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Techmeme
December 4, 2023, 11:05 AM

Top News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Spotify lays off ~17% of its workforce, or ~1,500 staff, to “rightsize” its costs, citing slow economic growth and rising capital costs, its third cut in 2023  —  Spotify is eliminating about 17% jobs, its third round of layoffs, as the music streaming looks to become “both productive and efficient.”
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Disinformation scholar Joan Donovan claims in a whistleblower filing that her superiors dismissed her after Harvard got Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's $500M gift  —  In a whistleblower complaint, she breaks her silence over events that unsettled other misinformation researchers
Peter Martin / Bloomberg:
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says her department needs more money to stop China's chip gains and calls out Nvidia for redesigning around the US' curbs  —  - US commerce secretary cites Nvidia designs as case in point  — Tells chip CEOs ‘such is life’ as US security trumps revenue
New York Times:
A deep dive into the founding of DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic, as many of their backers feared the risks of advanced AI but wanted the power to shape it  —  The people who were most afraid of the risks of artificial intelligence decided they should be the ones to build it.
The Guardian:
Investigation: Russia- and China-linked hackers targeted UK nuclear site Sellafield with sleeper malware as far back as 2015; the full extent is still unknown  —  Exclusive: Malware may still be present and potential effects have been covered up by staff, investigation reveals
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Documents: OpenAI signed a letter of intent in 2019 to spend $51M on brain-inspired chips developed by startup Rain AI, in which Sam Altman had invested $1M+  —  Documents show that OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million on brain-inspired chips developed by startup Rain.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
AI meeting assistants: A game-changer in communication  —  We've come a long way from live video call demonstrations at world's fairs.  What was once considered a futuristic idea is now a vital part of how we collaborate …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
Bret Taylor's Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Acquired:
The Steve Ballmer Interview
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Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Techmeme Ride Home:
Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
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Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
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Hard Fork:
The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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More News

Financial Times:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Maria Sherman / Associated Press: