The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• Cadence unveils AuraStack AI Super Agent, an AI platform for PCB and advanced chip packaging design, with Nvidia, TSMC, and Schneider Electric among early users (Marco Chiappetta/Forbes) [58d]
• Sources: Microsoft security chief Hayete Gallot, who took over in February, has prioritized AI tools, cut several hundred roles, replaced senior execs, and more (The Information) [58d]
• Venture funding of fintech startups grew 22.7% YoY in H1 2026 to $28.6B globally, but deal count fell 25.7% and funding fell 17.3% vs. H2 2025's $34.6B funding (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News) [58d]
• Coinbase's Jesse Pollak says Jordan Fish, aka "Cobie", will now lead the Base app team after acknowledging some of Base's bets on social features fell short (Daniel Kuhn/The Block) [58d]
• SpaceX shares fell for a fourth-straight session on Wednesday, briefly dropping below their $135 IPO price for the first time before closing at $135.27 (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [58d]
• Apple publishes a policy for upcoming Maps ads, says home services ads are banned, medical services ads will be "evaluated on a case-by-case basis", and more (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [58d]
• OpenAI details GPT-Red, an internal automated red-teaming model that helps it find and fix prompt injection vulnerabilities at scale before wider deployment (OpenAI) [58d]
• Uber and Waymo are engaged in a DC lobbying battle over AV legislation, with Uber supporting a hybrid human-robotaxi model and Waymo pushing for pure robotaxis (Liam Denning/Bloomberg) [58d]
• AWS SVP Dave Brown is leaving after 19 years for a new job; he led compute and machine learning services and is a member of the S-team advising Andy Jassy (Greg Bensinger/Reuters) [58d]
• Apple raises AppleCare+ prices for Macs and iPads by $0.50 per month and $5 per year; the increases are exclusively for new sign-ups (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [58d]
• Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area (Thinking Machines Lab) [58d]