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

In today’s edition, we are tackling the following:

🚚 DoorDash launches 'Tasks' app, paying couriers to capture AI training data.
🤖 Alibaba's workforce shrank 34% in 2025 as it doubled down on AI.
💰 Jeff Bezos is raising $100B to automate & acquire manufacturing companies.
⚔️ Trump cited Pearl Harbor to defend surprise Iran strikes before Japan's PM.
📱 OpenClaw AI agent craze sweeps China, captivating retirees & schoolchildren.

TECHNOLOGY

• DoorDash launches 'Tasks' app paying couriers to capture AI training data (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Bloomberg, NBC, The Independent}}

  • DoorDash's new stand-alone app pays couriers to film everyday tasks & record speech samples.

  • The footage will train AI & robotic systems for DoorDash & its retail & tech partners.

  • Uber launched a similar initiative last year, letting drivers earn extra by uploading photos for AI training.

• Alibaba's workforce shrank 34% in 2025 as it doubled down on AI (Tech in Asia)
  ^{_{More: Economic Times, CNBC, SCMP}}

  • Alibaba ended December 2025 with 128,197 employees, down from 194,320 the prior year.

  • The headcount drop followed Alibaba's sale of its Sun Art & Intime offline retail businesses.

  • Alibaba's latest earnings showed profit plunging 67%, with revenue missing analyst expectations.

• AI bot traffic will surpass human web traffic by 2027, CEO says (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Firstpost, CryptoRank}}

  • Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warned at SXSW that AI bots are rapidly overtaking human traffic.

  • AI agents visit up to 1,000 times as many sites as humans performing the same task.

  • Before generative AI, bots made up only 20% of internet traffic, led by Google's crawler.

BUSINESS

• Jeff Bezos is raising $100B to automate & acquire manufacturing companies (WSJ)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Yahoo!, Forbes}}

  • Bezos is in early talks with major asset managers & Middle East sovereign wealth funds.

  • The fund targets chipmaking, defense, & aerospace firms, rivaling SoftBank's $100B Vision Fund.

  • Bezos plans to use Project Prometheus AI to boost efficiency across fund-owned businesses.

• Trump cited Pearl Harbor to defend surprise Iran strikes before Japan's PM (AP)
  ^{_{More: CNBC, Nikkei, NY Post}}

  • Trump told Japan's PM the U.S. kept its Iran strikes secret to maintain the element of surprise.

  • He invoked Pearl Harbor, asking why Japan didn't warn the U.S. before the 1941 attack.

  • Japan's PM Takaichi visibly appeared uncomfortable, leaning back with an uneasy expression.

• MLB names Polymarket its official & exclusive prediction market partner (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: AP, TechCrunch, Yahoo!}}

  • MLB granted Polymarket exclusive access to its logos, official data, & brand exposure rights.

  • The league also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

  • The deal follows similar prediction market partnerships by the MLS & the NHL.

MARKETS

WORLD

• OpenClaw AI agent craze sweeps China, captivating retirees & schoolchildren (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Economic Times, Japan Times, Edge Malaysia}}

  • OpenClaw, nicknamed 'lobster' in China, has gone viral among retirees & everyday users seeking income.

  • Unlike chatbots, OpenClaw connects multiple tools & learns from data with minimal human intervention.

  • NVIDIA's CEO called OpenAI "the next ChatGPT," sending Chinese tech shares up 22%.

• Iranian drones struck Kuwait's Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, sparking fires (AP)
  ^{_{More: Business Standard, WTOP, Yahoo!}}

  • Kuwait's Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery was hit by Iranian drones for the second consecutive day.

  • Firefighters worked to contain the blazes, with no immediate injuries reported.

  • The strikes follow Israel's bombing of Iran's South Pars natural gas field on Wednesday.

• Russia is jamming mobile internet & restricting messaging apps nationwide (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Straits Times, Business Standard}}

  • Moscow is periodically blocking mobile internet across major cities, including St Petersburg.

  • The government has restricted WhatsApp & Telegram, while taking down dozens of VPN services.

  • New laws give Russia's FSB agency sweeping powers to cut off mobile users without trial.

FUTURISM

• Amazon buys Rivr, the startup behind stair-climbing delivery robots (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, FindArticles}}

  • Rivr, a Zurich-based robotics startup, was acquired by Amazon for undisclosed terms.

  • The CEO says the deal will accelerate 'General Physical AI' & real-world robotics deployment.

  • Rivr previously piloted its four-legged wheeled robot in Austin with delivery firm Veho.

• K2 Space is launching one of the highest-powered satellites ever built (FindArticles)
  ^{_{More: Tech Buzz, TechCrunch, MSN}}

  • K2's Gravitas satellite launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9, generating 20 kW for onboard payloads.

  • The two-metric-ton spacecraft has a 40-meter wingspan & carries 12 undisclosed customer payload modules.

  • K2 has raised $450M & was valued at $3B by investors in December 2025.

• A dancing robot at a California restaurant went rogue, smashing dishes (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Business Insider, Fox, Yahoo!}}

  • A humanoid robot at Haidilao in Cupertino, California, lost control during its performance.

  • The robot danced too close to a table, sending plates & chopsticks flying everywhere.

  • Restaurant staff had to physically intervene & restrain the out-of-control dancing robot.

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CONTENT

• NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien joins Scott Galloway to discuss the media's future (The Prof G Pod)

  • They discuss the Times' subscription strategy & its battle against AI companies scraping content.

  • Levien explains why high-quality journalism remains a fundamentally human-driven business.

  • The conversation also covers media consolidation, political pressure on newsrooms, & digital parenting.

• NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang discusses AI's future, agents, & inference explosion (All-In Podcast)

  • Huang covers NVIDIA's potential Groq acquisition, the $50T market for physical AI, & OpenClaw's future.

  • He addresses AI's PR crisis, refutes doomer narratives, & critiques Anthropic's communications approach.

  • Topics also include open-source AI, space data centers, robotics, & advice for the AI era.

• Dr. Emily Balcetis shares science-backed tools for setting & achieving goals (Andrew Huberman)

  • NYU psychologist Dr. Balcetis explains how visual perception directly influences motivation & goal pursuit.

  • She covers how to better visualize challenges & overcome them for physical & cognitive goals.

  • The episode also explores goal-setting science & how fitness levels shape perceived difficulty.

EXTRAS

• Apollo exec warns software stocks face more pain amid AI disruption (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: MSN}}

  • Apollo's Co-Head of Private Equity, David Sambur, says the worst is yet to come for software stocks.

  • Investors are questioning software revenue & gross margin models due to growing AI competition.

  • Sambur said AI displacement is moving faster than anything he has seen in his career.

• Kim Jong Un & his daughter rode a tank together during army drills (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AP, NY Post}}

  • Kim & his teenage daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, rode together in an olive-green tank.

  • State media showed Kim smiling atop the tank as his daughter peered out of the hatch.

  • Kim Ju Ae has accompanied her father to multiple military events since late 2022.

• Brazil's new law bans addictive features & boosts online protection for minors (AP)
  ^{_{More: Washington Times, The Independent, KSAT}}

  • The Digital Statute of Children & Adolescents took effect this week, covering minors under 16.

  • Under-16s must link social media accounts to a legal guardian for parental supervision.

  • Platforms must now ban infinite scroll and autoplay, & implement proper age-verification mechanisms.

AND MORE

• Bluesky raises $100M in Series B following a recent CEO transition.

• Nothing Phone 4A Pro review: flagship feel, all style & some substance.

• Explore all the tools and more here to outperform the competition.*

• Rivian drops its 2027 profit target to accelerate its push into autonomy.

• Alphabet's X spinout is tackling one of the world's most expensive bureaucratic problems.

• Marc Andreessen is being called a philosophical zombie by Silicon Valley critics.

• Meta reverses course & decides to keep Horizon Worlds on VR headsets.

• Google launches a safer sideloading method for Android apps to reduce scams.