Techmeme
July 11, 2025, 4:40 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: xAI prepares a new fundraising round, its third in two months, targeting a valuation of $170B to $200B, up 10x from its May 2024 valuation of $18B  —  Grok chatbot maker in early talks with investors to boost its value as much as 10 times from last year
Steve Newman / Second Thoughts:
METR study: experienced open-source developers using Cursor, Claude, and other AI tools were 19% slower to complete tasks, despite thinking they were 20% faster  —  Study Shows That Even Experienced Developers Dramatically Overestimate Gains  —  The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Tests reveal that Grok 4 seems to search for Elon Musk's views online when asked about sensitive topics, and its answers tend to align with Musk's opinions  —  During xAI's launch of Grok 4 on Wednesday night, Elon Musk said — while live-streaming the event on his social media platform …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
When asked “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer only.”, Grok 4 searches for Musk's views, but only if “you” is in the query  —  If you ask the new Grok 4 for opinions on controversial questions, it will sometimes run a search to find …
Politico:
Reuters:
Chinese startup Moonshot AI releases Kimi K2, an open-weight model that the company says has enhanced coding capabilities and excels at general agent tasks  —  Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI released a new open-source AI model on Friday, joining a wave of similar releases …
Mike Rogoway / Oregonian:
Recording: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan told staff that Intel is “not in the top 10 semiconductor companies” and it is “too late” to catch Nvidia in AI training  —  New CEO Lip-Bu Tan told employees this week that he doesn't consider Intel among the leading chip companies …
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Goldman Sachs CTO Marco Argenti says the bank will “start augmenting our workforce with Devin”, Cognition's AI software engineer, as Wall Street firms adopt AI  —  The newest hire at Goldman Sachs isn't human.  —  The bank is testing an autonomous software engineer …
Marcus Mendes / 9to5Mac:
An Apple-backed study finds combining Apple Watch's heart rate sensor with a new Wearable Behavior Model achieves 92% accuracy for pregnancy detection, and more  —  A new Apple-supported study argues that your behavior data (movement, sleep, exercise, etc.) can often be a stronger health signal …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
HMD says it will “scale back” US operations, citing “a challenging geopolitical and economic environment”, and appears to have stopped US sales of Nokia devices  —  Even Barbie couldn't save it. … HMD Global, the company best known for licensing the Nokia brand …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Binance wrote the smart contract for USD1, a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty, and promoted it to its 275M users, before CZ sought a pardon  —  The exchange has been a coder, a promoter and an early adopter for World Liberty Financial's stablecoin, people familiar with the matter say.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Jio Platforms debuts JioPC, a cloud PC service offered via its set-top box; Counterpoint: 70% of Indian households have a TV, but only 15% of them own a PC  —  Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has launched a virtual desktop service for set-top box users.
Ange Lavoipierre / ABC:
At the end of June, Australia quietly introduced rules forcing search engine companies such as Google and Microsoft to check the ages of logged-in users  —  In short:  —  Search engines are in line for the same age assurance technology behind the teen social media ban.

Sponsor Posts

Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Soxton:
AI-powered law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Zoho:
Event-driven document automation using webhooks in Zoho Writer  —  Instantly generate and send documents based on triggers from any form builder, business app, or automation workflow.We are excited …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
How Odd Lots' Joe Weisenthal Turned Curiosity Into a Career, and a Hit Podcast
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.
Access:
OpenAI's Fidji Simo on why ads are coming to ChatGPT
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Invest Like the Best:
Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz - Inside 3G Capital
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:
The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
The rise of the professional vibe coder (a new AI-era job) | Lazar Jovanovic (Professional Vibe Coder)
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:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:40 PM ET, July 11, 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.

More News

Daryna Antoniuk / The Record:
Samantha Subin / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg: