Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar on diffusing intelligence, safety, AI lessons, forward-deployed engineering, Anthropic vs. the US, AI religion, and more — Today's Stratechery Interview is with Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar. Sankar has worked at Palantir for 20 years …
Natalie Breymeyer / Axios:
Circuit Mind, which uses AI to automate electronics and circuit design, raised $25M, including an $18.5M Series A led by Norwest, and plans a US relocation — Circuit Mind, a startup developing AI software for electronics design, raised $25 million, CEO Tomide Adesanmi tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Lauren McCarthy / New York Times:
Kalshi raised $1B led by Sequoia and Wellington Management at a $40B valuation, up from a $22B valuation after raising $1B in May, its last raise before an IPO — The prediction market raised $1 billion in a new funding round and landed a market value almost double that of rival Polymarket.
Reuters:
DoorDash agrees to acquire Instacart in a ~$17B deal, paying $65 per share, a 26% premium to its October 22 close, as the platform delivery market consolidates — DoorDash (DASH.O) said on Thursday it would buy Instacart (CART.O) in a deal valued at about $17 billion, stepping up its push …
Reuters:
Sources: the Pentagon is treating the late August freezer malfunctions across 6+ military bases as a suspected cyberattack and is working with French police — The Pentagon is treating the spate of mysterious freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the United States …
Ashutosh Joshi / Bloomberg:
Jio Platforms adds $36B in market value in two trading sessions, hitting a $144B market cap, up from its ~$108B IPO valuation, after India's biggest-ever IPO — Jio Platforms Ltd. has added almost $36 billion in market value in two trading sessions, extending its blistering run …
The Information:
Sources: DeepSeek and Moonshot AI heavily relied on GPT-6 Astra distillation to train models like Kimi K3.1 Pro and V4.1-Flash 1017, after Anthropic's crackdown — OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, the most powerful model the company has released, has met with strong demand since its release in early September.
Jamie Hore / This Week in Videogames:
Epic Games says it is using AI tools to “develop code and features” for Unreal Engine, including core engine components like the D3D12 rendering layer — In Brief: Following CEO Tim Sweeney's announcement of a “huge pivot” towards AI tools, Epic Games has confirmed that AI tools …
Bloomberg:
Sierra Club expects US power emissions to hit 2.1B metric tons by 2030, up 42% on 2025 and erasing 15 years of cuts, with off-grid data centers matching Mexico — The boom is set to produce enough greenhouse gases to cancel out 15 years of declines in power-sector emissions, according to a Sierra Club analysis.
Kali Hays / BBC:
Vladimir Putin praises Elon Musk as a “real genius” and says Russia is in “close contact” with Musk and the US to coordinate Rassvet and Starlink satellites — Elon Musk is a “real genius”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday after revealing the two are in …
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
Apple's touchscreen MacBook Pro is designed for the iPad generation, with an optimized macOS, and the company is right to move on from Steve Jobs' skepticism — Ever since I got my hands on the very first iPad Pro all the way back in November 2015, I've gotten used to a certain type …
New York Times:
US officials believe Megaspeed executive Alice Huang is a Chinese asset who maintained a close relationship with Jensen Huang to pass intelligence to Beijing — Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, is influential at the White House on technology policy and has developed a close relationship …
Reuters:
Sources: Bloomberg, Susquehanna, and Jump Trading signed up for Truth Social's fast API feed of President Trump's posts, paying $60K to $100K per month — Truth Social, the social media platform founded by President Donald Trump, has signed up news and data provider Bloomberg and two Wall Street firms …
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
A profile of Nscale CEO Josh Payne, who is proceeding with plans for a US IPO that sources say is targeting a $30B valuation despite some investor pushback — Sheryl Sandberg says the 32-year-old executive reminds her of Mark Zuckerberg. Josh Payne must now take his startup public at a tumultuous moment for the AI industry.
Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:
How Maynard v. Snapchat, a 2016 lawsuit linked to a car crash involving Snapchat's speed filter, sparked social media's legal reckoning over user safety — The rain had only just let up when the night shift ended at the Bay Breeze Seafood Restaurant in Lovejoy, Georgia.
Reuters:
STMicro reports Q3 revenue up 17.9% YoY to $3.76B, operating income up 98% to $429M, above $400.5M est., and forecasts $4.15B in Q4 revenue, above $4.10B est. — STMicroelectronics (STMPA.PA) reported a third-quarter operating profit above market expectations on Thursday …
Bloomberg:
A profile of Tencent Cloud CEO Dowson Tong, who is shifting Tencent's AI focus toward businesses and betting on its Claude Cowork-style assistant WorkBuddy — When Pony Ma called Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s AI endeavor “a leaky ship” this summer, the billionaire founder sent ripples through …
Wired:
Bluesky blocks links to a leaked archive containing personal data of 41,000+ DHS employees and contractors, saying it was “shared without their authorization” — Bluesky tells WIRED it blocked links to a leaked archive of information on 41,000 ICE, CBP, and other DHS workers …
Elizabeth Rembert / Bloomberg:
National Student Clearinghouse: US computer science enrollment fell 12%+ for undergrads and 10%+ for grad students this fall, as AI reduces coding jobs — Computer and information science departments at US colleges saw an exodus of students this fall, with enrollment declining more than 12% …
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Google plans to expand “high-quality ads within AI Overviews in AI Mode” into international markets, as growth in its core search ad business slows — Google is bringing ads in its AI-powered Search experiences to international markets, betting that generative AI can open …