Meta Freezes AI Hiring

Plus: Google’s AI Fitbit; China warms to stablecoins

Joey Padgett
August 21, 2025

Hey people!

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

A quick thank you to this week’s partners:

Photo by Erin Mckenna

What's up: Google unveiled an AI-powered personal health coach for Fitbit that combines fitness training, sleep coaching, and wellness advice.
- The coach launches in October as part of Fitbit Premium and learns user preferences while using real-time metrics from devices.
- It creates custom workout routines and adjusts plans based on data like sleep readiness scores or user injuries.
So what: This is not surprising, but it’s still exciting (they even signed Steph Curry to an endorsement deal!). It’ll be interesting to see if they can reignite the Fitbit brand. I’m also eager to see how Apple, Meta, and other incumbents with devices respond. Apple is already on the board with slow, steady improvements to Apple Health and integrations with their watch. But Meta, on the other hand, is brand new, hot off the success of the Ray Bans, and signing tons of new AI talent.

What's up: Meta froze AI hiring after a months-long spending spree that recruited 50+ researchers from rivals offering comp packages of $100M+.
- The freeze coincides with restructuring Meta's AI efforts into four teams: “TBD Lab”, AI products, AI infrastructure, and fundamental AI research.
So what: The external chaos is calming down, and now Meta will have some internal chaos. TBD Labs has most of the newly poached researchers, and the fundamental AI research team has Yann LeCun, who led Meta AI before the newbies got there. Both teams are trying to find breakthroughs and develop AGI models. Expect political (corporate) fireworks…

What's up: OpenAI logged its first $1 billion revenue month in July but faces "voracious" demand for computing power.
- CFO Sarah Friar said insufficient compute is the company's biggest challenge, driving massive data center investments.
- The company is seeing acceleration in ChatGPT-5 Plus and Pro subscriptions despite mixed user reviews.
So what: It goes without saying that $1B is a lot, and OpenAI is doing well. But I’m more fascinated by the continued jockeying for negotiating leverage with Microsoft and other compute providers. By continuing to say “we’re hungry for compute”, they’re putting pressure on Microsoft to serve that need or miss out.

What's up: China is considering allowing yuan-backed stablecoins to boost global currency adoption, marking a shift from the 2021 crypto ban.
- The yuan’s global share of payments has grown from ~2% in 2020 to 2.9% in 2025, but down from 2024’s 3% range.
So what: Some are framing this as a huge shift in policy, but that’s not really true. Initially, Beijing banned all crypto, then launched a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and now is planning to do yuan-backed stablecoins. That’s a calm, gradual progression in comparison to the boom-bust-boom of crypto speculation in other markets (cough, ‘Merica!). Plus, yuan-backed stablecoins will help push that 2.9% up again, carrying soft power with it.

Trust your gut — Loved this advice from Rob Snyder on how to think less academically and more intuitively about leading a startup. Here’s a sneak peek:

Enter the cave — Anthropic’s co-founder (well… 1 of the 7) gave a Y Combinator interview I found pretty interesting. One of my favorite moments — he said it took him MONTHS to build up the courage to apply to AI jobs… he was scared he wasn’t good enough to contribute. Good reminder that “the cave you fear to enter has the treasure you seek.”