Big Technology Podcast
00:25:03 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:25:03] S1: Alexa for shopping. [00:25:05] S0: No. The Bee Frontier. The Bee Frontier. The Bee Frontier is a wristband that you can wear. It's $74.99 and Amazon of... Amazon pitches it as a wearable personal AI that grows with you. It's confidential by design, and it transforms conversations into actionable summaries. Hate this thing. I'm getting more and more annoyed at AI wearables by the day. I just think that I don't want to live in a world where everything is recorded because when everything is recorded, everything becomes performance. Everybody thinks about their words. Everybody realizes that someone's going to go back and just like the Black Mirror episode, they'll want to do a replay of their memories. Why are we running towards this future? It just makes me upset. [00:25:57] S1: Oh, okay. Hold on. Well, one, I'll still... Alexa for shopping now at least takes up a third of my screen every time I open it on desktop. They're certainly pushing that, but that's it because we've never really talked about the Bee Frontier, and that was definitely... They're they're they're making this bet on what is the future of their AI hardware ecosystem. Do you think it's personal feelings aside, do you think it's a smart bet? Because I remember from what I read it, now it's gonna connect into the overall, like, say, ecosystem, and there is certain... They have it out there. We're still waiting on whatever OpenAI pin and Meta, Tamagotchi. Do you think it's smart Amazon's going down this direction?
00:25:57 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:25:57] S1: Oh, okay. Hold on. Well, one, I'll still... Alexa for shopping now at least takes up a third of my screen every time I open it on desktop. They're certainly pushing that, but that's it because we've never really talked about the Bee Frontier, and that was definitely... They're they're they're making this bet on what is the future of their AI hardware ecosystem. Do you think it's personal feelings aside, do you think it's a smart bet? Because I remember from what I read it, now it's gonna connect into the overall, like, say, ecosystem, and there is certain... They have it out there. We're still waiting on whatever OpenAI pin and Meta, Tamagotchi. Do you think it's smart Amazon's going down this direction? [00:26:42] S0: Well, it's hard for me to it's hard for me to fully take my personal feelings out of it because I do hate the Muse Buddy and the Bee Frontier just in general. I don't want to be imagine you're at a party. You're talking to somebody for the first time. Imagine okay, sorry. Imagine you were single, and you're at a party, and you're having a conversation with somebody. And you see the Bee Frontier on their wrist. [00:27:12] S1: No, you don't talk to them. See it.
00:27:12 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:27:12] S1: No, you don't talk to them. See it. [00:27:15] S0: Listen, it's just like, can you... When you were single, okay, when you were single, I'm sure it was very easy for you. For me, was... I had some difficulty. Okay. Just think about all the conversations, right, of potential flames. And then you're like, what went wrong there? You're replaying. Imagine like the Bee Frontier is with you at the party, and you're like you're like, have a great time on a Saturday night, and she doesn't text back on Sunday. And, like, you walk by your Echo Show, and it's, like, just a bit too aggressive last night. We just can't move to this reality. I can't deal with it. [00:27:58] S1: Wait. Wait. Hold on. I actually love that because I have the Echo Show in my kitchen. I use it while cooking, but it is very thirsty. Like, it's one of those where... And actually, going back to the grocery and everyday essentials, do you know what they do? It will, I mean, again, it's interesting to me technologically like, because if I shop at Whole Foods, it knows my order and then I'll be like, Oh, I need a recipe for so and so. And it's like, Okay, here's a recipe. I saw that you bought these butter and potatoes today. So let me try to use that. Like it definitely does this stuff awkwardly. So if any AI ecosystem would tell you, hey, Alex, bit too aggressive last night, maybe tone it down. Maybe ask questions about her. It would be the Echo Show. [00:28:51] S0: Alex, just imagine you were a honeypot. Use the Ranjan method.
00:28:51 · Alex Kantrowitz, Ranjan Roy
[00:28:51] S0: Alex, just imagine you were a honeypot. Use the Ranjan method. [00:28:58] S1: I mean, for honeypots, the Bee Frontier is actually Perfect. That's the target demographic. That's where they're experiencing their initial surge in growth. The increase in honeypots directly correlates to sales of the Bee Frontier. [00:29:14] S0: Trying to lure a multi trillion dollar hardware CEO into delivering his thoughts directly to Beijing. Use the Bee Frontier to record every conversation and get notes on your Echo Show as you cook dinner. [00:29:25] S1: I'm making an AI video commercial exactly this moment we log off. [00:29:30] S0: I just want to correct the record here because I don't think my Bee Frontier in my dating days would have been like, Alex, too aggressive. I think it would have been like, you need to not turn into a corncob every time you like something. [00:29:42] S1: Get up there. Well, hold on. Do you think we're gonna have to rethink societal norms around? Like, I agree. If I sit down and someone... I at least would... I appreciate the fact that the Bee Frontier is hopefully visible, so you know what's going on. But I feel like, do you have to sit down and be like, are we recording? Kinda like if you're on like a Zoom call or something like that.
00:29:42 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:29:42] S1: Get up there. Well, hold on. Do you think we're gonna have to rethink societal norms around? Like, I agree. If I sit down and someone... I at least would... I appreciate the fact that the Bee Frontier is hopefully visible, so you know what's going on. But I feel like, do you have to sit down and be like, are we recording? Kinda like if you're on like a Zoom call or something like that. [00:30:06] S0: I mean, isn't it clear that the Bee Frontier, which is this bracelet that sits along your wrist, is just not going be the final form factor? It's going to be an impossible to detect microphone that you hide under your shirt. And so we're not going to know who's recording and who is. This is why I just don't want this stuff to take off, and I do think there should be some stigma around showing up to dinner with your muse buddy or one of these things. Who wants to live in a world like that? [00:30:31] S1: I mean, is true. As someone who loves my Meta Ray Bans be take photos and video and do it in a responsible manner, it is interesting that... I mean, the stigma around that certainly took off and Meta actually removed the photo capabilities and a lot models. Society has a shot. We got a shot.
00:30:31 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:30:31] S1: I mean, is true. As someone who loves my Meta Ray Bans be take photos and video and do it in a responsible manner, it is interesting that... I mean, the stigma around that certainly took off and Meta actually removed the photo capabilities and a lot models. Society has a shot. We got a shot. [00:30:55] S0: Do we? I hope so. All right, let's just like summarize, not summarize but I want to see if we can kind of get to sort of a conclusion here on this one because if you look at the S and P 500, it's up 10% on the year. On the year, Alphabet is down 11%. It was up slightly when I was in with Sundar and now it's down 11% on the year. Meta is down 4.5 on the year. Amazon is up 5.5% on the year, trailing the S and P 500. Microsoft is up 10% on the year, and it hasn't really been praised at all for its AI initiatives. When you look at it all together and we won't even throw a coreweave into the Yeah. Dive because but NVIDIA is also trailing the S and P 500 is the market in 2026 telling us that the companies making the biggest bets on AI are simply too risk hungry to bet on. Is it saying, we don't want that. We don't believe in it.