Techmeme
July 31, 2025, 2:20 PM

Top News

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Figma opens at $85 on the NYSE, after selling shares at $33 in its IPO, hitting a ~$50B valuation, more than a year after Adobe's $20B failed acquisition  —  Figma's stock opened at $85 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, a day after the design software company sold shares at $33 in its IPO.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Trump signs an EO ending the de minimis exemption for packages worth $800 or less from all countries, after shuttering the loophole for goods from China in May  —  President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order ending the de minimis trade loophole for low-value packages shipped from all countries.
Google DeepMind:
Google DeepMind unveils AlphaEarth Foundations, an AI model that unifies petabytes of Earth observation data and helps scientists create detailed maps on demand  —  New AI model integrates petabytes of Earth observation data to generate a unified data representation that revolutionizes global mapping and monitoring
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Microsoft says Russia's Secret Blizzard hacking group is impersonating Kaspersky and leveraging Russian ISPs to spy on foreign embassies in Moscow  —  The FSB cyberespionage group known as Turla seems to have used its control of Russia's network infrastructure to meddle with web traffic …
RT Watson / The Block:
Tether reports Q2 net profit of $4.9B, a quarterly record, and says it held nearly $9B in bitcoin at the end of the quarter  —  - Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, said it registered a net profit of $4.9 billion, setting a new quarterly record.  The previous record was $4.5 billion, set in Q1 2024.
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Stack Overflow survey: 84% of developers use or plan to use AI tools in their workflow, up from 76% in 2024, and 33% trust AI accuracy, down from 43% in 2024  —  More developers than ever before are using AI tools to both assist and generate code.  —  While enterprise AI adoption accelerates …
Bloomberg:
The Trump administration says Apple, Google, OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, and 60+ companies have pledged to make data sharing seamless across health care systems  —  Leading US technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Anthropic, Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and OpenAI Inc. …
Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
OpenAI launches Stargate Norway, the first Stargate-branded initiative in Europe, to build a 230MW data center owned by a joint venture between Nscale and Aker  —  OpenAI has agreed to be an anchor customer for a new data center in Norway, the first European site for the artificial intelligence company's Stargate infrastructure effort.
Semafor:
Sources: Trump administration is reconsidering plans to replace the Biden-era AI export rules as part of a broader softening on chip controls targeting China  —  The Trump administration is easing off its tough-on-China approach to technology export controls as it searches for leverage …
Bloomberg:
Google loses its appeal of a judge's order requiring an overhaul of its app store policies in an antitrust case filed by Epic Games  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google lost its appeal of a judge's order requiring an overhaul of the technology giant's app store policies in an antitrust case filed by Fortnite-maker Epic Games Inc.
Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
iPhone exports to the US from India are currently exempt from Trump's latest 25% tariffs on India; India now accounts for 20%+ of global iPhone production  —  Apple Inc.'s iPhone exports to the US from India will remain untouched by President Donald Trump's latest 25% tariffs on the South Asian nation, for now.
New York Times:
A look at Big Tech's AI talent wars with massive compensation packages; sources: Meta told potential hires they would be allotted 30K GPUs for their AI research  —  Over the summer, Matt Deitke got a phone call from Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive.  —  Mr. Zuckerberg wanted Mr. Deitke …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Anaconda, which provides AI development tools for developers and data scientists, raised $150M+ led by Insight Partners, source says at a $1.5B valuation  —  Artificial intelligence startup Anaconda Inc. has raised a new funding round that values the company at $1.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Dylan Butts / CNBC:
Samsung reports Q1 revenue up 0.7% YoY to $53.7B, vs. $53.6B est., operating profit down 55% YoY to $3.4B, vs. $3.8B est., with chips operating profit down ~94%  —  Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a second-quarter operating profit of 4.7 trillion Korean won, missing expectations …
CNBC:
Microsoft became the second company to surpass $4T in market cap, joining Nvidia, after its stock jumped 5%+ on better-than-expected results  —  The $4 trillion club has a second member.  —  Microsoft shares climbed more than 5% Thursday following a better-than-expected earnings report …
Microsoft:
Financial Times:
How AI has transformed data center design, with concerns about overspending on AI infrastructure, sparked by DeepSeek, fading amid the ongoing building frenzy  —  The quest for superintelligence is spurring a data centre boom — but critics question the cost, environmental impact and whether it is all needed
Sri Muppidi / The Information:
Source: OpenAI's monthly revenue grew ~2x in the first seven months of 2025, hitting $12B in annualized revenue; the company's 2025 revenue projection is $12.7B  —  OpenAI roughly doubled its revenue in the first seven months of the year, reaching $12 billion in annualized revenue, according to a person who spoke to OpenAI executives.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Stable, which is building a new Layer 1 blockchain for stablecoins, raised a $28M seed co-led by Bitfinex and Hack VC  —  - Stable has raised $28 million in a seed round co-led by Bitfinex and Hack VC to build a Tether-focused Layer 1 blockchain for payments.
More: FinSMEs, NFTgators, and CoinDesk
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta expects 2025 capital expenditures to be between $66B and $72B, raising the low end of the company's previous estimate of $64B to $72B  —  Meta shares jumped 10% after the company reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat on revenue.  Here's how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Meta:
Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg:
Fleet management software provider Motive raises $150M led by Kleiner Perkins; the company reportedly could go public by the end of 2025  —  Fleet tracking and driver safety startup Motive Technologies Inc. raised $150 million from a private funding round led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Shein's net income rose to over $400M, revenue rose to ~$10B in Q1, driving profit margins to ~5%, driven by consumer purchases ahead of US tariffs  —  Shein Group Ltd.'s net income rose to over $400 million and revenue was almost $10 billion in the first quarter as consumers snapped …
Michael Kan / PCMag:
Mark Zuckerberg says “We'll need to be rigorous about mitigating” the new risks raised by superintelligence and “careful about what we choose to open source”  —  Meta's CEO says developing superintelligent AI is ‘now in sight.’ But it won't be open source like Llama …

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Earlier Picks

Michael Bodley / PitchBook: