I’m Calling It: The Metaverse Is Over

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

• The Format: Solo-hosted daily tech news roundup monologue, blending quick hits, analysis, and sponsor reads into a breezy "ride home" briefing.
• The Key Players: Brian McCullough, the host of Tech Brew Ride Home, delivering wry commentary on AI drama, corporate pivots, and emerging tech with insider flair—no guests, just his signature deadpan delivery.
• The Vibe: Educational with a dash of cynical fun; McCullough revels in tech industry soap opera while unpacking big shifts like AI exodus and metaverse flops.

🗝️ Key Themes & Topics

The episode dives into AI talent wars, corporate retreats from hype cycles, platform monetization tweaks, and AI tooling innovations—framing 2026's tech landscape as drama-filled but opportunity-rich.

• Topic 1: AI Startup Drama at Thinking Machines. Deep dive into the exodus of co-founders like Zof, Metz, and Schoenholtz to OpenAI and Meta amid funding woes, no clear product roadmap, and echoes of OpenAI's 2023 "blip" ouster of Sam Altman; new CEO Selmer Chintala steps in as the startup lags behind Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
• Topic 2: Meta's Metaverse Retreat. Zuckerberg's pivot away from VR-first dreams: shutting down Horizon Workrooms (Feb 16), halting business headset sales (Feb 20), layoffs in Reality Labs, closing VR studios, and ditching Supernatural fitness app—recomm