Gerrit De Vynck 🦭

It’s so funny how everyone has been like “AI will NEVER be good enough to use in real productions.” And then the entire Olympics intro video is AI-generated

After the devastating layoffs at The Washington Post, I’m looking for a new home for my 12 years of experience reporting on Germany and European politics for print and broadcast media. Open to potential roles/collabs in English oder auf Deutsch. Bis bald! ☕️🗞️

After almost four years at The Washington Post, my role was eliminated along with a ton of other talented journos. It’s a cliche to say but this job was a dream come true. Thanks to my fantastic reporter friends and amazing editors who made the work better and banter funny.

Have been too shattered to write this but for the sake of clarity — I have also been laid off by the Post. I was one of the few journalists still working inside Russia. My last story went on the front page and featured rare testimonies from wounded soldiers criticizing the war.

The market is really struggling to digest what is happening in AI. It is simultaneously pricing in large-scale, industry-wide adoption of AI and anticipating it could cause major disruptions to legacy businesses, but also punishing the firms that are building the infrastructure necessary to enable the large-scale adoption of AI. Just from the last week: 1/30: Anthropic releases new plug-ins for Claude Cowork for specific sectors. The S&P Software and Service Index falls by 13%, given investor fears that AI will consume legacy software businesses. 1/28: Microsoft announces it is on pace for $140-150bn in CapEx in FY26, far more than analysts' $99bn expectations. Microsoft stock is down by 15% since then. 2/4: Google forecasts its 2026 CapEx will be $175-185bn, far more than analysts' $120b expectations. Google stock falls by 6% aftermarket (before recovering on 2/5). 2/5: Amazon forecasts its 2026 CapEx will be $200bn, far more than analysts' $147bn expectations. Amazon stock falls by 10% aftermarket. Obviously there are many factors at play here, but something here doesn't add up. It seems like the market is now starting to internalize that AI is going to be a major disruptive force for legacy businesses, but Wall Street hasn't yet internalized the true scale of the investment that is necessary to make that happen - resulting in really large volatility. But the hyperscalers have realized what's necessary, and they're charging ahead.

First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed. But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that. I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it. More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do. (If you want to pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, we don't show you ads.) Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions. Maybe even more importantly: Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI—they block companies they don't like from using their coding product (including us), they want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can't use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be. We are committed to broad, democratic decision making in addition to access. We are also committed to building the most resilient ecosystem for advanced AI. We care a great deal about safe, broadly beneficial AGI, and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare. One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path. As for our Super Bowl ad: it’s about builders, and how anyone can now build anything. We are enjoying watching so many people switch to Codex. There have now been 500,000 app downloads since launch on Monday, and we think builders are really going to love what’s coming in the next few weeks. I believe Codex is going to win. We will continue to work hard to make even more intelligence available for lower and lower prices to our users. This time belongs to the builders, not the people who want to control them.

I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated.