If you catch a slight whiff of petrol upon the opening of this email, don’t fret. That’s just me. In the last six days, The Leverage has published 2 essays, 1 podcast, and this weekend roundup. My fingers are guzzolene fueled, nitro boosted, unleaded tech analysis engines that I am delighted to employ for your pleasure.
This increased pace of publishing was necessitated by the revved up velocity of tech markets this week. After the doldrums of summer, we are in the midst of an all out war in tech. Founders smell fortunes to be made and futures to shape. This week:
A new #1 AI app in the world
A new best movie of the decade
As a reminder, this is an operation fueled by blood sacrifice, White Monster, and the late nights of one dude in Boston (me). If you want the world to continue to have high quality, beautiful, and independent research, please subscribe below to support me.
MY RESEARCH
Maybe OpenAI is right to spend 7 trillion dollars? Sam Altman is planning on building 250 gigawatts worth of datacenters by 2033. It sounds ridiculous. Unless…? What if we take him seriously? What assumptions have to be true to make this spend justified? My analysis indicates that they could be right to do this. Plus, understanding OpenAI’s plans indicates what markets will be left open for other startups to attack. (This piece got some grumpy emails calling me “dumb” and OpenAI as a “one-hit wonder.” Then, literally a few hours after I published this happened…)
Sora is the #1 app in the world. OpenAI released a new type of social media/video generation app on Tuesday. It allows people to make videos of themselves and their friends. I was first in line to get access and was impressed with the technology. The intellectual temptation is to dismiss this as pure slop but I would argue that it is just diet slop—the original AI sin is algorithmic feeds and short-form video. AI-generated content isn’t all that different in its effect on the general populace. And it turns out OpenAI is not a one-hit wonder! Sora was immediately, enormously popular.
Last week I wrote about Meta’s AI (much worse) video AI slop app, Vibes:
“But rather than pick on this obviously flawed launch, I think it is important to point out that this sort of product will happen. On the demand side, people already have the habit of killing time and scrolling short-form video. On the supply side of the equation, AI video’s quality is already high enough to act as a substitutable good. It’ll only get better at generating and cheaper to make from here.
We should acknowledge that market reality. Thus, the task is to build a product that harnesses those same supply and demand curves to make something superior.”
I called it! Subscribing to The Leverage lets you know the future first.
The AI agent era is here. You are going to see me harp on this idea a lot over the next few months. AI agents are no longer hypotheticals. They are real and immediate realities for productivity software. Perhaps one of the biggest proof points was my interview for this week with Flo Crivello, the founder and CEO of Lindy. His company sells AI agents that can do everything from answering your emails to coordinating your calendar to making apps to performing competitive research. They’ve always worked pretty well, but over the last 6 months multiple technical breakthroughs have shaped these AI agents into genuine substitutes for human labor. Slowly, then suddenly. On a personal note, this conversation was very funny/fun to have, so I’m hoping you enjoy it too. If you don’t have time to listen you can read my essay on the topic here. You can listen on:
A REWORKED SECTION
Can I get your feedback on a new format? I’d like to make the Weekend Leverage more useful for you. The goal is that each Sunday you get all the news that actually matters in tech. Currently, this section has been the stories I think are most interesting and that most people are misunderstanding the importance of. I think this edition would be improved by covering some of the more straightforward pieces of news to better serve The Leverage’s mission of giving you the future first. The sections would be something like the following:
Public Tech: What did big tech do this week? What about the other public tech companies?
Product Releases: What cool new products show where the future is going?
AI Labs: What are the latest releases and research papers showing where AI is going?
Deal Vibes: What funding rounds were announced that are indicative of the future?
Would making this email roughly 1,000 words longer, with more news, make it a superior Sunday read? Let me know!
TASTEMAKER
There is only one piece of media that mattered this week. The new Paul Thomas Anderson movie One Battle After Another is a masterpiece and arguably the defining movie of this decade. It is a singular achievement in filmmaking, with knockout performances from every member of the cast, iconic cinematography, a hilarious script, and a sharply rebellious evisceration of our current political environment.
One of the things that makes this movie so special is that it was shot in VistaVision. This is a large-format, high-resolution film created by Paramount in the 1950s that used standard 35mm film but ran it horizontally through the camera. It results in some of the best color and clarity we have ever achieved in film. The downside is that it is enormously tricky to shoot in and even trickier to display. It fell out of favor for exhibition relatively quickly, but did lay the groundwork for IMAX.
One Battle After Another is the first film in many decades to be shot and exhibited in Vistavision. You can see it in this format in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Boston. Otherwise, seeing it on your local IMAX screen will get you pretty close. However, it really is special to see it in film. Luckily, the Boston theater showing just happens to be about 15 minutes from my house! I walked down and talked with Nick Lazzaro, the Technical Director at the Coolidge Corner Theater, about the setup.
He told me that they had to “literally break upon a display case” from the George Eastman Museum to get the projectors to show the film. These are not small machines! Look at how they take up the entire projection booth.
When I think about what makes this movie special is that it is exactly that, a movie. It contains all of the auteur flavor director Paul Thomas Anderson is known for, while also being highly accessible and enjoyable to the masses. Mixing the two sensibilities is near impossible, but the crazy son of a gun did it.
I could go on and on about this movie. Some other standout attributes: Despite the 2 hour, 45 minute runtime, it was incredibly well paced. I felt like I was there for maybe 45 minutes. There are multiple chase scenes that belong in the action movie hall of fame. There is biting political commentary that skewers both sides of the political spectrum. I cried! I laughed! I got sweaty with nerves!
Seeing it in theaters will be a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life. See it. Now. Immediately.
And if you happen to be in Boston this week, I’ll be at the 12pm showing this Friday for a rewatch at Coolidge Corner Theater. Come say hi! I’d love to meet some of my fellow tech/film fans.
Stay safe, hug your loved ones.
Evan
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