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Greetings! Any Friday night plans? A decent number of you will probably tune into tonight's boxing match on Netflix between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul because you're curious whether the great heavyweight of the 1980s can, at the age of 58, beat the 27-year-old influencer turned pugilist. Another group of you may watch more because you're curious how Netflix is going to present the event to its nearly 300 million subscribers—and where the streaming service might go next in live sports. The Tyson-Paul fight is one of Netflix's biggest bets yet on live sports. The company has been far more cautious than peers like Amazon, Apple and Google about paying top dollar for expansive rights to sports leagues. For example, it's only dabbling in the NFL by securing rights to air two games on Christmas Day. For a time, it looked like Netflix was more comfortable with what it called "sports-adjacent" programming like "Drive to Survive," its hit series on F-1 racing. This boxing match—the star attraction of a series of matches Netflix is streaming tonight—will likely give the analytically minded company a lot of data to figure out what its future moves might be in live sports. It is increasingly focused on building its advertising business, and sports could be key to that strategy (prepare yourselves for a bunch of ads tonight from DraftKings, Meta Quest and other sponsors of the match). The question is: What kinds of broad sports rights deals can Netflix get in the near term? The big U.S.-centric leagues, including the NFL and NBA, have already signed multiyear broadcast deals with other companies that include streaming rights. One possible partner for Netflix is the UFC, which plans to begin shopping around for a 10-year deal with someone to air its mixed martial arts contests. Netflix already has a streaming agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment, which is owned by the same company, TKO Group Holdings, that owns the UFC. If the Tyson-Paul fight lands with audiences tonight, don't be surprised to see the streamer get in the octagon with the UFC. Is the AI gold rush slowing down? One of the most widely read stories we published this past week was our in-depth exclusive on how OpenAI is finding that the rate of improvement in its new large language models is slowing. The improvement in quality for the firm's upcoming model and GPT-4 is nowhere near as big as the leap from GPT-3 to GPT-4, the story says. Google is having the same experience, we reported later in the week (more here and here). - In another straw in the wind, artificial intelligence business valuations aren't growing as fast as they used to, we reported in this piece, citing Synthesia's current funding round. Also on the AI front, Anissa Gardizy delivered this story exploring how Elon Musk's xAI took rivals by surprise with its rapid development of a new AI data center in Memphis, prompting one competitor to fly a plane over the site to try to figure out what Musk's firm was up to. And we profiled Middle Eastern AI fund MGX, as well as Glean, a startup founded by a former Google search engineer that makes search chatbots for business.
- It was a big week in the political world. We delved into the debate inside TikTok as top executives successfully pushed for changes to its content moderation policies to make the service more appealing to Donald Trump and his supporters. And we revealed how online retailers are taking steps to deal with new tariffs Trump might impose, including dialing back on Black Friday discounts to keep more inventory on hand.
- Meanwhile, Cory Weinberg dug into the defense tech sector, where investors see signs of a bubble in startup valuations. But some bulls think they could get a lift from the new Trump administration. One bellwether is Saronic Technologies.
- On the investment front, we looked at Blackstone's missteps with its big consumer bets in companies such as Supergoop, Oatly and Spanx. Cory scooped news that Databricks is considering raising several billion dollars to cash out employees on expiring stock grants, which could imply an IPO isn't on the cards anytime soon.
- Start your weekend off with this terrific profile of upscale electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors and its CEO, Peter Rawlinson. His goal is to make "the finest and most advanced EV in the world, one as elegant as a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz," says the writer, Steve LeVine.
- Eighteen U.S. states sued the Securities and Exchange Commission and Gary Gensler, chair of the commission, over their handling of crypto regulations (more here).
- Elon Musk added Microsoft as a defendant in his lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the companies worked together to squelch competition in the AI business (more here).
AI Agenda by Stephanie Palazzolo separates hype from reality and explains how AI is transforming industries. The 4x/week newsletter details the innovation and disruption happening in AI, from the AI startup funding frenzy to the major technological breakthroughs that will set the agenda for decades to come. Sign up today. |
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