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Greetings! Mark Zuckerberg has become a watch nerd. In his appearance at Connect on Wednesday, he was flashing a timepiece identified by Redditors as this one costing tens of thousands of dollars, at least the third such ultrapricey watch he has sported lately. It's all part of a recent style makeover that also includes gold chains and loud shirts. It's smart: The watches, in particular, set Zuckerberg apart from his counterparts at Apple, who invariably wear more utilitarian Apple Watches while in public. It makes sense that Zuckerberg wants to differentiate himself from Apple folks, given how much Meta has pitted itself against Apple—most noticeably this week in mixed reality. His demonstration suggested that Quest is a worthy alternative to Apple's Vision Pro—at a tenth of the cost. Meta's latest Quest costs just $299 compared to Vision Pro's $3,500 price tag. Zuckerberg alluded to the price difference by noting that Meta wanted to "bring the future to everyone." It's ironic that the person wearing watches that cost as much as the average American's annual income is pursuing such an egalitarian philosophy—but whatever. Personal consumption habits don't necessarily have to reflect corporate strategy. The more important point is that while that low price point should help Meta's market share at Apple's expense, it won't improve Meta's return on investment. Already, Meta has blown tens of billions of dollars on its augmented reality, virtual reality and metaverse strategy, as reflected in operating losses at its Reality Labs division, which houses those efforts. As we noted in this piece, Apple developed the iPhone for a tiny fraction of what Meta has spent so far on Reality Labs—and there's no sign that any of the Reality Labs products will come anywhere near the iPhone in terms of returns. It's not out of the realm of possibility that smart glasses could end up being Meta's iPhone, although it would take a brave person to make that bet. And yet, some on Wall Street seem to be headed in that direction. Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett headlined a report after Connect thus: "As Meta Moves Into Apple's Turf, It Merits Apple's Multiple." Whoa! That's a big call. Meta is now trading at around 25 times the next 12 months' expected earnings, compared to Apple's 31.5, according to Koyfin. If Meta shares were to trade at Apple's multiple, they would fetch around $770 a share, compared with $567 today. If Meta stock reaches those levels, Zuckerberg will have no problem buying even more of those fancy timepieces. It was another big week for AI news. Our deep dive into the drama underpinning OpenAI's high-profile exits this week, including grumblings about Sam Altman's leadership, is well worth a read. In addition, we broke the news that Anthropic is in talks to raise money at a $40 billion valuation, and we also published Scale AI's financials for the first half of the year. Here are a few other noteworthy stories. - Theo Wayt and Sahil Patel scooped details about Amazon's Prime Video upfront ad market take, which is tracking ahead of the company's goal.
- In his in-depth dive on Parker Conrad's Rippling, Cory Weinberg reported on the tensions facing the company as it tries to diversify its product mix despite the uncertainty that creates about its revenue.
- Yueqi Yang wrote about why Wall Street keeps hitting a wall with adoption of blockchain technology in its operations. Yueqi and Kate Clark also scooped that a predictions and betting startup is raising money and possibly launching its own cryptocurrency.
- Jon Victor took a look at how Salesforce, ServiceNow and Microsoft have recently rushed into automated artificial intelligence agent tools, trying to get ahead of OpenAI, and the challenges they face in winning over customers.
- Start your weekend reading off with our profile of Mark Rober, a popular YouTuber who has found a strong following in Silicon Valley, not only among adults working in technology but also among their kids.
- Comcast's European satellite TV firm Sky sued Warner Bros. Discovery, alleging WBD violated a deal that gave Sky long-term exclusive rights to certain Warner programming, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Chinese regulators are increasing pressure on Chinese companies to buy local chips instead of those from Nvidia, Bloomberg reported.
- OpenAI has told investors that its revenue will reach $11.6 billion next year, compared with an estimated $3.7 billion this year, the New York Times reported.
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