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April 18, 2026, 12:40 AM
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Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Bill Peebles, the researcher behind Sora, is leaving OpenAI, along with Srinivas Narayanan, OpenAI's CTO of enterprise applications  —  OpenAI is losing two of the architects of its most ambitious moonshots.  Kevin Weil, who led the company's science research initiative, and Bill Peebles …
More: Benzinga, OpenAI, and The Boar
X: @billpeeb, @zeffmax, and @snsf.  Bluesky: @carnage4life
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
Kevin Weil, OpenAI's former CPO who became VP of OpenAI for Science, is leaving the company; Prism, a web app for scientists launched in Jan., will be shuttered  —  The former Instagram VP is departing the ChatGPT-maker, which is folding the AI science application he led into Codex.
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.
More: Anthropic, TechCrunch, The Register, The Verge, Yahoo Finance, Neowin, The Indian Express, CNET, Gizmodo, MakeUseOf, eWeek, MacRumors, The Next Web, TestingCatalog, Inc.com, OfficeChai, iPhone in Canada, PCWorld, Agence France-Presse, How-To Geek, TechJuice, The Information, The New Stack, Quartz, Yahoo Tech, Implicator.ai, Crypto Briefing, EdTech Innovation Hub, The Decoder, Rolling Out, Gadget Review, Business Wire, The Tech Buzz, Digital Trends, The Verge, Innovation Village, 9to5Mac, Investing.com, Yahoo Tech, The Deep View, VentureBeat, Engadget, Fast Company, Inc, and SiliconANGLE
X: @wallstengine, @claudeai, @wesbos, @rsms, @cgtwts, @cnulty, @amorriscode, @joshpuckett, @voidwalker_com, @kimmonismus, @amirmxt, @stocksavvyshay, @nateparrott, @kyleturman, @bouazizalex, @flomerboy, @raph_dornano, @ultralinx, @9to5mac, @chooserich, @yuchenj_uw, @birdabo, @brewmarkets, @charlespattson, @polymarket, @vaibhavsisinty, @morningbrew, @benbajarin, @aakashgupta, @dannpetty, @zachtratar, @helloitsaustin, @ai_for_success, @robertjbye, @matthewberman, @polymarketmoney, @bearlyai, @techcrunch, @skeptrune, @fastcompany, @petergyang, @cointelegraph, @angjiang, @scaling01, @alexalbert__, @businessbarista, @testingcatalog, @adocomplete, @lexxbarn, @ehuanglu, @claudeai, and @petergyang
LinkedIn: Mary Aguililla, Drew Bent, Gianluca Brugnoli, Pradeep Sanyal, Amol Avasare, Tom Wentworth, and Claude.  Bluesky: @isolyth.dev.  Threads: @claudeai
Forums: Hacker News, r/figmaStock, r/ClaudeAI, and MacRumors Forums
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 …
Financial Times:
Sources suggest Anthropic is holding off from a wider Mythos release until it can reliably serve it to customers; Anthropic has suffered outages in recent weeks  —  Dario Amodei met with Susie Wiles despite lawsuits over whether AI lab is a national security threat
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 …
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.
Siladitya Ray / Forbes:
What some leaders think of using universal income to mitigate AI-fueled layoffs: Musk calls it the “best way”, OpenAI's policy doc mentions a Public Wealth Fund  —  Topline  —  Elon Musk on Friday touted what he described as “Universal HIGH INCOME” as a solution to deal …
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Cerebras files to go public on Nasdaq and reports $510M in 2025 revenue, up 76% YoY, with a net income of $87.9M, up from a $485M net loss in 2024  —  Cerebras, a producer of chips that run artificial intelligence models, on Friday filed to go public on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CBRS.”
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:40 AM ET, April 18, 2026.

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From Mediagazer

Wendy Davis / MediaPost:
The FTC ends a demand for info from NewsGuard after settling a case against Dentsu, Publicis, and WPP; NewsGuard has sued the FTC over restrictions on Omnicom

Bloomberg:
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says regulators are scrutinizing media deals for sports leagues beyond the NFL; source: the DOJ plans to look at MLB rights and others

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
A district court judge in California issues a preliminary injunction blocking Nexstar's acquisition of Tegna while an antitrust lawsuit proceeds

More News

Ivan Lam / Counterpoint Research:
China's smartphone shipments declined 4% YoY in Q1 amid memory shortages; Huawei's shipments grew 2% YoY for a 20% market share, iPhone grew 20% for a 19% share
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
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

Earlier Picks

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
David Gewirtz / ZDNET:
OpenAI updates its Codex desktop app with features like computer control, an in-app browser, image generation, automation memory, plugin support, and more
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