*By Britt Terrell*
Roku, the leading provider of over-the-top hardware, has shifted its focus from selling TV boxes to providing access to streaming content through its platform on others' devices.
The company is happy to trade the margins it makes on selling OTT hardware for growing its users, said Steve Louden, Roku's chief financial officer.
"We focus on two things: driving active account growth ー that's the scale of the platform ー and then monetizing the platform," Louden said in an interview Wednesday with Cheddar. "Players are important to us, but they are just one of three ways we grow active accounts," he added.
Roku sells players to plug into TVs; it licenses its platform to TV manufacturers, and licenses its operating system to streaming and telecommunications companies like Sky in Britain and Telstra in Australia.
Hardware sales are becoming less important to the company's bottom line, Louden said, and focus has shifted to its platform business, which has more potential users. The company has 21 million active users, most of them in the U.S., and the company is looking to grow internationally. It's already in 23 countries.
"Roku historically has been primarily focused on being and maintaining our leadership position as the number one streaming platform in the U.S.," Louden said. "But increasingly we are looking to the international markets as well."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/roku-cfo-talks-stock-performance-and-national-streaming-day).
Waymo's self-driving taxis have been in the spotlight for both negative and positive reasons. This week, the automated ride-hailing taxis went viral after a San Francisco woman gave birth inside a Waymo taxi while on her way to the hospital. A Waymo spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed the unusual delivery. It said the company's rider support team detected unusual activity inside the vehicle and alerted 911. The taxi arrived safely at the hospital before emergency services. Waymo's popularity is growing despite heightened scrutiny following an illegal U-turn and the death of a San Francisco cat. The company, owned by Alphabet, says it is proud to serve riders of all ages.
OpenAI has appointed Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its first chief of revenue. Dresser will oversee global revenue strategy and help businesses integrate AI into daily operations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently emphasized improving ChatGPT, which now has over 800 million weekly users. Despite its success, OpenAI faces competition from companies like Google and concerns about profitability. The company earns money from premium ChatGPT subscriptions but hasn't ventured into advertising. Altman had recently announced delays in developing new products like AI agents and a personal assistant.
President Donald Trump says he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China. Trump said Monday on his social media site that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping and “President Xi responded positively!” There had been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips into China as it could help them to compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities. But there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.
The end of 2025 is almost upon us. And it’s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped. On Wednesday, the music streaming giant delivered its annual recap — giving its hundreds of millions of users worldwide a look at the top songs, artists, podcasts and other audio they listened to over the past year. Spotify isn’t the only platform to roll out a yearly glimpse of data collected from consumers’ online lives. But since its launch about a decade ago, Wrapped has become one of the most anticipated. And Spotify is billing the 2025 edition to be the biggest yet, with a host of new features it hopes may also address some disappointments users had last year.
Elon Musk’s X unveiled a feature that lets users see where an account is based. Online sleuths and experts quickly found that many popular accounts, often posting in support of the U.S. MAGA movement with thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, are based outside the U.S. This raises concerns about foreign influence in U.S. politics.
