Tech Brew Ride Home

I’ve got everything for you today. OpenAI closed its round. Anthropic draws a line with the Pentagon and Sam Altman supports it. A huge AI inspired layoff round, maybe. Netflix walks away from the deal, and, of course, The Weekend Longreads Suggestions.


OpenAI announces $110 billion funding round with backing from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank (CNBC)


Sam Altman says OpenAI shares Anthropic's red lines in Pentagon fight (Axios)


Employees at Google and OpenAI support Anthropic’s Pentagon stand in open letter (TechCrunch)


Block shares soar as much as 24% as company slashes workforce by nearly half (CNBC)


Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount’s offer is deemed superior (CNBC)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:


The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored (NYTimes)

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Nano Banana 2 is here already. Nvidia tries to assure everybody there IS no bubble. Marc Benioff tries to assure everybody there IS not SaaS-pocalypse. Did Google just do exactly what Apple has been unable to do? And how do you put an old AI model out to pasture? You give it a Substack.


Google’s Nano Banana 2 brings advanced AI image tools to free users (The Verge)


Nvidia Shares Slide After Sales Forecast Underwhelms Investors (Bloomberg)


Salesforce chief dismisses ‘SaaS-pocalypse’ fears of AI overtaking business software (FT)


New York sues video game developer Valve, says its 'loot boxes' are gambling (Reuters)


Google and Samsung just launched the AI features Apple couldn’t with Siri (The Verge)


Cloudflare experiment ports most of Next.js API 'in one week' with AI (The Register)


Anthropic gives its retired Claude AI a Substack (The Verge)

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The new Galaxy S26 lineup is here. Remote control for Claude is here. But is Anthropic about to wash its hands when it comes to working with the Pentagon? Could Stripe buy PayPal. Oh, and speaking of AI and war, you might not want to hear how often AI chose thermonuclear war when it was asked to play a wargame.


I tried the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and need the Privacy Display feature on my iPhone ASAP (ZDNet)


Gemini is getting its first agentic capabilities (The Verge)


Exclusive: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards (Axios)


Anthropic digs in heels in dispute with Pentagon, source says (Axios)


Anthropic just released a mobile version of Claude Code called Remote Control (VentureBeat)


Payments Processor Stripe Expresses Interest in PayPal (Bloomberg)


AI Models Deployed Nuclear Weapons in 95% of War Game Simulations, Study Finds (Implicator.ai)

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That AI essay I shared with you yesterday sure got Wall Street’s attention. Anthropic says Chinese models are training off of Claude. A significant new breakthrough in chip production technology. And as fun as that tri-fold phone might be, you probably want to wait for later iterations of the form factor.


Software Stocks Are Having Another Ugly Day (WSJ)


Anthropic Accuses Chinese Companies of Siphoning Data From Claude (WSJ)


Meta and AMD Agree to AI Chips Deal Worth More Than $100 Billion (WSJ)


Exclusive: ASML unveils EUV light source advance that could yield 50% more chips by 2030 (Reuters)


Putting Samsung’s $2,899 TriFold To the Test as a Phone, Tablet and Laptop (Bloomberg)

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Sam Altman has a lot of stuff to say about AI and let’s just say comms needs to have a quiet word with him. SaaS may or may not be dead, but is the replacement vertical AI? And a big thought experiment. If the AI bulls are right and AI transforms the economy, what might that look like?


Sam Altman Says Companies Are ‘AI Washing’ Layoffs (Gizmodo)


People Loved the Dot-Com Boom. The A.I. Boom, Not So Much. (NYTimes)


Sam Altman would like to remind you that humans use a lot of energy, too (TechCrunch)


Half the AI Agent Market Is One Category. The Rest Is Wide Open. (Garry's List)


Google Restricts AI Ultra Subscribers Over OpenClaw OAuth, Days After Anthropic Ban (Implicator.ai)


THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS (Citrini Research)

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