Google faces mounting evidence of its search monopoly. A federal judge recently ruled – for the second time in a year – that Google illegally maintains a monopoly in ad tech. Google's response?
The United States set out to win a trade war with China. It failed. Years of tariffs, tech restrictions, and tough rhetoric have backfired, leaving America in a weaker position while China charges ahead with innovation and global influence.
Good Morning from San Francisco, Meta just kicked Apple's AI tools to the curb. All of them. 🥾 No
Good Morning from San Francisco,
OpenAI wants to play social media kingmaker. Sam Altman's crew is quietly testing a ChatGPT-powered social network, banking on their image generation tech to lure users. 🎯
Sound familiar? Tech giants love stretching their tentacles. Facebook flopped with phones. Google+ died a slow death. Now OpenAI craves what Meta and X already have: fresh training data. 🔄
Musk waved $97.4 billion at OpenAI recently. Altman shrugged and offered pocket change for X/Twitter. Now he's building a rival to X while Musk merges it with xAI. 🎪
Classic Silicon Valley soap opera. Just with higher stakes and fancier algorithms. ⚡
Stay curious,
Marcus Schuler
OpenAI wants to join the social media game. The AI powerhouse is developing a social network prototype centered on ChatGPT's image generation features, with CEO Sam Altman quietly gathering feedback from industry insiders.
The company's move follows a familiar Silicon Valley pattern: successful tech firms can't resist expanding into new territories. Just as Facebook tried phones and Google launched a social network, OpenAI sees an opportunity to challenge X and Meta on their home turf.
But this isn't just about keeping up with the Musks. OpenAI desperately needs fresh training data - the kind that flows freely through social networks. While Meta and X harvest endless user content to train their AI models, OpenAI relies on aging web data and limited partnerships with sites like Reddit.
The timing is spicy. Musk's recent $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI got a cheeky "no thanks" from Altman, who counter-offered to buy Twitter for a tenth of that price. Now OpenAI is muscling into social media just as Musk merges X with his AI company xAI.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
Prompt:
Distance Skyline of unseen environments within the Star Wars universe, Marketplace in the city of Ferrix, as Stormtroopers patrol the city,mysterious, mix of technology and sandstone buildings, stunning visuals, depicting lesser-known, dynamic appealing composition, artificial gravity, breathtaking vista, sense of depth, cinematic, frenetic energy
The global chip war just got costlier. Nvidia took a $5.5 billion hit after the US blocked sales of its AI chips to China, while Taiwan found itself in an increasingly delicate position between the world's two largest economies.
China isn't waiting for US permission. A state-backed trade group just exempted Taiwan-made chips from tariffs, even if American companies designed them. Meanwhile, the US government blindsided Nvidia with new license requirements for its H20 chips - specifically created to comply with previous export rules.
For Nvidia, the timing stings. Its stock has already dropped 16% this year on Trump's tariff threats. The H20 chips brought in up to $15 billion from China in 2024, but CEO Jensen Huang now watches that market crumble while Chinese competitor Huawei gains ground.
Taiwan's TSMC sits at the center of this drama. Trump wants to force more chip production onto US soil through tariff threats. China's new policy essentially tells TSMC: "Keep the chips flowing from Taiwan." Four decades of chip-making expertise gives Taiwan leverage that neither side can ignore.
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MITRE's vital Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Program loses its government funding tomorrow, leaving the world's largest cyber vulnerability database in limbo. The program, which has cataloged nearly 275,000 security flaws since 1999, helps everyone from intelligence agencies to private companies speak the same language about cyber threats.
Figma, whose $20 billion Adobe deal crumbled under regulatory pressure, quietly filed for its IPO today. The cash-flow positive design platform, valued at $12.5 billion and counting Google and Uber among its clients, enters a jittery market where many tech startups have hit pause on going public.
ASML's first-quarter orders missed targets by nearly a billion euros as new U.S. trade restrictions cast shadows over the chipmaking equipment market. While the Dutch semiconductor giant still expects strong AI-driven demand, its CEO warned that customer uncertainty could push 2025 revenue toward the lower end of its €30-35 billion forecast.
Grok users can now create documents and simple apps in a split-screen workspace called Grok Studio. The tool, which works with Python and JavaScript, also connects to Google Drive – letting users attach their files to prompts.
Google will redirect all country-specific domains like google.fr and google.co.uk to google.com in coming months. The company says local search results will work the same way, but users may need to reset their search preferences during the switch.
Google has added Veo 2, its text-to-video AI generator, to Gemini Advanced subscriptions. The tool makes 8-second clips in 720p from text prompts, with built-in watermarks and direct uploads to TikTok and YouTube – though users face monthly creation limits.
Huawei's new CloudMatrix 384 AI system beats Nvidia's latest offering in raw performance, packing 384 chips for double the computing power. But this brute force approach comes at a price: it guzzles nearly four times the electricity of Nvidia's system – a trade-off that matters less in China's power-rich landscape.
Hammerspace just raised $100 million to help AI companies access their scattered data faster. The startup, now valued over $500 million, counts Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla among its customers who use its system to pull data from anywhere it's stored – like reaching into thin air.
Europe's carmakers now seek Chinese expertise in electric vehicles and software – a stark flip from decades of teaching China how to build cars. While the EU slaps tariffs on Chinese vehicles, European giants like VW and Mercedes strike deals to catch up with China's advances.
Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy his way out of Meta's antitrust trial. First with money, then with influence. Neither worked.
Meta offered $450 million to settle FTC charges that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush competition. The FTC wanted $30 billion. Even after Meta raised its bid to $1 billion and Zuckerberg lobbied Trump directly, the case moved to trial.
Now old wounds are reopening. In court Tuesday, Zuckerberg faced questions about failed attempts to buy both Instagram and Snapchat. He admitted paying $1 billion for Instagram to "neutralize" competition. And he couldn't resist a dig at Snapchat for rejecting his $6 billion offer in 2013: "If we had bought them we would have accelerated their growth."
Snap shot back. "Anticompetitive behavior can often slow and thwart growth for smaller companies, especially when dominant companies like Meta use their size to stifle competition," a spokesperson said.
Despite cultivating Trump through donations and Mar-a-Lago visits, Zuckerberg's influence failed. The president gave the FTC approval to proceed after an April 8 Oval Office meeting.
Why this matters:
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OpenAI just released a cookbook for GPT-4.1, its latest API-only model that follows instructions more precisely than ever. The guide helps developers shape the model's behavior through careful prompting.
The cookbook explains how GPT-4.1 differs from older versions. It takes instructions more literally, rarely inferring what users mean. This makes it more predictable but requires explicit, detailed prompts. A single clear sentence usually fixes unwanted behavior.
The model excels at agent-like tasks, solving 55% of software engineering problems without help. It handles documents up to 1 million tokens but works best when information sits close to relevant instructions.
For complex code changes, GPT-4.1 brings much better diff generation. The cookbook includes detailed examples and recommended formats to help developers get reliable results.
OpenAI stresses testing and iteration. Since language models can be unpredictable, they suggest building test cases and refining prompts based on real performance.
Why this matters:
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Clockwise transforms chaotic calendars into orchestrated productivity using AI. This San Francisco startup fights the modern workplace battle where 78% of professionals feel their meeting schedule is "out of control."
Founded in 2016 by Matt Martin (CEO), Gary Lerhaupt (CTO), and Mike Grinolds - former RelateIQ engineers who watched colleagues flee offices for coffee shops to escape meeting overload. Now headquartered in San Francisco with 100+ employees (as of 2022). Started because Martin observed colleagues couldn't find uninterrupted work time.
AI-powered calendar optimization that creates "Focus Time" by intelligently rearranging meetings. Core strengths: automatically reschedules flexible meetings, coordinates across team calendars, considers 160M+ calendar events daily, and supports both Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. Features include Team No Meeting Days, lunch holds, and travel time buffers. Recently added GPT-4 integration for natural language calendar commands. Over 10,000 organizations (Netflix, Uber, Twitter) rely on it.
Main rivals: Calendly (external meeting scheduling, $3B valuation), Doodle (scheduling polls), and Motion (combined task/calendar AI). Closest competitor Reclaim.ai was acquired by Dropbox in 2024. Google and Microsoft offer light versions of similar functionality in their platforms. Clockwise stands out through its team-oriented approach and sophisticated AI that considers "up to one million calendar permutations."
Raised $19.3M through Series A (2019) and $93M Series B (2020) from Greylock, Accel, Bain Capital, and others. Secured a $475M post-money valuation in 2022 Series C with strategic investment from Atlassian. Not unicorn status yet, but heading there. Strong investor syndicate positions it for potential IPO or acquisition.
Clockwise sits at the intersection of two powerful trends: work-life balance demands and AI advancement. Microsoft Outlook integration in 2023 expanded their addressable market by hundreds of millions. Already delivered 5M+ hours of focused work back to users across 40,000+ organizations. 🚀 Potential paths include deeper AI integration, predictive analytics for team burnout, and expanding into external scheduling. With remote/hybrid work here to stay, Clockwise's mission to create "sustainable work" feels increasingly essential.
Good Morning from San Francisco, Meta just kicked Apple's AI tools to the curb. All of them. 🥾 No
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI's AI just learned to think in pictures. Their new o3 model doesn&
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI just fired another shot in the AI race 🎯. Their new GPT-4.1 devours text
☀️ Good Morning from San Francisco, 🔥 OpenAI's Sam Altman just threw GPT-4 under the bus. He labeled their $100
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