The Latest in Startup Success, Cybersecurity Deals, and Space Ventures

Startup Surges and Surprises: From Billion-Dollar Valuations to NASA Mission Cancellations

Retirement Tech Startup Notches $1.33 Billion Valuation - Bloomberg

• Financial technology startup Human Interest raises $267m in equity and debt financing led by Marshall Wace and Baillie Gifford

• The company aims to help small businesses offer 401(k) plans as an employment benefit without the administrative and compliance work

• Human Interest has surpassed $100m in annual recurring revenue and expects sales growth of about 70% for 2024

• More than 25,000 companies have signed up for its services to date

Coatue, General Catalyst Back Figma at $12.5 Billion Value - Bloomberg

• Coatue Management, Alkeon Capital Management and General Catalyst Partners have invested in Figma Inc.

• The deal values the design startup at $12.5 billion

• Other investors who participated in the secondary share sale include hedge funds and current and former employees.

NASA Cancels Rover Mission Set to Search for Ice on Moon - Bloomberg

• NASA is canceling the Viper robotic rover program due to delays and higher costs.

• Viper is a robot designed to search for water ice on the Moon.

Hacker Says They First Didn’t See Any Value in Stolen AT&T Data - Bloomberg

• A hacker claimed credit for the AT&T breach, which exposed text and call logs of most of the company’s wireless customers for a six month period in 2022.

• Some location data was also included in the trove of information, which could be useful for foreign intelligence agencies trying to spy on US government activities or spy on specific targets.

• The hacker claimed to have received roughly $400,000 in payment to delete the stolen information, a small amount compared to other recent extortion events. The hacker is connected to a larger cybercrime crew with members believed to be between 18 and their mid-twenties. The hackers used stolen usernames and passwords from customers at the data analytics software firm Snowflake as a foothold into other companies. The strategy seems to have been to scrape illicit markets for credentials to see which ones worked. The attempted assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump emerged on social media immediately after the shooting, with three main political narratives emerging.

Bearish Nvidia Option Trade Nets $6 Million in Day on Share Drop - Bloomberg

• A trader made over $6.5 million by betting against Nvidia Corp. in the options market.

• The trader bought a $119/$115 put spread for $1.23 million, betting on shares dropping below $119 by Friday and selling the lower-strike option to cap potential gains on a selloff.

• Nvidia shares fell as much as 6.5% on Wednesday amid concerns about US restrictions on chip sales to China.

Is Maddow in Milwaukee? No, That’s an LED Screen on MSNBC. - New York Times

• MSNBC has been broadcasting from a studio in Midtown Manhattan, not inside the Republican National Convention.

• A live feed of the convention floor is projected onto an LED screen behind the anchors, creating a trompe l’oeil effect

• The arrangement has raised eyebrows among TV veterans and raised ethical concerns for news organizations

• Some journalists from NBC News have also been reporting from Milwaukee

• Anchors in Manhattan have not claimed to viewers that they are in Milwaukee, but have mentioned their location sparingly throughout many hours of evening coverage

• NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie and Jen Psaki appeared in side-by-side onscreen boxes from different vantage points inside the convention hall

• It is common for cable news hosts to broadcast remotely, but MSNBC’s decision to place its Manhattan-based anchors in front of a live feed could create odd and misleading moments

• News organizations need to be careful about how they present themselves to their audience and show transparency in their content.

How Trump’s Running Mate J.D. Vance is Connected to Silicon Valley - New York Times

• J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator and vice-presidential hopeful, spent less than five years in Silicon Valley’s tech industry.

• He made connections with billionaire executives and investors, including Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Elon Musk, during a fund-raiser for Donald Trump in San Francisco in June.

• During the dinner, Mr. Trump informally polled the room about whom to choose as his running mate and ultimately chose Mr. Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, who had met Mr. Vance through the tech investor Peter Thiel. - Mr. Thiel had given him $15 million to support his campaign for the Senate before the 2022 midterm elections, while Mr. Musk had donated $1 million to a political action committee backing his run. 10 years ago, he founded X.

To Revitalize Britain’s Economy, a Plan for a Stronger Government Role - New York Times

• Labour Party’s economic agenda puts political leaders more in charge of industrial policy

• Challenges facing Britain include slow economic growth, low productivity and investment, and high taxes

• UK government is embracing the idea that the government must play a key role in driving Britain’s stagnant economy

• Growing lineup of government interventions will end up competing with one another

• Labour’s industrial policy is getting a belated start and has severely limited funding

J.D. Vance’s A.I. Agenda: Reduce Regulation - New York Times

• Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, J.D. Vance, is expected to take a more laissez faire approach to A.I. regulations than the Biden administration.

• Vance is a strong skeptic of regulating AI and supports reining in Big Tech, which he says stymies smaller companies’ ability to succeed

• However, he has also broken with his party to support Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, for her aggressive stance on antitrust action against Big Tech

• He has strong ties with some of the tech industry’s most powerful backers, many of whom fund smaller AI start-ups

• Mr. Vance has accused Big Tech of predicting AI could destroy humanity to solicit new regulations that only the largest companies could comply with

• The technology has prompted concerns worldwide that it could wipe out jobs, fuel disinformation, and replace the need for humans completely

• Tech policy experts say it may be hard to balance his visions for looser regulation and strong accountability for Big Tech

Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts and Increased Tariffs Could Hurt Poorer Households - New York Times

• Some Republicans want to use revenue collected from higher duties on foreign goods to finance tax cuts

• Economists warn that this shift could widen the gap between the rich and the poor

• Trump and his supporters see tariffs on foreign products as a powerful potential source of revenue to offset a drop in tax receipts

• Combining tax cuts and tariffs could have harmful consequences by increasing income inequality

• Lower-income households would be hit hardest by tariffs since they spend a greater share of their income on goods

• Tax cuts could be structured to benefit middle-class Americans more than offsetting the tiny increase in taxes paid by consumers

• A tax-and-tariff regime can be progressive and create jobs by changing the relationship between importers and American manufacturers

• The idea appears to be attracting more interest in the Republican Party, but it is unclear why.

FirstFT: China censors demand AI with ‘socialist values’ - Financial Times

• China is testing AI companies’ large language models to ensure they align with core socialist values

• The Cyberspace Administration of China is batch-testing an LLM’s responses to a litany of questions related to political sensitivities

• Queries around sensitive topics are rejected by most Chinese chatbots

• Chip stocks fell after Donald Trump suggested Taiwan should pay for its own defence

• HSBC has named Georges Elhedery as the bank’s next CEO

• PwC has lost about two-thirds of its accounting revenues from mainland-listed clients this year

• California congressman Adam Schiff has called on Joe Biden to abandon his re-election bid

Chip stocks tumble as Trump comments rattle investors - Financial Times

-Semiconductor stocks worldwide fell on Wednesday after Donald Trump suggested Taiwan should pay for its own defence and a report of US considering tougher restrictions on trading chips with China.- The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index fell 2.4% in early trading, on course for its worst day since October.

• Chip stocks led the declines, with Nvidia down 5.5% and AMD falling more than 8%.

• ASML was down 11% in Europe after a Bloomberg report that the Biden administration was considering more severe trade restrictions on Chinese sales of companies including Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML.

AI bill and votes at 16 among measures missing from King’s Speech - Financial Times

• The UK government has not included a dedicated AI bill in its King’s Speech, despite promising to establish legislation to regulate the technology.

• Science secretary Peter Kyle’s department was already sponsoring a bill on digital information and smart data and a separate bill on cyber security, which was not included in the initial list of 40 bills announced.

• The AI bill was largely complete and mandated government access to the most powerful generation of new AI models for testing and evaluation

• Number 10 has called for caution and caution in introducing binding regulation at this early stage in the government to avoid hampering the growth of the sector

• Other bills that did not make the final cut included votes for 16-year-olds and an overhaul of social care

• There was no legislation to create new towns, set up an Integrity and Ethics Commission, or reform social care.

China deploys censors to create socialist AI - Financial Times

• Chinese government officials are testing AI companies’ large language models to ensure they reflect core socialist values

• Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has forced tech companies and AI start-ups to participate in mandatory government review of their AI models

• The review involves batch-testing responses to a litany of questions related to political sensitivities and President Xi Jinping

• AI groups in China need to filter out problematic information from training data and build a database of sensitive keywords

• China has introduced limits on the number of questions LLMs can decline during safety tests

• Queries around sensitive topics such as Tiananmen Square massacre and Xi Jinping are rejected by most Chinese chatbots

• Some large models have implemented a blanket ban on topics related to President Xi.

Chip sector is caught in the battle of AI versus geopolitics - Financial Times

• Automation, digitalisation, and artificial intelligence are expected to lead to an unprecedented chip boom in the semiconductor industry.

• ASML’s Second-quarter results showed strong growth in demand for its advanced chipmaking equipment, with increased utilisation of machinery leading to higher orders of €5.6bn and €4.8bn in Q2. However, the stock fell more than 10% on Wednesday due to reports of US potential restrictions on semiconductor equipment sale to China and other concerns about geopolitical risks in the sector.

• While ASML is already barred from exporting its most advanced kit to China, the country still accounts for almost half of its second-quarter equipment sales, up from historical levels of 15-20%.

• The group’s long-term growth story is predicated on its advanced lithography machines, which it does not sell in China and is set to make €28.7bn of revenues this year on Bernstein estimates

• Other parts of the supply chain may also suffer from global trade tensions, including makers of less advanced chips.

Google Near $23 Billion Deal for Cybersecurity Startup Wiz - Wall Street Journal

• Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23 billion, its largest acquisition ever.

• The acquisition could boost Alphabet’s efforts in cloud computing and come at a time of intense antitrust scrutiny of the search company and other tech giants

• Wiz raised $1 billion earlier this year at a valuation of $12 billion, one of only a few startups outside the artificial-intelligence industry to raise money at a higher valuation in 2024

• Tech startups are still suffering from the hangover effects of the tech boom that peaked earlier this decade

• If a deal for Wiz comes together, it would be one of the largest technology deals of late

• Alphabet has been a more conservative acquirer than some of its big-tech peers in recent years

• Google is currently awaiting a verdict in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit over claims that it used illegal means to bolster its dominance in internet search.

Young Women With Eating Disorders Feel the Pull of Energy Drinks - Wall Street Journal

• Energy drinks have become more appealing to women, including those with eating disorders.

• Overconsumption of low-cal, highly caffeinated energy drinks is on the rise among young women with unhealthy eating and exercise habits.

Microsoft Quits OpenAI’s Board Amid Antitrust Scrutiny - Wall Street Journal

• Microsoft has resigned its observer position on the board of OpenAI, as regulators scrutinize the partnership between the tech giant and the AI startup.

• Microsoft had invested $13 billion in OpenAI in exchange for a 49% stake in its for-profit arm, which is now facing antitrust scrutiny in the US and Europe.

• The tech giant had gained a nonvoting observer position after the formation of the new board following the abrupt firing and reinstatement of Sam Altman as CEO in late last year. (

• Apple had been set to have a board observer seat after signing a partnership to put ChatGPT on its iPhones and other devices as part of a broader AI initiative called Apple Intelligence).

• OpenAI is establishing a new approach to informing and engaging key strategic partners, such as Microsoft and Apple, and will no longer have board observer seats for any partner.

Samsung Electronics Union Launches Indefinite Strike - Wall Street Journal

• Samsung Electronics unionized workers have launched an indefinite strike in South Korea.

• The union demands an extra one day of leave, an average 3.5% wage increase, and a change to an unfair bonus pay system.

For AI Giants, Smaller Is Sometimes Better - Wall Street Journal

• Tech giants and startups are using small or medium language models to make AI software cheaper, faster, and more specialized. These models are trained on less data and often designed for specific tasks. Smaller models cost less than $10 million to train and use fewer than 10 billion parameters. Microsoft, Google, and Apple have all released smaller models this year. OpenAI recently released a version of its flagship model that it says is cheaper to operate. Businesses and consumers are looking for ways to run generative AI-based technology more cheaply. Small models can answer questions for as little as one-sixth the cost of large language models in many cases. Fine-tuning small models on specific sets of data allows them to perform as effectively as large models at a fraction of the cost.