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Alex Heath

Alex Heath

Deputy Editor

Alex Heath is a deputy editor for The Verge and the author of Command Line, a weekly newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation. Since joining The Verge in 2021, he has broken agenda-setting scoops like Facebook’s rebrand to Meta. He was a co-host for the sixth season of Land of the Giants, Vox Media’s award-winning podcast series about the most influential tech companies. He was also part of the reporting team behind "Extremely Hardcore," New York Magazine’s cover story about Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter.

Heath has been covering the technology industry for more than a decade in previous roles at The Information, Insider, and other outlets. His work has been cited by Congress and recognized by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He has appeared as an expert voice on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR, among other programs. He is based in Los Angeles.

The GPU haves and have-nots.

This chart from Omdia Research estimating Nvidia’s largest customers this year has been making the rounds in my social media feeds.

As I wrote in an earlier issue of Command Line, these H100s are essentially the tech industry’s new gold, since they are the preferred workhorse for powering generative AI. The gap in shipment volume between Meta, Microsoft and everyone else is quite something, and tracks with what I’ve heard from sources in recent months.


A chart showing H100 GPU shipments this year.
Omdia Research
Here’s why Threads doesn’t have chronological search results

According to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, doing so would open the app up to “spammers and other bad actors” who would “pummel the view with content by simply adding the relevant words or tags.”

It’s another example of how Threads continues to resist the real-time nature of the platform formerly known as Twitter.


Sam Altman on being fired and rehired by OpenAI

“I totally get why people want an answer right now. But I also think it’s totally unreasonable to expect it.”

These ex-Apple employees are bringing AI to the desktop

After selling Workflow to Apple in 2017, the co-founders are back with a new startup that wants to reimagine how desktop computers work using generative AI.

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The Verge
A recent OpenAI breakthrough on the path to AGI has caused a stir.

Reports from Reuters and The Information Wednesday night detail an OpenAI model called Q* (pronounced Q Star) that was recently demonstrated internally and is capable of solving simple math problems. Doing grade school math may not seem impressive, but the reports note that, according to the researchers involved, it could be a step toward creating artificial general intelligence (AGI).

After the publishing of the Reuters report, which said senior exec Mira Murati told employees that a letter about Q* “precipitated the board’s actions” to fire Sam Altman last week, OpenAI spokesperson Lindsey Held Bolton refuted that notion in a statement shared with The Verge: “Mira told employees what the media reports were about but she did not comment on the accuracy of the information.”

Separately, a person familiar with the matter told The Verge that the board never received a letter about such a breakthrough and that the company’s research progress didn’t play a role in Altman’s sudden firing.

The drama continues!