Techmeme
June 21, 2025, 9:50 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple execs have held internal discussions about bidding for, or partnering with, Perplexity, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and tech  —  Apple Inc. executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI …
Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
A profile of Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang, whose ties to influential people in the AI industry and the GOP could give Meta leverage over its competitors  —  Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang is such an enthusiastic networker that his former roommate — OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman …
Bloomberg:
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Cluely, which wants to help users “cheat on everything”, including job interviews and exams, raised a $15M Series A led by a16z, two months after a $5.3M seed  —  Cluely, a startup that claims to help users “cheat” on job interviews, exams, and sales calls, has raised …
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Insurance giant Aflac says a cybercrime group breached its systems and may have stolen data; source: the attack bears the hallmarks of Scattered Spider  —  Insurance company Aflac said a “sophisticated cybercrime group” breached its systems and may have stolen data.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Cloudflare says it mitigated a record-breaking 7.3Tbps DDoS attack in mid-May, which delivered 37.4TB of junk traffic to the target in just 45 seconds  —  Large-scale attacks designed to bring down Internet services by sending them more traffic than they can process keep getting bigger …
New York Times:
Microsoft suspending an ICC judge's email account raised alarms across EU about how dependent its governments, businesses, and citizens are on US tech companies  —  To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently suspended the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor …
Financial Times:
Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab raised $2B led by a16z at a $10B valuation; Murati will hold board voting rights that outweigh all other directors  —  Six-month-old secretive AI start-up in one of the largest initial funding rounds in Silicon Valley's history
Ina Fried / Axios:
Anthropic's test of 16 top AI models from OpenAI and others found that, in some cases, they resorted to malicious behavior to avoid replacement or achieve goals  —  Large language models across the AI industry are increasingly willing to evade safeguards, resort to deception and even attempt …
South China Morning Post:
How Huawei has remained resilient in the face of US sanctions; Mizuho: about 700,000 units of Huawei's Ascend 910 series are expected to ship in 2025  —  Huawei is expected to ship about 700,000 Ascend AI processors in 2025, according to Mizuho estimates  —  By Ann Caoin Shanghai and Wency Chenin Shanghai

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Earlier Picks

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Wall Street Journal:
Alex Heath / The Verge: