Did you know Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge Star Trek fan? The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, imagined a future where the divisions and struggles of the real world no longer defined society.

Speaking of divisions, let’s talk about Substack vs. X Articles.

As someone who starts every day with a 30-minute scroll of newsletters and other longform writing, X Articles have been in my peripheral vision. I won’t look at them straight on. I personally don’t (and probably will never) go to X for anything longform, but I can’t lie and say X Articles haven’t become a new hot thing, especially since the platform announced they are giving $1M to the top Article in January. I’ve been wondering whether the tech ecosystem that’s active on both X and Substack will slowly shift to X-exclusive. There are already plenty of tech newsletters here (like the fabulous one you’re reading right now, which will not be migrating to X Articles), but there’s far less community than we see on X.

Maybe it’s just my bubble, but the tech industry is one of the only groups still violently active on X (along with political accounts, though at this point they feel interchangeable). Other users, especially journalists, have dispersed across Threads, Substack, and Bluesky. Some notable legacy media figures remain staples on X, like Chris Black (who finds Substack to be lame), Joe Weisenthal (Bloomberg-affiliated podcast host), and Naomi Fry (who can be cool anywhere on the internet). But I’m not seeing newer voices show up, and X has scared off many users and writers who adamantly disagree with what X is, who runs it, and how it operates. Where do we find all the new, cool people? The non-tech people left on the platform without an established presence are left to just lurk and shitpost. There isn’t a real community for them unless they go anonymous and post borderline illegal things. With X Articles, maybe they’ll start to show up more, but I don’t think their takes or thoughts will be received as well as if they wrote on Substack, where comments tend to be far nicer and less... graphic.

I know this has been said before, but X used to feel like the main square for everyone. With the introduction of X Articles, things feel like they might be changing even more. If the active tech posters on X can now publish longform content where their audience is already living, there’s no reason to cross platforms. X wants to be the everything app for anyone, but in its current state it’s only serving one specific archetype of user. One that can be loud. An “everything app” that only works for some is just a platform with delusions of grandeur.

This fragmentation means less overlap between communities. People are stuck in echo chambers even more than before, leading to one-dimensional online personas that are honestly quite boring. I see tech people on X complaining about how everyone in media who left is too woke. I see media people on Substack expressing disdain for the tech industry. Nobody’s really talking to each other anymore.

What are your thoughts on X articles? Let me know:

Tech News

Thinking Machines Lab (Alleged) Roundup:

• This month, Thinking Machines Lab can’t seem to get out of the headlines. The CTO was fired for alleged misconduct and rehired by OpenAI the same day, along with other co-founders. An all-hands meeting reportedly led to people quitting on the spot. What followed was essentially an OpenAI boomerang raid, with multiple senior people leaving a $12B startup to go back to their old employer. (The Information, Wired, Wired)

  • Some context: back in mid-2025, Thinking Machines Lab raised a $2B seed round (yes, seed) and hit a $12B valuation without a product, revenue, or even a clear roadmap. The bet was almost entirely on Mira Murati and a roster of ex-OpenAI talent. At one point, even the Albanian government jumped in with $10M, which is… not a normal thing for a pre-product startup. Just a few months later, there were talks of raising again at a $50–60B valuation. That round never happened. The company’s only launch was Tinker, a fine-tuning infrastructure tool—useful, but not the frontier model the valuation implied.

• Great resource to learn more:

Money Moves

• Elon Musk is asking for up to $134B in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, arguing that OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission and effectively cut him out by teaming up with Microsoft. The numbers came out in a court filing on Friday, after a federal judge turned down OpenAI and Microsoft’s last attempt to shut the case down. As a result, the dispute is now headed to a jury trial in late April. (Bloomberg)

• OpenAI is starting to test ads in ChatGPT, which will appear at the bottom of responses on the free version and the cheapest paid tier. This is coming as the company looks to fund massive compute costs while also competing with Google and Anthropic. Apparently, OpenAI expects ads to generate “low billions” in 2026 and claims ads won’t influence answers... which is hard to believe given the company has been exploring personalized advertising using ChatGPT’s memory features. (Financial Times)

• Sources say Sequoia Capital is lining up its first major investment in the Claude maker, Anthropic, as part of a mega funding round that could raise $25B or more. The company is reportedly targeting a $350B valuation, which puts it at more than 2x its valuation from just four months ago. Will we be seeing an IPO this year? I think we might… (Financial Times)

WTF is happening at xAI

• Sulaiman Ghori, technical staff at xAI, went on a podcast to spill all the tea about "WTF is happening at xAI. The episode dropped Thursday, and by Monday Sulaiman departed the company. It was filmed very well, who produces this? (YouTube)

We saw this coming:

• The UK Gambling Commission said Meta turned a blind eye to illegal gambling sites advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Not surprised. Not shocked. Everything feels like gambling now, and gaming is everywhere. (Bloomberg)

• I’m guilty of watching movies while playing on my phone, making me a perfect example of how our screen time habits are changing how movies get made. Matt Damon said Netflix pushes filmmakers to get to the action faster and to restate the plot three or four times in dialogue, assuming viewers are half-watching while scrolling on their phones. There is hope though, for my attentive movie lovers. Ben Affleck pointed out that some recent hits, like Adolescence, ignore the formula entirely and succeed anyway. (Variety)

• Meta announced it will discontinue Horizon Workrooms as a standalone app and stop sales of Horizon managed services and commercial Quest headsets starting next month. The company also laid off roughly 10% of Reality Labs, cutting more than 1,000 jobs. Personally, I do not mind a Slack huddle once in a while, but no one wants to hang out with their coworkers in the metaverse. Most people do not even want to go into the office or hop on a Zoom call. (The Verge)

From the Feed 📱

• I’ve written before about how consulting is becoming less valuable and about Claude Cowork. This tweet hits both points, and I agree with the prediction:

• Claude Code is actually taking over my timeline: