Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Amazon files an objection to Saks Global's bankruptcy financing plan, and says its $475M investment in the department store is now effectively "worthless" (CNBC)

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Brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, which Sam Altman co-founded, raised a $252M seed from OpenAI, Bain Capital, Gabe Newell, and others (Ike Swetlitz/Bloomberg)

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AI video startup Higgsfield raised an $80M Series A extension from Accel and others at a $1.3B+ valuation, and says it hit a $200M annualized revenue run rate (Krystal Hu/Reuters)

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Boston-based Tulip, which offers an AI-powered frontline operations platform used by 60K workers, raised a $120M Series D led by Mitsubishi at a $1.3B valuation (Forbes)

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Researchers detail WhisperPair, vulnerabilities in Google's Fast Pair protocol affecting 17 audio device models from 10 brands; Google rolled out updates (Wired)

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BlackRock raises $12.5B as part of its Microsoft partnership to bankroll data centers and energy infrastructure, bringing it closer to its $30B goal from 2024 (Silla Brush/Bloomberg)

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Bitmine, the largest corporate holder of ether, invests $200M in MrBeast's Beast Industries, set to close on January 19; Bitmine holds 4M+ ETH valued at ~$13.6B (Francisco Rodrigues/CoinDesk)

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India's Supreme Court rules Tiger Global's $1.6B Flipkart stake sale to Walmart in 2018 is subject to taxes, a ruling that will shape future cross-border deals (Reuters)

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Anthropic researchers say rich countries' higher AI adoption risks deepening economic disparities and widening living standard gaps, assuming productivity gains (Financial Times)

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AWS signs a two-year supply deal with Rio Tinto to access its Arizona copper mine, the US' first new source in 10+ years, as AI data centers create huge demand (Ryan Dezember/Wall Street Journal)

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Spotify plans to raise its Premium subscription by $1 to $12.99/month in the US, its first US price hike since July 2024, and increase it in Estonia and Latvia (Molly Schuetz/Bloomberg)

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Sources: the US cyberattack that plunged Caracas into darkness during the Maduro mission shows its offensive capabilities; Senators plan to question officials (New York Times)

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Wikimedia celebrates Wikipedia's 25th anniversary, marking its growth from 100 pages to 65M+ articles with nearly 15B monthly views, and releases a docuseries (Emma Roth/The Verge)

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Berlin-based Parloa, which develops AI customer service agents for Booking.com and others, raised $350M at a $3B valuation, taking its total raised to $560M+ (Financial Times)

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Polymarket and Kalshi count Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, and Trump Media plans to launch Truth Predict, raising ethical questions during Trump's second term (Sharon LaFraniere/New York Times)

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Self-help gurus like Tony Robbins, Gabby Bernstein, and Matthew Hussey are charging up to $99 per month to access AI chatbots that promise personalized advice (Sara Ashley O'Brien/Wall Street Journal)

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ASML hits a $500B+ market cap for the first time, the third European company to reach the milestone, after TSMC reported strong earnings; ASML is up 18% YTD (Bloomberg)

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WitnessAI, which intercepts employees' custom GenAI models usage and applies safeguards, raised $58M led by Sound Ventures, taking its total funding to $85M (Ionut Arghire/SecurityWeek)

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The Wikimedia Foundation says Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral joined Wikimedia Enterprise to get "tuned" API access; Google is already a member (Emma Roth/The Verge)

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Yield Sec: the top 10 pirate sports streaming sites in the UK, largely funded by ads from unlicensed gambling operators, had 1.6B views in H1 2025, up 33% YoY (Olivia Solon/Bloomberg)

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