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AI image of Sam Altman grilling Pikachu
AI image of Sam Altman grilling Pikachu (@shlms/Sora)

Sora lasted less than one Quibi

OpenAI’s app joins the hallowed halls of video ideas that burned bright and fast.

Max Knoblauch, Jon Keegan

Sora, we hardly knew ya. Yesterday, OpenAI announced that it will be shutting down its AI-generated text-to-video app, Sora.

Sora enjoyed a brief but intense moment of virality, juiced by its exclusive invitation-only early rollout. The app spent about three wild weeks as the No. 1 app in the iOS App Store during this invite-only period, but once everyone had access, interest started to drop.

With Sora shuttering, OpenAI’s app is added to the hallowed halls of short-lived video concepts like Quibi (Disney invested $25 million into that one), HQ Trivia, and Meta’s Lasso — a TikTok clone before Instagram Reels. Other examples, like the social audio app Clubhouse or the daily photo check-in app BeReal, have managed to survive in some form despite having lost much of their early hype.

When the app initially launched, users were quick to push it to generate some shocking videos. Dead celebrities like Robin Williams, Stephen Hawking, and Martin Luther King Jr. made frequent appearances in the early wave of videos.

Social media was flooded with user-generated videos featuring OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting on security camera footage, dressing up as a Nazi, and barbecuing Pikachu.

The number of recognizably copyrighted characters showing up in Sora videos was surprising, considering the bevy of lawsuits filed by content owners against AI companies like Midjourney. Hollywood was reportedly blindsided by OpenAI’s permissive rules around copyrighted characters, leading the company to roll out a plan allowing owners to opt their intellectual property out of appearing in Sora videos.

Sora’s launch led to an alternative to the “sue for an ungodly sum” model, when Disney and OpenAI announced a partnership in December of last year. The three-year agreement included a $1 billion Disney investment in OpenAI and would grant Sora users access to more than 200 animated Disney characters that they could prompt into doing, well, whatever.

As part of the deal, OpenAI reportedly wouldn’t pay a dime in cash for the licensing — an abnormal situation for the IP-obsessed entertainment juggernaut, but one that revealed a bit about where Disney saw the true value of the partnership (holding a piece of OpenAI).

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Rani Molla

Jury finds Meta and Google liable in social addiction case

A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable of designing Instagram and YouTube to be addictive for young users, awarding the plaintiff $3 million in damages, with Meta responsible for 70% of the total. The trial centered on whether features like autoplay and infinite scroll contributed to a plaintiff’s mental health issues — and could set a precedent for holding tech companies responsible for product design, not just content.

The jury also found that Meta and Google could face punitive damages, with a separate phase of the trial to determine how much they should pay.

The decision comes just one day after a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties, saying it violated state consumer protection laws by enabling child sexual exploitation.

Jury finds Meta and Google liable in social media addiction trial

Jury finds Meta and Google liable in social media addiction trial

The jury also found that Meta and Google could face punitive damages, with a separate phase of the trial to determine how much they should pay.

The decision comes just one day after a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties, saying it violated state consumer protection laws by enabling child sexual exploitation.

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Watch Giga Texas grow from space.

Rani Molla1h
Rani Molla
3h
As Big Tech chases enterprise AI, Meta and Apple double down on small businesses

Apple and Meta are playing to their strengths in small business.

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$75B
Rani Molla

SpaceX, which could file confidential paperwork for its IPO as soon as this week, is now aiming to raise an astounding $75 billion through its public listing, The Information reports. That’s 50% higher than previous reports.

For comparison’s sake, the current record holder for money raised in an IPO is Saudi Aramco, which raised $29.4 billion. Or, as The Information noted, SpaceX’s IPO would “surpass all money raised by US IPOs last year.”

tech
Rani Molla

Meta execs could make hundreds of millions of dollars — if the company reaches a $9 trillion valuation

Meta, which currently has a market cap of $1.5 trillion, has structured a new executive compensation program that implies a valuation up to 6x higher, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings reported by The Wall Street Journal.

That means some top executives, like CTO Andrew Bosworth and CFO Susan Li, could gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the shares reach those levels, pointing to a roughly $9 trillion valuation by 2031. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not part of the program, the company confirmed.

The company’s expenses grew 40% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, largely driven by employee compensation after shelling out heavily to recruit AI talent. The latest plan suggests those costs could climb even further.

Meta Targets $9 Trillion Valuation With New Executive Incentive Program

Meta Targets $9 Trillion Valuation With New Executive Incentive Program

That means some top executives, like CTO Andrew Bosworth and CFO Susan Li, could gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the shares reach those levels, pointing to a roughly $9 trillion valuation by 2031. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not part of the program, the company confirmed.

The company’s expenses grew 40% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, largely driven by employee compensation after shelling out heavily to recruit AI talent. The latest plan suggests those costs could climb even further.

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