Techmeme
February 11, 2025, 12:25 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Investors led by Elon Musk make an unsolicited $97.4B bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, complicating Sam Altman's plans to convert to a for-profit  —  Unsolicited offer complicates Sam Altman's plans to convert OpenAI to a for-profit company — A consortium of investors led …
The Hill:
In response to the $97.4B OpenAI bid, Sam Altman says on X “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want”; Elon Musk replies “swindler”  —  OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman appeared to shut down a reported offer from an investor group led …
CNBC:
Investors behind the $97.4B OpenAI bid include xAI, Baron Capital, Valor, Atreides, Vy Capital, Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, and an investment vehicle led by Ari Emanuel  —  Elon Musk is leading a group of investors in offering to buy control of OpenAI for $97.4 billion, CNBC confirmed.
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Paris AI summit takeaways: Europe has regulation regrets, AI doomsayers have lost ground, and policymakers can't seem to grasp how soon powerful AI could arrive  —  At times, Kevin Roose writes, it feels like he is watching policymakers on horseback trying to install seatbelts on a passing Lamborghini.
Bloomberg:
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says DeepSeek's $5.6M training cost claim is “exaggerated and a little bit misleading” and a “fraction of the total cost”  —  DeepSeek Ramps Up Hiring for Arcane AI Field as Ambitions Swell  —  Mistral CEO Plans to Raise More Funds to Back AI Data Center
Matthew Garrahan / Financial Times:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Google brings NotebookLM Plus, its AI research assistant tier with higher usage limits, to Google One AI Premium subscribers, and debuts a 50% student discount  —  Google has expanded NotebookLM Plus, a paid version of its AI-based note-taking and research assistant, to individual users subscribed …
Reuters:
Sources: OpenAI is finalizing its first in-house chip's design in the next few months, to cut its Nvidia reliance, and plans to send it for fabrication at TSMC  —  OpenAI is pushing ahead on its plan to reduce its reliance on Nvidia (NVDA.O) for its chip supply by developing its first generation …
Bloomberg:
Sources: on February 7, DOGE staff gained access to all the CFPB's data systems, which hold potentially competitive info that may be useful to X's payments push  —  Government-efficiency team's initial ‘read-only’ access expanded quickly to encompass closely guarded data, internal emails say
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
An Alabama man pleads guilty in relation to the SIM-swap hack of the US SEC's X account, to falsely claim in January 2024 the agency had approved bitcoin ETFs  —  An Alabama man pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., in connection with last year's hack of the U.S. Securities …
Liam Dawe / GamingOnLinux:
Steam creates an ad documentation page highlighting its ban on forcing players to watch ads, saying “developers should not utilize paid ads as a business model”  —  Turns out this was actually already a rule that Valve had (thanks SteamDB).  It was listed on their Pricing page …

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Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
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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Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
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Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
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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Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Earlier Picks

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Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg: