Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
May 8, 2025, 11:55 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

OpenAI:
OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as CEO of Applications, reporting to Sam Altman, who says he will remain CEO and focus on research, compute, and safety  —  Sam shared this message with the company earlier today:  —  Hi everyone - I have some exciting news to share.
Fidji Simo / Instacart Corporate Blog:
Instacart CEO Fidji Simo tells employees that she is leaving in a couple of months, the new CEO will be a management team member, and she will stay on as Chair  —  Instacart CEO and Chair Fidji Simo shared the email below with Instacart employees this evening.  You can read it in full here:
Bloomberg:
Source: Fidji Simo will oversee several OpenAI executives who previously reported to Altman, including COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar, and CPO Kevin Weil
David Wallace-Wells / New York Times:
Q&A with Bill Gates on closing the Gates Foundation on December 31, 2045, donating ~$200B, President Trump, Elon Musk, AI drug discovery, AI advances, and more  —  Today the Gates Foundation celebrates its 25th anniversary by announcing its plans to close up shop.
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Nintendo projects Switch 2 sales will reach 15M units for the fiscal year ending March 2026, below 16.8M est., and ~$2.2B in annual operating profit, below est.  —  What Trump's ‘Golden Dome’ Can Learn From Israeli Air Defenses  —  An exclusive look at what Israel's upgraded air defense system can …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Hackers defaced the LockBit ransomware gang's dark web affiliate panels, linking to a MySQL database dump, including 59,975 BTC addresses and 4,442 victim chats  —  The LockBit ransomware gang has suffered a data breach after its dark web affiliate panels were defaced and replaced with a message linking to a MySQL database dump.
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Rockstar says its second Grand Theft Auto VI trailer was “captured entirely in-game from a PlayStation 5, comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes”  —  The trailer was also captured entirely in-game from a PS5. … A second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI had a surprise drop this week …
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Coinbase agrees to acquire Dubai-based Deribit, the world's biggest trading platform for BTC and ETH options, for ~$2.9B, split as $700M in cash and 11M shares  —  Deribit is the world's biggest trading platform for bitcoin options  —  Coinbase Global has agreed to acquire Deribit …
Bloomberg:
The US Commerce Department says it will rescind the Biden-era “AI diffusion rule” to limit AI chip exports from May 15, replacing it “with a much simpler rule”  —  The Trump administration plans to rescind Biden-era AI chip curbs as part of a broader effort …
Bloomberg:
Analysis: ~66% of US data center projects built or in development since 2022 are in areas with high water stress, with five states having 72% of new facilities  —  Each time you ask an AI chatbot to summarize a lengthy legal document or conjure up a cartoon squirrel wearing glasses …
Victoria Kennedy / Eurogamer.net:
Palworld developer Pocketpair says a 2024 update was due to “ongoing litigation” and a new update is “yet another compromise”, as it disputes Nintendo's claims  —  “We... assert the invalidity of the patents in question.”  —  Palworld developer Pocketpair has released …
The Keyword:
Google says it is continuing to see “overall query growth in Search”, including “an increase in total queries coming from Apple's devices and platforms”  —  We continue to see overall query growth in Search.  That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple's devices and platforms.
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
An interview with curl project founder Daniel Stenberg, who likens “AI slop” in HackerOne submissions to a DDoS attack, echoing Seth Larson and others' concerns  —  “A threshold has been reached.  We are effectively being DDoSed.  If we could, we would charge them for this waste of our time …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Eddy Cue's disclosure of Apple's plan to shift its browser to AI systems had a clear goal: downplaying the importance of Apple's existing Google Search deal  —  Apple Inc. made an unusual pitch in its bid to save a lucrative search partnership with Alphabet Inc.'s Google …
Bloomberg:
Filing: Apple seeks to pause part of the April 30 Epic v. Apple US court order that blocks it from charging commissions on transactions outside the App Store  —  The company is appealing a federal judge's ruling last week in its long-running fight with Epic Games Inc. that the iPhone maker failed …
Wired:
Sources: OpenAI employees met with the US FDA and two DOGE associates multiple times in recent weeks to discuss cderGPT, a project likely around drug evaluation  —  High-ranking OpenAI employees have met with the FDA multiple times in recent weeks to discuss AI and a project called cderGPT.
More: The Decoder, WinBuzzer, and Reuters
Bluesky: @thinkyparts, @mckinneykelsey, and @ryanhatesthis.  LinkedIn: Rafael Rosengarten.  Forums: r/politics
Washington Post:
Sources: DOGE plans to build a centralized database with troves of personal info about millions of US residents, violating or disregarding security protocols
Danny Park / The Block:
The US OCC says banks can buy and sell customers' crypto assets on their behalf and can outsource crypto custody and trade execution services to third parties  —  - The OCC clarified that national banks are permitted to execute cryptocurrency buy and sell orders on behalf of their customers.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic adds web search to its API, starting at $10 per 1,000 searches, giving Claude 3.7 Sonnet, 3.5 Sonnet, and 3.5 Haiku access to up-to-date information  —  Anthropic is launching a new API that allows its Claude AI models to search across the web.  Developers using it can build Claude-powered apps …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Stripe announces an AI foundation model for payments, plans for stablecoin-powered accounts, a new Orchestration offering, a recent Nvidia migration, and more  —  Fintech giant Stripe announced Wednesday a slew of new product launches at its annual Stripe Sessions user event.
Reuters:
TPG and Corpay agree to acquire North Carolina-based payment processing software provider AvidXchange for $2.2B, with Corpay investing ~$500M for a 33% stake  —  Global alternative asset manager TPG (TPG.O) will partner with Corpay (CPAY.N) to buy payments solutions provider AvidXchange …
Maggie Harrison / Futurism:
How “AI slop farmer” Jesse Cunningham targets older women on Pinterest and Facebook with AI-generated copies of content from real bloggers and creators  —  “It's just a bunch of fraud.”  —  Last year, Jesse Cunningham — a self-described “SEO specialist who leverages the power …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Automate CRM data hygiene with ETL pipelines  —  A CRM is only as useful as the data inside it.Even the most expensive automation or workflows deliver the wrong results when the CRM is filled with duplicates and inconsistent values.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
 Synthesia's Victor Riparbelli: Using AI To Replace Boring PowerPoints With Interactive Video
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
 The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
 Max Junestrand from Legora
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Big Technology Podcast:
 AI's Unpopularity + Competing With ChatGPT — With Olivia Moore
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Matt Belloni on the Oscars, the Ellisons, and Hollywood's Next Chapter
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:55 AM ET, May 8, 2025.

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.

From Mediagazer

Scott Nover / Washington Post:
Sources: the DOD barred press photographers from briefings on the Iran conflict after they published photos of Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed “unflattering”

Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:
Google's AI Futures Fund invests $1M into Animaj, an AI animation studio focused on making high-quality videos for children on YouTube

Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:
A look at Newpress, a production company and community platform for “creator journalists”, which helps them build shows on platforms including YouTube

More News

Earlier Picks

Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
WisdomAI, which offers AI-powered data analytics from structured, unstructured, and “dirty” data, launches with a $23M seed led by Coatue Ventures
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Samsung plans to debut the Galaxy S25 Edge at a May 12 virtual event on YouTube at 8pm ET, and those who reserve the super-slim device now will get a $50 credit
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Arm reports Q4 revenue up 34% YoY to $1.24B, vs. $1.23B est., royalty revenue up 18% to $607M, and forecasts Q1 revenue below est.; ARM drops 8%+
Muyao Shen / Bloomberg:
Sources: Robinhood plans a blockchain-based platform to let retail investors in Europe trade US securities, and considered partnerships with Arbitrum and Solana
Washington Post:
Internal messages show how during trade negotiations, the US State Department pushed nations facing tariffs to clear regulatory hurdles for SpaceX's Starlink
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter