Techmeme
January 19, 2026, 12:40 AM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Similarweb: Threads had 141.5M DAUs on iOS and Android as of January 7, driven by Instagram promotions, while X had 125M DAUs; X continues to lead on the web  —  A report from market intelligence firm Similarweb suggests that Meta's Threads is now seeing more daily usage than Elon Musk's X on mobile devices.
George Hammond / Financial Times:
Bradley Olson / Wall Street Journal:
Similarweb: Claude's web audience more than doubled in December 2025 compared with December 2024, as many coders spent their holiday breaks on a “Claude bender”  —  Developers and hobbyists are comparing the viral moment for Anthropic's Claude Code to the launch of generative AI
Palmer Luckey / @palmerluckey:
Meta's VR layoffs may help the industry long term, as most affected roles focused on first-party content and games that competed with the broader ecosystem  —  I have an opinion on the Meta layoffs that is contrary with most of the VR industry and much of the media, but strongly held. This is not a disaster. They still employ the largest team working on VR by about an order of magnitude. Nobody else is even close. The “Meta is
Sarah Friar / OpenAI:
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says the company's compute grew from 0.2 GW in 2023 to ~1.9 GW in 2025 and annualized revenue grew from $2B in 2023 to $20B+ in 2025  —  We launched ChatGPT as a research preview to understand what would happen if we put frontier intelligence directly in people's hands.
New York Times:
Inside the 2026 National Retail Federation conference in New York City, where integrating AI into retail businesses was the overarching theme on the expo floor  —  Stores of all kinds are using artificial intelligence to sell everything from luxury handbags to hay for horses.
More: The Economic TimesLinkedIn: Thomas Ross, Mathias Cohen, and Kim BhasinBluesky: @janerosenzweig
Forums: r/technology and Slashdot
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
CoinGecko: over 53% of the 20.2M crypto tokens launched since 2021 are now inactive, with 7.7M tokens failing in Q4 2025, after Oct. 10 “liquidation cascade”  —  Over 13.4 million tokens have been erased between mid-2021 and 2025, according to a new analysis by CoinGecko.  —  What to know:
Forums: Slashdot
Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
RunPod, an AI app hosting service launched four years ago that raised a $20M seed in May 2024, says it has reached a $120M annual revenue run rate  —  Runpod, an AI app hosting platform that launched four years ago, has hit a $120 million annual revenue run rate, founders Zhen Lu and Pardeep Singh tell TechCrunch.
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune:
OpenAI's former Head of Policy Research Miles Brundage announces AVERI, a nonprofit aimed at advocating the idea of external audits for frontier AI models  —  Former OpenAI policy chief Miles Brundage, who has just founded a new nonprofit institute called AVERI that is advocating …
Financial Times:
OpenAI plans to test ads below ChatGPT replies for users of free and Go tiers in the US; source: OpenAI expects to make “low billions” from ads in 2026  —  $500bn start-up seeks ways to fund expansion and fend off competition from rivals Google and Anthropic
Elissa Welle / The Verge:
Axios:
David Sacks and top MAGA influencers are publicly opposing House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast's proposed AI OVERWATCH Act to regulate AI chip sales to China  —  But the accusations are flying fast.  — “The AI Overwatch Act (H.R. 6875) may sound like a good idea, but when you examine it closely …

Sponsor Posts

Okara:
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data  —  Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure.  Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.
Soxton:
AI-powered law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Zoho:
Saudi Arabia's data localisation era: Why compliance-ready clouds are now essential  —  Saudi Arabia is in a key phase in its digital transformation, where data governance, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty are as vital as innovation.
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

Lenny's Podcast:
The non-technical PM's guide to building with Cursor | Zevi Arnovitz (Meta)
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Is Google's Gemini Winning?, Thinking Machines Drama, Claude Cowork's Potential
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.
Hard Fork:
Jonathan Haidt Strikes Again + What You Vibecoded + An Update on the Forkiverse
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:
Building an autonomous car utopia with Rivian's RJ Scaringe
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Three New Influencers
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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 12:40 AM ET, January 19, 2026.

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

Iain Martin / Forbes:

Earlier Picks

Rob Copeland / New York Times: