Microsoft has struck a deal with Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, paying a premium price to secure power for its Azure cloud platform. On All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg, guest Dan Dreyfus noted that "the data center and the hyperscalers are in a panic" over securing energy, describing how the sheer scale of energy demand is outstripping supply. Meanwhile, on Invest Like the Best, investor Alex Sacerdote illustrated this infrastructure obsession by pointing to a Microsoft data center built with enough fiber to circle the world four and a half times, while noting that the company is actively "trying to build their own" AI systems.
While some marvel at this scale, others in the podcast world are taking a much more critical view of the tech giant's influence. On The Diary Of A CEO, entrepreneur Nick Hanauer used his own history with the company to paint a picture of corporate incompetence, recalling how "Microsoft bought my company, Aquantive, for six point four billion dollars" and subsequently ruined it. In the same debate, Daniel Priestley argued that tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft and Google and Facebook are "sucking money out of the economy" and leaving job seekers feeling hopeless as they blindly send CVs to companies receiving thousands of applications a week.
On the gaming front, Microsoft is making waves with its Xbox division. On Kinda Funny Games Daily, Blessing Adeoye Jr. reported that "Xbox promises exclusives and is rethinking Helix," while co-host Andy Cortez questioned why the upcoming 1.0 release of 33 Immortals on Game Pass wasn't featured in the main Xbox Showcase, saying "that's something they should've done in the Xbox Direct." Meanwhile, lighter updates are coming to the classic simulator franchise, with Pardon My Take noting that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has announced new updates.
As Microsoft continues to expand its footprint from nuclear power to gaming, its massive legacy is still being parsed. On My First Million, Barry Ritholtz highlighted Richard Barton as a "former Microsoft employee" who went on to build Expedia and Zillow. On The Joe Rogan Experience, Dean Radin recalled how Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen funded Interval Research. Meanwhile, on Pivot, Scott Galloway raised the company as a prime example of the difficulty of industry-specific taxation, asking, "Is Microsoft an AI company?"