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November 17, 2025, 5:15 PM
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Top News

Cade Metz / New York Times:
Sources: AI startup Project Prometheus raised $6.2B, including from Jeff Bezos, who is its co-CEO, his first operational role since leaving Amazon in July 2021  —  Called Project Prometheus, the company is focusing on artificial intelligence for the engineering and manufacturing of computers, automobiles and spacecraft.
Joe Wertz / Bloomberg:
Google DeepMind releases WeatherNext 2, a weather model that it says offers faster, more accurate two-week forecasts and includes more tools for energy traders  —  Google DeepMind has released a new artificial intelligence weather model that it says is faster and more accurate than anything it's built …
New York Times:
Investigation: $28B+ in crypto tied to illicit activity flowed into crypto exchanges like Binance over the past two years, as President Trump embraced crypto  —  President Trump has started his own cryptocurrency business and vowed to make the United States the world's “crypto capital.”
Bloomberg:
US filing: Peter Thiel's Thiel Macro sold 537,742 Nvidia shares, worth ~$100M as of September 30, during Q3, amid rising concerns about an AI investment bubble  —  Peter Thiel's hedge fund Thiel Macro LLC sold off its holdings in Nvidia Corp. during the third quarter, marking another retreat …
Emily Mason / Bloomberg:
Ramp says it is now valued at $32B following a $300M raise led by Lightspeed and an employee tender offer, up from a $22.5B valuation in July  —  Corporate spending management platform Ramp reached a $32 billion valuation after a $300 million primary financing round and an employee tender offer.
xAI:
xAI unveils Grok 4.1, saying it's 3x less likely to hallucinate compared to its previous models and Grok 4.1 Thinking holds the top spot on LMArena's Text Arena  —  Grok 4.1 is now available to all users on grok.com, 𝕏, and the iOS and Android apps.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare acquires Replicate, which hosts over 50,000 AI models and simplifies AI model deployment via a single API call; Replicate will keep its brand  —  We have some big news to share today: Replicate, the leading platform for running AI models, is joining Cloudflare.
Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
Runlayer, which aims to make it easy for companies to securely scale MCP servers, emerges from stealth with an $11M seed from Khosla Ventures and Felicis  —  On Monday, a new Model Context Protocol security startup called Runlayer launched out of stealth with $11 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois and Felicis.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Ford and Amazon partner to let people purchase certified pre-owned Ford vehicles via Amazon Autos, initially available in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Dallas  —  Ford is the second brand, after Hyundai, to list its vehicles on Amazon's new car buying site.
Lori Ann LaRocco / CNBC:
Eric Gillespie, the founder of Govini whose AI software is used by the US military, was arrested last week for allegedly soliciting pre-teens for sexual contact  —  Govini founder Eric Gillespie urged a person whom he believed to be a dad offering his 10-year-old daughter to be sexually abused …
Ben Bergman / Business Insider:
In an informal survey of 300+ Cerebral Valley AI Conference attendees asking which $1B+ valuation startup to short, most voted Perplexity, followed by OpenAI  —  - An audience at a top AI conference in San Francisco was asked what startup they would short.  — Perplexity, an AI search …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
NetChoice sues Virginia over a law that would require parental permission for minors to use social media for more than one hour per day, arguing it violates 1A  —  Virginia's law would require social media platforms to limit how much time kids under 16 spend on their sites, with parental permission required for longer sessions.
More: MediaPost and NetChoice

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:15 PM ET, November 17, 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

Reshmi Basu / Bloomberg:
QVC Group, owner of TV shopping channels QVC and HSN, files for bankruptcy as part of a plan to cut more than $5B in debt; shares closed down 69% on Thursday

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Notus will rename itself The Star and relaunch in early June as it adds local news and sports coverage; source: Robert Allbritton will add ~$30M to its funding

Ryan Glasspiegel / Front Office Sports:
Sources: the NFL and YouTube are in advanced talks for a five-game package; deal price and duration were not immediately known

More News

CNBC:
Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future targets NY State Assemblymember Alex Bores, co-sponsor of the RAISE Act, a bill imposing safety and disclosure requirements
Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media:
Span, which aims to help companies measure the value of AI-assisted coding, raised $25M in seed and Series A rounds from Alt Capital, Craft Ventures, and others
Zoë Schiffer / Wired:
Q&A with OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on joining OpenAI, ChatGPT users' mental health, profitability, data center deals, her chronic illness, and more

Earlier Picks

Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register:
Chinese toymaker FoloToy suspends sales of its GPT-4o-powered teddy bear, after researchers found the toy gave kids harmful responses, like about fire and kinks
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
The FT's Tim Cook retirement story could be a “trial balloon” from people close to him, if Cook decides to leave after Apple's “blockbuster” Q1 earnings report
Min-Jeong Lee / Bloomberg:
Tokyo-based Turing, which is developing an AI model for self-driving vehicles, raised a ~$99M Series A, sources say at a ~$388M valuation, nearly 4x from 2024
Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai have each discussed building lunar and orbital AI data centers to leverage constant solar power and bypass regulations
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