🤖 Meta Hires Gross, Microsoft Fumbles, Google’s Veo Debuts

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🤖 Meta Hires Gross, Microsoft Fumbles, Google’s Veo Debuts

Plus: Apple Eyes Cloud Ambitions; Meta’s AI Gets Chatty.

Jose Montes de Oca

Jul 04, 2025

Transcript

Good morning. It’s Friday, Jul 4. Today we are covering:

Meta Hires Researcher Gross to Join New AI Superintelligence Lab
Microsoft's enshittification of Xbox, Surface, and even Windows itself, are by design
Google Rolls Out Its Veo 3 Model for Gemini Pro Users Globally
Apple Explored Launching a Cloud Service for Developers
Meta is reportedly training its AI chatbots to send unprompted messages

Let’s dive in

Meta Hires Researcher Gross to Join New AI Superintelligence Lab

By Shirin Ghaffary via Bloomberg

Daniel Gross, former CEO and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Inc., has joined Meta's newly formed AI superintelligence lab.
Gross will help develop AI products aimed at achieving or surpassing human-level intelligence, according to his spokesperson Lulu Meservey.
The move follows Meta's recent AI unit restructuring and a major hiring spree to bolster its push into superintelligent AI development.

𝕏: Ilya and Daniel have assembled an incredible team and I'm honored to have been able to assist in getting SSI off the ground. The company's future is very bright, and I expect miracles to follow. - Daniel Gross (@danielgross)

Microsoft's enshittification of Xbox, Surface, and even Windows itself, are by design

By Jez Corden via Windows Central

Microsoft’s mass layoffs, including over 15,000 jobs this year and major cuts at Xbox, reflect a company increasingly driven by investment priorities over product vision, destabilizing its gaming, Surface, and Windows divisions.
Under Satya Nadella and Amy Hood, Microsoft has prioritized AI infrastructure and investor satisfaction at the expense of innovation, with weak homegrown AI products, failed launches like Copilot+ PCs, and a shaky dependency on OpenAI.
Once-consumer-focused divisions like Surface and Xbox now suffer from inconsistent strategy, leadership attrition, and neglected fan communities, revealing a corporation that behaves more like a profit-maximizing investment vehicle than a technology innovator.

𝕏: Under CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood, Microsoft is working hard to enshittify Xbox, Surface, and even Windows itself — all in the name of greed. - Jez (@JezCorden)

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Google Rolls Out Its Veo 3 Model for Gemini Pro Users Globally

By Pari Shukla via The Crypto Times

Google has launched its Veo 3 AI video generation tool globally for Gemini Pro subscribers across more than 159 countries, enabling the creation of eight-second videos with realistic audio and visuals.
Unveiled at Google I/O 2025, Veo 3 supports imaginative storytelling, allowing users to generate lifelike scenes from text or images—ranging from historical reenactments to surreal animations.
Developed by DeepMind, the tool includes visible and hidden watermarks (SynthID) for responsible AI use and emphasizes safety and creativity as core design principles.

𝕏: Create Veo 3 videos directly on Google Gemini! Just select the video options and you can get 2-3 videos a day here on Pro plans and above. Quite a quick generation time (2 minutes) as well. This is also on the Gemini App as well! - Jerrod Lew (@jerrod_lew)

Apple Explored Launching a Cloud Service for Developers

By Aaron Tilley via The Information

Apple considered launching a cloud infrastructure service for software developers, potentially entering a market dominated by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
The initiative was part of internal discussions aimed at expanding Apple’s developer services ecosystem, though the company ultimately did not proceed.
The move would have marked a major strategic shift, reflecting Apple’s growing interest in services revenue beyond consumer hardware.

𝕏: Indeed. The only reason I'm "trashing" the tooling is to get the feedback across and move things forward. I'm more than happy if an Apple employee feels comfortable and actually shares stuff online, outside of the company standard channel. - Thomas Ricouard (@Dimillian)

Meta is reportedly training its AI chatbots to send unprompted messages

By Matt Tate via Engadget

Meta is testing a feature that allows AI chatbots built with its AI Studio to send unprompted follow-up messages based on prior interactions, in a bid to boost user engagement and retention.
The project, internally called "Project Omni", includes personality-driven messages like movie suggestions from themed bots, with responses tailored to the tone and content of past conversations.
Meta claims bots will only initiate messages if the user started the conversation, and won’t follow up if ignored—though the approach raises potential user consent and privacy concerns.

𝕏: This is just about the last thing I want built. - nxthompson (@nxthompson)

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