Techmeme
January 19, 2026, 10:35 AM

Top News

Sarah Friar / OpenAI:
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says compute grew from 0.2 GW in 2023 to 0.6 GW in 2024 to ~1.9 GW in 2025 and ARR grew from $2B in 2023 to $6B in 2024 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.
The Information:
Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researchers quit via Slack during an all-hands  —  The timing couldn't have been more awkward for Thinking Machines Lab.  —  On Wednesday, during an all-hands meeting at the AI startup …
Financial Times:
Jack Dunn / Variety:
On Joe Rogan's JRE, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck discuss Hollywood and AI; Damon says Netflix wants movies to restate the plot because viewers are on their phones  —  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck recently appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” to promote their new Netflix film “The Rip,” …
Katherine Doherty / Bloomberg:
NYSE plans to use its tech that matches buyers and sellers, alongside blockchain networks, to facilitate real-time trading of tokenized securities in 2026  —  The New York Stock Exchange is building a venue using blockchain technology to allow for trading tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds around the clock.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: internal Google data shows Gemini API calls surged from 35B in March 2025 to 85B in August 2025; Google says Gemini Enterprise hit 8M subscribers  —  Google's improvements to its Gemini AI models are boosting the company's top line.  —  Over the past year, Google's business selling access …
Palmer Luckey / @palmerluckey:
Meta's VR layoffs may help the industry long term, as most of the ~1,500 roles worked 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
Axios:
OpenAI executive Chris Lehane says the company is “on track” to unveil its first device in the “latter part” of 2026; reports suggest it will be a wearable  —  OpenAI is “on track” to unveil its first device in the second half of 2026, the company's policy chief, Chris Lehane, said Monday at Axios House Davos.

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Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
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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.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
A Hollywood Manager Explains the New Rules of Show Biz
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Training Data:
Simulating Humans at Scale: Simile's Joon Sung Park
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
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Invest Like the Best:
Kareem Amin - The Unusual Approach to Company Building
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Grit:
Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
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.
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More News

James Peckham / PCMag:
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Bradley Olson / Wall Street Journal:
More: Telegraph and Anthropic
Bluesky: @andytseng and @markkamstra.comForums: Hacker News
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
George Hammond / Financial Times: