BIGGEST AI RAISES THIS WEEK
- SpaceX $40B · Debt Financing
- DeepSeek $15BCATL
- Nvidia-backed Nebius $3.5B
- Flapping Airplanes $1B · Seed
- Bedrock Robotics $600M · Series C
- Legora $550MAtreides
TOP INVESTORS · 30 DAYS
- South Park Commons 3 deals · $72M in rounds
- EQT Ventures 2 deals · $137M in rounds
- Forerunner 2 deals · $113M in rounds
- Abstract Ventures 2 deals · $110M in rounds
BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, STABLECOINS AND THE RULES
BTC $79,847 ▼0.2%ETH $2,311 ▼0.2%SOL $99.95 ▼1.0%XRP $1.30 ▲1.1%24 hr · CoinGecko
Faster Solana slots fail to stop memecoin bot snipersStoneX lifts Strive price target 34% as new stock offering bolsters bitcoin strategyKeystone breach deepens: Hackers stole key used to verify wallets as genuineBlackRock joins SBI and Startale to link tokenized MMFs with Japanese yen stablecoinsRipple wins final US approval for national trust bankMore crypto news →3 payment rules control Aave’s native Bitcoin market, but only WBTC settles themCrypto traders value Anthropic at $1.9 trillion as investor warns its IPO could mark the top of the AI bubbleCanada’s Draft Stablecoin Rules Cap Redemption Fees at 1% and Ban YieldUS OCC calls on community banks to become payment stablecoin issuersHyperliquid says Kraken parent Payward to be first CFTC-regulated HIP-3 deployerDOTS · MUSE · GROK BOT · INSTINCT · GEMINI SPARK · OPENCLAW
GROK BOT Grok Bot Is a Real Product. Most of SpaceX's "AI Revenue" Still Isn't From ItOPENCLAW OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger claims he spent $10 million in tokens in just a month — but luckily OpenAI can afford itMUSE Meta’s Muse And The ‘Cutification’ Of AI AgentsMUSE Meta Muse Makes Marketplace Better. How I Set It Up to Help Me Shop OnlineDOTS OpenAI Dots: Always-On ChatGPT Agents Keep Working but Fail 1 in 5 Long TasksMore AI agent news →MUSE Meta Muse’s 10 Million Users—Why Walmart Wants Them And Amazon Doesn’tGROK BOT Grok Bot can now add events, set reminders, and even turn off your lights for youINSTINCT The Tatkal test for AI agent Instinct: Can it beat India's ticketing rush?GROK BOT Grok Bot Can Now Make Phone Calls for You — Here's How It WorksINSTINCT Text-Message AI Agents Multiply as Instinct Hits $10B ValuationAG TECH, FOOD AND THE MONEY BEHIND THEM
ROBOTS FIRA USA draws agtech and robotics industry and growers to Yakima ValleyPrimient’s iPROOF facility aims to bridge biotech’s valley of deathBSF Enterprise Rebrands Cultivated Meat Technologies As Commercial Arm Milieu.bioEdenCore targets tree and bush fruit growers with its Viewer crop cameraInfinite Roots Adds Umami Block to Mushroom-Based Protein Lineup in GermanyMore farm & food news →PTx on Precision Ag Retrofits, Targeted Spraying, and AutonomyTHE WEEK'S AI WRITING, ONE POST PER WRITER
NOTABLE ESSAYS
- The Future Is for EveryoneMark Zuckerberg · Aug 2026
- Policy on the AI ExponentialDario Amodei
- The Adolescence of TechnologyDario Amodei · 2026
MEDICINE, WELLNESS, HOSPITALS AND THE FDA
Beyond the screen: How AI can give physicians their attention backOpinion: Could long-term AI use lead to isolation? We need to find out — but researchers need better access to dataThe hottest AI wearables and gadgets you should know aboutSTAT+: AI drug firm Pathos raises $237 million, pushing valuation to $3 billionAMA Calls for Risk-Based GenAI Oversight to Protect Patients and Support Responsible InnovationMore AI in health →FDA Official Believes GenAI-enabled Tools Will Need to Be Assessed Like a PhysicianAI LABS

Image: AWS Machine Learning
Fleet-wide computer vision lifecycle at the edge with SageMaker SDK v3 Groundhog Day for AI agents: Prompt caching patterns for using OpenAI models on Amazon Bedrock Build agentic retrieval on a Managed Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Base with CDK Working with academic communities to build scientific understanding GPT-6.1 Sol helps CodeRabbit strengthen security across complex codebasesChatGPT’s expanding world of work How Fanatics and OpenAI streamline the fan experience How Ultrafast cut incident investigation from hours to minutes at OpenAI More AI labs news →Bringing foundational models to the front lines of TB screening LitPivot: Developing research ideas through dynamic contextualization within the literature landscape
ON THE RISE
WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE ARE BUILDING
The next young builder featured here could be someone you know.
Know a young person building with AI? Tell us →Kazakhstan Expands Compute for Its AI Future Does Your Model Run on AWS Trainium? Look It Up Turning Database Grading into RL Rewards: Post-Training Agents with ThinkingBox NVIDIA Unveils Minerva to Bring End-to-End Observability for AI Factories Beyond tree cover: mapping the world’s forest types
Ensemble forecasting with IBM Granite time-series models
ANTHROPIC · OPENAI · GOOGLE · GROK · CHINA · OPEN MODELS
CHINA ByteDance Is Rewiring Its AI Video BetCHINA ByteDance launches AI studio for short-drama productionCHINA Tencent open-sources AI model for real-time Chinese-English interpretationOPENAI GPT-6.1 TerraANTHROPIC Anthropic is burning gas to feed the AI boomMore LLM news →ANTHROPIC Why Anthropic’s IPO Prospectus Is Missing So Many Key FiguresANTHROPIC Anthropic opens its books for Wall Street, showing record revenue and mounting obligationsGROK Grok releases the first seven minutes of its AI-generated ‘Odyssey’OPEN MOSS-Image Passes 1 Million Downloads in Four Days and Tops Hugging Face Text-to-Image TrendsGROK Forced to pick, Grok’s AI model chooses Republicans. OpenAI’s picks Democrats.GROK Elon Musk actually follows through on Grok AI adaptation of 'The Odyssey'OPEN MiHoYo team open-sources GameScaling models that control games through keyboard and mouse actionsNEW IN HAVE I BEEN PWNED
Assurance Retraite: 70,372 accountsGîtes de France: 117,574 accountsCrunchbase: 559,908 accountsSharecare: 318,185 accountsBreach data: Have I Been Pwned (CC BY 4.0)
AI COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS THAT SHUT DOWN OR WENT BANKRUPT
Hundreds of AI start-ups face collapse, Elon Musk warnsWe Investigated Character.AI and Found a Horror Show. Now It’s Bankrupt.12 Million Monthly Users Couldn't Prevent Character.AI’s BankruptcyWebsites shut down globally after AI finds a critical flaw affecting 70% of the internetAn AI chatbot files for bankruptcy. Is it a bad omen for the industry?LAWS, RULES AND GUIDANCE FROM GOVERNMENTS
Reddit's r/opensource bans all AI-related projects, sparking backlash and a rival subredditVirginia governor orders statewide plan to address AI cyberattacksOpenAI urges Newsom to strengthen California’s AI safety law with additional safeguardsSMALL TEAMS TAKING ON THE GIANTS
OPENAI Hob - Open-source, on device alternative to Claude Cowork and ChatGPTTHE BIG APPS desigma: Free Figma alternative made on RustMICROSOFT I finally found a Microsoft Office replacement I don't hateTHE BIG APPS Strafe: A new open-source, E2E Encrypted, and federated alternative to DiscordTHE BIG APPS Opus 5.5 made a fully featured Figma clone in 3 hours / 8 promptsMore David and Goliath stories →GOOGLE Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?ADOBE Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AITHE BIG APPS OpenChart – OSS TradingView alternative with your own AI agentAI NEWS

Image: The Decoder
Researchers find six patterns that make AI text so exhausting to read The Work Moves Outward Will the real Anthropic please stand up The RealReal won’t let AI agents hog designer clothing Highway thieves are spoofing GPS to steal millions in data center-bound cargoFive weird details from Anthropic’s IPO filing Anthropic’s IPO filing reveals its strategy for keeping enterprise customers hooked SpaceX locks in $40B GPU financing deal with Apollo More AI news →The Anthropic S-1 Filing Is Also an AI Doomsday Primer Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 employees
Anthropic’s IPO Prospectus Reveals What’s Under the Hood Anthropic officially files for its public debut Tesla gave up the EV crown. Now it wants to win the autonomy race. Meta plans up to $95 billion in stock sales to fund its AI buildout Kevin Roose is AGI-pilled. Why aren’t you?
Wall Street's fastest traders are building data centers and backing chip startups to stay ahead in AI Meet the AI Agents Trying to Be Real-Life Journalists The focus on AI safety disasters ignores everyday harms This AI Radio Host Speaks Spanish and Backs Immigrants. It’s Winning Over Listeners AI delivers ‘zero financial payoff’ to most companies, Apollo economist says
Will AI expose the rickety infrastructure of the internet? Jensen Huang Brings Four Robot Ducks On Stage in Berlin. A Day Later, Preorders Pass 20,000 Updated Google privacy policy says your Gmail might be used for advertising Intel gets waiver after worries fuzzy US ban on foreign-made robots may hit fabs Designing an AI serving harness built to last
The Foundations of Scalable AI
GET THE APP
Put the DeFoor Report on your home screen. One tap, opens like an app. Free, no app store.
On iPhone or iPad: tap the Share button (the square with an arrow), then Add to Home Screen.
SUBSCRIBE: the weekly email, or add the Report to your AI →
REPORT THE NEWS: send us a tip →
WHO'S HIRING, WHO'S CUTTING, AND THE WORK ITSELF
ICE plan to buy robot dogs spurs protest from hundreds of Boston Dynamics employeesDutch government to cut 16 percent of workforce as part of AI efficiency pushMicrosoft aims for 60,000 layoffs to cut costs for the AI buildoutWhat we learned from 250,000 public workers about AI adoptionAmerican Express cuts 5% of staff and won’t let AI agents ‘run rogue’How AI Is Complicating The Hiring Process For Job SeekersAI helped me automate some of my wealth advisor job. Here's why I'm not worried about it stealing my edge.Entry-Level Workers Are Being Relegated To AI Babysitting And We Ought To Be Worried Sick About ItMore AI and jobs news →How Dropbox plans to prevent AI brain rot in its workersCIOs unprepared for agentic workforce shiftTech Layoffs 2026: 196,000 Workers Affected as Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft Cut JobsGoldman Sachs sees AI-fueled layoffs displacing nearly 10% of workersBarclays is latest to redirect spending toward AI as it trims its workforceThe best enterprise AI is the AI employees barely noticeElectronic Arts lays off 400 in latest blow to beleaguered gaming industryNOW HIRING
1,302 open AI roles · 301 new this week · most wanted: Solutions & customer · top pay $850K
CAPITAL ONE AI Engineer 4 (Gen AI Platform Services: Agentic AI) 5 LocationsHARVEY Legal Engineer, Product Specialist SeoulINTEL AI Software Development Engineer PRC, ShanghaiXAI AND X AI Tutor - Amharic Remote InternationalHOME DEPOT Associate Data Scientist, Merchandise Execution Team (MET) STORE SUPPORT CENTER, ATLANTA - 9090All active AI listings →Hiring for AI? List your jobs →SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES
Pennsylvania adopts school cellphone banThis Tiny Device Is Helping Build LiteracyMidterm elections show Democrats, Republicans jockeying to capitalize on ed-tech backlash39 meta-analyses, 39 positive findings: An audit finds serious flaws in research on AI in educationPause AI in Schools. But Not Before You Do This First.More AI education news →NYC’s AI ban confusion: what’s allowed and what’s banned in city schoolsOpinion: Educators Need to Engage With AI in Order to Learn the Best Ways to Use ItAI is stealing students’ ability to think critically–Journalism 101 may be an antidoteI run an edtech platform I hope you barely useHow K–12 Districts Can Use Student Voices To Guide Ed Tech PurchasesTOP TECH, AI & BUSINESS PODCASTS THIS WEEK
- 1All-In: AI Cyber Panic, Ken Griffin’s Bubble Warning, The Fall of France?783K views this week · 2 episodes
- 2Moonshots: SpaceX’s AI Business Up 830%, OpenAI Agents Lie, and Startup Turns Mercury Into Gold709K views this week · 2 episodes
- 3Prof G Pod: Nate Silver: Democrats Have a 75% Shot at the Senate557K views this week · 6 episodes ▲1
- 4Hard Fork: A Spoiler-Filled Guide to 'You Can See Everything'307K views this week · 1 episode ▼1
- 5a16z Podcast: Why OpenAI Is Racing to Make Computer Use Superhuman232K views this week · 4 episodes NEW
Companion humanoid robots combine lifelike silicone skin with 39 degrees of freedomComau integrates Nvidia technology to accelerate development of AI-powered robotsEdeka adds Knapp robots to automate meat picking at German distribution centerQualcomm to acquire PickNik to expand open-source robotics and physical AI capabilitiesTesla makes another joke of its Robotaxi geofence expansionMore robot news →Tesla turns to car rental platform Turo for Full Self-Driving test drivesTesla expands Robotaxi geofence in Houston with an ode to SpaceX mergerAgility and GXO Logistics plan expanded deployment of Digit humanoidHOLLYWOOD, MUSIC, TV AND GAMES
Tokyo: TIFFCOM Market Chief On Riding the Japanese IP Wave as Entertainment Landscape Shifts Due to AIAt ADE 2026, a Top Music Lawyer Talks AI, Independence & What the Biz Can Learn From RadioheadApple releases iOS and macOS 27.2 with new Siri AI features, new Music logoEpic Games CEO calls Steam's AI disclosure policies "a political act"Universal and Sony cleared to depose ex-Menlo Ventures exec over deleted post: ‘I’ve personally shifted most of my listening to Suno’More AI entertainment news →Shogun 2 – Complete Edition was "not a Creative Assembly developed game," says Total War VP after it was pulled amid generative AI concernsFrom Spotify’s giant profits to yet another legal fight for Suno…it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpONLINE AND BRICK-AND-MORTAR
Retailers are still figuring out how to tie AI goals to executive compensationEtsy updates AI policy, noting concerns about buyer trustAI try-on kiosks gain traction as retailers seek to reduce returnsAgentic commerce: The infrastructure is ready for AI agents. Is your store?Walmart unveils AI agent shopping controls, spending limitsBUILDERS & RESEARCH
Whispering Wisely: Smart Subset Selection for ASR Fine-Tuning From Writing Advice to Manuscript Governance: A Constrained-Transformation Framework for Academic Revision Entity-Aware Evaluation of OCR Systems for Historical Document Transcription OpenESM: Energy-Steered Models Are Scalable Foundation Learners Linear-Time Context Compression with State-Space EncodingQuoting Jason Koebler webframe: evaluated as a scraper and a sandbox Seam Cutter More builders & research →battledrones v14: Compass Rose, a four player map Quick Study