This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bigtechnology.comFor years, Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky asked his Stanford classes whether he and his colleagues made the right decision selling their voice bot to Apple. The investor, entrepreneur, and lecturer told me he leaned toward staying independent and IPO. But there was risk operating alone without a deep integration into a mobile operating system like iOS. So after much persistence from Steve Jobs, the deal went through.Today, fifteen years after Apple bought Siri and one year after the company launched Apple Intelligence, Winarsky’s question is more thought provoking than ever. As Apple gets ready to announce its latest vision for Siri and Apple Intelligence at next week’s WWDC, the company is, in many ways, returning toward the plan that Winarsky and his colleagues laid out in Siri’s early days.“This personal assistant would be able to take actions for you,” Winarsky told me of the original Siri vision in our latest Big Tech War Stories podcast episode. “How do you find the nearest gas station? Get me a ticket to the local theater? Buy me a hotel room near San Francisco? All these capabilities were things that you wanted it to do rather than just search.”The full interview — covering Siri’s founding and what’s happened since — is available in full for Big Technology paid subscribers, with preview available for everyone.As Winarsky tells it, the Siri project began in 2003 with DARPA’s ‘Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes’ project.
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How Walt Mossberg Built Relationships With Jobs, Gates, and Bezos
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bigtechnology.comWalt Mossberg is a legendary tech journalist and longtime columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Mossberg joins Big Tech War Stories to discuss how he formed connections with industry titans like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, and what drove their thinking and strategies. Tune in to hear revealing stories of how these CEOs handled criticism, approached product development, and viewed their role in shaping the tech landscape. We also cover Mossberg's own evolution as a journalist focusing on products rather than business, and how that unique lens gave him rare insights. Hit play for an engaging conversation that reveals the story behind the figures who shaped the technology world. To listen to the full episode, go to bigtechnology.com if you're a paid subscriber or upgrade here.
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How Meta Built Llama 3
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bigtechnology.comAhmad Al-Dahle is Meta's VP of generative AI. He joins Big Tech War Stories to disucss how the company built its Llama 3 model, releasing today. Training Llama 3 took ten times more data, one hundred times more computing resources, and personality tweaks to make it more willing to answer questions it otherwise would’ve refused. You can get the full show as a paid subscriber on bigtechnology.com
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How Google Built Its Dominant Web Advertising Business
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bigtechnology.comGoogle made $31 billion running ads across the web last year, capitalizing on a tech footprint that touches nearly every web page on the internet. The company’s ad server and ad exchange are ubiquitous, behind-the-scenes technology that helps websites make money, and it all dates back to its 2007 acquisition of DoubleClick. In this month’s edition of Bi…
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The Rise and Fall Of Facebook’s Politics Obsession
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bigtechnology.comBy now you know about Facebook’s role in politics but how did it get there. And why is it now backing away. Today, on Big Tech War Stories, we take you deep inside the company, on the ground with someone who spent 10 years on Facebook’s policy team — including running its elections unit — to discuss how Facebook handled politics, why it wanted it, and whether it can actually take a step back as major elections come its way.Our guest is Katie Harbath, she’s the founder and CEO of anchor change and someone with firsthand knowledge of how Facebook helped political candidates operate on the platform, where things went south, how influence campaigns impacted the company, and the social network’s calculations moving forward.
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