Alex Heath
Appearances
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
How does this partnership work? And this renew that you just did with them, how is it structured? What does this deal look like?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But yeah, we had just come fresh off that demo and literally walked in the podcast studio and sat down and hit record. So- It was fresh on our minds, and that's where we started. Orion is very much the story of AR as a category. It's something that Meta hoped would be a consumer product and decided towards the end of its development that it wouldn't be because of how expensive it is to make.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Is it set up to where they control the designs and you provide the tech stack, or do you collaborate on the design?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So instead, they've turned it into a fancy demo that people like me are getting around Connect this year. And it's really meant to signify that, hey, we have been building something the whole time. We finally have something that works. It's just not something that we can ship at commercial scale.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We're back with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing the company's Ray-Ban smart glasses partnership and the future of AR. How many Ray-Ban Metas have you sold so far?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And it's, in my mind, a marker of where we are actually in the development of Aeroglasses and led me, honestly, to feel like it's finally getting really close to being commercial and being mainstream.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I tried that. Well, actually I didn't try real time, but I tried looking at a menu in French and it translated into English. And then I was like, at the end, I was like, what is Euro and dollar actually? And it did that too. And then I'm also starting to see the continuum of this to Orion in the sense of the utility aspects of the like, I tried, like you could say,
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
look at this and remind me about it at 8 p.m. tonight. And then it syncs with the companion app.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So I guess I'm seeing that becoming more of a, it's not replacing the phone, but it's augmenting what I would do with my phone. And I'm wondering if the app is a place for more of that kind of interaction as well, whether it's like Meta AI or, like how are these glasses going to be more deeply tied to Meta AI over time? Yeah. It seems like they're getting closer and closer all the time.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's interesting that we're talking about this right now because I feel like phones are becoming kind of boring and stale. I just was looking at the new iPhone and it's basically the same as the year before. People are doing foldables, but it feels like people have kind of run out of ideas on phones and that they're kind of at their natural end state.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I wonder when you see something like the Ray-Bans and how people have really gravitated to them in a way that's surprised you guys and I think surprised all of us, but it's also just like... People want to interact with technology in different ways now. Yeah.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, and they're seeing a lot of early traction with the MetaRay bands. We talked a lot about that, their expanded partnership with Ellesore Luxottica, why he thinks this really storied eyewear conglomerate out of Europe could do to smart glasses what Samsung did to smartphones and for Korea. He sees this as becoming a huge, you know, millions of units a year market.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I think AI, like you said at the beginning, like the way that AI is intersected with this is just kind of like an aha thing for people that honestly, for me, I didn't expect it to click as quickly as it did. But like when I got whitelisted for the AI, I was like walking around my backyard and like using it. And I was like, oh, like it's obvious now where this is going.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So it feels like we're, like I was saying at the beginning, it feels like things are finally, you can see where it's going. Whereas before it's been a lot of like R&D and talking about it, but like these, the Ray-Bans are kind of a signifier of that. And I'm wondering if you agree with that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
On the AI social media piece, one of the wilder things that your team told me you guys are going to start doing is showing people AI-generated imagery personalized to them in feed. I think it's starting as an experiment. But if you're a photographer, you would see meta-AI generating content that's maybe personalized for you alongside content from the people you follow.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And that's just the idea that I've been thinking about of AI and kind of invading social media, so to speak. Maybe you don't like the word invading, but you know what I mean. And what does that do to how we relate to each other as humans? Like how much AI stuff and AI-generated stuff is going to be filling feeds in the near future, in your view?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I think everyone here at The Verge can see that the Ray-Bans are an early hit and that Meta has tapped onto something here that may end up being pretty big in the long run, which is just not overpacking tech into glasses that look good, that do a handful of things really well. And Meta is expanding on that rapidly this year with some other AI features that we also talked about.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Why do you think it needs to exist as a new category? I'm still wrestling with why people want this. I get the companionship stuff that Character AI and some startups have already shown there's like a market for. And you've talked about how meta is already being used for role playing. Yeah. But the big idea is that AI has been used to intermediate in feed how humans reach each other.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And now all of a sudden, AIs are going to be in feeds with us.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, he's done a lot of self-reflection, you can tell. And in the back half of this interview, we get into a lot of the brand stuff around Meta, how he's worked through the last few years, where he sees the company going now, which is, in his own words, nonpartisan.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you worry about people interacting with AIs like this making people less likely to talk to other people, like it reducing the engagement that we have with humans?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And even admitting kind of in that that he may be naive in thinking that a company like Meta can be nonpartisan, but he's going to try to play a backseat role to all of the discourse that really engulfed the company for the last 10 years. And we get into all of the dicey stuff. We get into social media's link to teen mental health.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We're back with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talking about the current state of Threads and why the company is trying to back out of politics. How are you feeling about how Threads is doing these days?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I've heard it's still using Instagram a lot for growth. Like, I guess I'm wondering when you see it getting to like a standalone growth driver on its own.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I'm not even sure what X is anymore, but I think what it used to be and what Twitter used to be was a place where you went when news was happening. I know you and the company seem to be distancing yourself from recommending news. But with threads, it feels like that's what people want and people thought threads might be.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
We get into Cambridge Analytica and how he thinks the company was unfairly blamed for it in hindsight. Yeah, I would say this is a new Zuckerberg, and it was fascinating to hear him talk about all of this in retrospect.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But it seems like you all are intentionally saying we don't want threads to actually be that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you feel like that constrains the growth of the product at all?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Or that that needs to exist in the world? Because I feel like with X's seeming implosion, it's not really existing anymore. Maybe I'm biased to someone in the media, but I do think people want, when something big happens in the world, they want an app that they can go to and see everyone that they follow talking about it immediately.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you recognize the importance of that discussion happening in the world.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Do you see this decision to downrank political content for people who aren't being followed in feed as a political decision, I guess? Because...
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
i don't know you're also at the same time you know not really saying much about the election this year you're not donating you've said you kind of want to stay out of it now yeah and i see the way the company's acting and it reflects your personal kind of way you're operating right now and i'm wondering like how much more of it is also about what you and the company have gone through and the political environment and not necessarily just what users are telling you
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Like, is there a through line there?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
the acquired podcast recently you said that the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake yeah from a brand from a brand perspective and that it was going to take another 10 or so for you to fully work through that cycle yeah yeah what makes you think it's such a lasting thing because you look at like how you personally have kind of evolved over the last couple years and i think perception of the company has evolved and i'm wondering like what you meant by saying it's going to take another 10 years
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Like you guys didn't do anything wrong.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Mark, we just tried Orion together. Yeah, what'd you think? Refresh off of it. It feels like true AR glasses are finally getting closer. Orion is a product that you all have been working on for five plus years.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And you're talking about like Cambridge Analytica.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So you wouldn't write a blank check to the government like Google did for its antitrust case?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
So take me back to the beginning when you started the project, when it started in research. What were you thinking about? What was the goal for it?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It feels like mental health and youth mental health may be the next wave of this.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
At the same time, you guys have acknowledged there's affordances in the product, like the teen rollout with Instagram recently that you can make to make the product a better experience for young people.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's hard for me to not see the logic in it either. I don't really understand.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But maybe that's on Congress then to pass who has to take responsibility.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I guess on the regulation piece, as it relates to AI, you've been very vocal about what's happening in the EU. And you recently signed an open letter, and I believe it was saying basically that you guys just don't have clarity on consent for training, how it's supposed to work.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
And I'm wondering what you think needs to happen there for things to move forward, because like MetAI is not available in Europe, new Lama models are not. Is that something you see getting resolved at all? I guess. And what would it take?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But do you understand the concern people have about training data and how it's used? And this idea that their data is being used for these models, they're not getting compensated, and the models are creating a lot of value. And I know you're giving away Lama, but you've got MetAI. I understand the frustration that people have about that.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I think it's a naturally bad feeling to be like, oh, my data is now being used in a new way that I have no control or compensation over. Do you sympathize with that?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
What does clarity look like to you there?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you don't see a scenario where creators get like directly compensated for the use of their content.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
To bring this full circle where we started, as you're building augmented reality glasses and what you've learned over just the societal implications of the stuff you've built over the last decade, how are you thinking about this as it relates to glasses at scale? Because you're literally going to be augmenting reality, which is a responsibility.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
It's my understanding that you originally hoped Orion would be a consumer product when you first set out to build it.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But to be clear, you're not selling Orion at all. When you made the call, I think it was around 2022, to say Orion is going to just be internal kind of dev kit. How did you feel about making that call? Was there any part of you that was like, man, I really wish this could have just been the consumer product we had built for years?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
I wore them for two hours and I couldn't really tell.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Are you imagining that the first commercial version, whenever it is in the next couple few years, will it be a developer-focused product that you're selling publicly? You want it to be a consumer-ready product? That's why I'm asking about the strategy because Apple, Snap, others have decided to do developer-focused plays and get the hardware kind of going with developers early. Yeah.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
But you're kind of... Are you saying you're skipping that and you just want to go straight to consumer?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
Yeah, so the big headline this year out of Connect is Orion, which are AR glasses that Meta has been building for a really, really long time. Some important context up front is right before we started this interview, we had literally just demoed Orion together. I think I'm the first journalist, the first outsider to do that with Zuckerberg on camera. That's on The Verge's YouTube.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
A lot has been written about how much you're spending on Reality Labs. And you probably can't have an exact number, but if you were to guesstimate the cost of just building Orion over the last 10 years, are we talking five plus billion more than that?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
When he was last on Decoder a couple of years ago, Rene called Arm the Switzerland of the electronics industry, thanks to how prevalent its designs are. But his business is getting more complex in the age of AI, as you'll hear us discuss. There have been rumors that Arm is planning to not only design but build its own AI chips, which would put it into competition with some of its key customers.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
There was a lot of chatter going into Apple's latest iPhone release about this AI super cycle with Apple Intelligence and this idea that Apple Intelligence would reinvigorate iPhone sales and the mobile phone market in general is plateaued. When do you think AI, on-device AI, really does begin to reignite the growth in mobile phones? Because right now it doesn't feel like it's happening.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
What is that shift? Is it a new product? Is it a hardware breakthrough? A combination of both?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Are you bullish on all these AI wearables that people are working on? I know Arm is in the MetaRay bands, for example, which I'm actually a big fan of. I think that form factor is interesting. AR glasses, headsets, do you think that is a big market that's coming? I do.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
That makes me remember there's been reports that Masa, your boss at SoftBank, has been working with Johnny Ive and OpenAI or a combination of the three to do hardware. And I've heard rumors that there could be something for the home. Is there anything there that you're working with that you can talk about here? Yeah, I read those same rumors. Yeah, okay, good.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I pressed Rene on these rumors quite a bit, and I think it's safe to say he's planning something. When Rene was last on Decoder, he was about six months into the CEO job after Nvidia failed to buy Arm for $40 billion. After regulatory pressure killed that deal, Rene led Arm through an IPO, which has been tremendously successful for Arm and its majority investor, the Japanese tech giant SoftBank.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Amazon just announced that it's working on the largest data center for AI with Anthropic. And Arm is really getting into the data center business. What are you seeing there with the hyperscalers and their investments in AI?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Are you worried at all about a bubble with the level of spending that's going into hyperscaling to the models themselves? It's an incredible amount of capital. ROI is not quite there yet. You could argue it is in some places. But do you ascribe to the bubble fear?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I asked Rene about that SoftBank relationship and what it's like working with its eccentric CEO, Masayoshi-san. I also made sure to ask Rene about the problems over at Intel. There have been reports that Rene looked at buying part of Intel recently, so I wanted to know what he thinks should happen to the struggling chipmaker.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I was just at a conference where Sam Altman spoke and he was really lowering the bar on what AGI will be pretty intentionally. Has talked about declaring it next year. I cynically read into that as them trying to rearrange their profit sharing agreement with Microsoft. But putting that aside, what do you think about AGI when we will have it? What it will mean?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Is it going to be an all at once big bang moment? Or is it going to be as Altman now is talking about more like a whimper?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
We're going to take another quick break. We'll be right back.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Of course, I also asked about the incoming Trump administration, the U.S. versus China debate, the threat of tariffs, and all that. Rene is a public company CEO now, so he has to be more careful when answering questions like these. But I think you'll find a lot of his answers quite illuminating. I know I did. Okay, Arm CEO Rene Haas, here we go. Rene Haas, you are the CEO of Arm.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
We're back with Arm's CEO, Rene Haas, discussing the future of AI. Before the break, I asked Rene about his thoughts on the AGI debate. But there's one really crucial question I've wanted to ask him this whole time. Is Arm going to build its own AI chips? When you were last on Decoder, you said ARM is known as the Switzerland of the electronics industry.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
But now there's been a lot of reports this year that you were looking at really going up the stack and designing your own chips. And I've heard you not answer this question many times, and I'm expecting a similar non-answer, but I'm going to try. Why would Arm want to do that? Why would Arm want to go up the value chain?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Are you worried at all about competing with your customers, though?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
What about NVIDIA? You used to work for Jensen.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Speaking of Jensen, we were talking about this before we came on. When you were at NVIDIA, CUDA was really coming into fruition. And you were just talking about the software link. How do you think about software as it relates to ARM and as you're thinking about going up the stack like this? Is it lock-in? What does it mean to have something like the CUDA?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I'm going to ask you about one more thing you can't really talk about before we get into the fund decoder questions. I know you've got this trial with Qualcomm coming up. You can't really talk about it. At the same time, I'm sure you feel the concern from investors and partners about what will happen. Address that concern.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
You don't have to talk about the trial itself, but address the concern that investors and partners have about this fight that you have.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
All right, more to come there. So decoder questions. Last time you were on the podcast arm had not yet gone public. I'm curious to know now that you're a couple years into being a public company. What surprised you about being a public company?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Welcome to Decoder. Thank you. This is actually your second time on the show, believe it or not. You were, I think, last on in 2022. You hadn't been the CEO for that long. The company had not yet gone public. So a lot has changed. We're going to get into all of that. You're also a podcaster now, so the pressure's on me to do this well.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Has the structure of Arm organizationally changed at all since you went public?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Well, what we talked about earlier with potentially looking at going more vertical or the value there, that seems like a big change that could affect the structure.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
If you were to do that, yeah. Is there a trade-off that you've had to make this year in your decision-making that was particularly hard and something you can talk about, something that you had to wrestle with, and how did you weigh those trade-offs?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I'd love to know what it's like to work with Masa. He's your largest shareholder. He's your board chair. I'm sure you talk all the time. Is he as entertaining in the boardroom as he is in public settings?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Rene has a show where he interviewed Jensen pretty recently that you all should check out. The theme of this convo, we'll touch on several things. A lot has changed in the world of AI in the last couple of years, policy. We're going to get into all that and then the classic kind of decoder questions about how you're running ARM.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
How involved is he in setting Arm's long-term future with you?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
You've worked with two very influential tech leaders, Masa and Jensen at NVIDIA. What are the unique traits of both of them?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
All right. Well, we're going to leave it there for the podcast. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank Renee for taking the time to speak with me, and thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to let us know what you thought about this show or what else you'd like us to cover, drop us a line. You can email us at decoderattheverge. We really do read every email.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Neil, I will be answering some reader questions for the last show of the year, so if there's anything you want to ask, make sure to send in your questions now. We also have a TikTok. Check it out at decoderpod. You can also hit me up directly on threads or blue sky. I'm at Alex Heath on both.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I also write Command Line, a weekly newsletter about the tech industry's inside conversation that is now part of The Verge's overall subscription. I'd love for you to check that out. If you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Travis Larchuk and Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. See you next time.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
But first, I wanted to talk about a thing that I bet a lot of people in this room have been talking about this week, which is Intel. We're going to start with something easy. Great. What do you think should happen to Intel?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
We're going to talk about vertical integration as it relates to ARM later, but I wanted to reference something you told Ben Thompson earlier this year. You said, I think there's a lot of potential benefit down the road between Intel and ARM working together. And then there were reports more recently that you all actually approached Intel about potentially buying their product division.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Do you want to work closer with Intel now, what's gone on in the last couple of weeks?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Turning to policy, a few things I want to get into, but do you have any reaction to David Sachs being Trump's AI czar? I don't know if you know him.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
I would say few companies face as many geopolitical policy questions as you guys, just given all of your customers. How have you or would you advise the incoming administration on your business?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge, filling in for Nilay while we finish out the year here on the show. On another recent episode, I teased an interview with the CEO of chip design company Arm, and today we have that interview for you. I sat down live in Silicon Valley earlier this month with Arm's CEO, Rene Haas, at an event hosted by Alex Partners.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
What's your China strategy right now? I was reading that you're maybe working kind of to directly offer your IP licenses in China. You have a subsidiary there as well. Has your strategy in China shifted at all this year?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Does President-elect Trump's rhetoric on China and tariffs specifically worry you at all as it relates to ARM?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
What do you think about the efforts by the Biden administration with the CHIPS Act to bring more domestic production here? And do you think we need a Manhattan project for AI like OpenAI has been pitching?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
It was a really fun conversation, and I think you're going to like it. Rene is a fascinating character in the tech industry. He's worked at two of the most important chip companies in the world, first NVIDIA and now ARM. That means he's had a front row seat to how the industry has changed in the shift from desktop to mobile and how AI is now changing everything all over again.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
So even if we have the capital potentially to invest more in domestic production, do we have the talent? That's a question that I think about. And I've heard you talk about, you know, you spend a lot of time trying to find talent and it's scarce. If we even spend all this money, do we have the people that we need in this country to actually win and make progress?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
We have to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Arm has been central to these shifts as the company that doesn't build but rather designs some of the most important computer chips in the world. Arm's architectures are behind Apple's custom iPhone and Mac chips, they're in electric cars, and they're powering AWS servers that host huge chunks of the internet.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Turning to Arm's business, you have a lot of customers, all of the big tech companies. So you're exposed to AI in a lot of ways. You don't really break out as far as I know exactly how AI contributes to the business. But can you give us a sense of where the growth is that you're seeing in AI and for Arm?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech
Well, I'm asking now.