Techmeme: A profile of Chess.com, which has popularized online chess among pro athletes, as CEO Erik Allebest says the site has over $100M in annual revenue and 35M MAUs (Ira Boudway/Bloomberg)

Top News

How Chinese AI companies bypass US chip restrictions by transporting hard drives with AI training data to Malaysian data centers housing advanced Nvidia chips — Engineers carry data to countries where Nvidia chips are available, frustrating Washington's aims

More: Tom's Hardware and Cryptopolitan

Mastodon: @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org. Forums: Slashdot

Reuters:

Sources: Google, Scale AI's largest customer, plans to cut ties with the company after the Meta deal; Microsoft, OpenAI, and xAI also plan to step back — Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google, the largest customer of Scale AI, plans to cut ties with Scale after news broke that rival Meta (META.O) …

Kate Clark / Bloomberg:

Source: Accel, which owns 18.5% of Scale AI after investing a total of ~$350M, expects to gain over $2.5B from Meta's $14.3B investment in the startup

More: Scale AI, TechCrunch, Accel, Verdict, and MarketWatch

X: @accel, @daniel_levine, @everettrandle, and @garrytan

Matt O'Brien / Associated Press:

Harvard releases Institutional Books 1.0, a dataset for AI researchers with 242B tokens, from 394M scanned pages and 983K public domain books in 254 languages — Everything ever said on the internet was just the start of teaching artificial intelligence about humanity.

More: Institutional Books on Hugging Face, Institutional Data Initiative, Institutional Data Initiative, Institutional Books on Hugging Face, Institutional Books on Hugging Face, Institutional Data Initiative on GitHub, and arXiv.org

Bluesky: @jmberger.com and @tedunderwood.me. X: @instdin

LinkedIn: Matt O'Brien and Institutional Data Initiative …

Aarian Marshall / Wired:

Waymo temporarily limits service in SF, Austin, and Atlanta, and stops service in LA, as US cities prepare for protests against federal immigration policies — A week after five robot cars were burned in Los Angeles, the Google sister company isn't taking risks.

More: PCMag, San Francisco Chronicle, and Texas Public Radio

Forums: r/waymo and r/sanfrancisco

Chris Metinko / Axios:

Horizon3.ai, whose AI-based penetration testing platform NodeZero helps find and exploit attack paths in production systems, raised a $100M Series D led by NEA — Autonomous security startup Horizon3.ai locked up a $100 million Series D led by NEA, co-founder and CEO Snehal Antani tells Axios Pro.

More: Business Wire, VC News Daily, FinSMEs, FinTech Global, The Stack, and SiliconANGLE

LinkedIn: Horizon3.ai and Ilya Kirnos

Ira Boudway / Bloomberg:

A profile of Chess.com, which has popularized online chess among pro athletes, as CEO Erik Allebest says the site has over $100M in annual revenue and 35M MAUs — Social media is a minefield for pro sports players. But online chess offers rankings, instant analysis, wholesome interactions and few trolls.

Emma Roth / The Verge:

Google says it is testing Audio Overviews for certain Search queries, available for Labs users in English in the US — If you opt into the test, you'll see the option to generate an Audio Overview based on some of your searches. … Google is rolling out a test that puts its AI-powered Audio Overviews …

Samantha Stokes / Business Insider:

A look at 10 AI agent startups from YC's first-ever spring Demo Day; the batch included 144 companies, 70 of which focused on agentic AI — - Y Combinator's spring 2025 batch featured 70 startups focused on agentic AI. — The intensive, three-month accelerator program invests $500,000 in each selected startup.

More: Forbes and TechCrunch. Forums: Hacker News

Austin Carr / Bloomberg:

As the world moves toward digital artificiality, Airbnb's redesign and Apple's Liquid Glass UI bring back skeuomorphism and dimensionality to digital interfaces — From Airbnb's new app icons to Apple's “Liquid Glass” design, skeuomorphism is back and everything in the digital world has dimensionality again.

Threads: @asallen. X: @austincarr, @asallen, and @austincarr. Forums: r/technology

Rachyl Jones / Semafor:

AIM Intelligent Machines, which retrofits heavy construction equipment to operate autonomously, raised $50M from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and others — THE SCOOP — Tech startup AIM Intelligent Machines, which retrofits heavy construction equipment to operate autonomously …

More: AIM Intelligent Machines, GeekWire, Seattle Business Journal, and 425 Business

X: @scale_earth and @khoslaventures. LinkedIn: AIM

Sean Michael Kerner / Network World:

The Ultra Ethernet Consortium, whose members include AMD, Cisco, HPE, and Intel, publishes its 1.0 specification for enhancing Ethernet standards for AI and HPC — The UEC 1.0 specification includes a modern RDMA approach, new transport protocols, and congestion control mechanisms designed for AI and HPC requirements.

More: SemiAnalysis, Tom's Hardware, Ultra Ethernet Consortium, Phoronix, Ultra Ethernet Consortium, and Ultra Ethernet Consortium. X: @techjournalist

Wall Street Journal:

23andMe says TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit backed by Anne Wojcicki, is the new buyer for the company's assets, offering $305M and topping Regeneron's bid — Regeneron is backing away from buying the DNA-testing company after a nonprofit controlled by co-founder Wojcicki made a higher bid

More: CNBC, 23andMe, Inc., New York Times, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, MarketWatch, Engadget, The Verge, San Francisco Business Times, and STAT

X: @23andme and @rolfewinkler

LinkedIn: Patrick Short and Anne Wojcicki. Forums: Hacker News

Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:

Sources: the US DOJ is reviewing whether Google's planned $32B acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz would illegally limit competition in the market — Justice Department antitrust enforcers are reviewing whether Google's planned $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz Inc …

More: Reuters and Cryptopolitan

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Oracle stock jumped 24% this week, its best performance since 2001, and is up 29% in 2025, vs. Nasdaq's 1%, after the company reported cloud momentum — Oracle shares enjoyed their best week since 2001 as Wall Street cheered a strong earnings report and bullish comments on the company's prospects in cloud computing.

More: Cryptopolitan and Blockchain.News. Bluesky: @quinnypig.com

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Saam Motamedi from Greylock Partners

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Invest Like the Best:

Henry Ellenbogen - Man Versus Machine

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Grit:

How Evan Spiegel Is Building the Future of Computing

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Acquired:

10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)

Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.

Subscribe to Acquired.

Lenny's Podcast:

Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)

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.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

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 9:40 AM ET, June 14, 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.