Image: made using DALL·E (Custom edited by me)
RSN017
Published 07.07.2025.09.00.MON
AI Advice, Billion-Dollar Bets & A New Social Frontier
Hey everyone, Ritik here! This week felt like tech’s version of bumper cars: executives offering tone-deaf AI pep talks as thousands lose jobs, Musk loading xAI with another ten billion dollars, and Apple shopping for outside brains to rescue Siri. Meanwhile, iOS 26’s glossy new “Liquid Glass” look got its first polish, and Bluesky keeps pitching itself as the friendlier sky above X. I’ve pulled the five stories that actually matter, added context, and sprinkled just enough snark to keep your morning coffee interesting. Let’s dive in.
1. Xbox Exec Touts ChatGPT for Layoff Blues
“AI won’t pay severance, but it can write your résumé.”
What’s Happening: Microsoft’s latest 9,100-person layoff round hit Xbox Game Studios hard, shuttering projects and entire teams. In a since-deleted LinkedIn post, Xbox production leader Matt Turnbull urged the newly unemployed to lean on ChatGPT or Copilot for everything from résumé revamps to emotional resilience. Turnbull framed AI chatbots as a way to “get unstuck faster … with more clarity” when mental energy is scarce. Critics blasted the post as a corporate shrug, the same company pouring $80 billion into AI infrastructure is telling laid-off creatives to ask robots for career therapy. The backlash was swift enough that Turnbull pulled the advice, yet screenshots spread across Bluesky and Reddit, where developers called it “spectacularly tone-deaf.” The episode spotlights Microsoft’s internal dissonance: aggressive AI investment juxtaposed with sweeping cuts in the very human talent required to build games. It also feeds industry anxiety that generative tools will replace, and not support, creative labor. Especially, as game studios have shed more than 20,000 jobs since 2022. While AI can certainly format cover letters, no algorithm covers rent or health insurance.
Why It Matters to You: If you’re in tech or gaming, the episode underscores how quickly “learn AI tools” has morphed from résumé booster to survival skill. Master them, but remember they’re assistants, not safety nets.
Why It Matters to the World: The clash reveals a broader reckoning: as corporations chase AI scale, displaced workers may be handed bots instead of benefits. How society balances innovation with humane off-ramps will define public trust in AI.
2. xAI Raises $10 Billion to Build a Million-GPU Megacluster
“Musk’s Grok gets a war chest the size of a small nation’s GDP.”
What’s Happening: Morgan Stanley arranged a $10 billion package for Elon Musk’s xAI and half of it was in secured loans, half in new strategic equity. Added to December’s $6 billion round, xAI now wields roughly $17 billion to scale its “maximally truth-seeking” Grok model. Musk says the Memphis Colossus supercomputer already runs 200k Nvidia and AMD GPUs; the aim is a one-million-GPU facility outside the city, dwarfing most national labs. Investors span Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Fidelity, Sequoia, Saudi-linked Kingdom Holdings, and chipmakers themselves, essentially a who’s-who of AI arms-race financiers. The funds will expand Grok, build one of Earth’s largest data centers, and let xAI buy every high-end GPU it can find, further squeezing an already tight supply chain. Musk positions Grok as “anti-woke” and integrated throughout X (formerly Twitter), which xAI acquired in March in a deal valuing the platform at $33 billion. Competition with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic is fierce: OpenAI closed $40 billion in March at a $300 billion valuation, while Anthropic sits near $62 billion. Musk’s latest raise lowers xAI’s cost of capital and signals deep-pocketed backers will bankroll a direct challenge to these incumbents—controversial content moderation stance and all.
Why It Matters to You: Expect Grok features to hit X faster and, eventually, third-party APIs. Developers hungry for GPU time may face higher prices or longer queues as xAI hoovers up hardware.
Why It Matters to the World: A million-GPU complex demands vast electricity and water, raising environmental stakes. And with Saudi money and “anti-woke” branding in the mix, AI’s geopolitical and cultural fault lines just grew deeper.
3. Apple Mulls Anthropic or OpenAI to Reboot Siri
“If you can’t build it, rent it.”
What’s Happening: Bloomberg reports Apple has asked OpenAI and Anthropic to customize large language models that could run on Apple’s private iCloud clusters as a brain transplant for the long-delayed “LLM Siri.” Mike Rockwell—newly installed AI chief after Tim Cook sidelined John Giannandrea—ordered side-by-side tests comparing Apple’s in-house model with Claude and ChatGPT, reportedly favoring Anthropic’s safety-minded approach. Apple’s own revamp slipped from 2025 to “2026 or later,” missing WWDC 2025 entirely. In the meantime, Siri can already tap ChatGPT for tough queries, but this deeper integration would offload core reasoning to third-party LLMs while Apple controls security and branding. Talks are early; Apple could still rely on its proprietary models, yet insiders concede that A-series and M-series on-device inference isn’t enough for full conversational overhaul. Partnering also hedges against potential regulatory breakup of Apple’s $18 billion Google search deal. Apple has explored acquiring Perplexity and is simultaneously overhauling iOS naming (iOS 26) to signal an AI-first era.
Why It Matters to You: The next iPhone may ship with a Siri that actually answers like ChatGPT, without sending you to Safari. Your day-to-day tasks could get smarter fast, but privacy terms will be worth a close read.
Why It Matters to the World: If Apple outsources core AI, it cements a tiered market where a few foundation-model giants license brains to every device maker. That could accelerate capability diffusion, or concentrate power among even fewer players.
4. iOS 26 Beta 2 Tweaks Liquid Glass UI After Early Backlash
“Apple adds blur, the internet stops squinting.”
What’s Happening: iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design, an aesthetic riff on translucent, light-refracting layers, was debuted at WWDC 2025 but drew flak for unreadable Control Center tiles and washed-out notifications. In Beta 2, Apple deepened background blur behind Control Center, boosting contrast so volume sliders no longer vanish into Home-screen widgets. Notifications now sport crisper text, though bright wallpapers still challenge legibility. Beta 2 also adds an Accessibility panel on App Store product pages, iCloud sync for Journal on iPad, Apple Wallet order tracking, and a new Music Radio widget. Observers note Apple’s rapid iteration: public release lands this fall, yet Cupertino is already shipping fixes two weeks after the first developer build, evidence the design team is monitoring Reddit threads and TestFlight feedback. Liquid Glass remains divisive: fans praise its cinematic refractions; critics call it skeuomorphic déjà vu. Regardless, Apple’s willingness to adjust mid-beta suggests UI changes will keep flowing, similar to the iterative rollout of iOS 7’s flat design in 2013.
Why It Matters to You: If you’re on the beta, expect better readability and smoother widgets today, and reassurance that your feedback is shaping the final OS. Designers should anticipate updated guidelines before launch.
Why It Matters to the World: Apple’s fast course-correction shows user-driven design can still influence trillion-dollar companies. It also signals that flashy AI-era interfaces must prove functional or risk quick backlash and costly reworks.
5. Bluesky’s Slow-Burn Growth & Decentralized Pitch Explained
“A bluer alternative where your handle can be a domain.”
What’s Happening: Decentralized social network Bluesky, born from Jack Dorsey’s 2019 vision and now led by CEO Jay Graber, surpassed 30 million users after X’s policy changes and post-election exodus drove sign-ups. Built on the open-source AT Protocol, Bluesky lets users port their followers across apps, adopt domain-based handles, and choose algorithmic “custom feeds.” Recent additions include DMs (one-to-one only), vertical video, Starter Packs for onboarding, and upcoming photo app Flashes. The company raised $15 million in late 2024 and plans a Bluesky+ subscription for premium features—eschewing ads or “pay-to-boost” models. Its block feature remains traditional, and Bluesky pledges not to train AI on user content, though third-party scraping remains possible. Federation is next: eventually, users could migrate to independent AT servers without losing social graphs. Growth has slowed relative to Meta’s 275 million-MAU Threads, but Bluesky sees itself as an open standard akin to email rather than a single app. Developers are already crafting side-apps, and the Skyseed grant fund offers $1 million to fuel the ecosystem.
Why It Matters to You: If X feels toxic or algorithmically cluttered, Bluesky offers a familiar interface with more control, plus the freedom to take your community elsewhere if policies shift.
Why It Matters to the World: Open protocols challenge walled-garden dominance, potentially reshaping social media into interoperable networks where users, not platforms, own identity and reach. That could curb monopoly power and foster healthier online discourse.
My Creative Conclusion
From executives suggesting chatbots as grief counselors to trillion-dollar talent hunts for Siri’s next brain, the tech world keeps blurring lines between empathy and efficiency. Money floods AI startups, glossy interfaces get quick makeovers, and decentralized upstarts nibble at entrenched giants. Through it all, remember: innovation is thrilling, but humanity lives in how we treat people when the code can’t comfort them. Keep an eye on the balance, and keep questioning which tools serve you, not the other way around.
— Ritik Sharma Founder, RSN (Ritik Sharma Newsletter)