Techmeme
September 30, 2025, 9:55 AM

Top News

Spotify:
Spotify says Daniel Ek will step down as CEO and become executive chairman in January 2026, and names CPTO Gustav Söderström and CBO Alex Norström as co-CEOs  —  The following press release went live on Business Wire earlier today.  —  Today, Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) …
Wall Street Journal:
Filing: YouTube will pay $24.5M to settle a 2021 Trump lawsuit over suspending his account after January 6, the last Big Tech company to settle his lawsuits  —  Google subsidiary is the last of three Big Tech companies to resolve personal litigation Trump filed against social-media platforms
Chase DiFeliciantonio / Politico:
California Governor Gavin Newsom signs SB 53 into law; the first-in-the-nation AI safety law requires AI companies to disclose their safety testing regimes  —  “California has proven that we can establish regulations to protect our communities while also ensuring that the growing AI industry continues to thrive.
Anthropic:
Anthropic debuts Claude Sonnet 4.5, saying it is the world's best coding model, the strongest for building complex agents, and its “most aligned” frontier model  —  Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the best coding model in the world.  It's the strongest model for building complex agents.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
OpenAI rolls out Instant Checkout to let users make single-item purchases directly in ChatGPT, starting with US Etsy sellers, and plans to add Shopify merchants  —  Arrows pointing outwards  —  OpenAI on Monday announced Instant Checkout, a new feature that allows users to buy products through …
Wired:
Sources: OpenAI plans a stand-alone social app powered by Sora 2, featuring a TikTok-like vertical feed with entirely AI-generated videos  —  The platform appears to closely resemble TikTok and is powered by Sora 2, OpenAI's latest video generation model.  —  OpenAI is preparing to launch …
Wall Street Journal:
Financial Times:
How Jared Kushner and Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban brokered the EA takeover using Kushner's deep Saudi Arabia ties; sources: Kushner's firm will own ~5% of EA  —  Trump's son-in-law used deep ties in Saudi Arabia to help pull off the largest buyout  —  Antoine Gara, James Fontanella-Khan …
Bloomberg:
Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:
Open-source Android app store F-Droid says Google's new requirement for all Android developers to verify their identity threatens to kill alternative app stores  —  Google plans to begin testing its recently announced verification scheme for Android developers in the coming weeks …
Bloomberg:
Analysis: US wholesale electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did in 2020 in areas located near significant data center activity  —  Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers.  That's being passed on to customers.
Mahfouz Zubaide / BBC:
NetBlocks: Afghanistan is experiencing a “total internet blackout” as the Taliban imposes a telecom shutdown; an official says it will last until further notice  —  Afghanistan's main airport is at a standstill as the country grapples with the fallout of a nationwide internet shutdown imposed by the Taliban government.
Bloomberg:
Education software maker Anthology files for bankruptcy, listing $1B to $10B in both assets and liabilities after its Blackboard merger debt became unmanageable  —  Anthology Inc., the Veritas Capital-backed education-software provider, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US …
Emily Forgash / Bloomberg:
Unit 42: suspected Chinese hackers, known as Phantom Taurus, have breached foreign ministers' email servers as part of a years-long effort targeting diplomats  —  Suspected Chinese hackers have breached email servers of foreign ministers as part of a years-long effort targeting the communications …
More: Unit 42
CNBC:
A US judge sentences Frank founder Charlie Javice to 85 months in prison for defrauding JPMorgan Chase by overstating how many customers the fintech company had  —  Charlie Javice, founder of a startup acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2021 for $175 million, was sentenced to just more than seven years …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
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.
Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 AM ET, September 30, 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

Earlier Picks

Ana Ionova / New York Times:
More: Business Today and The Week
X: @brij and @bgurley
Bluesky: @ddayen and @piyushmittal
Forums: r/Brazil and r/neoliberal
Bernard Goyder / Bloomberg:
Crypto in America:
Suzi Ring / Financial Times: