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July 12, 2025, 1:35 PM
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| Hayden Field / The Verge: |
Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of Windsurf's R&D employees to focus on agentic coding efforts at DeepMind — Key researchers from the AI coding startup are also heading to Google. … OpenAI's deal to buy Windsurf is off …
More: Thurrott, Tech Startups, Reuters, New York Times, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Livemint, Business Standard, Cryptopolitan, DNA India, The Indian Express, Neowin, Analytics India Magazine, Financial Express, implicator.ai, Moneycontrol, DevOps.com, WinBuzzer, and Business Insider
X: @jeffwsurf, @jeffwsurf, @officiallogank, @pitdesi, @garymarcus, @mikeisaac, @luke_metro, @thdxr, @gergelyorosz, @demishassabis, @koraykv, @devahaz, @gergelyorosz, @kyleasay_, @hipcityreg, @varunramg, @morqon, @deedydas, @prashant_1722, and @haydenfield
LinkedIn: Rob Bowley, Elena Verna, Dan Hockenmaier, Giovanni D'Antonio, and Ariel Serber
Forums: Hacker News, r/cursor, r/OpenAI, r/singularity, and Slashdot
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Google is paying $2.4B for a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf tech and hire some of its employees, but won't be taking a stake in the company — Google is hiring Windsurf Chief Executive Officer Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen, along with a small group of staffers … | Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: |
More: The Information, Tech in Asia, Moneycontrol, Maginative, and Bloomberg Law. Bluesky: @quinnypig.com
| Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: |
Sam Altman announces another delay for OpenAI's open-weight model, for further safety testing; the model was slated to be released next week — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Friday the company is delaying the release of its open model, which was already pushed back a month earlier in this summer.
More: Business Insider, The Economic Times, The Decoder, The Hans India, Cryptopolitan, Livemint, and Benzinga
Bluesky: @quinnypig.com. X: @sama, @_aidan_clark_, @fadalaudza_, @ai_for_success, @sog_on_bird_app, @n30n_41, @miles_brundage, @scaling01, @generatorman_ai, @traskjd, @lidothegreat, @kalomaze, @daniel_mac8, @angaisb_, @dee_bosa, @david_kasten, @jachiam0, @cryptopunk7213, @deliprao, and @lukeolympus
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/BetterOffline, and r/singularity
| Benj Edwards / Ars Technica: |
Stanford study: LLMs struggle to respond appropriately to questions about delusions, suicide, and OCD, but AI could play valuable supportive roles to therapists — When Stanford University researchers asked ChatGPT whether it would be willing to work closely with someone who had schizophrenia … | SemiAnalysis: |
A look at Meta's revamped GenAI strategy, as Mark Zuckerberg poaches top AI talent for the Superintelligence team with a typical offer of $200M over four years — Meta's shocking purchase of 49% of Scale AI at a ~$30B valuation shows that money is of no concern for the $100B annual cashflow ad machine.
X: @staysaasy, @lefttailguy, @blader, and @mjolley22
| Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:NEW |
xAI apologizes for Grok's “horrific behavior” when it wrote antisemitic posts on July 8, and blames “an update to a code path upstream of the Grok bot” — In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.”| Financial Times: |
Sources: xAI prepares a new fundraising round, its third in two months, targeting a valuation of $170B to $200B, up 10x from its May 2024 valuation of $18B — Grok chatbot maker in early talks with investors to boost its value as much as 10 times from last year
More: Cryptopolitan, The Information, StrictlyVC, Benzinga, Bloomberg, Reuters, SiliconANGLE, WinBuzzer, Yahoo Finance, and NewsMax.com
Bluesky: @kbsutt, @dmnd.me, @caseynewton, @skeet.best, @kingkool68.com, @wilkos, @jentrification.com, @doghousereilly, @b1gd1ll, @richburroughs.dev, @billthepony, @creamcityjw, @joshuaerlich, @self.agency, and @wagatwe.com. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. Threads: @simondowens
X: @shortingisfun, @elonmusk, @scaling01, @tomgdisney, @toplonging, @andrewcurran_, and @mikeisaac. Forums: Hacker News
| Zack Abrams / The Block: |
Pump.fun raised $500M via a sale of PUMP tokens, which sold out in 12 minutes; it offered 12.5% of its total token supply at a fully diluted valuation of $4B — - Memecoin launchpad Pump.fun raised $600 million through its public sale of PUMP tokens, which fully sold out in just 12 minutes.
More: Bloomberg, CoinDesk, The Crypto Times, Crypto Briefing, The Crypto Basic, and CryptoSlate. Bluesky: @hunterwalk.com
| Tripp Mickle / New York Times: |
Nvidia's rise after ChatGPT's release is reminiscent of dot-com era titans like Cisco and Juniper; Cisco's share price grew over 1000x between 1990 and 2000 — The A.I. chip maker reached the landmark before Apple and Microsoft, as its value rose more than tenfold after ChatGPT's release in late 2022.| Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg: |
Studios like Do Big are buying Roblox games for $1M+ in a thriving secondary market; Naavik: seven of the 15 highest-earning games in June have been acquired — Game service spawns a busy after market for the most-popular titles … It sold a few months later for more than $3 million.| Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Meta has completed a deal to acquire AI voice technology startup PlayAI, and the “entire PlayAI team” is set to join Meta next week, per an internal memo — The “entire PlayAI team” is set to join Meta next week, according to an internal memo that was reviewed by Bloomberg.
Google:
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Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini — Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator. Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.Sponsor Post
| Zach Vallese / CNBC: |
A New Hampshire court rejected TikTok's request to dismiss the state AG's suit accusing the company of using manipulative design features aimed at kids — A judge this week rejected TikTok's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by the state of New Hampshire accusing it of using manipulative design features aimed at children and teens.| The Economic Times: |
Analysis: YC picked just four Indian startups in 2024 vs. 66 in 2021, amid a growing trend of startups shifting their parent entities to India for domestic IPOs — Y Combinator's selection of Indian startups has decreased significantly. This decline is attributed to factors …
LinkedIn: Tanishka Dubey and Ramesh Loganathan
| Natalia Kniazhevich / Bloomberg: |
PitchBook: 27 VC-backed companies went public in the US in the first half of 2025, the smallest number in at least 10 years, raising a total of $44.4B — Venture capital-backed companies are on track for the fewest US initial public offerings in a decade, according to data provider PitchBook …
More: PitchBook
Sponsor Posts
Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini — Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator. Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini — Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator. Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here — Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more. Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here — Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more. Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Introducing Zia Hubs: An intelligent tool to extract information from raw enterprise data — The world is constantly evolving, and businesses are now continually generating vast amounts of data at multiple levels of the enterprise every day.
Introducing Zia Hubs: An intelligent tool to extract information from raw enterprise data — The world is constantly evolving, and businesses are now continually generating vast amounts of data at multiple levels of the enterprise every day.
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.
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
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Hard Fork:
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A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
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Newest
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
xAI apologizes for Grok's “horrific behavior” when it wrote antisemitic posts on July 8, and blames “an update to a code path upstream of the Grok bot”Find
New
Zack Abrams / The Block:
Pump.fun raised $500M via a sale of PUMP tokens, which sold out in 12 minutes; it offered 12.5% of its total token supply at a fully diluted valuation of $4BFind
60 minutes ago
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Belkin's move to brick Wemo devices highlights how little accountability IoT companies face when abandoning connected products customers paid forFind
2 hours ago
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Stanford study: LLMs struggle to respond appropriately to questions about delusions, suicide, and OCD, but AI could play valuable supportive roles to therapistsFind
4 hours ago
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Studios like Do Big are buying Roblox games for $1M+ in a thriving secondary market; Naavik: seven of the 15 highest-earning games in June have been acquiredFind
6 hours ago
SemiAnalysis:
A look at Meta's revamped GenAI strategy, as Mark Zuckerberg poaches top AI talent for the Superintelligence team with a typical offer of $200M over four yearsFind
11 hours ago
Zach Vallese / CNBC:
A New Hampshire court rejected TikTok's request to dismiss the state AG's suit accusing the company of using manipulative design features aimed at kidsFind
11 hours ago
From Mediagazer
New York Times:Lindsey Holden / Politico:
Bloomberg:
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| Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: |
More: The US Sun, The Verge, Android Police, PCMag, and PCWorld
Bluesky: @roberts-rants, @glynmoody, and @gigastacey
Mastodon: @acdha@code4lib.social, @funnymonkey@freeradical.zone, @fallenhitokiri@social …, and @kim_harding@mastodon.scot
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/hardware, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg: |
| Gregorio Sorgi / Politico: |
More: Financial Times, MarketWatch, Cryptopolitan, Politico, Reuters, and The European Union
Bluesky: @glynmoody, @davekeating.substack.com, @christianthiels, and @atchijov
Forums: r/EU_Economics, r/europeanunion, and r/worldnews
| MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: |
Earlier Picks
| Steve Newman / Second Thoughts: |
More: METR, Scripting News, The Register, PCMag, Business Insider, implicator.ai, Ace of Spades HQ, Hackaday, OSnews, TechCrunch, Inc.com, The Decoder, and PhoneArena
X: @metr_evals, @bethmaybarnes, @ruben_bloom, @thestalwart, @domenic, @bethmaybarnes, @johnsdvorak, @sadsciencee, @runekvist, @adamrodmanmd, and @bethmaybarnes
LinkedIn: Yonas Bekele, Adrian Booth, Chris Baker, Sara Kubik, Gerben Wierda, and Fedir Skitsko
Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/BetterOffline, r/programming, r/singularity, Lobsters, and Slashdot
| Marcus Mendes / 9to5Mac: |
More: India Today, PCMag, iPhone in Canada, nextpit, MacRumors, BGR, T3, PhoneArena, and arXiv.org
| Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: |
More: Associated Press, The Verge, The Intercept, CNBC, MacRumors, Windows Central, Gizmodo, Read Max, Business Insider, Neowin, Mashable, TechCrunch, WinBuzzer, Simon Willison on GitHub, and Pixel Envy
Bluesky: @andersen.buzz, @historyofthesecondworldwar …, and @jjvincent
X: @elonmusk, @jeremyphoward, @ramez, @simonw, @simonw, @builtbyvibes, @jeremyphoward, @bensand, @luke_metro, and @jeremyphoward
Forums: Hacker News, r/nottheonion, r/EnoughMuskSpam, r/LocalLLaMA, r/skeptic, r/ChatGPT, r/grok, r/singularity, and MacRumors Forums