Techmeme
May 8, 2025, 5:50 PM

Top News

OpenAI:
OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as CEO of Applications, reporting to Sam Altman, who says he will remain CEO and focus on research, compute, and safety  —  Sam shared this message with the company earlier today:  —  Hi everyone - I have some exciting news to share.
Fidji Simo / Instacart Corporate Blog:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple aims to begin mass production of a chip for its smart glasses, with greater power efficiency and multi-camera control, by end of 2026 or in 2027  —  The company has made progress on the chip that it's developing for smart glasses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Fortune:
Sources: Meta is in discussions with crypto firms to introduce stablecoins as a means to manage payouts, and has hired a VP of product with crypto experience  —  Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, speaks at a conference in September.  —  In 2019, Meta announced an audacious project …
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
David Wallace-Wells / New York Times:
Q&A with Bill Gates on closing the Gates Foundation on December 31, 2045, donating ~$200B, President Trump, Elon Musk, AI drug discovery, AI advances, and more  —  Today the Gates Foundation celebrates its 25th anniversary by announcing its plans to close up shop.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out AI-powered defenses to help combat scams on Chrome, including the use of Gemini Nano, its on-device LLM, in Enhanced Protection mode on desktop  —  Google announced on Thursday that it's rolling out new AI-powered defenses to help combat scams on Chrome.
Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
Bitcoin jumps above $100,000 for first time since February 2025, after President Trump announced a US-UK trade agreement; ether, dogecoin, and solana rose 9%+  —  Bitcoin on Thursday hit its highest level since February and climbing back above the key $100,000 level.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
The LockBit ransomware gang has suffered a data breach, with 59,975 BTC addresses and 4,442 negotiation messages leaked, and posted on its dark web site  —  The LockBit ransomware gang has suffered a data breach after its dark web affiliate panels were defaced and replaced with a message linking to a MySQL database dump.
Paul Sandle / Reuters:
The UK says the Digital Services Tax remains unchanged under the trade deal agreed between the US and the UK, both of which will work on a “digital trade deal”  —  Britain's digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon (AMZN.O), Google (GOOGL.O) and Meta (META.O) …
Chris Vallance / BBC:
The Wikimedia Foundation says it is taking legal action to challenge the UK's Online Safety Act, saying it could threaten the safety of its volunteer editors  —  Wikipedia is taking legal action against new Online Safety Act regulations it says could threaten the safety of its volunteer editors …
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
Senate Democrats block the Genius Act after Republicans rebuffed a provision to bar Trump and others from profiting off of crypto ventures while in office  —  Senate Democrats blocked stablecoin legislation backed by the digital assets industry amid a furor over President Donald Trump's extensive …
Victoria Kennedy / Eurogamer.net:
Palworld developer Pocketpair says a 2024 update was due to “ongoing litigation” and a new update is “yet another compromise”, as it disputes Nintendo's claims  —  “We... assert the invalidity of the patents in question.”  —  Palworld developer Pocketpair has released …
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
Celsius Network founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky is sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to commodities fraud and misleading investors  —  Whoop Launches Slimmer Fitness Bands With Blood Pressure, ECG Features  —  Review: The Whoop 5.0 and MG — short for medical grade …
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Palantir's valuation rises to $281B after its shares close up 7.85%, surpassing Salesforce and joining the top 10 largest US tech companies by market cap  —  There's a new member in the list of the top 10 U.S. technology companies by market cap.  —  Data analytics software vendor Palantir jumped …
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
An interview with curl project founder Daniel Stenberg, who likens “AI slop” in HackerOne submissions to a DDoS attack, echoing Seth Larson and others' concerns  —  “A threshold has been reached.  We are effectively being DDoSed.  If we could, we would charge them for this waste of our time …
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Prepared testimony: Microsoft and other AI leaders urge US senators to streamline federal AI energy permits and open more government datasets for AI training  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) and other AI leaders on Thursday will urge U.S. lawmakers to streamline federal permitting …
Tobias Mann / The Register:
IBM survey of 2,000 CEOs from 33 countries: 25% of AI initiatives have delivered the expected ROI over the past few years, and 16% have scaled enterprise wide  —  Just 1 in 4 bets paying off so far  —  Only a quarter of AI initiatives have delivered the expected return on investment, according to an IBM survey of 2,000 CEOs.
More: Computerworld, IBM, insideAI News, WebProNews, MarTech, IBM, and IBM
Bluesky: @justinhendrixLinkedIn: Adnan AnjumForums: r/technology

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Cloudflare:
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Zoho:
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Featured Podcasts

Sources:
Marc Benioff on the AI boom, SaaSpocalypse, and future of Slack
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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Invest Like the Best:
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Grit:
Inside the AI Startup Making Customer Support 65% Cheaper
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Lenny's Podcast:
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Big Technology Podcast:
AI Doom Backlash Arrives, Anthropic & OpenAI IPO Outlook, Frontier Business Momentum Slows
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AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Andrew Webster / The Verge:
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The Keyword:
Bloomberg: