Results

Netflix is reportedly studying data to see why viewers quit shows after the first season. Some shows see a 30% to 70% drop. I'll save Netflix some time on the data crunching.

1. There aren't a lot of shows that necessitate a long-term investment. Netflix is way mediocre.
2. The CX is terrible and if you can avoid Netflix you will.
3. Why is the CX so terrible? It's one thing to have to tell your credit card company when you're traveling. It's another to tell Netflix. The hurdles, CX loops and general pain with explaining how you may have a second home that shouldn't require a second subscription is getting to be a bit much.
4. Netflix raises its prices regularly so expectations have gone past the algorithmic slop the streaming provider offers.

So go ahead and study the data, the but the short answer for Netflix is it kinda sucks.

Microsoft said it is launching the Microsoft Frontier Company, a unit that will deliver AI transformation. The company said it is investing $2.5 billion in the new unit and embedding 6,000 industry and engineering experts.

In a statement, Microsoft said:

"This goes beyond what has been labeled as Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) and will be the largest, most capable, outcome-driven engineering organization in the industry."

Microsoft's move comes after AWS launched a forward deployed engineering effort.

Meta launched a $20 month Meta One Premium subscription for its glasses. Free users (nevermind that you paid for the creepy Ray Bans in the first place) will have limits on conversations. I'm sure this'll go over well.

"No subscription is required to use AI glasses. All AI glasses owners get free monthly usage for certain features. If you reach your free monthly usage limit, you can upgrade to a paid Meta One Premium plan, or wait until your free limit refreshes each calendar month.

If you reach your paid subscription usage limit, it will refresh at the start of the next billing cycle.

Conversation focus is currently available for free for 3 hours per month, or for 15 hours per month for Meta One Premium subscribers."

Here's what's next: If you don't pay up, Meta will limit your ability to see out of the glasses. Eyesight is now under a consumption plan.

Yay, Anthropic's latest models are back after a lot of thrash with the US government. The biggest takeaway from Anthropic's statement and my recap is this:

The same jailbreak that sidelined Fable 5. Anthropic said Amazon researchers found a way to bypass Fable 5's safeguards to identify software vulnerabilities. Anthropic said its testing found that other models had the same ability including Claude Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.6, Opus 4.7, Opus 4.8, GPT-5.4, GPT-5.5 and Kimi K2.7.

CoreWeave launched CoreWeave ARIA, an AI research and iteration agent designed to continuously improve models and AI agents. ARIA is designed to accelerate the AI research loop by analyzing thousands of runs and tens of thousands of metrics in mnutes.

In the big picture, CoreWeave ARIA is another data point indicating that the AI neocloud is building out its software game.

Bain said the first five months of 2026 has led to a 41% surge in deal value to $2.4 trillion. That's the second highest tally ever.

In its 2026 M&A Midyear Report, Bain said these massive deals create a "winners paradox" where companies need to pair an M&A agenda with AI transformation programs. In other words, executives need to integrate two businesses and manage an AI transformation at the same time.

Key stats on M&A:

  • Overall valuations held flat at 11.6 times enterprise value/EBITDA.
  • Venture capital deal surged due to OpenAI's $122 billion funding round.
  • Megadeals drove a 77% year-over-year gain across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) through May 31.
Bain on M&A 2026