Category: The Web As Platform

OpenAI Plans on Marketing Its Way To Glory. Bonne Chance!

The cookies have it.

Early this past Saturday morning I got an email from OpenAI titled “Update to our privacy policy and more controls.” I don’t recall ever getting email from the company – I signed up for ChatGPT when it launched, but haven’t used the service much since switching to Claude several years ago. But the email reminded me of a story I read from The Information last week, and I think it’s fair to say the two are related: OpenAI Sees $8 ChatGPT Driving Consumer Subscribers to 122 Million This Year.

I’ve written several posts about OpenAI’s jaw-dropping advertising ambitions, which I believe history will judge as the most audacious and potentially damaging expansion of the Internet’s data-driven advertising model since the invention of AdWords, Google’s original cash cow. OpenAI plans on scaling its advertising revenue from zero in 2025 to more than $100 billion by 2030. As I pointed out earlier, it took Google nearly two decades to reach that milestone.

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Where’s My AI Shareware?!

Back in the day.

Have you noticed all the folks bragging about the cool new tools they’ve hacked up using AI? In the last month or so, I’ve read newsletters from half a dozen or so people detailing vibe-coded apps that help them do research, organize their life, or even build entire websites. And it’s not just media types who are building things. As I wrote about earlier, my son built a custom CRM system for his company over one weekend. That kind of capability is impressive. It feels like something new and big is underway.

Which got me thinking. If we’re all hacking up these cool tools, how come we can’t share them with each other? Why are we all consigned to re-invent the wheel each time we want to build, say, a “Searchblog Query Engine“?

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Product, Platform, Interface, Medium, Language: What Is AI?

Thanks, Marshall.

What is AI?

I’ve been struggling with this rather basic question for several years now, so today I figured I’d write out loud about it, and see if anything coherent surfaces.

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Rebel, King, and Tyrant: Apple at 50

Wired, 1997: We were genuinely worried the company would go out of business.

Apple turns 50 years old tomorrow. I’ve been using its products for 48 of those years.

48 years. Over those five decades, my relationship with Apple has shifted as dramatically as its market cap. And not, I am afraid, in a good way.

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We Dream of Genies, But Will Big Tech Let Us Use Them?

Last night I dreamt I was merging onto a rushing freeway. My on-ramp was far too short, a concrete embankment hemmed me in to the right. Faceless, speeding vehicles filled the lanes; integrating with them would require icy determination and perfectly executed timing. Missing the merge would bring certain death. The dream began after the point of no return – I was already accelerating into the flow, braking was not an option.

Do, or die.

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Advertising Built Generative AI. Now Comes the Remodel.

Don’t worry, Don’s going to take it from here.

Last night my wife looked up from her phone, disgusted. “All I’m getting is Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Attia!” she said. “Why do they think I’m interested in this?!”

As the family’s resident interpreter of digital entrails, I felt responsible to hazard an answer, but given the prurient nature of the Epstein story, I sensed my thoughts might not be well received. So I backed into it a bit: “Have you clicked on any Epstein-related links recently?” I asked. She had, she rejoined, wary of the implicit judgement hovering over my question. “But that doesn’t mean I want my entire feed to be about it!”

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How Search Drove Generative AI – A Passage from “The Search”

It’s been fun to go back to Berkeley, where I first taught Journalism more than 20 years ago. I’m leading a seminar on how technology impacts journalism, with a particular focus on AI. The class asks students to read a bit of history – it’s hard to understand where we are if we don’t know how we got here. Search is a big part of that history, so I included a chapter of my first book – The Search – as a reading assignment.

As I prepared for class last week, I dug through my archives and unearthed The Search’s original manuscript. In the first chapter, “The Database of Intentions,” I opine on how search might lead to the development of AI that passes the Turing Test. Written 22 years ago, the passage anticipates the rise of generative AI. I start by drawing a distinction between data that is on our personal machines and data held in the cloud by large technology companies like Google. Then I think out loud a bit about where that all data might take us. Even though the writing is two decades old, it prompts some interesting questions about the moment in which we find ourselves.

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Anthropic Says the Quiet Part Out Loud.

This essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is… a lot to parse. But this passage alone makes me take it seriously:

“It is somewhat awkward to say this as the CEO of an AI company, but I think the next tier of risk is actually AI companies themselves…the governance of AI companies deserves a lot of scrutiny.”

So much to say about this. But read the essay. Then we’ll talk.

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The Feed Declines (Predictions 2026, #10)

Evolve, or die?

At the dawn of digital, when cell phones were new and culture dominated by cable television, most of my friends and family considered me an ‘early adopter.’ I was usually the first of my crew to engage with any new digital device or service – the Mac, email, the web, search, wifi, even nascent social sites like Friendster, Orkut, and LinkedIn. I was one of the very first people on Instagram, back when it was just a photo site. I was the guy friends and family called when they had a computer problem, and later, when their smart phone acted up. It wasn’t that I was particularly adept at coding or solving IT problems. I was just the guy who everyone knew had spent the most time in the digital world. You know, the Wired guy.

For nearly three decades, I stayed current with all things digital. But about ten years ago, I started pulling back. At first it was more of a vibe – I didn’t like how the digital world was starting to feel. Insistent, needy, demanding. I’d worked for most of my life inside digital spaces, but before the web went world wide, digital was more of a solo act. You, the “user,” were in charge. You decided which applications to pay attention to, which documents to read or write, which sites to visit. That was starting to change, and it didn’t feel right.

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What I’ve Learned: On Health

The holidays bring us all a moment to reflect. If you’re like nearly everyone I’ve spoken to these past few weeks, 2025 offered a lot of grist for contemplation. I usually write my predictions for next year around this time, but today I’d rather think out loud about something a bit more personal.

2025 was the year I turned 60 years of age. I hesitated before writing that sentence, because … well, like everyone I know who’s made it this far, I’ve become obsessed with understanding what it means to face the inevitable social, physical, and emotional impact of “getting older.” It’s probably one of the driving reasons for investing a considerable portion of the past two years of my life into DOC, a new company focused on the science of longevity medicine.

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