Welcome back to your daily memorandum talking tech, business, AI, markets, and more. 🗞️

In today’s edition we are tackling the following:

💆🏻 Mexico’s mental health app lowers at risk suicides 9%.
🤳🏻 Apple planning thinner, foldable iPhone to reignite slumping sales.
🎯 Broadcom’s long and winding path to the trillion-dollar club.
🪤 Rhode Island hit by massive data breach and ransoms.
🇪🇺 Europe jumps into AI supercomputing race.

TECH

• Apple Plans Thinner, Foldable iPhones to Revive Growth

  • Apple is preparing a series of major design and format changes to its lineup of iPhones and potentially other products

  • Smartphone sales at the company have stagnated after years of largely minor upgrades to the devices

  • Next year, the iPhone that will be thinner than the current models, and two foldable devices may be launched.

• Why Marc Andreessen was ‘very scared’ after meeting with the Biden administration about AI

  • Andreessen met officials about the future of tech last May, and was “very scared” of “absolutely horrifying” meeting.

  • He described as a young staff who were “radicalized” and “out for blood.”

  • Andreessen published an AI manifesto called ‘Why AI will save the world,’ in June of 2023.

• AI is booming on the App Store, and developers are taking advantage of it

  • AI-focused tools are top 10 in almost every category, occupying education, productivity, and photo editing.

  • Many high-ranking AI apps feel like an attempted cash grab, and it’s not easy to spot the trash from the treasure.

  • Sensor Tower cite four of the top 10 graphics and design apps in the US so far this year have had ‘AI’ somewhere in their title.

BUSINESS

• Donald Trump to appoint Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes to lead the President's Intelligence Advisory Board

  • Nunes will continue leading Trump Media & Technology Group, a public company with a nearly $8 billion market cap.

  • Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, with nearly 115 million shares that are currently worth about $4.2 billion.

  • Nunes previously served as a Republican lawmaker from California and was chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

• Broadcom’s long and winding path to the trillion-dollar club, and how Trump played a role

  • Broadcom became the eighth U.S. tech company to eclipse $1 trillion in market cap on Friday.

  • The stock jumped 24%, its best day on record, after a profit beat and optimistic guidance.

  • In the fourth quarter, AI revenue jumped 150% to $3.7 billion, with growth from ethernet parts used to tie thousands of AI chips.

• In Display of Fealty, Tech Industry Curries Favor With Trump

  • It was a week of Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for the President-elect.

  • Sundar Pichai, and Sergey Brin, together dined with Mr. Trump on Thursday.

  • Tim Cook shared a meal with Trump on Friday, and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, plans to meet in the next few days.

CONTENT

• Trump's Cabinet, Google's Quantum Chip, Apple's iOS Flop, TikTok Ban, State of VC

  • Keith Rabois joins Jason, Chamath, and Friedberg on the All-In Podcast in place of David Sacks.

  • Keith explains returning to Khosla Ventures, the differences at Founders Fund and Khosla, and his husband role in Trump admin.

  • Also discussed; Trump’s appointees, Google’s quantum chip, TikTok’s panic and more.

• Satya Nadella | BG2 w/ Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner

  • Microsoft’s lead exec joins the convo w/ Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner on all things tech, markets, investing & capitalism.

  • They discuss becoming Microsoft’s CEO, advice for CEO’s, Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, and legacy search.

  • And also the AI arms race, leveraging AI within Microsoft, the cost of model scaling and more.

• Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)

  • Lenny is joined by Jackson Shuttleworth, who leads the retention team and the powerful streak feature at Duolingo.

  • The streak feature, which gamifies consecutive days of learning, has been Duolingo’s most important and innovative growth lever.

  • Duolingo boasts $14 billion business with almost 600 million users today.

WORLD

• Mexico is using an AI-powered app to prevent suicides

  • Wellness tracker company MeMind created a tailor-made version of its app for the state to curb a suicide epidemic.

  • The app’s AI diagnostic tool detects small changes in behavior patterns.

  • Over the past two years, the app’s AI tool has connected 10,000 at-risk people with mental health treatment.

• Europe jumps into ‘incredibly costly’ AI supercomputing race

  • The European Union has committed hundreds of millions of euros to help startups catch up in the global artificial intelligence race.

  • The EU will fund AI-optimized supercomputers across the bloc to help startups compete with U.S. rivals.

  • It's a first step toward the goal of becoming an ‘AI continent,’ a term coined by the EU's new tech chief, Henna Virkkunen.

• Beijing urges Chinese schools to prioritize teaching AI amid US tech trade war

  • In a new directive, the Ministry of Education said the move would “meet China’s future demand for innovative talent.”

  • Experts believe China is lagging by at least a year, and is in danger of falling further behind.

  • The plan is to make AI classes the norm by the year 2030.

AND MORE…

• The 51 most disruptive startups of 2024

  • The team at TechCrunch have complied the 51 most disruptive startups that they covered in the last year.

  • They cover “fascinating new technologies, business models, or founder stories, or are pushing an industry forward in exciting ways.”

  • OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and other big AI model makers and newsmakers like Perplexity, are not named on this list.

• Scottie Pippen and the heady rise of the athlete turned crypto bro

  • Author Andrew Lawrence dives into the rise of the athlete and/or celebrity diving in to crypto.

  • Sports stars are rushing to promote coins and exchanges. But they are stepping into a world of which they often have scant knowledge.

  • Hailey Welch, AKA Hawk Tuah girl, lent her viral fame to a memecoin and in a classic pump-and-dump grift recently.

• Rhode Island hit by data breach as hackers demand ransom

  • Hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island residents' personal and bank information, including Social Security numbers have been hacked.

  • Sources say it was likely to be an international cybercriminal group asking for a ransom.

  • The hackers threatened to release the stolen information unless they were paid an undisclosed amount of money.