Zuckerberg’s Disappointment, OpenAI’s Equity Gamble, Alex Karp’s Rally Cry

**Alex Kantrowitz** (0:00)
Mark Zuckerberg says AI development is moving slower than expected as Meta thinks about selling off its excess compute. OpenAI wants to give its equity to the White House, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp takes on the foundational labs. That's coming up on a Big Technology Podcast Friday edition right after this.
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**Alex Kantrowitz** (1:41)
Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk all about Meta, deciding that maybe it's time to sell some of that very precious compute. As Mark Zuckerberg says, AI agent development is going slower than expected. We're going to talk about what that means, not just for Meta, but for the broader AI industry. We'll also talk about OpenAI, potentially giving some of its equity to the White House, whether that's advisable or not. And of course, Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, coming out and effectively declaring war on the foundational lab is really what it is. Joining us as always on Friday to do it is Ranjan Roy of Margins. Ranjan, good to see you.

**Ranjan Roy** (2:19)
Great to see you, Alex. I'm currently in London in a hotel room with mediocre Wi-Fi.

**Alex Kantrowitz** (2:26)
Yeah, everybody, the fact that we're doing a show right now is somewhat miraculous. I just want to say thanks to Ranjan for sticking with us. It's pretty late London time, so.

**Ranjan Roy** (2:35)
Modern technology, that's what we do. That's what we do.

**Alex Kantrowitz** (2:39)
So our top story this week is what's going on at Meta or what isn't going on at Meta. And that is impressive AI development. And that was something that Mark Zuckerberg in an internal town hall admitted effectively, according to Reuters. Here's the headline. Zuckerberg says AI agent development is going slower than expected. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told an internal town hall on Thursday that AI agent development over the last four months has not accelerated in the way we expected, according to a recording. Zuckerberg added that the company's reorganization that included major job cuts was not as clean as it could have been and that the company's bets on a new structure haven't come to fruition yet. Meta is projected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a significant portion of Big Tech's more than $700 billion outlay on the technology. And I might as well just share the second story here, which is that Meta is now considering leasing some of its excess compute, same way SpaceX did, because it doesn't seem to have the products that can make use of it.
Ranjan, is this an unsettling sign that companies that are not OpenAI and Anthropic don't know what to do with their compute? And are trying to sell it? I mean, Meta, SpaceX, obviously Google is selling its compute, Microsoft is selling its compute, Amazon is selling its compute. For all this talk about how compute is such a scarce resource, it seems like there's two companies that need it and a lot of people supplying it.

**Ranjan Roy** (4:06)
Let's separate out the two different parts of it. Selling excess compute, but first of all, what do you think it means that AI agent development over the last four months has not accelerated in the way we expected? Because again, remember Meta was the kind of poster child of token maxing.