One Hundred Million Downloads
On March 31, three software supply chain incidents surfaced in a single day — a compromised npm package with 100 million weekly downloads, a major AI tool's source code leaked through a misconfiguration, and enterprise source code stolen via an internal breach. The foundation everything runs on has been cracking for eight years.
When Everyone Has AI, Nobody Does
Chess grandmasters, HR departments, content creators, and software supply chains all discovered the same thing this month — when both sides of a market have AI, the advantage shifts to whoever finds what AI can't do. A pattern across four industries.
The Attention Market
Nvidia averages 2.77 articles per day. On the day Arm announced a competing chip with Nvidia's biggest customers as first buyers, Nvidia appeared in zero. Attention is zero-sum. The flows between entities reveal what headlines can't.
Claude Code's source code leaked via a misconfigured npm package, revealing internal codenames, a “Self-Healing Memory” architecture, and more
Anthropic appears to have accidentally revealed the inner workings of one of its most popular and lucrative AI products …
OpenAI closed a $122B funding round led by SoftBank, a16z, and others at an $852B post-money valuation, after previously announcing the round would total $110B
OpenAI on Tuesday announced that it closed a record-breaking funding round at a post-money valuation of $852 billion.
A supply chain attack compromised HTTP client Axios, which has 100M weekly npm downloads, introducing a malicious dependency into specific npm releases
Socket Research Team … Our analysis shows the malicious package deploys a multi-stage payload, including a remote access trojan …
Sources: South Korean memory chipmakers have sufficient helium stocks until at least June, and a South Korean minister ruled out supply disruptions in H1 2026
South Korea has sufficient helium stocks until at least June, two sources said, while the industry minister ruled …
Google researchers warn that quantum computers may crack elliptic-curve cryptography, which helps secure crypto wallets, with 20x fewer resources than expected
Google researchers warned that future quantum computers may be able to break some of the cryptography protecting Bitcoin …
Google says all users in the US can now change their Google Account username; users are restricted to one username change every 12 months
Your old email will still be available as an alternate address. … Many of us have a poorly chosen email address that's laced with regret, but we're now stuck with it.
Iran says it will start targeting US tech companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla in the Middle East on Wednesday at 8pm local time
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Tuesday that it plans to target major U.S. technology companies across the Middle East …
Iran mobilizes its hackers to sow chaos, gather intel, and find targets; ex-CISA Director Chris Krebs says Iran is “throwing everything they have at this”
Tehran's cyber operatives have sought to sow fear and hoover up intelligence in series of attacks in Israel and the US — NEW
Meta unveils the $499 Ray-Ban Meta Blayzer Optics and Scriber Optics, with swappable nosepads and compatibility with more prescription lenses, on sale April 14
Meta is also adding new translation and food-tracking abilities to all its frames. — The latest iteration of Meta's smart glasses …
Sources: Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs in its latest layoffs as the company continues to ramp AI spending; as of May 2025, Oracle employed 162,000 people
Software maker Oracle has started telling employees that it's conducting a round of layoffs, two people familiar with the move told CNBC.
Sources: Apple is testing letting Siri process multiple requests in a single query in iOS 27, and explored a Grammarly-like keyboard that expands autocorrect
Apple Inc. is testing a feature that would let Siri process multiple requests in a single query, according to people familiar with the matter …
Sequoia says Doug Leone is returning in a newly created role of chairman, after he announced his retirement in 2022 from his role as “senior steward”
Three years after his official retirement, the Midas List investor is back in a new supervisory role at the blue chip Silicon Valley fund.
SpaceX says it lost contact with a Starlink satellite after suffering an “anomaly”, following a similar incident in December; the satellite likely exploded
It follows a similar incident from December. … SpaceX says it lost contact with a Starlink satellite after suffering an “anomaly.”
Google launches Veo 3.1 Lite, costing <50% of Veo 3.1 Fast and meant for “high-volume video applications”, and affirms its commitment to video generation tools
Following OpenAI's Sora exit last week, Google today said it's committed to offering video generation while announcing Veo 3.1 Lite.
Alibaba releases its Qwen3.5-Omni omnimodal LLM with support for 10+ hours of audio input, saying the Plus variant surpasses Gemini 3.1 Pro on audio benchmarks
Qwen3.5-Omni is Qwen's latest generation of fully omnimodal LLM, supporting the understanding of text, images, audio, and audio-visual content.
Nvidia invests $2B in chipmaker Marvell and says the two companies plan to work on silicon photonics tech, enabling high-speed data transmission; MRVL jumps 9%+
Nvidia Corp. said it has invested $2 billion in Marvell Technology Inc. and that the two chipmakers plan to collaborate on silicon photonics technology.
Snap shares climbed 14% on Tuesday after activist investor Irenic suggested changes to boost the stock's value 7x, such as cutting staff by 21% and ending Specs
Shares of Snap climbed 14% Tuesday after shareholder Irenic Capital Management sent a letter to CEO Evan Spiegel outlining changes …
Microsoft stock plunged 23% in Q1, a steeper drop than any of its tech peers or the Nasdaq, and its steepest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis
Microsoft just closed out its worst quarter on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis, as investors soured on the software giant's prospects in artificial intelligence.Forums:r/technologyForums:r...
Samsung rolls out blood pressure monitoring for Galaxy Watch 4 and newer models in the US, requiring a traditional upper-arm blood pressure cuff and a new app
The globally available feature is finally rolling out in the US, but you'll need to buy extra hardware to use it.
Samsung launches Hearapy, a free Android app to mitigate motion sickness by playing a 100Hz sine wave tone; a 60-second session can provide two hours of relief
Listening to a 100Hz sine wave tone for just 60 seconds could reduce motion sickness symptoms for up to two hours.
Austin-based Saronic, which builds military autonomous ships, raised a $1.75B Series D led by Kleiner Perkins at a $9.25B valuation, up from $4B in Feb. 2025
Autonomous ship startup Saronic said Tuesday that it's raised $1.75 billion as it ramps up production to meet mounting U.S. military demand …
Nvidia launches DLSS 4.5, including a 6x Multi Frame Generation feature exclusive to RTX 50-series GPUs that utilizes a second-gen transformer AI model
The Nvidia app beta introduces 6x Multi Frame Generation for RTX 50-series GPUs. … Nvidia has launched the next major update …
Wearable maker Whoop raised $575M led by Collaborative Fund at a $10.1B valuation and says it hit $1B in ARR by 2025's end; 60% of its 2025 sales were non-US
With elite athletes like LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo as investors, the company, now valued at $10 billion, is courting everyday health enthusiasts.
An excerpt from the book The Infinity Machine details how DeepMind's early governance battles with Google changed Demis Hassabis from an idealist into a realist
The inside story of how DeepMind's experiments in AI safety governance transformed Demis Hassabis from an idealist into a realist
Sources: threat actors stole Cisco source code by breaching its internal development environment using credentials from a recent Trivy supply chain attack
Cisco has suffered a cyberattack after threat actors used stolen credentials from the recent Trivy supply chain attack to breach …
Amazon strikes a deal to provide internet access on Delta flights via its Leo satellite business, starting with 500 aircraft in 2028, without disclosing terms
Amazon's Leo service will start connecting a portion of Delta's fleet in 2028; Elon Musk's Starlink has become a dominant satellite connectivity provider to airlines
Sources: Microsoft is in talks with Chevron and investment fund Engine No. 1 over a $7B Texas power plant that would initially generate 2.5 GW of electricity
Microsoft Corp. is in exclusive talks with Chevron Corp. and investment fund Engine No. 1 over a long-term deal that would underpin …
The UK CMA launches an investigation into Microsoft's business software unit to assess whether it should be designated with “strategic market status”
CMA will assess whether US tech giant should be given ‘strategic market status’ — The UK's competition regulator plans …
PrismML, which says its 1-bit LLM achieves radical compression without sacrificing performance, comes out of stealth with $16.25M in SAFE and seed funding
PrismML says its 1-bit large language model achieves radical compression without sacrificing performance, lowering energy consumption
Yupp, which raised a $33M seed led by a16z crypto in 2024 for a crowdsourced AI model picker, shuts down, saying it didn't reach strong product-market fit
Sometimes an apparently good idea, a big raise from a big-name VC, and a sea of well-connected angel investors is not enough.
Monzo is shuttering its US operations to focus on scaling in the UK and Europe; source: it will lay off ~50 employees and close clients' accounts in June
Monzo Bank Ltd. is shuttering its US operations after years of failing to gain a foothold on the world's largest market …
Valinor, which aims to use smart contracts to replace manual lending processes in the private credit industry, raised a $25M seed led by Castle Island Ventures
A global WTO ban on taxing digital streaming and downloads across national borders expired on March 30; negotiations are set to continue in Geneva this spring
A prohibition on taxing digital downloads expired, after members of the World Trade Organization concluded their annual meeting without an agreement.
Sources: E*Trade is in talks to lead SpaceX IPO share sale to retail investors; Robinhood and SoFi have pitched for roles but SpaceX is mulling cutting them out
Leaked January presentation: Coatue estimated that Anthropic would lose $14B in EBITDA on $18B in revenue in 2026 and reach a $1.995T valuation in 2030
We talk about it & more on the Cerebral Valley Show — In a presentation to prospective investors in January, Coatue offered a rare look …
Sycamore, founded by former Atlassian CTO Sri Viswanath to let enterprises build, deploy, and monitor AI agents, raised a $65M seed led by Coatue and Lightspeed
ScaleOps, which makes automated cloud spend tools, raised a $130M Series C led by Insight Partners at an $800M+ valuation, bringing its total funding to $210M+
Runway launches a $10M fund to invest in early-stage startups building across AI, media, and world simulation and a Builders program offering free API credits
Runway is moving beyond building AI video models and into shaping what gets built on top of them.
TCL agrees to buy a 51% stake in Sony's global home entertainment business for ~$472M, as the Chinese company seeks to expand overseas; Sony retains a 49% stake
TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd. agreed to buy a majority stake in Sony Group Corp.'s global home entertainment business as the Chinese company seeks to expand overseas.
Instagram reaches an agreement with the MPA to cease using the PG-13 trademark in its Teen Accounts marketing, after a C&D letter, and will add a disclaimer
The social media giant, under legal pressure from the Motion Picture Association, has retreated from its use of the movie rating in its marketing.
Amazon replaces Amex with US Bancorp as the issuer for its Prime Business and Amazon Business credit cards that it is relaunching in the coming months
Amazon.com Inc. tapped U.S. Bancorp to be the issuer for two small business credit cards that the e-commerce platform is relaunching in the coming months.
New York-based Linx Security, whose Autopilot agent proactively maps and remediates identity-related failures, raised a $50M Series B from Index and others
Follow Ben Bergman … - Linx counts Index Ventures, Cyberstarts, and Insight Partners among its backers.
Gurman: Apple accidentally launched Apple Intelligence in China, then pulled the feature; Apple does not plan an imminent launch as it lacks regulatory approval
Apple Intelligence first launched in the US in October 2024, but now after a nearly 18-month wait, Apple's AI features appear to be rolling out in China too.
Huawei reports 2025 revenue up 2.2% YoY to ~$127.5B, net profit up 8.7% YoY to ~$9.8B, and R&D spend up 7% YoY to ~$27.8B, as it invests in chip networking tech
The company has been making a steady comeback after U.S. sanctions limited its ability to do business in many parts of the world
OpenFX, an FX market-making and remittance startup launched by a FalconX co-founder, raised $94M led by Accel and others, a source says at a ~$500M valuation
OpenFX, a startup that focuses on foreign-exchange market making and remittances, on Tuesday raised $94 million in a funding round led …
State of AI safety: as capabilities grow and models can monitor other models, issues like adversarial robustness persist and society is still not ready for AI
Sources: US prosecutors are exploring whether some prediction market bets, including on the capture of Nicolás Maduro, violated insider trading and other laws
US CTO Ethan Klein plans to urge the UK and its allies to help “shore up” quantum computing supply chains at a London meeting, after a US-UK tech deal standoff
US CTO Ethan Klein seeks British co-operation amid stand-off over wider tech pact
Micromobility delivery startup Also, a Rivian spinoff, raised $200M led by Greenoaks at a $1B valuation and enters a multiyear partnership with DoorDash
Also, an electric bike and transportation startup spun out of Rivian Automotive Inc., has reached a $1 billion valuation in a new funding round …
OpenAI's ChatGPT app store has 300+ app integrations six months after launch, but developers say adoption is sluggish and the apps offer limited functionality
AirPods Max 2 review: comfortable, excellent sound quality, and lots of new features, but retains the same design, pricey, and only one hearing health feature
Overdue updates bring Apple's priciest AirPods on par with its best earbuds. — I'm honestly shocked the AirPods Max 2 even exists.
Sources: Tether cuts two senior precious metals traders who joined from HSBC just months ago in its push to build “the best trading floor for gold in the world”
Tether Holdings SA has cut two senior precious metals traders who had joined from HSBC Holdings Plc just months ago …
Fermi shares drop 12%+ after the data center real estate company reported a $486M YTD net loss, amid concerns over a lack of a tenant for its Texas data center
Amsterdam-based Nebius announces a $10B, 310MW data center in Lappeenranta, Finland, built by developer Polarnode and set to begin phased operations in 2027
AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group (NBIS.O) on Tuesday said it was continuing its rapid European expansion with a 310-megawatt data centre …
CoreWeave raised an $8.5B loan from banks and investors to expand its cloud computing capacity, in what it says is the largest chip-backed debt deal of its kind
CoreWeave Inc. has raised $8.5 billion from a group of banks and investors to help finance an expansion of its cloud computing capacity …
Examining the Smartphone Theory of Everything, which blames phones for anxiety, populism, and polarization, despite harms being concentrated in the Anglosphere
Tel Aviv-based Sett, which builds AI agents to automate game marketing, raised a $30M Series B led by Greenfield Partners, bringing its total funding to $57M
Beijing-based AI company Z.ai reports 2025 revenue of ~$105M, below ~$109M est., and net loss up 60% YoY to ~$680M, vs. ~$545M est., amid aggressive spending
Zhipu reported a much faster-than-expected 60% surge in net losses for 2025, underscoring how China's AI upstarts continue …
London-based 9fin, which offers AI tools to help credit traders and investors originate new business efficiently, raised a $170M Series C at a $1.3B valuation
9fin Ltd., the debt intelligence provider founded by two former investment banking analysts, has raised fresh funds …
Sarasota-based Tenex, which offers an AI-enabled managed cybersecurity detection and response service, raised $250M led by Crosspoint at a $1B+ valuation
The funding round values the cybersecurity startup at more than $1 billion. — Tenex.ai, an artificial intelligence cybersecurity startup …
Uber agrees to acquire Berlin-based chauffeur booking app Blacklane for an undisclosed sum to bolster its Uber Elite service, set to close by the end of 2026
AI chip startup Rebellions raised $400M in a pre-IPO round at a $2.34B valuation, bringing its total funding to $850M, with $650M in the past six months
Levels.fyi: median base-salary offers for US software engineers at VC-backed startups have risen 25% to $200K since 2022; total compensation has risen just 18%
Young tech companies once might have complemented lower salaries with generous equity packages. Now they're upping base pay.
Sources: London-based chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise over $200M from Accel and others at a $1B valuation; Fractile raised a $15M seed round in 2024
Company is part of growing cohort of UK groups developing faster AI processors — London-based start-up Fractile is in talks …
Match Group agrees to settle an FTC lawsuit claiming it illegally shared user data from the OkCupid app with facial recognition tech company Clarifai in 2014
Netflix feels comfortable raising prices knowing customers can downgrade to its ad tier; in 2026, Netflix is on track to double 2025's $1.5B+ in ad sales
The most popular Netflix plan will now cost $20 a month — a 150% increase from 2013 — Good afternoon from Los Angeles and happy baseball season to those of you who celebrate.
Microsoft rolls out Copilot Cowork to its Frontier early access program and unveils Researcher's Critique and Council tools, which use multiple models together
Inside David Sacks' new role shaping Trump's AI agenda; US officials say Sriram Krishnan is taking on a position at the National Economic Council to focus on AI
- The move lands as Republicans grow increasingly wary of an all-in attitude on AI development and begin to question …
Indian government data: India's smartphone exports rose 55% YoY to $11B in H1 FY 2026; analysts warn the Iran war may trigger a 22%-25% drop in the coming weeks
NEW DELHI — India's fast-growing smartphone export sector is facing its first geopolitical test, as tensions …
A Delaware judge reassigns Elon Musk cases over “disproportionate media attention” after allegations she “liked” a LinkedIn post celebrating a Musk legal defeat
Analysis: in 2025, Vietnam surpassed China as the leading supplier of laptops and game consoles to the US for the first time, despite President Trump's tariffs
Standing in front of a tripod streaming live to TikTok, a recruiter announces yet another round of job openings at a factory behind him churning out MacBooks.
Micron shares closed down 10% on Monday and are now down 30% since Micron's earnings report on March 18; Sandisk fell 7% and Western Digital dropped 9%
Micron shares plummeted 10% on Monday, continuing the memory maker's significant post-earnings sell-off.
Meta is testing an Instagram Plus subscription in a few countries, offering features including anonymous Story viewing and extended 48-hour Story durations
Meta has begun testing a premium subscription on Instagram in a few countries, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday.
AI coding agents will drastically alter both the practice and the economics of exploit development, automating the discovery of zero-day vulnerabilities
For the last two years, technologists have ominously predicted that AI coding agents will be responsible for a deluge of security vulnerabilities.
After Copilot injected an ad into a pull request on GitHub, referencing Raycast, GitHub says it “disabled product tips entirely thanks to the feedback”
Alibaba's new Qwen3.5-Omni multimodal model, which processes text, audio, images, and video, is proprietary, marking a shift away from its open-source strategy
Alibaba Group has released the new generation of its large language model that can understand text, audio, images and video.
UK accountancy regulator FRC says auditors can't blame AI for audit failures, after it published what it called the world's first guidance on auditor AI usage
Financial Reporting Council issues guidance stressing need for human oversight — The UK's accountancy regulator has told auditors …
OpenAI introduces a Codex plugin for Claude Code, letting users invoke Codex from inside Claude Code to review code or delegate tasks
If you already use Claude Code, this Codex plugin gives you a simple way to pull Codex into the same workflow. It is useful for three things …
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a first-of-its-kind executive order requiring safety and privacy guardrails from AI companies that contract with the state
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, issued an order requiring safety and privacy guardrails for artificial intelligence companies contracting with the state.
Social gaming startup Rec Room is shutting down on June 1, saying it could not find a path to profitability; Rec Room had a $3.5B valuation in December 2021
Rec Room, the Seattle-based social gaming company once valued at $3.5 billion, is shutting down its platform on June 1 …
A look at Babel Audio, which pairs anonymous strangers to record their conversations, starting at $17/hour, and bundles those recordings into AI training data
They vent, confess and role-play with strangers, all to help machines learn how to sound human.LinkedIn:Issie LapowskyLinkedIn:Issie Lapowsky:The AI boom is spawning a lot of odd jobs, but the work of...
Quinnipiac poll: 55% of Americans say AI will do more harm than good in their day-to-day lives, and 65% oppose building data centers in their community
Americans are increasingly turning against artificial intelligence, with growing majorities saying they fear the fast-moving technology …
The US' GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, developed by RTX for $8B+, remains non-operational nine months after the Space Force took ownership
Last year, just before the Fourth of July holiday, the US Space Force officially took ownership of a new operating system …
Raspberry Pi reports 2025 revenue up 25% YoY to $323.2M, driven by demand in the US and China; its stock is down 21% in the past year due to memory chip costs
Raspberry Pi Holdings Plc, a British maker of small, low-cost computers, rose as much as 27% after reporting a jump in sales …
Google attributes the supply chain attack on HTTP client Axios to a suspected North Korean threat actor it calls UNC1069
The supply chain attack was stopped in less than three hours, but it's still unclear how many people got hacked. — techcrunch.com/2026/03/31/h...
Iranian media: Iran arrested 46 people allegedly in a network selling Starlink terminals and seized 139 terminals; there are an estimated 50K terminals in Iran
OpenAI has tapped retail investors for the first time, raising $3B+ as part of its $122B round, through a trio of banks and ETFs managed by ARK Invest
George Hammond /Financial Times:
Anthropic confirms it leaked parts of Claude Code's source code, saying the leak was “a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach”
Anthropic leaked part of the internal source code for its popular artificial intelligence coding assistant, Claude Code, the company confirmed on Tuesday.