We’re Back from Cannes Lions
Plus: Trump admin asks OpenAI to delay release of new model, Newsom calls for national billionaire tax, Vesuvius Challenge produces first Herculaneum scroll read end to end
Happy Friday.
The current thing in tech and business is the spike in memory prices.
Run of Show
We’re Back from Cannes Lions
Our trip to France was extremely high stakes. Jordi had publicly beefed with French President Emmanuel Macron just a few months ago, and, in what is clearly a direct personal attack on me, the country recently banned nicotine pouches. But we were fortunately not held hostage as political prisoners or even detained (although many flights were delayed in the process). We’re back today and have no guests booked, so tune in for me and Jordi catching up on a full week of news.
Cannes Lions used to be about giving awards for creative advertisements, mostly in consumer. Now it’s broader, more corporate, and cuts across different media forms. Spotify throws a big concert on the beach (John Summit played), because they have a large ads platform. Yahoo had Tiesto play, again, basically to facilitate deals around their ads business. There are other activations from big tech companies and ad platforms. Athletes attend and the Hollywood talent agencies host parties. It’s not packed with A-list celebrities, but it feels like everyone has a following of some sort.
A big point of discussion around the creator economy seems to be the tradeoffs between independence and consolidation. Jordi has talked about the idea of roll up of independent Substackers and the question of whether or not the economics of “going independent” are actually as good as they seem loomed large.
A few things are happening. Independent creators have pivoted from “making content” to “making shows” - see Subway Takes, Keep the Meter Running, other more polished and edited products. These do have higher cost structures, but they also have more enduring value in the world of ephemeral social media. Zero marginal cost yapping into your iPhone is ultracompetitive now and increasingly rare to see scale in 2026. Simultaneously, traditional media companies are starting to dial in content strategies for traditionally creator-led platforms. Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat have both fully broken through to the YouTube podcast world with strong titles, thumbnails, editing, and set design that fits the platform. Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli have taken NYT Popcast to a thoroughly internet-native place where they are delivering delightfully polished vertical videos on a regular cadence to help grow the show. Unthinkable years ago.
The end state here is not “everyone goes independent” or “everything reconsolidates into traditional media” - it’s more of a sorting process where some creators find elegant business models outside of large organizations, and others merely leverage the possibility of going independent into more meaningful contracts within traditional media organizations. There will be lots of mistakes along the way no doubt, but it’s increasingly clear that a one-size-fits-all approach, perhaps with a tagline like “independent creators are the future” doesn’t quite fit anymore. To each their own.
Clip Spotlight: Ben Horowitz: CA wealth tax is the “best strategy” for dismantling Silicon Valley
During his appearance on the show in January, a16z’s Ben Horowitz says the California wealth tax is the “best strategy” to dismantle Silicon Valley that he’s ever seen.
“It’s been so hard to break the Silicon Valley network effect, but this is the best strategy I’ve seen.”
“Norway has an unrealized capital gains tax. Norway’s got a lot of extremely smart people, great entrepreneurs, but they all left.”
“When you talk to entrepreneurs in Norway, they’re like, ‘I literally can’t pay the tax because the company got marked up, and I own a lot of it, and I can’t get that money out.’”
“’It’s a private company. I’m stuck. So, I have to leave the country.’”
“There are basically no tech entrepreneurs in Norway now.”
Headlines
WSJ: The Long-Term Threat to the Memory Chip Boom Is Innovation
Read: Anthropic letter accusing Alibaba of distillation attack
Bloomberg: Apple Shares Sink After Price Hikes Hit iPads and Macs
OpenAI publishes GPT-5.6 benchmarks
Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California
FT: Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans Starlink mobile push into US consumer market
OpenAI and Broadcom unveil LLM-optimized inference chip
Bloomberg: Bond Traders Stunned as Losses on SpaceX’s New Debt Keep Growing
WSJ: The Data-Center Boom Is Sparking a Third Wave of Inflation
FT: DeepSeek plans hiring spree in escalation of China’s AI talent war
Scroll Prize: We read an entire scroll — without ever opening it
NYT: Meta Has Created a Prediction Markets App
NY Mag: What Does Mark Zuckerberg Want With Prediction Markets?
WSJ: Smartglasses Are Inevitable. But What—or Who—Are They For?
Works in Progress: Why American data centers can’t plug in
FT: Volkswagen to axe up to 100,000 jobs in sweeping cost-cutting drive
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Ben Horowitz is a d**k. Norway taxes net worth above ~ $2M US. The wealth tax proposed in CA only applies to individuals with net worth over $1 billion, so Stanford grad founders need not panic. But yeah, if your startup is worth $1B and you own 100% you would owe a tax. If your assets aren't liquid you'd have to get creative to pay. Stop whining and be a good citizen.