Techmeme
July 9, 2024, 5:05 PM

Top News

Kate Clark / The Information:
Source: a16z has secured thousands of AI chips, including Nvidia H100 GPUs, and is renting them to portfolio companies, with the aim of expanding to 20K+ GPUs  —  Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most active venture capital investors in generative artificial intelligence …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Spotify adds the ability for users to leave comments on podcasts, expanding on polls and Q&As; comments will be private by default, and creators can opt out  —  The company already lets Spotify podcasters offer polls and Q&As, so this new feature could give creators new ways to interact with their audiences.
TIME:
Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington announce Thrive AI Health, a new startup backed by OpenAI and Thrive Global to build a “hyper-personalized AI health coach”  —  A staggering 129 million Americans have at least one major chronic disease—and 90% of our $4.1 trillion …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Google begins rolling out speedometers in Google Maps for iOS and CarPlay globally, more than five years after adding the features to the Android app  —  Google Maps has introduced speedometer and speed limits on iOS and CarPlay — more than five years after their debut on Android …
Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
Skild AI, which is developing a foundational model for robotics, raised a $300M Series A at a $1.5B valuation led by Lightspeed, SoftBank, Coatue, Jeff Bezos  —  Skild AI has raised $300 million to continue building its plug-and-play robotic intelligence with the hope of enabling companies to integrate it into robots of all kinds.
Grace Kay / Business Insider:
Current and former Tesla staff: self-driving data annotation staff were told to prioritize analyzing car data of VIP drivers, like Elon Musk and YouTube stars  —  An curved arrow pointing right.  — Tesla gives special treatment to data from VIPs, including Elon Musk, when training its self-driving AI.
Cristiano Lima-Strong / Washington Post:
The FTC bans teen messaging app NGL from serving users under 18, a first; NGL agreed to pay $5M and stop marketing to kids and teens to settle the FTC's lawsuit  —  The groundbreaking FTC settlement stems from claims popular app NGL overhyped its anti-bullying efforts and engaged in aggressive marketing to kids and teens.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman says Etsy is positioning itself “to answer the call for original goods and real people” by overhauling its policies and adding labels  —  When Etsy launched almost two decades ago, the site attracted artisans and craft makers, who finally had a place online …
Anissa Gardizy / The Information:
Sources: xAI ends talks with Oracle to expand an existing arrangement to rent Nvidia chips; source: Oracle is not part of xAI's supercomputer project in Memphis  —  Larry Ellison may be a friend and backer of Elon Musk, but even the Oracle executive chair isn't immune from Musk's impatience.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
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:
Leveraging design tool extensions in Cliq: A designer's guide to Figma, Lucidchart, and Miro  —  Picture this: you're deep in a pixel-perfect Figma mock-up, bouncing between chats and emails, when someone pings you for feedback on a Lucidchart workflow.
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

Techmeme Ride Home:
Microsoft Build 2025
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Spotlight On:
Tines's Eoin Hinchy on rejecting the playbooks
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Gustav Söderström - How Spotify Thinks
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on how AI can save the web, not destroy it
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
From Scaling Cisco to Seeding AI: John T. Chambers on Speed, Strategy, and Reinvention
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Microsoft CPO: If you aren't prototyping with AI you're doing it wrong | Aparna Chennapragada
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:05 PM ET, July 9, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Financial Times:
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Julian Chokkattu / Wired: