Did Elon Just Buy Cursor for $60 Billion? AI Strategy with Scott Newton | Ep.8 Show Your Priors

Papa Elon just slapped a $60 billion price tag on AI coding startup Cursor, and the structure of the deal is even wilder than the number. Is this a real acquisition or the cleverest IPO pump of the year? In Episode 8, Michael and Jason break down the SpaceX and Cursor deal, then sit down with their very first guest, strategy expert Scott Newton, to talk about what modern corporate strategy actually looks like in the age of AI.__Connect with Scott Netwon https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottbnewton/__Music by ThunderWof. https://www.instagram.com/apache_thunderwof_18/https://open.spotify.com/artist/4092jgp59goD4nZIL2mQw5__Scott Newton is a managing partner at Thinking Dimensions, a global strategy consulting firm, and has spent over 20 years advising boards, CEOs, and private equity on strategy and growth. He mentors founders at Techstars, leads the MBA consulting program at CIMBA, and holds board seats at Strategy Tools and Sirius. We dig into AI adoption inside the enterprise, why most corporates are stuck in pilot hell, the Kodak versus Fujifilm story, why European automakers are getting eaten alive by BYD and the Chinese EV wave, and what the board of directors needs to look like for a digital first company.Before the interview, we run through the headlines: Google is investing $10 billion in Anthropic with another $30 billion to follow at a $380 billion valuation, AI journalism and the Wire by Atticus, DeepSeek V4 dropping at less than 15 percent of OpenAI compute cost, Siemens humanoid robots running an eight hour shift in the factory, and new MIT and Penn studies suggesting AI chatbots may be eroding cognitive ability. Then we ride through a Drinking from the Firehose rapid fire round covering Tim Cook stepping down at Apple, Intel earnings, Meta cutting 10 percent of headcount, Microsoft offering voluntary buyouts, GPT 5.5, Codex, Volkswagen AI agents in China, Microsoft's $18 billion Australia deal, and Anthropic and Amazon expanding their compute partnership.If you care about AI strategy, corporate governance, venture capital, business model disruption, or just want to understand where the money is actually moving in tech, this one is for you.Connect with us:Subscribe to Show Your Priors for weekly conversations on business, strategy, and the ideas shaping the world.Clips Channel | https://youtube.com/@sypclips Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/7qz3G3XoOaSPpg2elfKmH3Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/showyourpriors/Threads | https://www.threads.com/@showyourpriorsTikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@showyourpriorsX - Michael Nichols | https://x.com/m_g_nicholsX | https://x.com/showyourpriorsSubstack | https://showyourpriors.substack.com/Reddit | https://www.reddit.com/r/ShowYourPriorsPodcastLinkedIn - Michael Nichols | https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-guy-nicholsLinkedIn - Jason Thompson | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-thompson-607b0b5400:00 Intro00:28 Headlines: Google's $10B Bet on Anthropic04:26 The Wire by Atticus and the Future of AI Journalism09:15 DeepSeek V4: Open Source at 1 Percent of the Cost14:55 Siemens Humanoid Robots Hit the Factory Floor19:33 Are AI Chatbots Rotting Our Brains?24:57 Drinking from the Firehose: Rapid Fire Headlines33:30 Topic 1: Did SpaceX Really Buy Cursor for $60 Billion?44:26 Topic 2: Scott Newton on Modern Strategy and AI53:00 Kodak vs Fujifilm and the Trap of a Great Business Model60:30 Why European Automakers Are Losing to BYD66:00 Pilot Hell: Why Corporate AI Adoption Stalls77:49 Education, Critical Thinking, and the End of Rote Learning88:32 Fun Closer: TQM and the Chairman's Circle of Excellence91:00 The Trait Every Leader Will Need93:21 Closing ThoughtsKeywords:AI, artificial intelligence, Elon Musk, SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Tim Cook, Meta, Intel, Anthropic, Cursor, Cursor AI, DeepSeek, GPT 5, Codex, Claude, Copilot, business strategy, corporate strategy, AI strategy, AI adoption, AI investment