide users to Google messages with an in-app notification and on-screen instructions on Android 14 plus the Google messages icon will automatically shift to your home screen dock after switching. Samsung messages is also being discontinued on Tizen OS watches with users

7:33no longer able to see the full message conversation history on their watch. However, those watches will still enable the user to read and send text messages. Samsung is touting the advantages of this switch over including quote powerful security AI powered at scam detection and robust spam filters identifying blocks the switches text to help keep your inbox clean and your personal information safer RCS messaging with RCS enabled across Android and iOS you and your friends can share high quality photos and videos enhance your group chats see real time typing indicators and also expressive AI features access powerful Gemini features to bring AI powered expressivity to your chats including remixing photos and smart replies and quote I did not know expressivity was a word. From the giving you both sides of the AI job apocalypse file but I got to admit that at this point

8:35I can't even pick a trend line guess what according to some counting software job openings jobs for software engineers and like are actually up this year quoting business insider tech job openings have rebounded sharply in 2026 challenging the popular narrative that AI is wiping out engineering roles data from true up a tech hiring analytics firm shows more than 67 thousand software engineering job openings the highest level in over three years listings have roughly doubled since a trough in mid 2023 the most striking number for me is this so far this year the number of open roles has jumped about 30 percent true up tracks jobs at tech companies rather than all types of businesses that may need tech workers so the impact of AI should be felt even more strongly in this data a lot of the AI is replacing engineers narrative isn't grounded in job posting data at least not so far amid Taylor founder of true up told me this week check out this chart which shows open software engineering roles

9:39globally the chart starts in late 2022 and chat GPT emerged and started the generative AI revolution the line goes the opposite way you would expect given all the hand ringing over AI lately the recovery follows a steep correction in 2022 in early 2023 when tech companies slashed hiring over over expanding during the pandemic boom rising interest rates and a shift toward profitability force companies to freeze hiring and cut staff now hiring is rebounding as firms invest heavily in AI which ironically requires a large number of engineers true ups data set tracks more than 260 thousand open roles across 9000 tech companies focusing on startups and public tech firms rather than the broader economy within that universe demand for software engineers remains strong while AI related roles are quote exploding Taylor says so why does the situation feel so dire for some candidates especially recent graduates there are still entry level tech jobs but the pool of available talent is maybe now much bigger way more people have pursued computer

10:43science true up founder amit Taylor told me this week the jobs haven't disappeared but competition for them is dramatically higher than it was even five years ago how might the tech job market evolve as AI weaves itself into the economy maybe AI compresses some roles entirely or maybe it makes great engineers so leverage that companies fight even harder over them Taylor said right now the demand for top talent is strong but maybe that continues for a while until things suddenly flip end quote nice work if you can get it the journal says that venture capitalists are increasingly covering expenses like rent for young college dropouts founding AI startups according to antler the average AI unicorn founder age fell from 40 back in 2022 to 29 in 2024 quote during this blisteringly fast phase of AI development it's no longer enough for venture capital firms to

11:44invest in companies they're buying apartments and workplaces ikea furniture and dishes and providing housekeeping for their teenage and twenty something founders the logic is fewer responsibilities mean more waking hours for working starting a company has never been easier or required fewer people new AI tools like clawed code help write and debug software faster and spin up a website or a marketing plan venture capital money is abundant and every minute feels precious many founders say there is a short window of opportunity to build something new before AI systems become smarter than humans and they see a chance to make a fortune if you wait until after you graduate said Castelano a first generation college student whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador and Venezuela all the good ideas are going to be already taken many students take breaks from school with no real intention of returning universities and parents often prefer to call them leaves rather than acknowledge that the students are dropping out leave policies vary by school and my t for example allows undergraduates to take up to four semesters off while young

12:48founders have long dropped out of college to chase startup dreams during past technological booms this time their financial backers are funding housing for them and ensuring their daily needs from changing sheets taking out the trash and booking travel are met competition to invest in the best talent is intense and that talent is increasingly younger the average age a founders of so-called AI unicorns companies worth more than one billion dollars has fallen from age 40 in 2022 to age 29 in 2024 according to investment firm antler link ventures founder Dave Blunden spent $5.4 million of his own money last year to buy a six unit 10,000 square foot apartment building near MIT and Cambridge to house some of the founders the firm has backed I'm first trying to convince them that there's nothing else you can do in life right now said Blunden who graduated from MIT in 1988 and went on to found several companies including insurance marketplace ever quote if it were me would I even vaguely think about going back to class not even close

13:49and quote finally today since I suggested this to you in the long reads last week I owe it to you to tell you about this follow up Gary Marcus and voidzilla on youtube have brutal takedowns which suggests that med v that company profiled by the New York Times as a two employee startup with more than a billion dollars in revenue is actually well quoting Akash Gupta med v received FDA warning letter number 721 455 in February 2026 for miss branding violations their clinician network open loop suffered a data breach in January 2026 that exposed 1.6 million patient records futurism reported that they used AI generated deep fakes before and after photos in their marketing a class action lawsuit was filed in Delaware in november 2025 and now they're running more than 800 fake doctor accounts on facebook to sell compounded GLP ones the company holds a no proprietary

14:53technology no license physician network no pharmacy infrastructure it outsources every regulated function to care validate and open loop while keeping the customer relationship check out flow and add spend the entire business as a marketing layer on top of rented infrastructure and the marketing itself is built on fabricated medical credentials hymns did 2.4 billion dollars in revenue last year with 2,442 employees and a 5.5 percent net margin med v claims a 16.2 percent net margin with 2 people the margin difference tells you where the compliance spending went the AI built the website the AI runs customer service the AI generated the deep fake before and after and now more than 800 fake doctor accounts are running paid ads on facebook the entire company is an AI powered fraud machine that happens to also sell real drugs and quote and here's Rob Freund quote med v was sued in a class action last month for violating california's anti spam law med v's

15:54affiliate marketers send spam use falsified header information spoof domains and nonsensical sending addresses to evade spam filters they also use false and deceptive subject lines everything that people rightfully hate about spam and quote and well watch that take down on youtube that i'm recommending quoting from the david marcus post where you can see all of the above quote a friend of mine who has been tracking this for a while sees med v as a fraud layer on top of also scammy but possibly less illegal platforms speculating that quote if there is any money there they will be sued by all of their suppliers and vendors because i'm sure they're in violation of every agreement in terms of compliance efforts safe data handling etc the friend also is doubtful of the revenue reports asking why would this be the only thing they're telling the truth about all in all glorifying med v was not the new york times is finest hour and hardly the poster child ai booster should be hoping for instead as the youtube video author void zilla notes if anything med v is a warning sign for how ai can be abused and quote

17:05hello from the grand canyon we are wrapping up our multi-day stay here and heading down to sedona right after i hit publish on this talk to you tomorrow