When you tell your grandkids about 2023, what will you tell them?
Assuming your grandkids love tech and tech podcasts, you’ll have a lot to talk about: as my co-host Rob Kenedi put it, 2023 was a year of violent change in tech.
“I had to remind myself that SVB happened this year. Because it seems like it happened a bazillion years ago.”
The year started with an AI obsession, interrupted briefly by the immolation of SVB, before Sam Altman was crowned the world’s most powerful tech optimist. The coronation was short-lived, however, as realpolitik saw Altman ousted from OpenAI almost one year to the day of the launch of ChatGPT. That, too, was short-lived.
Altman wasn’t the only one to survive by the skin of his teeth in 2023. Canadian media publications narrowly avoided being ethered from the internet after the federal government was able to reach a last-minute deal with Google to smooth over some of the C-18 tensions—although you still won’t find most on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Speaking of threads, the feds seem to be holding onto the idea of an innovation economy by one, refreshing old promises with new timelines (the trust battery remains low).
You could also say that X is hanging on by a thread, but Twitter is very much dead. Social media might be, too.
2023 was a year of navigating crises, and I’m glad (most of us) made it through.
So what about this year? For our 2023 tech predictions, the BetaKit Podcast chose chalk. Our 2024 predictions don’t seem much different, but I think that’s a feature, not a bug. Call it a trend, or emergent themes from 2023 doubling down.
What were our predictions? Let’s dig in.
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The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Produced & edited by Kattie Laur. Sponsored by Float.