Techmeme
January 19, 2026, 9:50 AM

Top News

Sarah Friar / OpenAI:
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says compute grew from 0.2 GW in 2023 to 0.6 GW in 2024 to ~1.9 GW in 2025 and ARR grew from $2B in 2023 to $6B in 2024 to $20B+ in 2025  —  We launched ChatGPT as a research preview to understand what would happen if we put frontier intelligence directly in people's hands.
The Information:
Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researchers quit via Slack during an all-hands  —  The timing couldn't have been more awkward for Thinking Machines Lab.  —  On Wednesday, during an all-hands meeting at the AI startup …
Jack Dunn / Variety:
On Joe Rogan's JRE, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck discuss Hollywood and AI; Damon says Netflix wants movies to restate the plot because viewers are on their phones  —  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck recently appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” to promote their new Netflix film “The Rip,” …
Financial Times:
George Hammond / Financial Times:
Sources: Sequoia plans a big investment in Anthropic, joining a round led by GIC and Coatue, which are investing $1.5B each, as Anthropic aims to raise $25B+  —  Silicon Valley investor to write first cheque for AI start-up after recent leadership overhaul  —  Sequoia Capital is lining …
Palmer Luckey / @palmerluckey:
Meta's VR layoffs may help the industry long term, as most of the ~1,500 roles worked on first-party content and games that competed with the broader ecosystem  —  I have an opinion on the Meta layoffs that is contrary with most of the VR industry and much of the media, but strongly held. This is not a disaster. They still employ the largest team working on VR by about an order of magnitude. Nobody else is even close. The “Meta is
Bradley Olson / Wall Street Journal:
Similarweb: Claude's web audience more than doubled YoY in December 2025, as many coders spent their holiday breaks on a “Claude bender” testing Claude Opus 4.5  —  Developers and hobbyists are comparing the viral moment for Anthropic's Claude Code to the launch of generative AI
More: Anthropic, Telegraph, and WebProNews
Bluesky: @andytseng and @markkamstra.com.  Forums: Hacker News
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Similarweb: Threads had 141.5M DAUs on iOS and Android as of January 7, driven by Instagram promotions, while X had 125M DAUs; X continues to lead on the web  —  A report from market intelligence firm Similarweb suggests that Meta's Threads is now seeing more daily usage than Elon Musk's X on mobile devices.

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Featured Podcasts

Sources:
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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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Cheeky Pint:
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Lenny's Podcast:
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Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
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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Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:

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