Wiz investor unpacks Google’s $32B acquisition
Shardul Shah of Index Ventures walks us through Google’s biggest acquisition ever.
Tech
Rivian’s RJ Scaringe thinks we’re doing robots all wrong
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe shares his thoughts and plans for his newest startup, Mind Robotics.
AI Czar David Sacks wants Trump to ‘get out’ of Iran
David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto czar, has warned that a continued war in Iran could be catastrophic. On the All In podcast, Sacks said that “we should try to find the off-ramp.” He expressed concern that Iran could demolish oil and gas infrastructure across the Middle East, but more alarmingly, that it […]
AI companies want to harvest improv actors’ skills to train AI on human emotion
If you’ve got strong creative instincts, the ability to authentically portray emotion, and are capable of staying true to a character’s voice throughout a scene, there’s a job listing calling for your experience. The catch: You won’t be performing in a theater, a film studio, or an underground performance space. You’d be using your talents […]
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are the choice — if you have a Galaxy phone
Samsung promised “more than a design refresh” for its new top-end Galaxy Buds – it added upgraded woofers for improved, dual-amped hi-fi sound, a new blade design, clearer call performance, and better noise cancellation. Ultimately, while the $249.99 Galaxy Buds 4 aren’t a huge leap forward over the previous model, they keep what was good […]
The fast rise and epic fall of Clubhouse
In 2020 and 2021, the social media world seemed to be on the verge of complete change. A new app called TikTok was ascendant, bringing a whole new kind of vertical video to phones everywhere. And another app – not as popular, but growing fast, and already hugely influential among the tech set – looked […]
Live-service games are a mess
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the slow-motion disaster of live-service games, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Two years ago, I stood at the top […]
The $100,000 fee for H-1Bs is causing all sorts of problems
Last fall, President Donald Trump’s executive order raising the fee for H-1B visas to $100,000 – like many of his immigration policies – led to near-immediate chaos. Thousands of workers who had flown overseas to renew their visas ended up stranded abroad. Details about who would be affected only emerged after the fact. Six months […]
Trump administration is allegedly collecting $10 billion on the TikTok deal
In September, Donald Trump claimed that “the United States is getting a tremendous fee” for brokering the TikTok deal. Now sources tell the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that fee is expected to be in the range of $10 billion. The money is supposedly being paid by new investors, including Oracle and […]
The MacBook Neo is ‘the most repairable MacBook’ in years, according to iFixit
Apple’s new MacBook Neo isn’t just the most affordable MacBook — it’s also the company’s most repairable laptop in “about fourteen years.”