Welcome back to Forests Over Trees, your tech strategy newsletter. It’s time to zoom-out, connect dots, and (try to) predict the future.

Here’s today’s plan:

• Tech News Takes — digestible analysis and commentary

• (New) AI Demos — scroll down to reveal what this experiment is about

Anthropic cashing-out employees

Plus: Google's misleading AI opt-out; Uber partners with Chinese firm for EU self-driving

⚡ Tech News Takes ⚡

Google doesn’t fully action AI opt-out

• What’s up: In federal court, a Google exec confirmed that Search continues using web content to train AI Overviews—even when publishers opt out using Google’s own “Google-Extended” directive. That opt-out only applies to DeepMind’s Gemini, not to search-driven AI features like summaries at the top of results. Publishers hoping to block AI training are discovering the limitations of Google’s controls, raising antitrust concerns as the DOJ presses for remedies in its monopoly case.

• So what: This might be legal, but it certainly doesn’t build trust with customers! If you give customers a button that says “opt-out of AI training”, they’re expecting that to work across all of Google. Asking them to jump through hoops, or only giving them control over their data in some areas but not others, is not a great move IMO.

Anthropic cashing-out employee stock

• What’s up: Anthropic is offering a lucrative opportunity to its 800+ employees, allowing them to cash out up to 20% of their shares at a capped $2 million per person, matching the company's latest $61.5 billion valuation from its recent funding round. The buyback, totaling several hundred million dollars, targets current and former staffers with at least two years at the company and is set to conclude by month-end.

• So what: Traditionally, investors (and fellow startups) have looked down on cash-outs, but I like this move. Anthropic — founded by ex OpenAI team members — is in the middle of an epic battle for the future of AI… a morale boost like this can be just the thing that the team needs to kick into another gear. Plus, if they make it clear that they’ll be rewarding performance with cashed-out equity every couple of years, they’re incentivizing employees to continue pushing hard during these critical, decisive years of the battle.

Uber partners with Chinese firm for EU self-driving

• What’s up: Uber has struck another autonomous vehicle deal, this time with Chinese startup Momenta, as the ride-hailing giant continues to expand its self-driving capabilities through partnerships. Following partnerships with May Mobility and other firms, Uber plans to introduce Momenta's robotaxis to the European market in early 2026. This move comes as Uber navigates potential competition from Tesla, which aims to launch its own robotaxi service in Austin this summer after promising full self-driving capabilities across its vehicle line.

• So what: Uber is on a tear with these AV partnerships. Smart to see them doing what they do best — matching users with rides — rather than trying to own the cars, develop their own autonomous tech, etc. Also, it’s fascinating to see them partnering with a Chinese firm… We’ve heard rumors that EU businesses might become more China-friendly because of the US’ insistence on imposing tariffs on our EU allies… so I wonder if this is an early example of that.

🤖 AI Demos 🤖

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by AI.

If you’re like me, you might be intimidated by the sheer volume of AI tools, and you’re constantly distracted by “good ideas” for how to use them, without the chance to try them.

Let’s fix that!

For the next few weeks, I’m going to try an experiment… I’ll pick tools everyone’s talking about, apply them to specific scenarios, and then report back. And for each tool/scenario, you’ll get my unfiltered review and a step-by-step walkthrough of what I did.

I’ll be the crash test dummy, and you can:

• Grab popcorn and follow along

• Run your own demos

• Or suggest new tools/scenarios I should try

Sound good?

Ok. Here’s the first AI demo, an easy warm-up using ChatGPT.

AI Demo #1 — Software “How-to” with ChatGPT

1. What does it do: Helps you be an advanced user of any piece of software.

2. The good: Great at formulas, interpreting error messages, and explaining the underlying concepts.

3. The bad: If the software/documentation got updated, ChatGPT might not know. Or it might hallucinate and keep suggesting something that isn’t working (hint: if this happens to me, sometimes it’s because I’m asking for something dumb. Ask GPT if there are other tools or simpler approaches that would work better).

4. Step-by-step demo: Advanced lookups in Excel

   1. Go to chatgpt.com. Create a free account if you don’t have one.

   2. Tell it what you need and what your data looks like.

      

      
      Or — just copy-paste the first few rows/headers directly into ChatGPT and tell it how many rows there are.

   3. Plug in the formula it gives you.
      (=XLOOKUP(G1,A2:A76,CHOOSE(MATCH(H1,{"Driver","Team","Engine"},0),B2:B76,C2:C76,D2:D76),"Not Found"))

   4. If it doesn’t work, tell it what you’re seeing (what value or what error did you get back?)

   5. If it does work, ask how it works or whether there are ways to simplify.
      “What’s the point of including the “Not Found” term?”
      OR “I’m planning to show this to my boss, what are ways I can make it even better?”

Quick poll — which tool / scenario do you want me to test next?

(Click the link to cast your vote)

1/ Make a copy-cat of Spotify’s UI in 5 minutes, using v0 by Vercel (vote for #1)

2/ Strike-up a conversation with your data, using Notion AI (vote for #2)

3/ Something else (reply and tell me!)

The forest is growing.
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