• Wired: Source: at least two more Thinking Machines staffers are expected to join OpenAI soon; some researchers say they are exhausted by the industry's constant drama

• Alex Heath / Sources: Sources: Thinking Machines lacks a clear product or business strategy and has been struggling over the last couple of months to raise a new round of financing

• Sponsor Post 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!

• Kif Leswing / CNBC: The US says Taiwanese companies will invest $250B+ in chip production in the US as part of a trade deal, with Taiwanese government guaranteeing $250B in credit

• Tim Culpan / Culpium: Sources: Apple now needs to fight for TSMC production capacity amid the AI boom; Nvidia was likely TSMC's top customer in at least one or two quarters in 2025

• Reuters: TSMC reports Q4 net profit up 35% YoY to a record ~$16B, above $15.17B est., as it benefited from surging demand for AI chips and hit $100B in 2025 revenue

• Bloomberg: ASML hits a $500B+ market cap for the first time, the third European company to reach the milestone, after TSMC reported strong earnings; ASML is up 18% YTD

• Bloomberg: TSMC projects $52B to $56B in 2026 capital spending, up 25%+ from 2025, and forecasts close to 30% YoY revenue growth in 2026, both above analyst estimates

• Emma Roth / The Verge: The Wikimedia Foundation says Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral joined Wikimedia Enterprise to get “tuned” API access; Google is already a member

• Emma Roth / The Verge: Wikimedia celebrates Wikipedia's 25th anniversary, marking its growth from 100 pages to 65M+ articles with nearly 15B monthly views, and releases a docuseries

• Peter Senzamici / New York Post: Ashley St. Clair, mother of one of Elon Musk's children, sues xAI, alleging Grok refused to stop making sexualized deepfakes of her, amid custody disputes

• Karissa Bell / Engadget: X updates Grok to prevent the “editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis” and geoblocks it for all users “where it's illegal”

• CNBC: Replit launches Mobile Apps on Replit, which enables vibe-coding of iOS apps with integrated Stripe monetization   —  AI coding startup Replit is now letting users create …

• Bloomberg: Sources: Replit is in advanced discussions to raise about $400M in a new round of funding that would roughly triple its valuation to $9B

• Hayden Field / The Verge: Andrea Vallone, who left OpenAI in November as the head of its safety research team, joins Anthropic's alignment team   —  Andrea Vallone has joined Anthropic's alignment team.

• André Beganski / Decrypt: X revises its developer API policies to “no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka 'infofi')”, amid a backlash about increasing AI slop on X

• Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Google agrees to pay $8.25M to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging its AdMob SDK illegally collected data from children under age 13

• Ben Sherry / Inc: Symbolic.ai, founded by ex-eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes, partners with News Corp to offer AI tools to WSJ, Barron's, and others

• CNBC: Amazon files an objection to Saks Global's bankruptcy financing plan, and says its $475M investment in the department store is now effectively “worthless”

• Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Mytra, which is building autonomous robots for warehouses that can move loads up to 3,000 pounds, raised a $120M Series C led by Avenir Growth

• Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Total global VC funding to fintech startups totaled $51.8B in 2025, up 27% YoY and above pre-pandemic totals, but much lower than 2021's peak of $141.6B

• Sam Gutelle / Tubefilter: YouTube revises policy to allow full monetization of nongraphic videos on sensitive issues including abortion, self-harm, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse

• 10 minutes ago Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net: California regulators unanimously voted in favor of Verizon's $10B Frontier acquisition; deliberations included Verizon committing to CA's DEI requirements

• Sponsor Post 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.

• Bloomberg: Sources: Trump and several state governors agree to direct grid operator PJM to hold an auction for tech companies to fund new power plants due to AI demand

• 30 minutes ago Sean Hollister / The Verge: Meta will discontinue Workrooms, its VR space for workers, on February 16; Quest headsets and Horizon services will not be sold to businesses as of February 20

• The Keyword: Google releases TranslateGemma, a suite of Gemma 3-based open translation models available in 4B-, 12B-, and 27B-parameter sizes, with support for 55 languages

• Ike Swetlitz / Bloomberg: Brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, which Sam Altman co-founded, raised a $252M seed from OpenAI, Bain Capital, Gabe Newell, and others

• Boone Ashworth / Wired: As Meta shifts resources away from its Supernatural VR fitness service, users mourn the loss of a community built around the platform and its coaches

• Adamya Sharma / Android Authority: OpenAI quietly rolls out ChatGPT Translate, a standalone website that supports plain text translations across 50+ languages and features prompt customization

• Bloomberg: OpenAI says it issued a request for proposals to US-based hardware manufacturers as it seeks to push into consumer devices, robotics, and cloud data centers

• 10 minutes ago Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net: California regulators unanimously voted in favor of Verizon's $10B Frontier acquisition; deliberations included Verizon committing to CA's DEI requirements

• 30 minutes ago Sean Hollister / The Verge: Meta will discontinue Workrooms, its VR space for workers, on February 16; Quest headsets and Horizon services will not be sold to businesses as of February 20

• Sponsor Post 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.

• 65 minutes ago Bloomberg: Sources: Trump and several state governors agree to direct grid operator PJM to hold an auction for tech companies to fund new power plants due to AI demand

• 2 hours ago Sam Gutelle / Tubefilter: YouTube revises policy to allow full monetization of nongraphic videos on sensitive issues including abortion, self-harm, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse

• 3 hours ago Alex Heath / Sources: Sources: Thinking Machines lacks a clear product or business strategy and has been struggling over the last couple of months to raise a new round of financing

• 3½ hours ago Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Total global VC funding to fintech startups totaled $51.8B in 2025, up 27% YoY and above pre-pandemic totals, but much lower than 2021's peak of $141.6B

• 4½ hours ago Peter Senzamici / New York Post: Ashley St. Clair, mother of one of Elon Musk's children, sues xAI, alleging Grok refused to stop making sexualized deepfakes of her, amid custody disputes

• 5 hours ago Boone Ashworth / Wired: As Meta shifts resources away from its Supernatural VR fitness service, users mourn the loss of a community built around the platform and its coaches

• Sponsor Post Zoho: Saudi Arabia's data localisation era: Why compliance-ready clouds are now essential   —  Saudi Arabia is in a key phase in its digital transformation, where data governance, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty are as vital as innovation.

• 6 hours ago Suzanne Smalley / The Record: Google agrees to pay $8.25M to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging its AdMob SDK illegally collected data from children under age 13

• 7 hours ago Wired: Source: at least two more Thinking Machines staffers are expected to join OpenAI soon; some researchers say they are exhausted by the industry's constant drama

• 7 hours ago CNBC: Replit launches Mobile Apps on Replit, which enables vibe-coding of iOS apps with integrated Stripe monetization   —  AI coding startup Replit is now letting users create …

• 8 hours ago Bloomberg: Sources: Replit is in advanced discussions to raise about $400M in a new round of funding that would roughly triple its valuation to $9B

• 8 hours ago Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Mytra, which is building autonomous robots for warehouses that can move loads up to 3,000 pounds, raised a $120M Series C led by Avenir Growth   —  Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet

• 9 hours ago Hayden Field / The Verge: Andrea Vallone, who left OpenAI in November as the head of its safety research team, joins Anthropic's alignment team   —  Andrea Vallone has joined Anthropic's alignment team.

• 9 hours ago Kif Leswing / CNBC: The US says Taiwanese companies will invest $250B+ in chip production in the US as part of a trade deal, with Taiwanese government guaranteeing $250B in credit

• 10 hours ago Ben Sherry / Inc: Symbolic.ai, founded by ex-eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes, partners with News Corp to offer AI tools to WSJ, Barron's, and others

• 11 hours ago Ciara O'Brien / The Irish Times: Equal1, which was spun out from University College Dublin, raised $60M to deploy its new quantum server for data centers, bringing its total funding to $85M

• 11 hours ago Maggie Eastland / Bloomberg: Letter: a top House Republican warns severe DRAM and HBM3E supply shortages will constrain H200 export licenses; Nvidia says it “can serve all approved” orders