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February 21, 2026, 4:05 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Phil Spencer will retire after 38 years at Microsoft; Asha Sharma, the president of product in Microsoft's Core AI business, will become the CEO of gaming — Microsoft's head of gaming, Phil Spencer, is leaving the software maker following a 38-year tenure, as the company's Xbox business faces increased challenges.
More: Microsoft, Variety, PCMag, Comic Book, Ars Technica, Reuters, Push Square, Pure Xbox, Game Informer, The Verge, Game File, Times of India, Windows Central, Tech4Gamers, Phandroid, The American Bazaar, HotHardware, Business Today, Moneycontrol, Benzinga, Economic news, TechRadar, GeekWire, UPI, Deadline, The Wrap, PocketGamer.biz, Wall Street Journal, Polygon.com, Mobilegamer.biz, Forbes, Engadget, TheGamer, Kotaku, Business Insider, Thurrott, The Game Business, GeekWire, Screen Rant, GamesRadar, The Information, Windows Central, Game Developer, The Verge, Kotaku, Blue's News, Sherwood News, and PC Gamer
X: @xboxp3, @signulll, @legacykillahd, @davidscottjaffe, @petermooreusa, @paultassi, @jronald, @raywongy, @mr_rebs_, @klobrille, @mightykeef, @dansgaming, @fwiz, @thetruebowser, @ordinarygamers, @welfare_jbp, @aakashgupta, @nick_marseil, @mightykeef, @chrisavellone, @thecarteldel, @youtheremehere, @timsweeneyepic, @asha_shar, @paultassi, @reggie, @theo, @aarongreenberg, @firstadopter, @bellulargaming, @geoffkeighley, @markrein, @xbox, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @xboxp3, @okami13_, @detectiveseeds, @mischiefsyt, @mr_rebs_, @lukestephens, @hoeglaw, @arron_tk, @videotechuk_, @destiny_thememe, @vara_dark, @zephyr_z9, @rgt_85, @firstadopter, and @stephentotilo
LinkedIn: Chris Heatherly and LinkedIn
Bluesky: @mgsiegler.com, @benalterman.com, and @stevekovach
Forums: r/consoles, r/technology, r/XboxSeriesS, r/pcmasterrace, r/xbox, and r/videogames
| Ryan McCaffrey / IGN: |
Xbox President Sarah Bond, long thought to be Phil Spencer's heir, is leaving; Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is promoted to Chief Content Officer — Spencer's run with Xbox ends just months shy of the brand's 25th anniversary. — Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer …
More: TheGamer, Neowin, Video Games Chronicle, Polygon.com, Kotaku, Pure Xbox, Tech4Gamers, Notebookcheck, GamesRadar, Comic Book, Tom's Guide, Aftermath, 80 Level, XDA Developers, Mashable, Game Informer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Destructoid, Push Square, Dexerto, DayOne, GamingBolt, Stevivor, GamesIndustry.biz, GameRant, PC Gamer, Insider Gaming, The Verge, and GamesBeat
X: @nib95_, @detectiveseeds, and @firstadopter
LinkedIn: Sarah Bond, Sarah Thomson, and Ryan Wyatt
Bluesky: @cypheroftyr and @stealth40k
| Sean Hollister / The Verge: |
Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma says she is committed to “the return of Xbox” and that the company won't “flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop” — She's promising “The return of Xbox.” … Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer has just announced he's leaving …
More: Forbes, TechCrunch, iPhone in Canada, Variety, Kotaku, Digital Trends, The Week, Comic Book, Moneycontrol, Tech4Gamers, Pure Xbox, Polygon.com, Video Games Chronicle, The Indian Express, Notebookcheck, Windows Central, GamesRadar, The A.V. Club, DayOne, Bloomberg, IGN, and Screen Rant
X: @paultassi, @anandmahindra, @legacykillahd, @lulumeservey, and @ethangach. Forums: r/LastStandMedia
| David Nield / Wired: |
Google is ending Gmailify and POP access in Gmail; new users will lose access in Q1 2026, and existing users will keep both features until later in 2026 — If you have multiple email accounts, your Gmail setup may soon need some reorganizing. — Google giveth, and Google taketh away.
Mastodon: @Kierkegaanks@beige.party
| Sam Kriss / Harper's: |
Interviews with Cluely's Roy Lee, Donald Boat, and other highly “agentic” young men, as agency becomes more valuable than technical skills in Silicon Valley — Tech's new generation and the end of thinking … Cluely and its co-founder Chungin “Roy” Lee were intensely, and intentionally, controversial.
X: @tszzl, @felpix_, @natewitkin, @harpers, @narrenhut, @growing_daniel, @b_judah, @daisandconfused, @alexbronzini, @mcmansionhell, @mlstrat, @confusionm8trix, @laserboat999, @other_st_nick, @nicolas_ouporov, @margbaramerica, and @shguke. LinkedIn: Mark Little
Bluesky: @konstantkarma, @frankpasquale, @dansheehan, @caulimovirus, @emilynussbaum, @c0up, @kthorjensen, @shivambhatt, @robertscotthorton, @salvagni.org, @espiers, @avocadoplex.bike, and @north0fnorth.tgirl.gay
Mastodon: @glyph@mastodon.social, @kims@mas.to, and @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
Forums: Hacker News, r/SneerClub, and r/slatestarcodex
| Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: OpenAI staff raised concerns about a Canadian mass shooting suspect months ago; OpenAI says her activity didn't meet the bar for reporting to police — ChatGPT maker opted against informing authorities about Jesse Van Rootselaar's descriptions of violence last June
More: Associated Press, BBC, TechCrunch, Breitbart, HotAir, The Verge, ZeroHedge News, Fox News, The Decoder, The Asia Business Daily, Pixel Envy, New York Post, Globe and Mail, twitchy.com, The Post Millennial, Futurism, Business Standard, 77 WABC, and NextBigWhat
X: @jakemiller192, @klonnypin_gosch, @agoldmund, @benwoodfinden, @mrgunn, @prestonjbyrne, @luke_metro, @seltzergenius, @arictoler, @miles_brundage, @miles_brundage, @autismcapital, @elonmusk, and @jeffbercovici. LinkedIn: Marc-André Argentino, PhD
Bluesky: @jacobware, @drewharwell.com, @grahammacklin, @eslfairy, @jenstden, and @kevincollier
Forums: r/singularity, r/TrueAnon, r/news, r/BetterOffline, r/britishcolumbia, and r/canada
| Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg: |
Anthropic launches Claude Code Security, which “scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches”; cybersecurity stocks fall — Shares of cybersecurity software companies tumbled Friday after Anthropic PBC introduced a new security feature into its Claude AI model.
More: Anthropic, Gizmodo, CTech, The Hacker News, Matt Mullenweg, CyberScoop, SiliconANGLE, Runtime, Cyber Security News, PCMag, The Decoder, Benzinga, The Economic Times, Investor's Business Daily, The Deep View, Implicator.ai, Motley Fool, Claude, Blockchain.News, Yahoo Finance, The Information, and CRN
X: @omercheeema, @manztrades, @mattjay, @bcherny, @jay_azhang, @jaykreps, @litcapital, @abrilzucchi, @firstadopter, @trq212, @trq212, @trq212, @heidykhlaaf, @thegeorgepu, @matrosov, @contrariancurse, and @claudeai
LinkedIn: Ibad Rehman, Guy Flechter, Philippe Bogaerts, and Pradeep Sanyal
Bluesky: @heidykhlaaf, @hmans.dev, and @tyleraking.com
Forums: r/InformatikKarriere, r/technology, r/StockMarket, r/ClaudeCode, r/ClaudeAI, and Slashdot
| Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy: |
NanoClaw and other “claws”, smaller OpenClaw-like systems that can run on personal hardware, form a new layer running on top of agents that run on LLMs — Bought a new Mac mini to properly tinker with claws over the weekend. The apple store person told me they are selling like hotcakes and everyone is confused :) I'm definitely a bit sus'd to run OpenClaw specifically - giving my private data/keys to 400K lines of vibe coded
More: Simon Willison's Weblog and The New Stack
X: @nickco, @alexfinn, @aakashgupta, @garysheng, @punk3700, @simonw, @karpathy, @garrytan, and @maziyarpanahi. Forums: Hacker News
| Benedict Evans: |
A look at the fundamental questions facing OpenAI: its models have a very large user base but very narrow engagement, incumbents are matching its tech, and more — “Jakub and Mark set the research direction for the long run. Then after months of work, something incredible emerges …
More: The Register and Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
English-language Wikipedia bans Archive.today after editors discover it was used to direct a DDoS attack and tampered with snapshots; 695K+ links to be removed — The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct …
More: TechCrunch, PCMag, Tom's Hardware, and Pixel Envy
Bluesky: @vortexegg.com, @adambecker, @md.ekstrandom.net, @hpsvanessa, @kissane.myatproto.social, @conspirator0, and @webbreacher.com. Mastodon: @jalefkowit@vmst.io
Forums: Hacker News, r/france, r/wikipedia, r/skeptic, r/LinusTechTips, r/GamePreservationists, r/technews, r/technology, Lobsters, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Matthew Gault / 404 Media: |
Pinterest users, especially artists, say the platform has gotten worse in the past year due to AI moderation, AI-generated art, and AI features — Users are exhausted fighting AI moderation, AI-generated art, and AI-first features. — Pinterest has gone all in on artificial intelligence and users say it's destroying the site.
More: Mashable and The Overspill
LinkedIn: Tiana Oreglia. Bluesky: @josephcox and @mjgault. Mastodon: @MikeElgan@mastodon.social. Forums: Slashdot
| Sources: |
An interview with Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on Custom Notion AI agents launching in the coming week, over 50% of Notion databases now being built by agents, and more — CEO Ivan Zhao on the company's big custom agents launch, changing its business model for AI, hiring a 16-year-old engineer, and more.
Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions — Introducing Superagent. A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Deep analysis for deep questions — Introducing Superagent. A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.Sponsor Post
| CNBC: |
Sources: OpenAI is telling investors it's targeting ~$600B in total compute spend by 2030, months after Sam Altman touted $1.4T in infrastructure commitments — OpenAI is telling investors that it's now targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030, months …
More: The Information, The Coin Republic, Economic news, FundaAI, Gizchina, Tech in Asia, and Reuters
X: @ethanchoi7, @teortaxestex, @stalkermustang, and @quinnypig
Forums: r/tech, r/StockMarket, and r/technology
| Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: |
How Claude Code, released publicly a year ago, cemented Anthropic as a leader in the lucrative, emerging market for AI coding tools — Anthropic released Claude Code a year ago, forcing other rivals to play catch-up. — Even Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei was surprised … | Rajesh Roy / Associated Press: |
India joins Pax Silica, a US-led initiative that aims to build secure supply chains for semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and critical technologies — India joined a U.S.-led initiative to strengthen technology cooperation among strategic allies in a move Friday that underscores …
More: Tom's Hardware, The Indian Express, India Press Information Bureau, Wall Street Journal, The Wire, Deccan Herald, United States Department …, Ministry of External Affairs …, Breitbart, NDTV, Bloomberg, India Today, The Hindu, and Business Standard
X: @sriramk, @stevehou, @undersece, @meaindia, @econatstate, @ashwinivaishnaw, and @usambindia
Sponsor Posts
Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions — Introducing Superagent. A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Deep analysis for deep questions — Introducing Superagent. A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality — Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Turn any GTM idea into reality — Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Your next great hire is just a tap away — You're traveling for a recruitment conference and forgot your work laptop. You still have to review a C-suite candidate's salary requirements, filter the best candidates …
Your next great hire is just a tap away — You're traveling for a recruitment conference and forgot your work laptop. You still have to review a C-suite candidate's salary requirements, filter the best candidates …
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.
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
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI Closes in on $100 Billion, OpenClaw Acquired, AI's Productivity Question — With Aaron Levie
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:
The Pentagon vs. Anthropic + An A.I. Agent Slandered Me + Hot Mess Express
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Loyal's Celine Halioua: From Defying Doubters To Pioneering Dog Longevity
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on if AI is really killing software companies
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny
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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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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.
Newest
David Nield / Wired:
Google is ending Gmailify and POP access in Gmail; new users will lose access in Q1 2026, and existing users will keep both features until later in 2026Find
50 minutes ago
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
English-language Wikipedia bans Archive.today after editors discover it was used to direct a DDoS attack and tampered with snapshots; 695K+ links to be removedFind
2½ hours ago
Sam Kriss / Harper's:
Interviews with Cluely's Roy Lee, Donald Boat, and other highly “agentic” young men, as agency becomes more valuable than technical skills in Silicon ValleyFind
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Benedict Evans:
A look at the fundamental questions facing OpenAI: its models have a very large user base but very narrow engagement, incumbents are matching its tech, and moreFind
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An interview with Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on Custom Notion AI agents launching in the coming week, over 50% of Notion databases now being built by agents, and moreFind
9 hours ago
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
How Claude Code, released publicly a year ago, cemented Anthropic as a leader in the lucrative, emerging market for AI coding toolsFind
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Matthew Gault / 404 Media:
Pinterest users, especially artists, say the platform has gotten worse in the past year due to AI moderation, AI-generated art, and AI featuresFind
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| Fred Lambert / Electrek: |
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Bluesky: @dr-pete, @brunojnavarro, and @fredlambert
Forums: Hacker News and r/electricvehicles