OpenAI bets you’ll pay $200 a month for ChatGPT

Welcome back to Review Week. This week, we delve into OpenAI’s 12-day surprise reveal, Spotify Wrapped, and an app that tells you when you’re going to die. 😰 Let’s get into it.

OpenAI is getting into the holiday spirit. In a surprise “12 Days of OpenAI” event, the company will be live-streaming updates and new features every week until December 23. Big reveals so far include a $200 per month subscription phase for ChatGPT power users and the release of the full version of OpenAI. its “thinking” model o1. You can follow along with all the product announcements over the next few weeks by staying up to date with our live blog.

Spotify Wrapped was this weekbut many users feel uncomfortable because of the music player’s annual update feature. The biggest appeal comes from the inclusion of AI podcasts over the other, smart and creative data stories it often provides (remember Burlington, Vermont?). Users are also upset by the lack of more detailed statistics and the release of information they have come to expect, such as top music genres.

A Delaware Chancery court judge denied Tesla’s request to review its decision to slash CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion paycheck — despite shareholders voting at the company’s annual meeting to “reaffirm” the deal. His decision, set out in a 103-page opinion, said Tesla’s legal team had “no reason to overturn the result” and that the effort to change his mind contained several fatal flaws.

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News

Google is losing three key leaders: Three members of Google’s NotebookLM team are going underground to reboot. It’s not clear if the startup will focus on the things that NotebookLM went for, like AI-powered podcasts or if it will do something completely different. Read more

SpaceX includes a major tender offer: SpaceX’s valuation continues to rise at an incredible pace, and the company is reportedly in talks to sell its internal shares at a price worth around $350 billion. Read more

The electric popemobile: Mercedes-Benz presented the first electric popemobile to the Vatican. The modified version of the G-Class SUV has a tilting seat that changes height so the pope can address his large audience. Read more

Intel CEO retires: Intel has announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired and resigned from the company’s board of directors. According to the SEC filing, Gelsinger may be walking away with a little more than $10 million in severance pay. Read more

Hello, Dia: The Browser Company has teased its next product to follow up its popular Arc Browser – a new web browser called Dia. According to an announcement from the company, Dia will focus on AI tools and will be launched in early 2025. Read more

Can ads come to Bluesky? At our StrictlyVC event, we asked Bluesky CEO Jay Graber if ads are off the table for social networking. Graber told us that Bluesky may eventually test ads — but in a way that doesn’t compromise the user experience. Read more

Answer from David Mayer: ChatGPT users got to ask questions about “David Mayer” which caused the chatbot to freeze. While the unusual behavior has given rise to conspiracy theories, the most common cause is at the heart of it – digital privacy requests. Read more

Get your Mac in the holiday spirit: A great new MacOS app called Festivitas can help you decorate your Mac computer screen with twinkling, holiday lights that plug into your menu bar and light up your dock. Read more

Tesla enters the fart prank market: Tesla has revealed plans for an Apple Watch app that will do much of what the smartphone app does, but perhaps the trickiest update is the ability to jolt your friend in the passenger seat with a whoopie cushion sound effect. Read more

Khloé Kardashian, VC: Khloé Kardashian and Kris Jenner are looking to raise $10 million for a new venture called Khloud, according to the SEC. Trademarks associated with Khloud were filed to cover popcorn, granola, and other snack foods. Read more

Do you want to know when you will die? A new app called Death Clock claims to predict the date of death for its users and offers tips on how to get that date back. My colleague Anthony Ha, who is much braver than me, tried it himself. Read more

Analysis

The extreme weirdness of AI ads.

“The genius is so great, you’d swear it came from Texas.”

“Adapt your workforce at the speed of AI.”

“AI that talks to cars and talks to wildlife.”

These are examples of recent advertisements for AI products and companies, but what do they mean? As Maxwell Zeff writes, most AI ads are meaningless. Companies resort to painting AI as this amorphous, magical children’s book character with no specific use, while suggesting it can do almost anything. We’re in a weird place with AI, and the banal tapestry of ads speaks to the bigger picture we’re in. Most companies don’t really know what AI is good for, and maybe that’s the point. Read more