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,
SoftBank just dropped $6.5B on chip designer Ampere Computing - a company bleeding cash but loaded with talent. Masa Son's expensive tech crush comes with 1,000 chip engineers and a revenue chart that looks like a ski slope.
Meanwhile, OpenAI's new o1-pro model wants $600 per million tokens. That's 1000x pricier than their budget option. 🤑 The catch? This "premium brain" still stumbles over Sudoku. Talk about expensive confusion!
Son needs computing muscle for his $500B data center dreams. OpenAI needs your wallet for their "think harder" promise. Both prove one thing: in 2025's AI gold rush, deep pockets matter more than perfect logic. 💸
From where I sit, tech's favorite game is "spend big or go home." The winners? Engineers with stock options and investors with iron stomachs.
Stay curious,
Marcus Schuler
SoftBank just placed another expensive bet on AI. The Japanese investment giant will buy chip designer Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion in cash – despite Ampere's shrinking revenue and mounting losses.
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's CEO, needs computing power. His company plans massive data centers with OpenAI and Oracle, backed by a jaw-dropping $500 billion investment. Ampere's 1,000 chip engineers might help make that happen.
The deal reshuffles the AI deck. Carlyle Group exits with its 60% stake, Oracle cashes out 32%, and Ampere joins SoftBank's growing AI family alongside Arm Holdings. SoftBank will borrow from Mizuho Bank to foot the bill.
Son believes superhuman AI requires better chips. But SoftBank's stock keeps sliding as tech shares tumble on Wall Street. The company posted losses last quarter as its tech investments soured.
This acquisition marks Son's latest AI spending spree. In January, SoftBank poured $1.5 billion into OpenAI shares. Now it's betting billions more on a money-losing chip designer – proving that in the AI gold rush, even red ink can look golden.
The deal reveals a stark reality: talent trumps profit in today's AI race. Ampere bleeds money but boasts a rare commodity – chip designers who know their stuff. With tech giants hoarding AI expertise like digital dragons, Son had to pay up or miss out.
SoftBank's aggressive moves mirror the industry's fever. Companies scramble to secure AI infrastructure at any cost. They're building billion-dollar data centers, poaching talent, and gambling on unproven technology. Son just raised the stakes again.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
OpenAI just cranked up the price dial to maximum. Their new o1-pro model demands $600 per million tokens of output – that's 10 times more than their regular model and 1000 times pricier than their budget option.
The company claims o1-pro "thinks harder" than its predecessor. It burns more computing power to tackle complex problems. But early users raise eyebrows at its actual capabilities. The model stumbles over Sudoku puzzles and gets confused by simple optical illusions.
OpenAI's own benchmarks paint a modest picture. The new model beats its cheaper sibling only slightly at coding and math tasks. It does solve them more consistently, though.
Developers must prove their commitment before getting access. The entry ticket? A minimum $5 spent on OpenAI's services. They'll also need to overhaul their existing tools – o1-pro works exclusively through OpenAI's new Responses API.
The company bets big on developers' willingness to pay premium prices for marginal gains. They're selling "more reliable responses" at luxury rates. But with basic puzzles still tripping up this expensive new brain, some might wonder if the price tag matches the performance.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
Prompt:
Black and white poster, a tattooed nun with a cross necklace in her hand making gang signs, simple background, in the style of tattoo art, high contrast, high resolution, detailed skin texture, dark atmosphere, rendered with Octane.
Meta finally launches its AI assistant in Europe, but it's showing up to the party with half its features missing.
The chatbot rolls out across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger in 41 countries – nearly a year after its US debut.
European privacy watchdogs forced Meta to hit pause in 2023. Ireland's regulators worried about the company training its AI on user data. Meta responded by stripping the European version down to basics.
The stripped-down assistant can brainstorm ideas, plan trips, and answer questions. It'll even help users discover content on Instagram. But that's where the party ends. No image generation, no photo analysis, and definitely no peeking at European users' data.
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses got some AI features last November. But even they can't use their eyes – the glasses lack the visual recognition powers of their American cousins.
The company promises to work with regulators to bring more features to Europe. They're aiming for "parity with the US." Translation: Europeans might eventually get the full AI experience their American friends enjoy.
Why this matters:
CoreWeave aims to grab $26 billion in its IPO debut, riding the AI wave with OpenAI's $11.9 billion contract tucked in its pocket. The cloud provider's revenue jumped from $229 million to $1.92 billion in a year, though it burned through $863 million doing it – proving that in today's tech world, you need to spend money to lose money.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shot down rumors about buying into Intel with trademark sass, declaring "Nobody invited me" to any takeover consortium. Meanwhile, he brushed off concerns about AI chip demand, revealing that 3.6 million orders for Nvidia's newest Blackwell chips barely scratch the surface – apparently, when you're selling the picks and shovels for the AI gold rush, business stays pretty good.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang plans to spend half a trillion dollars on US-made electronics over four years, pivoting away from Asia as Trump's tariff threats loom. The AI chip kingpin's newfound patriotism comes with a dash of pragmatism: when the world's most valuable chip company suddenly discovers a burning desire to "Buy American," it probably has more to do with political winds than flag-waving.
Brussels just dropped new rules on Apple and Google like a digital bomb – and dared Trump to complain about it. The EU accused Google of gaming its search results to crush rivals, while ordering Apple to play nice with other companies' gadgets. Both tech giants griped about red tape, but EU competition chief Teresa Ribera shot back with a simple message: play by our rules or pay up.
Synopsys unveiled an AI assistant that helps engineers juggle the mind-bending task of arranging billions of transistors in computer chips. The company aims to ease the pressure on human designers who can't keep up with Nvidia's insatiable appetite for new chips – because apparently teaching robots to design better robots is exactly what could go wrong right.
Three AI labs smuggled computer-written research papers into a prestigious conference, sparking outrage from academics who unknowingly reviewed them. Only one lab, Sakana, bothered to ask permission first – while Intology and Autoscience dropped their AI papers into the review pile like digital cuckoo eggs in an academic nest.
Michael Seibel leaves Y Combinator's prestigious startup factory after shepherding thousands of founders through Silicon Valley's boot camp. The serial entrepreneur, who went from startup founder to YC's top brass, now plans to swap term sheets for civic duty – proving that even tech veterans eventually tire of teaching 22-year-olds how to pivot.
Elon Musk's social network X just scored nearly $1 billion in fresh funding, valuing the company at $32 billion – the same price tag it wore when Musk bought Twitter in 2022. The billionaire jumped into his own fundraising round, apparently believing in X enough to double down despite advertisers fleeing, revenue dropping, and Fidelity marking down its stake by 68%.
Billions spent on classroom laptops have backfired spectacularly, with only 28% of eighth graders now mastering math and 30% making the grade in reading. Students trade meaningful teacher interactions for screen time, proving that sometimes the best upgrade is an old-fashioned downgrade to books and pens.
Grammarly obliterates writing anxiety with AI that catches everything from typos to tone problems. The Ukrainian-founded unicorn has transformed from academic plagiarism hunters to communication commandos for millions worldwide.
• The Founders 🧠
Founded 2009 by Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, and Dmytro Lider.
Bootstrapped for eight years before taking funding, they nearly went broke multiple times.
Now 1000+ employees across San Francisco, New York, Kyiv, and Vancouver. Born from founders' struggles as non-native English speakers.
• The Product ⚡
AI-powered writing assistant that fixes grammar, refines tone, improves clarity, and now generates text. Cross-platform ubiquity is its superpower - browser extensions, mobile keyboards, desktop apps. Works everywhere you type. GrammarlyGO now offers generative capabilities rivaling dedicated AI writers. 30M daily users can't be wrong.
• The Competition 👀
Rules the writing assistant arena despite scrappy challengers.
👉 ProWritingAid offers deeper analysis for novelists.
👉 Ginger courts non-native speakers. Microsoft/Google build basic tools into platforms.
👉 ChatGPT threatens with raw generative power but lacks Grammarly's seamless integration across platforms.
Grammarly's everywhere-at-once approach keeps it dominant.
• Financing 💰
Profitable since 2011.
Raised $110M in 2017 (valued $550M), $90M in 2019 (hit unicorn status >$1B), and $200M+ in 2021 at jaw-dropping $13B valuation.
Investors include General Catalyst, IVP, BlackRock and Baillie Gifford. Revenue estimated $250M+ in 2024, doubling annually.
• The Future ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Grammarly sits at communication's crossroads in a digital-first world. Enterprise expansion and developer platform position it as the potential "writing engine" for tomorrow's apps.
Multilingual support would unlock massive growth.
IPO inevitable but founders are playing the long game. Nothing kills careers faster than bad writing – Grammarly's moat is human insecurity. 😅
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 wants to play social media kingmaker. Sam Altman's crew is quietly testing
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI just fired another shot in the AI race 🎯. Their new GPT-4.1 devours text
Fuel your morning with AI insights. Lands in your inbox 6 a.m. PST daily. Grab it free now! 🚀
