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Brian McCullough

Host, Techmeme Ride Home · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

hostauthorinvestorfounder@brianmcc ↗LinkedIn ↗ridehomefund.com ↗

Brian McCullough is the host of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast and the author of How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone. An internet entrepreneur since 1999, he also manages early-stage venture capital investments as a general partner at the Ride Home Fund.

12statements → 6claims → 2claims resolved → 3.17/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 predictions · 1 assertion · 3 opinions · 2 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Brian argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
McCullough: Roughly 80 percent of China's AI data centers sit unused
“And there was an article that I did this week about how in China something like 80% of the build out of their data centers for AI is, is currently unused.”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 25:43 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Brian McCullough on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Brian McCullough said on Big Technology that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCullough: AI will disrupt live-action Hollywood production within 18 months
“Yeah, and by the way, we're talking about animation houses now, but give it six months, 18 months, and we're talking about actual video. We know how fast this is going, so all of Hollywood creativity writ, writ large, really.”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 22:56 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?
Assertion Supported
McCullough: Roughly 80 percent of China's AI data centers sit unused
“And there was an article that I did this week about how in China something like 80% of the build out of their data centers for AI is, is currently unused.”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 25:43 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCullough: GPU Startups Could Provide Alternatives to AWS and Incumbent Clouds
“There are these new startups that have access to the Nvidia chips that are creating sort of sort of new cloud offerings I've been hearing from a lot of people that, like, this could provide the opening for people to get a wedge against the traditional, because…”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 14:49 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCullough: Meta Is Most Likely to Dethrone OpenAI Within Three Years
“If someone's gonna dethrone, if OpenAI is and also ran within three years, I bet it'll be Meta. I, my money would be on Meta that would dethrone them, and then maybe Google slash Alphabet.”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 44:42 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Opinion
McCullough: ChatGPT's Ghibli Style Suggests Training on Millions of Miyazaki Frames
“No, this is dead on, which suggests that they trained it, possibly, on millions of cells and frames of Miyazaki movies.”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 4:04 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?
Opinion
McCullough: OpenAI intentionally sparked the Ghibli controversy for viral marketing
“And again, I think that they are, this is not accidental. They are Writing a line here of, they know what can go viral, and they know what will get attention, and even the questions and the controversy about the legality of it, and is this where it's going? Li…”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 5:36 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?
Opinion
McCullough: Vertical AI applications like AI for law lack defensibility
“We've kicked the tires on dozens and dozens of these products, you know, AI for architecture, AI for law or whatever, and they don't seem defensible.”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 34:30 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Insight
McCullough: Web 2.0 Was Enabled by Cheap Dot-Com Fiber Overbuild
“Web two point O happened because there was so much over build out of K fiber capacity that it was incredibly cheap for someone to create a Facebook and a dorm room.”
Brian McCullough Mar 29, 2025 ▶ 30:03 OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly?
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCullough: Generative AI will become an everyday conversational reality within five years
“I think that we're underestimating the ability of the true promise of computing to be manifest within our lives, normal people's lives within less than five years.”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 32:10 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Disclosure
McCullough: Ride Home AI Fund has made only one application-layer investment
“Our thesis has been to go after the productization of stuff. So like what is the Airbnb or the Uber of this paradigm shift? I would say by our definition, we've only made one of those types of investments and all of the other investments right now have sort of…”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 34:08 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Insight
McCullough: Meta pushes open source AI to avoid another mobile platform dependency
“Meta does not want to be in a position where the only way they can do that with a high degree of accuracy and efficacy is to have to ping somebody else's APIs. Because again, they'll be in the position that they have been with like the iPhone and Android all t…”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 42:18 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough
Prediction Held up
McCullough: Apple's 'Scary Fast' Event Will Focus on M3 Chip
“The fact that they're doing a special event at a special time, and it's called Scary Fast, says to me that they are excited to tell us about the M. And they must have something that they think is significant to tell us about how those chips perform. Now, they'…”
Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 ▶ 50:30 Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough

The other half of the tape: Brian McCullough's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on Big Technology. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Alex Kantrowitz 1

Every mention by year

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2025 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
OpenAI’s Ghibli Moment, CoreWeave's IPO Letdown, End of Silicon Valley’s Monopoly? Mar 29, 2025 25m
Big Technology's New Release, AI Bubble Looms, Apple's Next Event — With Brian McCullough Oct 25, 2023 27m
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