The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• An interview with OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair about plans to offer financial services to its 2.5M active creators, a potential IPO, and more (Emma Hinchliffe/Fortune) [17d]
• Google says it is rolling out Personal Intelligence for Gemini on Android Auto now and to cars with Google built-in in the coming months as an opt-in feature (Abner Li/9to5Google) [17d]
• Pigment, a French startup that makes AI-powered software to help businesses forecast finances, spin up slide decks, and more, raised $250M at a $2.3B valuation (Dina Bass/Bloomberg) [17d]
• PHP development team plans to release updates tomorrow to address two vulnerabilities, each rated 9.2; security researchers at watchTowr say they are RCE flaws (Lawrence Abrams/BleepingComputer) [17d]
• Elon Musk says Tesla and SpaceX have formed special committees to discuss a possible merger and calls the possibility of a Tesla-SpaceX merger a "good idea" (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge) [17d]
• Eight intermediate TLS certificates from eMudhra with private key sizes of just 3 to 8 bits were compromised; browser makers and major apps have blocked them (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica) [17d]
• Super Micro reports preliminary Q1 revenues of $18.5B to $19.5B, vs. $15B est., and gross margins of 12% to 12.5%; SMCI jumps 11%+ after hours (Dina Bass/Bloomberg) [17d]
• SpaceX reports Q3 capex of $19.6B, up from $6.9B a year earlier, and Q3 connectivity revenue, which includes Starlink, up 69% YoY to $5.2B (Becky Peterson/Wall Street Journal) [17d]
• Report: Anthropic's draft S-1 shows it spent ~$9B on compute and infrastructure in H1, up from $2.3B a year earlier, and could spend $750B in the coming years (David Morris/Bloomberg) [17d]
• Netflix says it expects FY 2026 ad revenue of ~$2.7B, under its ~$3B forecast, and its Q4 operating margin will be impacted due to costs associated with layoffs (Todd Spangler/Variety) [17d]
• Sources: Elon Musk ordered Starshield slowdown in Ukraine and discussed it with Trump after the issue became public; some US officials say he acted unilaterally (Wall Street Journal) [17d]
• SpaceX reports Q3 revenue up 161% YoY to $14.58B, vs. $12.72B est., AI revenue up 830% to $7.56B, and AI operating income of $431M, up from a loss of $1.7B (Lora Kolodny/CNBC) [17d]
• Netflix says despite investor concern about its view-hours growth, its engagement is "healthy" and it will try to bring more third-party content to its service (Nicole Sperling/New York Times) [17d]
• Netflix reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $12.87B, vs. $12.87B est., net income up 44% to $3.66B, due to the timing of expenses; NFLX drops 4%+ after hours (Sarah Whitten/CNBC) [17d]
• Anthropic's IPO prospectus: H1 2026 revenue of $16.3B, ~20% of it from two customers, vs. $1.1B YoY, with a net loss of $80.7B, due to accounting adjustments (Anissa Gardizy/Wall Street Journal) [17d]
• A profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma; sources: Xbox plans a major Game Pass overhaul, a next-gen handheld device by late 2027, and next-gen console by late 2028 (Sebastian Herrera/Fortune) [17d]
• Amazon plans to hire 300K+ US workers for seasonal, part-time, and full-time roles for the upcoming holiday season, up 20% from 2025, paying $20/hour on average (Spencer Soper/Bloomberg) [17d]
• Google launches TorchTPU, an open-source version of PyTorch to let AI apps run on TPUs and Google Cloud via simple configuration changes without rewriting code (Julie Bort/TechCrunch) [17d]
• Oro Mobility, a Hertz-owned fleet management business that has a deal to manage Uber's planned Lucid robotaxi fleet starting in San Francisco, raised $80M (Joann Muller/Axios) [17d]
• A US judge dismisses a civil sexual abuse lawsuit brought against Sam Altman by his sister, after she refused to appear for an independent medical examination (Luc Cohen/Reuters) [17d]
• OpenAI acquires Orchestra Bio, which builds AI agents for managing drug development, and plans to integrate its tech into OpenAI life sciences suite Rosalind (Madison Mills/Axios) [17d]
• Foursquare co-founder says the company was acquired a month ago in a deal resulting in a $0 payout for equity holders, and faults leadership installed in 2021 (Dennis Crowley/Teendrama Snippets) [17d]
• Sources: Sam Altman told OpenAI staff of three AI endgames: an IAEA-style regulator, a CERN-like lab merger, or one lab using RSI to "melt everyone else's GPUs" (The Information) [17d]
• Sensor Tower: Muse had 10.9M downloads since its September debut, 10.2M of those in the US, becoming the 12th app to hit 10M US downloads in its first 40 days (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [17d]
• Sources: Polymarket investors pressured CEO Shayne Coplan to add stricter financial and operational controls; Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, joined its board (Bloomberg) [17d]
• Mark Zuckerberg says Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer and his top DC adviser for 15+ years, is set to leave in 2027; Kaplan had close Trump ties (Mike Allen/Axios) [17d]
• ASI, which makes AI tools for the military and air traffic controllers, raised a $325M Series C at a $3B valuation, after winning an $875M FAA contract in June (Bloomberg) [17d]
• Daytona, which is building cloud infrastructure for AI agents, raised a $60M Series B led by FirstMark at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $91M (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune) [17d]
• Firefly, whose AI software connects with existing cameras, radios, and sensors to detect incidents and coordinate real-time responses, raised a $20M Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios) [17d]
• Sources: OpenAI has retreated from advocating for strict US chip export controls to China ahead of the lame-duck session, aligning closer with President Trump (Politico) [17d]
• TikTok staff depositions: TikTok executives ignored internal warnings over child sexual exploitation on Live, where staff said minors appeared in livestreams (Katie McQue/NPR) [17d]
• Arda, which develops AI software and agents to accelerate assembly line programming and manufacturing automation, raised $230M at a $1.5B valuation (Kate Rooney/CNBC) [17d]
• Eka Robotics, which is developing a "vision-force-action" architecture for its physical AI models, raised a $150M Series A at a $1.45B post-money valuation (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch) [17d]
• DeepSeek open-sources DeepInfer, its internal production stack designed to accelerate inference, optimize chip performance, and reduce energy and compute costs (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg) [17d]
• Salesforce agrees to acquire AI-powered marketing platform Braze for nearly $5.7B in enterprise value, paying $47.50 per share, set to close from February 2027 (Dana Wollman/Bloomberg) [17d]
• Spotify launches paid podcast memberships in 34 markets, including the US; creators can offer perks like bonus content or fewer ads and keep 90% of revenue (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [17d]
• Apple commits up to $100M over three years to Pennsylvania-based Perryman Company, a titanium supplier for the iPhone Duo, and expands its Qnity partnership (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC) [17d]
• Chinese state media: China inaugurates the National Data Group, a new state-owned enterprise that will focus on developing and utilizing data resources (Reuters) [17d]