Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors
Techmeme
September 21, 2025, 10:55 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Karoline Leavitt / @presssec:
White House Press Secretary says the $100K H-1B fee is not an annual fee and it is a “one-time fee that applies only to the petition” in the upcoming lottery  —  To be clear: 1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It's a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. 2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the
Bloomberg:
Trump administration's $100,000 H-1B fee threatens India's $280B IT services sector, which heavily relies on H-1B visas to deploy engineers to US client sites
Yun Li / CNBC:
Memos: Amazon, which has the most H-1B staff at 14K+, Google, and Microsoft tell H-1B visa holders to return to the US before September 21 and avoid travel
Ben Berkowitz / Axios:
White House says the $100K H-1B fee will not apply to renewals or existing H-1B holders re-entering the US, only to future applicants in the February lottery
Erin Doherty / CNBC:
Trump says Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch may be involved in the ownership group for TikTok US, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison will also likely be part of the group  —  President Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan …
Nikita Ostrovsky / Time:
UK-based startup Mantic ranked #8 in the Metaculus forecasting cup that asks entrants to predict 60 geopolitical events, the first time an AI made the top 10  —  Every three months, participants in the Metaculus forecasting cup try to predict the future for a prize pot of about $5,000.
More: The Guardian.  X: @_mantic_ai, @tshevl, @_mantic_ai, and @_mantic_ai.  LinkedIn: Anthony Vassalo.  Forums: r/singularity
Naoki Watanabe / Nikkei Asia:
OECD lists 1,300+ AI regulations, guidelines, and other policies worldwide as of September 2025, up ~30% since 2022, but international cooperation has stalled  —  NEW YORK — Artificial intelligence policies have proliferated worldwide over the past few years as the U.S. …
Reuters:
A look at life in online scam compounds run by Chinese gangs on the Myanmar-Thai border, with purported Thai immigration officials luring trafficking victims  —  SCAMMED INTO SCAMMING Across Southeast Asia, a multibillion-dollar fraud industry has emerged, staffed in part by victims of trafficking.
Vitalik Buterin / Vitalik Buterin's website:
Ethereum's “low-risk DeFi” applications like payments and savings could drive the chain's revenue in a similar way that search and ads sustain Google's business  —  Special thanks to Binji, Josh Rudolf, Haonan Li and Stani Kulechov for feedback and review.
Divsha Bhat / Rest of World:
A look at UAE-based Khazna, a real estate company that builds and rents out data centers and controls 70% of the country's operational data center capacity  —  UAE's largest data center operator Khazna is challenging Western assumptions while building regional dominance.
More: Trak.in
Bloomberg:
A profile of Derek Li, founder of China's top adaptive learning edtech Squirrel AI, whose business is fueled by the country's relentless academic pressure  —  Derek Li pulled his sons out of school to be taught by artificial intelligence.  Now he's betting the US is ready for machine-led learning.
Elizabeth Chamberlain / iFixit News:
iPhone Air teardown: clever use of space by placing the logic board above the 12.26 Wh battery, the same cell used in Apple's MagSafe Battery pack, and more  —  iPhone Air Teardown  —  To be honest, we were holding our breath for the iPhone Air.  Thinner usually means flimsier, harder to fix, and more glued-down parts.
Martin Arnold / Financial Times:
The UK FCA has improved its crypto registration process, reducing approval times and increasing acceptance rate after criticism it was too slow and restrictive  —  Regulators in Britain are facing calls to be more accommodating to the fast-growing sector  —  The UK financial watchdog …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Labels that build themselves: Simplified Label Automation in Zoho Writer  —  Anyone who ships every day knows this feeling.  Forty orders, each with a different number of items, and every item needs its own label.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
 How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
 Would you let a robot do it?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Training Data:
 A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
 Can AI Keep Going After The Democrats' Big Win? — With Teddy Schleifer
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.
Machine Gods:
 Crypto's Biggest Heist Ever + The Spy Who Loved Nvidia + Hacktober's Unsolved Mysteries
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Barry Diller on Big Bets, AI, and Knowing When to Walk Away
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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:55 PM ET, September 21, 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.

From Mediagazer

Salon:
Salon, launched in 1995 to cover politics, culture, and more, says it is closing: “business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly”

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
Nexstar reports Q3 net income up 285% YoY to $250M and net revenue up 78% YoY to $2.1B, as Q3 political ads brought in $317M; results include Tegna numbers

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
How Democrats' midterm wins may affect Hollywood and media: uncertainty over federal tax incentive bill, greater FCC oversight, restoring CPB funding, and more

More News

Earlier Picks

Phoebe Liu / Forbes:
A profile of Edwin Chen, the CEO of Surge AI, a Scale AI rival that had $1.2B revenue in 2024, is profitable, and is reportedly raising $1B at a $30B valuation
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter