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

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

🛡️ Anthropic reports 200M exchanges linked to Chinese attacks on Claude.
✋ OpenAI pauses new Pro sign-ups as demand for Astra strains its infrastructure.
📈 Silver Lake-backed Altera prepares IPO that could raise more than $2B.
🛍️ Barington builds stake in Bath & Body Works, pushes for sale.
⚔️ Trump defends Iran war as Treasury readies fresh sanctions on Iranian bank.

TECHNOLOGY

• Anthropic reports nearly 200M exchanges tied to Chinese distillation attacks on Claude (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: CNBC, Nikkei, SCMP}}

  • Five campaigns targeted Claude's reasoning, coding, and agentic capabilities, with Alibaba's Qwen effort the largest.

  • Alibaba's campaign spanned 151M exchanges across 3.5k accounts between May and July 2026.

  • Attackers tricked models into exposing hidden reasoning, one disguising the request as a Japanese translation task.

• OpenAI pauses new Pro sign-ups as Astra demand strains its infrastructure (The Verge)
  ^{_{More: Firstpost, TechCrunch, The Information}}

  • Product leader Thibault Sottiaux said the $200-per-month tier places the heaviest load on OpenAI's systems.

  • The API, Go, and Plus plans remain available, and only new Pro subscriptions are affected.

  • Wednesday, the lab warned that Astra's demand was unprecedented and that a pause might become necessary.

• Meta's Muse hits No. 2 on U.S. App Store despite soft debut (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!}}

  • Sensor Tower data shows the agentic AI app passed 83k iOS installs in its U.S.-only launch.

  • Threads drew 4.3M U.S. downloads on day one, while Meta AI managed 108k at debut.

  • ChatGPT cleared 500k installs in a week, averaging roughly 83.3k per day, twice Muse's pace.

BUSINESS

• Silver Lake-backed Altera prepares IPO that could raise more than $2B (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: CNA, AOL}}

  • Sources say the chipmaker could confidentially file in the coming weeks and list as early as 2026.

  • Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are lined up as underwriters, though the banking order is not yet set.

  • The listing would rank among the largest semiconductor IPOs in recent years, according to Reuters sources.

• Barington builds stake in Bath & Body Works, pushes for sale (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Investing.com, AOL}}

  • CEO James Mitarotonda called the retailer undervalued and hurt by unstable management, per Bloomberg.

  • Barington held roughly 0.78M shares, a 0.38% stake, as of June 30, according to LSEG data.

  • Shares rose about 2% after hours, though the stock remains down nearly 13% this year.

• OpenAI takes aim at junior banker work with ChatGPT for Financial Services (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: Fortune}}

  • The tool researches companies, analyzes financial data, and builds presentations, tasks usually handled by junior bankers.

  • Morgan Stanley and Evercore served as design partners on the tailored enterprise version.

  • The launch deepens OpenAI's enterprise push ahead of a widely anticipated blockbuster IPO.

MARKETS

WORLD

• Trump defends Iran war as Treasury readies fresh sanctions on Iranian bank (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: Business Times, Investing.com}}

  • He told Fox News that he would take the same action again without hesitation.

  • Trump argued a nuclear-armed Iran would target Israel, the wider Middle East, and U.S. cities.

  • Scott Bessent flagged sanctions on a large bank Monday as markets brace for prolonged conflict.

• Houthis seize Mocha port, tightening grip on vital Red Sea shipping lane (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: ABC, WSJ}}

  • Fighters reached the Hanish Islands as government forces regrouped at Dhubab, opposite strategically vital Perim Island.

  • Houthi officials declared the Red Sea safe except for Saudi vessels, the kingdom's main route since Hormuz closed.

  • Trump expects the war to end after November's midterms, as U.S. diesel tops $6 a gallon.

• Indonesia faces one of its worst wildfire seasons as El Niño builds (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, CNN}}

  • Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo are hardest hit, with peatland burning and toxic haze blanketing entire regions.

  • Flights, parks, and thousands of schools have closed as cases of asthma and respiratory infections climb.

  • Authorities deployed over 50 aircraft for cloud seeding and water bombing, per Reuters.

FUTURISM

• Amazon builds shopping into X-Ray, letting Prime Video viewers buy onscreen products (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: The Verge, Yahoo!, Digital Trends}}

  • A new Shop tab inside X-Ray surfaces related products across thousands of streaming titles.

  • Lens technology adds a 'shop the scene' option, and the phone app automatically syncs for playback.

  • The upgrade follows last year's easily missed Shop the Show, joining rivals like YouTube, Peacock, and Roku.

• Instagram now lets users pin posts they're tagged in to profiles (Engadget)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, The Verge, Yahoo!}}

  • The option appears in the tag notification, on the post itself, or via the Tagged tab.

  • Adding a tagged photo neither deletes nor duplicates the original; it remains on the poster's account.

  • Users can remove it from their grid at any time without losing it from the Tagged tab.

• China sets 2030 target for large-scale self-driving vehicle deployment (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AOL}}

  • Automated driving will expand across highways, urban expressways, and select city roads nationwide.

  • Beijing aims to grow multiple automakers into the world's top 10 by sales globally.

  • The plan tightens production and safety rules while curbing overcapacity and local government incentives.

• Stay ahead of AI at work*

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CONTENT

• Aram Verdiyan explains how AI is reshaping tech investing's power law (a16z)

  • David George argues that capital itself reinforces an AI company's edge by funding ever more compute.

  • Verdiyan argues that AI should now be treated as a core portfolio allocation.

  • The pair discuss how to distinguish real traction from hype and where legacy SaaS and private equity fit in.

• Becki DeGraw breaks down founder vesting, advisor equity & term sheet leverage (This Week in Startups)

  • She traces the vesting logic back to a YouTube co-founder who left early and lost equity.

  • Jason shares the exact script founders can use to turn one term sheet into three.

  • DeGraw warns against letting AI draft a vesting schedule and cautions about lingering advisor equity.

• Stanford professors argue that chasing one true purpose is the wrong life goal (The Prof G Pod)

  • Bill Burnett and Dave Evans told Scott Galloway that "follow your passion" is often poor advice.

  • They discussed whether a job must provide both money and meaning, not just one or the other.

  • The pair explained how small experiments can help someone move forward when they feel stuck.

EXTRAS

• Android adds seamless password manager transfers, retiring risky CSV export files (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: The Verge, Yahoo!}}

  • Users open the new app, pick import, then review and approve the transfer in a few taps.

  • Passkeys move across too, so credentials do not need to be set up again.

  • Bitwarden, 1Password, and Dashlane already support it on devices running Android 8 or later.

• IDScan confirms hackers stole driver's license records from its cloud systems (CNET)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, PCMag}}

  • Stolen data covers full names, license numbers, and identity numbers from passports and other government documents.

  • Brian Krebs found a dark web portal exposing 150M U.S. and Canadian records, including photos.

  • The Louisiana firm verifies IDs for venues and dispensaries, and only now admits the year-long intrusion.

• Maven Robotics won a major logistics deal with no product built yet (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!}}

  • In 2024, CEO Hamza Derbas had only a cartoon robot when four rivals were pitching.

  • He toured the client's sites instead of pitching hardware, promising end-to-end autonomy over single-robot fixes.

  • Two years on, up to eight Maven robots run 16-hour days at 99% uptime or better.

AND MORE

• Apple's foldable iPhone raises a $1,999 question of who it's for.

• Anthropic finds rogue AI agents dislike CAPTCHAs as much as you do.

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

• Adobe beats third-quarter revenue estimates on strong demand for AI products.

• Jensen Huang explains why NVIDIA will grow an astounding 70% next year.

• Pentagon in talks to lend $5B to AI cloud startup Fluidstack.

• Furo's founders left Silicon Valley behind & the move is paying off.

• Texas judge rules TikTok misled users about its child safety feature.