Techmeme
April 17, 2026, 6:20 PM

Top News

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new experimental product that lets users create visuals like prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and more using Claude  —  Anthropic announced on Friday that it's launching Claude Design, a new experimental product that lets users create visuals like prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and more using Claude.
Politico:
Cyber experts say the EU's age verification app has glaring privacy and security problems; after saying it was ready, EU officials say the app is “still a demo”  —  BRUSSELS — The European Union's unveiling of a mobile app to check people's age online has quickly turned sour …
Reuters:
Sources: Meta intends to conduct a first wave of sweeping layoffs planned for this year on May 20, laying off ~10% of its global workforce, or ~8,000 employees  —  Meta (META.O) intends to conduct a first wave of sweeping layoffs planned for this year on May 20, with more coming later …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Netflix plans to launch a vertical video feed, to help with content discovery, this month, and plans to use AI for content creation and recommendations  —  Netflix is going to launch a TikTok-like vertical video feed within its apps this month, and plans to use AI broadly for content creation …
The Information:
Zvi Mowshowitz / Don't Worry About the Vase:
A deep dive into Dwarkesh Patel's interview with Jensen Huang, including Huang's takes on Nvidia's moat and chip sales to China, and reactions to the interview  —  Some podcasts are self-recommending on the 'yep, I'm going to be breaking this one down' level.  This was one of those.  So here we go.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: some shareholders are questioning whether Sam Altman should lead OpenAI through the turbulence of an IPO and have floated Bret Taylor as a successor  —  Ahead of a planned IPO, Altman's personal investments remain opaque, making it hard to spot any conflicts
Will Canny / CoinDesk:
Kraken parent company Payward agrees to acquire Bitnomial, a digital asset derivatives platform, for up to $550M in cash and stock, which values Payward at $20B  —  The deal gives Payward control of a fully licensed U.S. crypto derivatives stack, accelerating its expansion in regulated markets.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Cursor is in advanced talks to raise about $2B co-led by a16z at a pre-money valuation of more than $50B, with Nvidia participating  —  Cursor, a leading artificial intelligence startup for coding, is in advanced talks with investors to raise about $2 billion in a funding round …
More: TechCrunch, Motley Fool, and Yahoo Finance
X: @mtemkin and @nmasc_.  Bluesky: @k2mey
The Guardian:
Docs: US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide data centers' environmental toll; one of their demands was written almost verbatim into EU rules  —  Legally questionable confidentiality clause adopted almost word for word from demands of Microsoft and trade groups
Axios:
White House says a meeting between Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Dario Amodei had been “productive and constructive”; source: Scott Bessent joined the meeting  —  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joined a meeting on Friday between White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles …
Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
Charles Schwab unveils its long-awaited crypto investing product, Schwab Crypto, with a 0.75% fee on every crypto trade and plans to launch in the coming weeks  —  Charles Schwab on Thursday introduced its long-awaited crypto investing product, making bitcoin and ether trading available …
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
World expands its Tinder partnership and partners with Zoom and others to verify human users, as it continues its pivot from crypto to identity verification  —  Honestly, what's hotter than a real person?  —  Sam Altman's iris-scanning, humanity-verifying World project announced at an event …
Grace Kay / Business Insider:
Sources: xAI plans to let Cursor train Composer 2.5 AI coding model using tens of thousands of xAI's GPUs, a new strategy for xAI in a competitive AI landscape  —  - Elon Musk's AI company xAI plans to allow Cursor to use some of its compute power for training.

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Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
An 86-minute guide to finding PMF | Rob Snyder (Author, The Power of Pull)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Sources:
Sundar Pichai on what's next for Google Gemini, Waymo, and data centers in space
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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More News

Ivan Lam / Counterpoint Research:

Earlier Picks

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
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David Gewirtz / ZDNET: