Elon Loses to Sam Altman & Are Smartphones to Blame for Falling Birth Rates?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Consider this comparison. PwC data found the percentage of CEOs who report revenue gains or cost reductions from AI is almost equal to the percentage who say they're still stuck. What separates these two groups? PwC points to a clarity issue. Even for CEOs, it's hard to tell what's AI hype, what's reality, and where this tuck can make a tangible difference. Learn where AI can actually make an impact and what successful adoption looks like at pwc.com/us/brewai.
That's pwc.com/us/brewai.

**Neal Freyman** (0:36)
Good Morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:39)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:40)
Today, what happened to dad books?

**Toby Howell** (0:42)
Then, our smartphones to blame for falling birth rates. It's Tuesday, May 19th. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:54)
The party's over at Spotify. The audio streaming service said it would retire its new app icon, celebrating its 20th birthday next week after intense backlash. Did you see this on your phone? Happened on mine. Last week, without any advance warning, Spotify changed its logo on Apple's iOS from the traditional 2D bright green blob to a disco ball. People had strong reactions with one representative ex user writing, The person who designed this logo should be fired. In response, Spotify reiterated that the logo swap was temporary for its big birthday and that its regularly scheduled logo will return next week. Toby, what went wrong here?

**Toby Howell** (1:30)
I will tell you the issue. They just made it too dark. If they bumped up the brightness a little bit, I swear people would like it. I think Dylan Abrusco on X made a good point. He said, when tapping an icon is second nature, even the slightest change in appearance can make you double take when searching for it. And that's annoying when trying to open the app. So I do think that people don't like change when it's something as habitual as Spotify. Another take I saw is that they made it too dark on purpose, because then everyone would start to talk about it just like we are right now. And they wanted to set tech Twitter on fire and any publicity is good publicity. I like the whimsy of it. Everyone always complains that everything has gotten too bland, too flat. Someone finally takes a risk and then everyone gets mad at them. I'm just going to be disco-ifying every single app on my phone going forward.
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**Neal Freyman** (2:25)
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**Toby Howell** (2:27)
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**Neal Freyman** (3:05)
After three weeks of bitter testimony that pitted Silicon Valley Titans against one another with the future of AI on the line, all it took was less than two hours for the jury to decide in favor of Sam Altman over Elon Musk. In Oakland, California yesterday, a jury rejected Musk's claims that OpenAI exec Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, quote, stole a charity from him when they converted their nonprofit into a for-profit enterprise. But the jury didn't actually weigh in on the merits of that argument. Instead, they decided against Musk because of procrastination. He filed his lawsuit too late. Musk sued Altman for breach of charitable trust, but the statute of limitations for that claim is three years. The jury found that Musk was aware of the behavior mentioned in his complaint as far back as 2021, but he didn't file the suit until the summer of 2024
That timing gap was central to OpenAI's case. OpenAI's lawyers argued that if Musk was so concerned about OpenAI shifting to a for-profit, then why did he wait years to sue? Their answer, to stop a corporate rival in its tracks. Musk recently founded an AI company, XAI, that competes directly with OpenAI.
According to OpenAI attorneys, the reason he had this change of mind to sue was to stymie OpenAI from going public, which XAI is also doing. Musk, of course, disputes that, and his lawyers said they will appeal. For now, the jury's decision lifts a dark cloud over OpenAI as it marches to the public markets. If Musk had won, Sam Altman and Brockman could have been booted from their positions, and OpenAI might have been required to revert back to a non-profit, both things that could have derailed the IPO. Now the path has been cleared.