The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• AI researcher Mikita Balesni says he believes OpenAI fired him, Tomek Korbak, and Jasmine Wang for "prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI" (Mikita Balesni/@balesni) [29d]
• SpaceX agrees to buy a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio to help Starlink "become a major mobile carrier"; AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon fall 6%+ after hours (Bloomberg) [29d]
• USV raised $900M, including a $500M early-stage fund, up from $275M in 2024, cuts general partnership to four investors, and aims to lead more AI rounds (Bloomberg) [29d]
• Sources: Apple is planning a second launch this month, scheduled on or around October 27, to introduce its first touch-screen MacBook, a new iPad mini, and more (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Anthropic launches OSS Scanner, a free opt-in vulnerability scanner for critical open-source projects; its AI-generated reports are sent without human review (Anthropic) [29d]
• Filing: the FTC is probing Block over inadequate customer service for frozen or deactivated Square accounts amid staffing cuts, following 1,500+ complaints (Leah Nylen/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Anthropic launches the Critical Infrastructure Defense Program to provide AI models, threat research, and on-site support, starting with CrowdStrike and others (Sam Sabin/Axios) [29d]
• Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave, and other AI stocks fell after a report that OpenAI's annualized revenue at September's end was $20B less than previously reported (CNBC) [29d]
• Sources: Apple promotes Carson Oliver to VP of the App Store and names Steve Smith as M&A chief, replacing Adrian Perica, who keeps iCloud, Fitness+, and News (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Sources: Firmus is set to postpone its IPO and is weighing a private funding round instead, as some investors raised concerns over its pricing strategy (Bloomberg) [29d]
• Anthropic updates its usage policy to ban "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward Claude, ending chats as the primary enforcement mechanism (Hayden Field/The Verge) [29d]
• Trump says the WH considers as "THE ENEMY" anyone who uses the term Artificial Intelligence, not "the highly accepted" and "more accurate" Super Intelligence (Donald J. Trump/@realDonaldTrump ...) [29d]
• Docs: OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was nearing $50B at the end of September, well below the $70B reported by media based on investor docs (Financial Times) [29d]
• AI hardware startup Natura unveils Interface, a $99 smart ring that connects to AI agents and apps, including Muse, Instinct, Claude, Grokbot, and ChatGPT (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch) [29d]
• Arena, which develops the popular AI model leaderboard, raised $200M at a $3.1B valuation, up from $1.7B in January, and launches an Alignment Index (Rachel Metz/Bloomberg) [29d]
• GlobalFoundries signs a five-year, $2B deal to provide silicon interposer production capacity to TSMC, manufactured at GlobalFoundries' New York facility (Ian King/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Apple announces a special event, "Welcome home", for October 13 at 9AM ET in New York City (Ryan Christoffel/9to5Mac) [29d]
• Hone, founded by former OpenAI and Cognition staffers to create AI agents that can help run a business, raised a $60M seed at a $285M valuation (Bloomberg) [29d]
• Sources: the IPO of Nvidia-backed data center provider Firmus is uncertain after failing to attract adequate support, underscoring concerns over AI funding (Bloomberg) [29d]
• The US suspends Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, and others from a program that lets skilled foreign workers gain permanent residency, citing alleged fraud (Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff/Reuters) [29d]
• Gallatin AI, which uses AI to digitize and streamline military logistics data, raised a $50M Series A, bringing its total funding to $70M (Colin Demarest/Axios) [29d]
• European venture funding rose 77% YoY to $25B in Q3, the region's strongest funding quarter in four years, representing 16% of global VC and led by AI startups (Gené Teare/Crunchbase News) [29d]
• Google debuts Google AI Edge Foresight, a local macOS note-taking app for meetings that uses its 740M-parameter EmbeddingGemma 2 model and Gemma 4 assistant (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [29d]
• OpenAI disrupts a Russian influence campaign tied to the Politology network that targeted schools, media, and foreign officials, and gives it a 5/6 impact score (Kevin Collier/NBC News) [29d]
• Google Cloud unveils the Gemini agent to handle multi-day enterprise workflows across Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack, with support for multiple AI models (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat) [29d]
• Amazon retires the Fire brand for tablets after 15 years, replacing it with Alexa Tablets that run Android and ship on October 14, including the $499 12 Pro (David Pierce/The Verge) [29d]
• AI retail trading agent startup Catalyst raised a $30M seed led by Sequoia and says a pilot generated hundreds of millions in trading volume over two weeks (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune) [29d]
• Drones struck a data center owned by Russia's Yandex in the town of Sasovo, marking the first major attack on a Russian data hub since the Ukraine war began (Reuters) [29d]
• Spotify and Joe Rogan renew their multiyear licensing and ad sales deal; sources say the terms are similar to Rogan's last deal, worth $250M, signed in 2024 (Anne Steele/Wall Street Journal) [29d]
• Xbox launches XP, a division to manage four non-gaming "investment areas": Xbox Pictures for film and TV, Xbox Products, Xbox Places, and Xbox Partnerships (The Verge) [29d]
• Analysis: the hacker who targeted South Korean banks is likely Chinese-speaking, financially motivated, and used LLMs and open-source Chinese agentic tool ARTEX (Ashley Campion/CrowdStrike) [29d]
• Quantum startup Oratomic raised a $475M Series B at a $5.4B valuation, up from $1.5B after raising a $300M Series A in July, taking its total funding to $775M (Isabelle Bousquette/Wall Street Journal) [29d]
• Analysis: planned and active data center investments in Finland surpass €67B, driven by AI demand, cool climate conditions, and renewable energy access (Kirsi Heikel/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Huawei says it aims to increase its overseas smartphone market share and expand HarmonyOS globally within one to three years, as Huawei-powered EV sales slow (CNBC) [29d]
• The US Federal Reserve's September meeting shows officials are increasingly citing surging AI investments, not tariffs, as the driver of rising goods inflation (Steve Thompson/Washington Post) [29d]
• India's Global Capability Centers, which employ 2.4M people across companies like JPMorgan, are automating entry-level tasks and hiring far fewer graduates (Bloomberg) [29d]
• ICANN receives 1,615 TLD applications from 481 applicants; Meta, OpenAI, and eight others applied for .agent, seven companies applied for .agi, and six for .asi (David Pierce/The Verge) [29d]
• UK-based quantum computing startup Universal Quantum raised a $100M+ Series A led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures to expand research hubs in Germany and Singapore (Mark Bergen/Bloomberg) [29d]
• Manus' parent Butterfly Effect says it raised $500M+, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, in its first funding since Meta was forced to unwind its Manus buyout (Anniek Bao/CNBC) [29d]
• A profile of Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble, who helped diversify its GPS product lines and grew annual revenue from $2.6B in 2013 to a record $7.2B last year (Brent Crane/Bloomberg) [29d]
• The Association for Human Mathematics says OpenAI's new math documents show power, not scholarship, and urges mathematicians to stop working with the company (AHM) [29d]
• A look at Emeryville, CA-based Atomic Machines, which is training AI on materials and designs to revamp how microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are built (Cade Metz/New York Times) [29d]
• SemiAnalysis: China has 24 GW of operational compute capacity and another 50 GW planned or under construction, compared to 56 GW operational in the US (Financial Times) [29d]
• A theoretical computer scientist, citing sources, says AI labs have quietly started probing whether their models can break important cryptographic protocols (Scott Aaronson/Shtetl-Optimized) [29d]
• Vitalik Buterin says "we should take the risks to cryptography from AI-accelerated math seriously", backing a "bunker mode" call for the blockchain industry (Felix Ng/Cointelegraph) [29d]
• German search engine Ecosia, used by government services, ditches Mistral for open-source models, including Chinese ones, citing Mistral's disappointing quality (Politico) [29d]
• Filing: Shanghai-based AI chipmaker Biren raises ~$515M in a new share sale; Biren's Hong Kong-listed stock is down 50%+ from a June peak but up ~70% YTD (Bloomberg) [29d]
• Elon Musk claims "certain oligarchs" are stalling Starlink's India launch to protect a "monopolistic chokehold"; SpaceX signed MOUs with Jio and Airtel in 2025 (Priyanka Salve/CNBC) [29d]
• Sources: Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug discovery startup spun out of Google DeepMind, is in early talks to raise funds at a valuation of at least $40B (Bloomberg) [29d]
• Source: Nvidia considered a last-minute OpenRouter bid, telling its leadership it was prepared to make a generous offer, but OpenRouter didn't want to wait (The Information) [30d]
• OpenRouter: the share of business spending between OpenAI and Anthropic models was roughly even in September, vs. Anthropic commanding a 75% share in January (Angel Au-Yeung/Wall Street Journal) [30d]
• Unsealed docs: in its lawsuit, New York alleges TikTok gave thousands of users, including youth, non-functional safety features as part of placebo experiments (Diana Novak Jones/Reuters) [30d]
• Keyu Tian, a former ByteDance intern, raised ~$30M from 5Y and IDG for his unnamed AI lab that focuses on building world models, at a $200M post-money valuation (Bloomberg) [30d]
• Mecka, which collects human motion data to train humanoid robots, raised a $60M Series B led by Sequoia, with participation from Nvidia, M12, and others (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch) [30d]
• Letter: three fired OpenAI researchers urge AI labs to halt work that could impair AI monitoring and say their firings are "chilling those who remain at OpenAI" (Maxwell Zeff/Wall Street Journal) [30d]