Welcome to SED News, a podcast series from Software Engineering Daily hosted by Gregor Vand and Sean Falconer, focusing on the latest developments in software engineering, Silicon Valley, and the broader tech industry.
In this episode, Gregor and Sean explore Meta’s legal challenges concerning AI training data, discuss the strategic significance of Meta’s $14 billion investment in Scale AI, and analyze how competition in AI is altering alliances between tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google. Additionally, they spotlight interesting stories from Hacker News, such as a solar-powered iPhone turned OCR server and an argument on why some AI agents might better function as SQL queries.
Gregor Vand is a technology expert concentrating on security, and he is the founder and CTO of Mailpass. With prior roles as CTO in cybersecurity, cyber insurance, and software engineering firms, Gregor has been in the Asia Pacific for nearly a decade. Connect with him at vand.hk.
Sean has experience as an academic, startup founder, and former Googler, having published works on topics ranging from AI to quantum computing. He currently serves as AI Entrepreneur in Residence at Confluent, focusing on AI strategy and thought leadership. Connect with Sean on LinkedIn.
View the transcript of this episode [here](http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/SED1856-News-25-07.txt).