News Is Not the Story
Most people read the news like they read the weather — what's happening today. But the most important things in tech aren't events. They're trajectories. And trajectories are invisible on any given day.
a16z raises $15B+ across five new funds, including $6.75B for its fifth growth fund, the largest sum, and $3B for unspecified “other venture strategies”
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose past investments included Airbnb and Coinbase, on Friday announced that it raised over $15 billion for a group of new funds.
Grok says image generation and editing are now limited to paid subscribers, after outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery
X to limit editing function to paying subscribers after platform threatened with fines and regulatory action
Docs: xAI had a net loss of $1.46B in Q3, up from $1B in Q1; sources: xAI told investors it plans to build AI that will eventually power Optimus humanoid robots
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI is burning cash quickly, with losses mounting as it spends to build data centers …
Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next-generation model, in the coming weeks and say it outperformed Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT series in coding
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is expected to launch its next-generation AI model that features strong coding capabilities in the coming weeks …
Filings: X's UK revenue fell 58.3% YoY from £69.1M in 2023 to £28.9M in 2024; pre-tax profit fell from £8.5M in 2022 and £2.2M in 2023 to £767K in 2024
Elon Musk-owned site reports plunging profits amid outcry over use of AI tool Grok to create sexually explicit imageryForums:r/PoliticalOptimismForums:r/PoliticalOptimism:X UK revenues drop nearly 60%...
How Craigslist has stayed relevant as a place to find jobs, housing, and personal connections without relying on algorithmic feeds, public profiles, or ratings
Millennials are still using Craigslist to find jobs, find love, and even to cast creative projects—eschewing other AI- and algorithm-dominated online spaces.
Meta strikes a 20-year deal to buy 2,600+ MW of nuclear power from three Vistra plants, and announces deals to back new TerraPower and Oklo reactor projects
Facebook parent will back nuclear projects with Oklo, Bill Gates-backed TerraPower and Vistra — Meta Platforms on Friday unveiled …
Rain, which helps businesses issue stablecoin-linked Visa cards, raised a $250M Series C led by ICONIQ at a $1.95B valuation, taking its total funding to $338M+
Stablecoin firm Rain said on Friday it has raised $250 million in a funding round led by ICONIQ, valuing the company at $1.95 billion …
Omdia: global humanoid robot shipments rose more than 5x YoY in 2025 to ~13K units; China accounted for the vast majority, led by AgiBot shipping ~5,168 units
Humanoid robot makers in China accounted for the vast majority of the roughly 13,000 units shipped globally last year …
The EU says it is considering designating WhatsApp a “very large platform”, after Meta published WhatsApp user numbers above the DSA threshold in February 2025
The European Commission is considering recategorizing Meta's (META.O) WhatsApp messaging service to make it more responsible …
Source: OnePay, the fintech firm behind Walmart's “super app”, recently bought back shares from employees at a price that values the startup at more than $4B
OnePay, the Walmart Inc.-backed fintech firm behind the “super app” that the world's largest retailer is incorporating for customers …
Nvidia has hired Google Cloud VP of Marketing Alison Wagonfeld to be Nvidia's first CMO, starting in February; source: Wagonfeld will report to CEO Jensen Huang
Alison Wagonfeld will report to CEO Jensen Huang as marketing rises in importance at the AI chip maker — Nvidia, the top AI chip maker …
The Golden Globes signs a deal with Polymarket, which will provide stats and predictions about the awards show at the official 2026 viewing party
The fast-rising digital marketplace will offer real-time forecasts for winners in top races during Sunday's live telecast on CBS
OpenAI launches a HIPAA-compliant version of ChatGPT for clinicians to help with medical reasoning and reduce administrative work, at Cedars-Sinai and elsewhere
Health care is shaping up to be a key battleground for the top AI labs this year. But first... Three things to know:
The UK FCA grants Ripple approval for its Electronic Money Institution license and crypto asset registration, clearing the way for Ripple's UK expansion
Partner offers — Quick Take — The Financial Conduct Authority granted Ripple approval for its Electronic Money Institution license …
Amazon files planning documents in Illinois to construct a 225,000 square foot big-box store, a return to a “Target-like” retail concept it previously shelved
Amazon has started laying the groundwork to open a big-box retail store in the Chicago suburbs, according to planning documents.
OpenAI and SoftBank says they will each invest $500M in SB Energy to support the infrastructure company's growth as a data center developer and operator
OpenAI and SoftBank Group Corp. have jointly invested $1 billion in SB Energy, an infrastructure company that's working with the tech firms …
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says xAI will spend $20B to build its MACROHARDRR data center in Southaven, xAI's third data center in the greater Memphis area
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI is set to spend $20 billion to build a data center in Southaven, Mississippi …
NetBlocks says internet connectivity in Iran has fallen on multiple providers as protests hit 100+ cities; Cloudflare says IPv6 traffic has dropped sharply
Cloudflare Radar says country's IPv6 traffic has dropped sharply as protests spread across 100 cities
Chinese humanoid robotics companies dominated CES 2026, but a wide gap remains between choreographed demonstrations and large-scale, real-world deployment
One of Elon Musk's worries was on full display at CES in Las Vegas this week. Chinese-made human-like robots were everywhere across …
Boltz, which is developing open frontier AI models for biomolecular research, raised a $28M seed led by Zetta, Amplify, and a16z at a valuation of $125M
While the newest AlphaFold model took a leap forward in 2024 by predicting structures of nearly all biomolecules instead of just proteins, it also took a step back in openness.
Snowflake agrees to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake databases; the deal was previously reported to be valued at around $1B
Snowflake plans to acquire Observe, an observability platform that has been built on Snowflake's databases from day one.
Microsoft debuts Copilot Checkout in the US, enabling in-chat purchases via PayPal, Shopify, Stripe, and more; Shopify merchants will be automatically enrolled
Microsoft is beginning to roll out its first agentic experiences within Copilot, it's AI answer engine.
Source: Lambda, which rents access to AI chips and is backed by Nvidia, is in talks to raise $350M+ led by Mubadala Capital, ahead of an IPO planned for H2 2026
Lambda, an upstart cloud provider that rents out Nvidia AI chips—and whose biggest customer was recently Nvidia itself …
Artemis Analytics: total stablecoin transaction volumes rose 72% YoY to a record $33T in 2025, led by Circle's USDC at $18.3T and Tether's USDT at $13.3T
Stablecoin transactions reached unprecedented heights last year, buoyed by favorable policy in the US under pro-crypto President Donald Trump.
Sources: OpenAI has been slow to expand in-app checkouts for ChatGPT as the startup and its partners Shopify and Stripe struggle to standardize merchant data
OpenAI's efforts to turn ChatGPT into a go-to personal shopper are off to a slow start. — Challenges with wrangling product data mean …
a16z captured 18%+ of all venture capital allocated in the US in 2025 and now manages $90B in assets, vs. Sequoia Capital's $56B and General Catalyst's $43B
Andreessen Horowitz has raised $15 billion for five new growth and venture funds in one of the largest-ever raises for a venture capital fund.
X is restricting Grok's image capabilities via the @grok command for free users, but they can still create sexual deepfakes via X's “Edit image” or Grok's app
X's sexual deepfake machine is still running, despite Grok saying otherwise.
The UK government says X restricting Grok's image creation to paid users is insulting as it just makes the ability to generate unlawful images a premium service
Spokesperson says limiting access to paying subscribers just makes ability to generate unlawful images a premium service
A deep dive into a16z, which has stakes in 10 of the top 15 private companies by valuation and whose Funds 1-4 totaled $853B in enterprise value at distribution
Packy McCormick /Not Boring: