Techmeme
January 9, 2026, 11:35 PM

Top News

Jennifer Hiller / Wall Street Journal:
Dan Primack / Axios:
a16z raises $15B+ across five new funds, including $6.75B for its fifth growth fund, the largest sum, and $3B for unspecified “other venture strategies”  —  Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose past investments included Airbnb and Coinbase, on Friday announced …
Robert Hart / The Verge:
Helena Horton / The Guardian:
Grok says image generation and editing are now limited to paid subscribers, after outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery  —  X to limit editing function to paying subscribers after platform threatened with fines and regulatory action
The Guardian:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service; CEO Matthew Prince says he will discuss it with US officials  —  Italy fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros for refusing to block access to pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service …
Bloomberg:
OpenAI and SoftBank say they will each invest $500M in SB Energy to support the infrastructure company's growth as a data center developer and operator  —  OpenAI and SoftBank Group Corp. have jointly invested $1 billion in SB Energy, an infrastructure company that's working with the tech firms …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Anthropic adds safeguards to prevent third-party apps, like OpenCode, from spoofing Claude Code to access Claude models for more favorable pricing and limits  —  Anthropic has confirmed the implementation of strict new technical safeguards preventing third-party applications from spoofing …
Bloomberg:
Chinese short-video app Kuaishou's stock has surged 88% over the past year, driven by the success of its Kling AI video generator, which has amassed 60M users  —  Few major companies have tried to pull off a pivot to AI as swiftly as Kuaishou Technology.  —  Long known as a laggard …
Wired:
Documents: OpenAI is asking contractors to upload their work from current or previous jobs to evaluate its models, leaving it to them to scrub confidential info  —  To prepare AI agents for office work, the company is asking contractors to upload projects from past jobs …
X: @zeffmax, @zeffmax, @zeffmax, and @zeffmax.  Bluesky: @katie-drummond.  Forums: r/BetterOffline
David Shepardson / Reuters:
The FCC approves SpaceX's request to deploy an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites, bringing the total to 15,000 satellites worldwide  —  The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it has approved SpaceX's request to deploy another 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites …

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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
The $1.4B Startup Deciding What You See When You Shop Online | Sequen's Zoë Weil
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.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Storm Clouds Ahead For Apple?, Debating Amazon's Bee Frontier, AI as UI
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Machine Gods:
Jensen Huang's Nvidiotic Spy Scandal + Can Dems Pass AI Regulation?
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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Zach Reitano - Building Ro and Why Healthcare Should Be 50% of GDP
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More News

Andrew Dunn / Endpoints News:
Jordan Moreau / Variety:
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The Information:
Pragyan Kalita / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Jennifer Swann / Wired:
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Jay Peters / The Verge: