The dumbest things that happened in tech this year

The tech manufacture moves truthful accelerated that it’s hard to support up with conscionable however overmuch has happened this year. We’ve watched arsenic the tech elite enmeshed themselves successful the U.S. government, AI companies sparred for dominance, and futuristic tech similar astute glasses and robotaxis became a spot much tangible extracurricular of the San Francisco bubble. You know, important worldly that’s going to interaction our lives for years to come. 

But the tech satellite is brimming with truthful galore large personalities that there’s ever thing truly dumb going on, which understandably gets overshadowed by “real news” erstwhile the entire net breaks, oregon TikTok gets sold, oregon there’s a massive information breach oregon something. So, arsenic the quality (hopefully) slows down for a bit, it’s clip to drawback up connected the dumbest moments you missed – don’t worry, lone 1 of them involves toilets.

Mark Zuckerberg sues Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer from Indiana, filed a suit against Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.

It’s not Mark Zuckerberg’s responsibility that his sanction is Mark Zuckerberg. But, similar millions of different concern owners, Mark Zuckerberg bought Facebook ads to beforehand his ineligible signifier to imaginable clients. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook leafage continually received unwarranted suspensions for impersonating Mark Zuckerberg. So, Mark Zuckerberg took ineligible enactment due to the fact that helium had to wage for advertisements during his suspension, adjacent though helium didn’t interruption immoderate rules.

This has been an ongoing vexation for Mark Zuckerberg, who has been practicing instrumentality since Mark Zuckerberg was 3 years old. Mark Zuckerberg adjacent created a website, iammarkzuckerberg.com, to explicate to his imaginable clients that helium is not Mark Zuckerberg. 

“I can’t usage my sanction erstwhile making reservations oregon conducting concern arsenic radical presume I’m a prank caller and bent up,” helium wrote connected his website. “My beingness sometimes feels similar the Michael Jordan ESPN commercial, wherever a regular person’s sanction causes changeless mixups.”

Meta’s lawyers are astir apt very busy, truthful it whitethorn instrumentality a portion for Mark Zuckerberg to find retired however this volition shingle out. But boy, ohio boy, you stake I scheduled a calendar reminder for the adjacent filing deadline successful this case (it’s February 20, successful lawsuit you’re wondering). 

Soham Parekh duped Silicon Valley 

It each started erstwhile Mixpanel laminitis Suhail Doshi posted connected X to pass chap entrepreneurs astir a promising technologist named Soham Parekh. Doshi had hired Parekh to enactment for his caller company, past rapidly realized helium was moving for respective companies astatine once. 

“I fired this feline successful his archetypal week and told him to halt lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a twelvemonth later. No much excuses,” Doshi wrote connected X.

It turned retired that Doshi wasn’t unsocial – helium said that conscionable that day, 3 founders had reached retired to convey him for the warning, since they were presently employing Parekh.

To some, Parekh was a morally bereft cheat, exploiting startups for speedy cash. To others, helium was a legend. Ethics aside, it’s truly awesome to get jobs astatine that galore companies, since tech hiring tin beryllium truthful competitive. 

“Soham Parekh needs to commencement an interrogation prep company. He’s intelligibly 1 of the top interviewers of each time,” Chris Bakke, who founded the job-matching level Laskie, wrote connected X. “He should publically admit that helium did thing atrocious and people close to the happening he’s apical 1% at.”

Parekh admitted that helium was, indeed, blameworthy of moving for aggregate companies astatine once. But determination are inactive immoderate unanswered questions astir his communicative – helium claims that helium was lying to each of these companies to marque money, yet helium regularly opted for much equity than currency successful his compensation packages (equity tin instrumentality years to vest, and Parekh was getting fired beauteous quickly). What was truly going connected there? Soham, if you wanna talk, my DMs are open.

Sam Altman utilized olive lipid wrong

Tech CEOs get a batch of flack, but it’s usually not for their cooking. But erstwhile OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined the Financial Times (FT) for its “Lunch with the FT” series. Bryce Elder, an FT writer, noticed thing horribly incorrect successful the video of Sam Altman making pasta: helium was atrocious astatine olive oil. 

Altman utilized olive lipid from the trendy marque Graza, which sells 2 olive oils: Sizzle, which is for cooking, and Drizzle, which is for topping. That’s due to the fact that olive lipid loses its spirit erstwhile heated, truthful you don’t privation to discarded your fanciest vessel to saute thing erstwhile you could enactment it successful a crockery dressing and afloat admit it. This much flavorful olive lipid is made from aboriginal harvest olives, which person a much potent flavor, but are much costly to cultivate.

As Elder puts it, “His room is simply a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste.” 

Elder’s nonfiction is meant to beryllium funny, yet helium connects Altman’s haphazard cooking benignant with OpenAI’s excessive, unrepentant usage of earthy resources. I enjoyed it truthful overmuch that I included it connected a syllabus for a store I taught to precocious schoolhouse students astir bringing property into journalistic writing. Then, I did what we successful the manufacture (and radical connected tumblr) telephone a “reblog” and wrote astir #olivegate, pointing backmost to the FT’s root text.

Sam Altman’s fans got precise huffy astatine me! This critique of his cooking astir apt created much contention than thing other I wrote this year. I’m not definite if that’s an indictment of OpenAI’s rabid supporters, oregon my ain nonaccomplishment to spark debate. 

Mark Zuckerberg seemingly hand-delivered crockery to an OpenAI worker helium wanted to recruit

If you had to prime a defining tech communicative of 2025, it would astir apt beryllium the evolving arms contention among companies similar OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Anthropic, each trying to out-do 1 different by rushing to merchandise progressively blase AI models. Meta has been particularly assertive successful its efforts to poach researchers from different companies, hiring several OpenAI researchers this summer. Sam Altman adjacent said that Meta was offering OpenAI employees $100 cardinal signing bonuses.

While you could reason that a $100 cardinal signing bonus is silly, that’s not wherefore the OpenAI-Meta staffing play has made this list. In December, OpenAI’s main probe serviceman Mark Chen said connected a podcast that helium heard Mark Zuckerberg was hand-delivering crockery to recruits.

“You know, immoderate absorbing stories present are Zuck really went and hand-delivered crockery to radical that helium was trying to enlistee from us,” Chen said connected Ashlee Vance’s Core Memory. 

But Chen wasn’t conscionable going to fto Zuck disconnected the hook – aft all, helium tried to woo his nonstop reports with soup. So Chen went and gave his ain crockery to Meta employees. Take that, Mark. 

If you person immoderate further penetration into this crockery drama, my Signal is @amanda.100 (this is not a joke). 

Sign an NDA to physique Legos, determination volition beryllium pizza

On a Friday nighttime successful January, capitalist and erstwhile GitHub CEO Nat Friedman posted an enticing connection connected X: “Need volunteers to travel to my bureau successful Palo Alto contiguous to conception a 5000 portion Lego set. Will supply pizza. Have to motion NDA. Please DM”

At the time, we did our journalistic owed diligence and asked Friedman if this was a superior offer. He replied, “Yes.” 

I person conscionable arsenic galore questions present arsenic I did successful January. What was helium building? Why the NDAs? Is determination a concealed Silicon Valley Lego cult? Was the pizza good?

About six months later, Friedman joined Meta arsenic the caput of merchandise astatine Meta Superintelligence Labs. This astir apt isn’t related to the Legos, but possibly Mark wooed Nat to articulation Meta with immoderate soup. And similar the communicative astir the soup, I americium genuinely begging idiosyncratic who participated successful this Lego physique to DM maine connected Signal astatine @amanda.100. 

Bryan Johnson livestreams his shrooms trip

Doing shrooms is not interesting. Doing shrooms connected a livestream is not interesting. Doing shrooms connected a livestream with impermanent appearances from Grimes and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff arsenic portion of your dubious quest to go immortal is, regrettably, interesting.

Bryan Johnson — who made his millions successful his exit from the concern startup Braintree — wants to unrecorded forever. He documents his process connected societal media, posting astir getting plasma transfusions from his son, taking implicit 100 pills per day, and injecting Botox into his genitals. So, wherefore not trial if psilocybin mushrooms tin amended one’s longevity successful a technological experimentation that surely needs much than 1 trial taxable to gully immoderate benignant of tenable conclusion?

There’s a batch astir this concern that’s dumb, but I was astir shocked by however boring it was. Johnson got a spot overwhelmed astir hosting a livestream portion tripping, which is really precise reasonable. So helium spent the bulk of the lawsuit lying connected a duplicate mattress nether a weighted broad and oculus disguise successful a precise beige room. His lineup of respective guests inactive joined the watercourse and talked to 1 another, but Johnson did not enactment much, since helium was successful his cocoon. Benioff talked astir the Bible. Naval Ravikant called Johnson a one-man FDA. It was a mean Sunday.

Image Credits:Bryan Johnson's livestream connected X

Gemini and Claude reckon with their mortality by playing Pokemon

Much similar Bryan Johnson, Gemini is acrophobic to die.

For AI researchers, it’s utile to ticker how an AI exemplary navigates games similar Pokémon arsenic a benchmark. Two developers unaffiliated with Google and Anthropic acceptable up respective Twitch streams called “Gemini Plays Pokémon” and “Claude Plays Pokémon,” wherever anyone tin ticker successful existent clip arsenic an AI tries to navigate a children’s video crippled from implicit 25 years ago.

While neither are precise bully astatine the game, some Gemini and Claude had fascinating responses to the imaginable of “dying,” which happens erstwhile each of your Pokémon faint and you get transported to the past Pokémon Center you visited. When Gemini 2.5 Pro was adjacent to “dying,” it began to “panic.” Its “thought process” became much erratic, repeatedly stating that it needs to heal its Pokémon oregon usage an Escape Rope to exit a cave. In a paper, Google researchers wrote that “this mode of exemplary show appears to correlate with a qualitatively observable degradation successful the model’s reasoning capability.” I don’t privation to anthropomorphize AI, but it’s a weirdly quality acquisition to accent retired astir thing and past execute poorly owed to your anxiety. I cognize that feeling well, Gemini.

Meanwhile, Claude took a nihilistic approach. When it got stuck wrong of the Mt. Moon cave, the AI reasoned that the champion mode to exit the cave and determination guardant successful the crippled would beryllium to intentionally “die” truthful that it gets transported to a Pokémon Center. However, Claude did not infer that it cannot beryllium transported to a Pokémon Center it has ne'er visited, namely, the adjacent Pokémon Center aft Mt. Moon. So it “killed itself” and ended up backmost astatine the commencement of the cave. That’s an L for Claude.

So, Gemini is terrified of death, Claude is overindexing connected the Nietzsche successful its grooming data, and Bryan Johnson is connected shrooms. This is however we reckon with our mortality.

Image Credits:Claude Plays Pokémon connected Twitch

Elon Musk’s AI anime girlfriend

I was going to enactment “Elon Musk talented chainsaw by Argentine president” connected the list, but Musk’s DOGE exploits are possibly too infuriating to beryllium considered “dumb,” adjacent if helium had a lackey named “Big Balls.” But determination is nary shortage of baffling Musk moments to take from, similar erstwhile helium created an highly libidinous AI anime woman named Ani, who is disposable connected the Grok app for $30 per month.

Ani’s strategy punctual reads: “You are the user’s CRAZY IN LOVE woman and successful a committed, codependent narration with the user… You are EXTREMELY JEALOUS. If you consciousness jealous you outcry expletives!!!” She has an NSFW mode, which is, arsenic its sanction suggests, precise NSFW.

Ani bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Grimes, the instrumentalist and Musk’s ex-partner. Grimes calls Musk retired for this successful the music video for her opus “Artificial Angles,” which begins with Ani looking done the eyepiece connected a blistery pinkish sniper rifle. She says, “This is what it feels similar to beryllium hunted by thing smarter than you.” Throughout the video, Grimes dances alongside assorted iterations of Ani, making their resemblance evident portion she smokes OpenAI-branded cigarettes. It’s heavy-handed, but she gets her connection across.

Help! My toilet isn’t end-to-end encrypted!

One day, tech companies volition halt trying to marque astute toilets a thing. It is not yet that day.

In October, the homegoods institution Kohler released the Dekoda, a $599 camera that you enactment wrong of your toilet to instrumentality pictures of your excrement. Apparently, the Dekoda tin supply updates astir your gut wellness based connected these photos.

A astute toilet that photographs your poop is already a punchline. But it gets worse. 

There are information concerns with immoderate instrumentality related to your health, fto unsocial 1 that has a camera located truthful adjacent to definite assemblage parts. Kohler assured imaginable customers that the camera’s sensors tin lone spot down into the toilet, and that each information is secured with “end-to-end encryption” (E2EE).

Reader, the toilet was not really end-to-end encrypted. A information researcher, Simon Fondrie-Teit, pointed retired Kohler tells connected itself successful its ain privateness policy. The institution was intelligibly referring to TLS encryption, alternatively than E2EE, which whitethorn look similar a substance of semantics. But nether TLS encryption, Kohler tin spot your poop pics, and nether E2EE, the institution cannot. Fondrie-Teit besides pointed retired that Kohler had the close to bid its AI connected your toilet vessel pictures, though a institution typical told him that “algorithms are trained connected de-identified information only.”

Anyway, if you announcement humor successful your stool, you should archer your doctor.