Techmeme
October 4, 2025, 7:00 PM

Top News

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
PitchBook: VCs have invested $192.7B in AI startups so far this year, putting 2025 on track to be the first year when 50%+ of VC funding goes to the AI industry  —  Venture capitalists poured $192.7 billion into AI startups so far this year — setting new global records and putting 2025 …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Huawei's Zurich Lab unveils SINQ, an open-source quantization method that it claims can reduce LLM memory use by 60-70% without significant quality loss  —  - Dual-Axis Scaling: Instead of using a single scale factor for quantizing a matrix, SINQ uses separate scaling vectors for rows and columns.
@openai:
OpenAI updates GPT-5 Instant to better recognize and support people in distress; ChatGPT will route such sensitive parts of conversations to the model  —  We're updating GPT-5 Instant to better recognize and support people in moments of distress. Sensitive parts of conversations will now route to GPT-5 Instant to quickly provide even more helpful responses. ChatGPT will continue to tell users what model is active when asked.
Sam Altman:
Sam Altman says OpenAI is planning two Sora changes for rightsholders: granular controls over generation of their characters and a revenue sharing system  —  We have been learning quickly from how people are using Sora and taking feedback from users, rightsholders, and other interested groups.
Newcomer:
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Nic Carter / Murmurations II:
A look at challenges facing Tether and Circle's stablecoin duopoly, such as intermediaries like exchanges and DeFi protocols exploring their own stablecoins  —  Circle equity is worth $30.5b.  Tether's topco is reportedly raising capital at $500b.  Together, the two stablecoins boast $245b in supply …
John Burn-Murdoch / Financial Times:
GWI: Time spent on social media globally peaked in 2022 and is steadily declining; North America is the exception, with usage up 15% in 2024 compared to Europe  —  As platforms degrade into outrage and slop, users are turning away  —  In years to come, we may well look back on September 2025 …
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
How rising unemployment in computer-related fields in the US, where foreign nationals make up ~20% of 2.3M software devs, pushed the H-1B issue to the forefront  —  The president's decision to charge employers $100,000 per visa for skilled workers seemed to come out of nowhere.
Andrew Moseman / IEEE Spectrum:
How researchers at Microsoft, IBM, and other organizations are using AI to speed up the search for new materials and chemicals for batteries  —  Microsoft and IBM pinpoint candidates from millions of options  —  Andrew Moseman is the online communications editor at Caltech and a freelance contributor to IEEE Spectrum.
Nilesh Christopher / MIT Technology Review:
An investigation finds rampant caste bias in ChatGPT and Sora; a researcher also finds caste bias in Sarvam AI, which touts itself as a sovereign AI for India  —  When Dhiraj Singha began applying for postdoctoral sociology fellowships in Bengaluru, India, in March, he wanted to make sure …
Mother Jones:
Inside the aftermath of FTX's collapse, law firm Sullivan & Cromwell's role, and an interview with SBF, who is preparing to appeal his conviction in November  —  In exclusive prison interviews, the convicted crypto king is still fighting to control the narrative ahead of a high-stakes appeal.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Apple's removal of ICEBlock raises questions about the limits of what the company will resist under the Trump administration's increasingly outrageous demands  —  Ashley Oliver, reporting for Fox Business: … Fox, in its opening paragraph, describes Bondi as having “asked” …
Ashley Oliver / Fox Business:
More: The Verge, Wired, 404 Media, Engadget, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Tech Policy Press Podcast, iThinkDifferent, CNBC, Ars Technica, Neowin, KnowTechie, CNN, TheStreet, NPR, MSNBC, Reason, Android Authority, Breitbart, The Verge, HotAir, Eshu Marneedi, One America News Network, MediaPost, The Western Journal, New York Times, BonTech Labs, IJR, Townhall, The A.V. Club, Straight Arrow News, Dallas Express, Michael Tsai, iPhone in Canada, BBC, CBS News, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Mashable, Reuters, Daily Caller News Foundation, Techstrong IT, UPI, TechCrunch, The Register, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Salon, Quartz, Scripps News, Gizmodo, SFist, FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth, iDrop News, The Information, ZeroHedge News, The Post Millennial, Cult of Mac, ABC Columbia, Implicator.ai, The Hill, Phone Scoop, Mobile World Live, RedState, New Republic, The Independent, thesun.my, International Business Times, PCMag, MacTech.com, WinBuzzer, Benzinga, MacStories, and Forbes

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Cloudflare:
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Zoho:
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Featured Podcasts

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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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Sources:
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Great Chat:
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Earlier Picks

Arpan Chaturvedi / Reuters:
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: