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January 23, 2026, 11:55 AM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| New York Times: |
ByteDance strikes a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new TikTok US entity and avoid a federal ban, concluding a six-year legal saga — TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok …
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X: @adamconner, @dylanbyers, @chrisrmcguire, and @adamconner
LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski and Daniel Ahiakpor
Bluesky: @judah-grunstein, @amanbatheja, @maryannefranks, @evelyndouek, @bobbyallyn, and @evacide
| Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: |
Adam Presser, previously TikTok's head of operations and trust and safety, will be the CEO of TikTok USDS Joint Venture; TikTok CEO Shou Chew will be a director — TikTok said Thursday that it formed a joint venture that will keep the video-sharing app operating in the U.S. under the leadership of an American executive.| Financial Times: |
TikTok's new majority US-owned JV includes investors Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's MGX, each holding 15%, and Dell Family Office; ByteDance retains 19.9% — Video app sets up American unit to handle data and algorithm security — TikTok has established a US data security unit … | Sara Fischer / Axios: |
| Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg: |
R&D firm Merkle, which sold Farcaster, says it plans to repay VCs the $180M they invested in the social media project, and says Farcaster is not shutting down — The software firm behind a crypto-oriented social-media platform plans to repay venture capitalists the $180 million …
More: Decrypt, Unchained, Yahoo Finance, Protos, Cointelegraph, Coinspeaker, The Block, Coinpedia Fintech News, Cryptonews, BeInCrypto, NFTgators, and Neynar
| Kif Leswing / CNBC: |
Intel reports Q4 revenue down 4% YoY to $13.7B, vs. $13.4B est., Data Center and AI revenue up 9% to $4.7B, Q1 guidance below est.; INTC drops 10%+ — Intel reported fourth-quarter earnings Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations but offered soft guidance for the current quarter.
More: Intel, Benzinga, HotHardware, Quartz, The West Australian, Yahoo Finance, Fast Company, Tom's Hardware, PC Guide, Shacknews, The Daily Upside, The Register, SiliconANGLE, The Verge, Bloomberg, and ms.spr.ly
X: @thetranscript_, @firstadopter, @thetranscript_, @theaustinlyons, @thetranscript_, @theaustinlyons, @danobtech, @intelnews, @mweinbach, @kristinaparts, @intelnews, @benbajarin, @economyapp, @schwabnetwork, @thetranscript_, @kristinaparts, @benbajarin, @firstadopter, @kristinaparts, @benbajarin, @deitaone, @zerohedge, @intelnews, and @zerohedge
Forums: r/hardware and r/intelstock
| Reuters: |
More: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, Sharecast, Blockonomi, Capacity, CRN, The Standard, WebProNews, and Wall Street Journal. Forums: Slashdot
| Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: |
How Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are testing AI models by having them play Pokémon Blue on Twitch to track a model's ability to reason and make decisions — Nintendo's original Pokémon games are becoming a popular and strangely effective way to test and benchmark new artificial-intelligence models.
Bluesky: @misscantbewrong and @martijnrasser
| Anthropic: |
Anthropic details how it had to redesign its take-home test for hiring performance engineers as Claude kept defeating it, and releases the original test — What we learned from three iterations of a performance engineering take-home that Claude keeps beating.
More: Sources, The Decoder, and TechCrunch
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Fei-Fei Li's World Labs is in discussions with investors to raise hundreds of millions at a valuation of $5B; World Labs was last valued at $1B in 2024 — Artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li has had discussions with investors to raise hundreds of millions in funding for her startup …
More: eWeek and Silicon Republic
| Maxwell Zeff / Wired: |
Source: by the end of 2025, Claude Code's ARR had grown by at least another $100M from the $1B announced in November, making up 12% of Anthropic's total ARR — WIRED spoke with Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code, about how the viral coding tool is changing the way Anthropic works.
More: Wall Street Journal
| Greg Bensinger / Reuters: |
Sources: Amazon is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its goal of trimming 30,000 corporate workers, after cutting 14,000 jobs in October — Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its broader goal of trimming some 30,000 corporate workers …
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LinkedIn: M Mohan. Bluesky: @sonofathomp. Forums: r/washingtondc, r/technology, r/StockMarket, r/Seattle, r/amazonemployees, and r/wallstreetbets
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: China has told Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance that they can prepare orders for Nvidia's H200 chips, suggesting Beijing is close to approving imports — Chinese officials have told the country's largest tech firms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. they can prepare orders …
More: Benzinga, Implicator.ai, DevX, Proactive, MarketWatch, and Anadolu Ajansı …. Forums: r/StockMarket
| The Verge: |
Epic v. Google: Epic and Google have a secret deal involving Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and Android, with Epic spending $800M over six years on Google services — “Sorry, I'm blowing this confidentiality.” … In a hearing in San Francisco today, the court revealed that Epic and Google …
More: 9to5Google, Business Today, Bloomberg, PocketGamer.biz, Digit, Android Authority, SammyGuru, and WebProNews
| Financial Times: |
Sources: Revolut scrapped plans to buy a US lender and will instead apply for a US banking license, betting Trump's lighter touch on approvals will be faster — UK-headquartered fintech had hoped to secure a banking charter through buying an American lender — Stephen Morris in Davos and Laith Al-Khalaf in London
More: The Block, Sifted, CoinDesk, RTÉ, and Cointelegraph
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: UBS plans to make cryptocurrency investing available for some private banking clients in Switzerland, starting with bitcoin and ether — UBS Group AG plans to make cryptocurrency investing available for some private banking clients, in what could become a significant move … | Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: |
Cubby, which makes software for self-storage operators, raised a $63M Series A led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives — Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet — Wild things happen in the self-storage business. — In 2023, Matt Engfer was at back-to-back lien auctions in Texas.| Min-Jeong Lee / Bloomberg: |
Google invests an undisclosed sum in Sakana AI, valued at $2.6B in November 2025, to boost Gemini's presence in Japan; Sakana AI gains access to Google's LLMs — Google joined Japanese startup Sakana AI's roster of backers in a move that bolsters chatbot Gemini's presence in a country eager …
Okara:
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data — Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure. Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data — Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure. Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.Sponsor Post
| Lee Chong Ming / Business Insider: |
Sam Altman says OpenAI added more than $1B in annual recurring revenue in the past month “just from our API business” — - OpenAI has made more than $1 billion a month from something other than ChatGPT. — That revenue comes “just from our API business,” Sam Altman said.
X: @sama
| Wall Street Journal: |
Capital One agrees to acquire Brex, which specializes in tech to administer corporate credit cards, expenses, and rewards, for $5.15B in cash and stock — Deal would give credit-card issuer access to technology used by thousands of companies for corporate credit cards
More: Business Wire, Crunchbase News, Payments Dive, Forbes, FinTech Futures, Reuters, Inc.com, Barron's Online, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, The Information, Bitcoin Insider, Watcher Guru, valorinternational, Dow Jones Newswires, Cryptonews, PitchBook, Pulse 2.0, Yahoo Finance, Skift, PYMNTS.com, Decrypt, SiliconANGLE, CNBC, BoardingArea, Fast Company, Brex, and CNBC
X: @brexhq, @eglyman, @immad, @ericnewcomer, @hadickm, @ericnewcomer, @austin_rief, @jessetinsley, @lulumeservey, @jbahrdestefano, @darian314, and @victoralazarte
LinkedIn: Cyrus Shirazi, JC Bahr-de Stefano, Sumit Mallick, Heather Dunn, and Damien Weiss
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Apple accuses the European Commission of “political delay tactics”, as the EC seems to be preparing to blame Apple for the shutdown of the Setapp app store — Apple Inc. accused the European Commission of using “political delay tactics” to postpone new app policies as a pretense to investigate and fine the iPhone maker.
More: 9to5Mac, iDrop News, MacRumors, Moneycontrol, AppleInsider, Paul Kedrosky, iClarified, and MacTech.com
Sponsor Posts
Okara:
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data — Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure. Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.
Meet Okara, the AI platform that doesn't train on your data — Chat with 30+ open-source models (Llama, Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek) through encrypted infrastructure. Used by teams handling proprietary code and strategy.
Soxton:
AI-powered law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!
AI-powered law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!
Zoho:
Zoho Books Launches CT600 & Final Accounts Filing for Micro-Entities in the UK — Tax compliance is the fulcrum of accounting and Zoho Books has come a long way in helping different business structures in the UK stay compliant with their tax obligations.
Zoho Books Launches CT600 & Final Accounts Filing for Micro-Entities in the UK — Tax compliance is the fulcrum of accounting and Zoho Books has come a long way in helping different business structures in the UK stay compliant with their tax obligations.
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
Hard Fork:
Will ChatGPT Ads Change OpenAI? + Amanda Askell Explains Claude's New Constitution
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.
Access:
Home robots are coming faster than you think, with Sunday's Tony Zhao
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
An Intro to Data Centers
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Big Technology Podcast:
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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
Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu:
Mews, which makes AI-powered hospitality management software, raised a $300M Series D led by EQT Growth at a $2.5B valuationFind
20 minutes ago
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune:
Cubby, which makes software for self-storage operators, raised a $63M Series A led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs AlternativesFind
54 minutes ago
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
Source: by the end of 2025, Claude Code's ARR had grown by at least another $100M from the $1B announced in November, making up 12% of Anthropic's total ARRFind
1½ hours ago
Financial Times:
Sources: Ledger is working with banks on a US IPO that could value the French cryptocurrency company at more than $4B; it was valued at $1.5B in 2023Find
2 hours ago
Lucinda Shen / Axios:
Booz Allen Hamilton commits $400M to a16z's newest set of funds, for which a16z raised $15B+ in January; this is Booz Allen's first LP stake in any VC fundFind
2½ hours ago
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
R&D firm Merkle, which sold Farcaster, says it plans to repay VCs the $180M they invested in the social media project, and says Farcaster is not shutting downFind
2½ hours ago
Bloomberg:
Sources: China has told Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance that they can prepare orders for Nvidia's H200 chips, suggesting Beijing is close to approving importsFind
3½ hours ago
From Mediagazer
Sean Hollister / The Verge:Mia Galuppo / The Hollywood Reporter:
Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
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