Techmeme
August 4, 2025, 2:50 PM

Top News

Cloudflare:
Cloudflare says Perplexity uses stealth crawling techniques, like undeclared user agents and rotating IP addresses, to evade robots.txt rules and network blocks  —  We are observing stealth crawling behavior from Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine.  Although Perplexity initially crawls …
Bloomberg:
Amazon says it is closing its Wondery podcast studio and will break up its operations as part of a broad reorganization; a source says ~110 will lose their jobs  —  As podcasting becomes video-oriented, Amazon is shuffling Wondery into Audible and a new “creator services” team while cutting approximately 110 staff members
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Silicon Valley has shifted from Web 2.0 to a new “hard tech”, AI-dominated era with fewer perks and a more serious mood, as startups use San Francisco as a base  —  In a scene in HBO's “Silicon Valley” in 2014, a character who had just sold his idea to a fictional tech company …
Natallie Rocha / New York Times:
How 20-something CEOs like Cognition AI's Scott Wu, Cursor's Michael Truell, Cluely's Roy Lee, and Scale AI's Alexandr Wang are swarming San Francisco's AI boom  —  Some dropped out of M.I.T., Georgetown and Stanford.  Others decided not to go to college.  They all say they could not afford …
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Lyft partners with Baidu to launch autonomous vehicles in Germany and the UK in 2026, pending regulatory approval; Lyft will deploy Baidu's sixth-gen robotaxis  —  Lyft Inc. said it's partnering with China's Baidu Inc. to launch autonomous vehicles in Europe starting next year …
Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
Spotify says it is updating prices across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific; an example email had a €1/month rise  —  Spotify Technology SA shares gained in premarket trading after the company announced it's raising premium subscription prices across many markets outside the US.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
OpenAI says it will hit 700M weekly active users for ChatGPT this week, up from 500M in March and up 4x YoY, and has 5M paying business users, up from June's 3M  —  OpenAI is set to hit 700 million weekly active users for ChatGPT this week, up from 500 million in March …
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
CrowdStrike's 2025 Threat Hunting Report: 320+ investigations into North Korean operatives in remote IT jobs in the US, Europe, and elsewhere in the past year  —  Threat hunters saw North Korean operatives almost daily, reflecting a 220% year-over-year increase in activity, CrowdStrike said in a new report.
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
How the AI data center building boom could cause a financial crisis akin to 2008, including the rising use of short-term debt financing via private credit funds  —  This time let's think about a financial crisis before it happens.  —  The U.S. economic data for the last few months is looking decidedly meh.
Fred Lambert / Electrek:
Transcripts from the trial over a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash: Tesla withheld crash‑snapshot data and took years to admit it existed or was relevant to the case  —  Tesla was caught withholding data, lying about it, and misdirecting authorities in the wrongful death case involving Autopilot that it lost this week.
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
The UK Online Safety Act's approach to keeping children safe online has become a rallying point for the right in the UK and the US over alleged censorship  —  Farage accuses government of being ‘so below the belt’ as right wing doubles down on censorship claims  —  The UK's Online Safety Act has been greatly anticipated.
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Connecticut-based Amphenol plans to acquire North Carolina-based CommScope's broadband connectivity and cable unit for ~$10.5B, including debt, amid the AI boom  —  Maker of interconnect products is buying CommScope's broadband connectivity and cable unit  —  Amphenol said it would buy …
Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Google, OpenAI, Meta, and VCs are increasingly embracing the US military industrial complex, a major Silicon Valley cultural shift supported by President Trump  —  In a major shift, Google, OpenAI, Meta and venture capitalists — many of whom had once forsworn involvement in war — have embraced the military industrial complex.
Bluesky: @sheeraf

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Cliq 7.0: Built to keep work flowing  —  Work feels seamless when information is available when you need it, wherever you're working, and without extra clicks.  This year, our main goal was to cut through the noise …
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:
The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Nick Bostrom: Worries About AI Existential Risk Just Became More Concrete
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.
Training Data:
Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
OpenAI's Head of Design: This is the best time in history to be a designer | Ian Silber
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:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 2:50 PM ET, August 4, 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

Monique Mulima / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

George Osborne / Financial Times:
Lu Wang / Bloomberg: