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

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

🚶 Sundar Pichai faced boos & a Stanford walkout over Google's defense ties.
⚙️ Salesforce deepens its AI automation push with the $3.6B Fin buyout.
🚦 Tesla presented misleading 'Full Self-Driving' safety data to win EU approval.
🤝 Fox has agreed to acquire streaming pioneer Roku in a $22B deal.
🌐 G7 leaders opened Ukraine & Middle East talks, with Zelenskyy attending.

TECHNOLOGY

• Sundar Pichai faced boos & a Stanford walkout over Google's defense ties (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: BBC, Tech Buzz, Yahoo!}}

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai met boos during his Stanford commencement speech, with about 200 students walking out.

  • The protest targeted Project Nimbus, Google's $1.2B Israeli military contract with Amazon, and its ties to ICE.

  • Students waved Palestinian flags and held signs, saying they walked out to avoid glorifying corporations fueling violence.

• Salesforce deepens its AI automation push with the $3.6B Fin buyout (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, TechCrunch}}

  • Salesforce will buy autonomous AI agent platform Fin for about $3.6B, bolstering its Agentforce automation offering.

  • Fin's AI agent handles customer support across chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone, and Slack for clients like DoorDash.

  • Agentforce more than tripled annual recurring revenue to $1.2B in Q1; the deal closes in Q4.

• Tesla presented misleading 'Full Self-Driving' safety data to win EU approval (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Business Times, Economic Times}}

  • Tesla gave self-published FSD safety statistics to Swedish and Dutch regulators that researchers called misleading marketing.

  • A Reuters review found invalid data comparisons behind Tesla's claim that FSD is up to 10 times safer.

  • Tesla approached the Dutch regulator, RDW, in late 2024; RDW approved FSD in April and is now seeking EU-wide approval.

BUSINESS

• SpaceX's IPO haul climbed to $85.7B after underwriters exercised the greenshoe (CNA)
  ^{_{More: BBC, TechCrunch, Fortune}}

  • Underwriters exercised the greenshoe option, lifting SpaceX's total IPO proceeds to $85.7B from $75B last week.

  • SpaceX sold 555.56 million shares at $135 each to raise $75B, the largest IPO in history.

  • The offering drew over $250B in orders, oversubscribed roughly four times; shares surged 19% Friday.

• Fox has agreed to acquire streaming pioneer Roku in a $22B deal (AP)
  ^{_{More: LA Times, USA Today, Bloomberg}}

  • Fox agreed to acquire Roku for roughly $22B, or $160 per share, in a cash-and-stock transaction.

  • The deal merges Fox's news and sports channels with Tubi, a streamer, and Roku's devices and The Roku Channel, closing in 2027.

  • Fox shares fell 17% Monday while CEO Lachlan Murdoch called the acquisition a "defining moment" for the company.

• U.S. Supreme Court rejected Macy's challenge over compensating fired strikers (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AOL, MSN, Yahoo!}}

  • The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear Macy's challenge to an NLRB order requiring worker compensation.

  • NLRB ruled in 2023 that Macy's unlawfully locked out and fired about 60 unionized engineers after a strike.

  • Macy's called the order unconstitutional; the NLRB now faces dozens of cases challenging its structure and enforcement powers.

MARKETS

WORLD

• G7 leaders opened Ukraine & Middle East talks, with Zelenskyy attending (Washington Post)
  ^{_{More: AP, France 24}}

  • G7 leaders face a packed Tuesday agenda on ending Russia's war in Ukraine and the Middle East crisis.

  • The talks follow Trump's announced deal ending the U.S.-Iran war, which had recently overshadowed the Ukraine conflict.

  • Macron will press Trump to keep backing Ukraine; Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities killed 11 before the summit.

• Iran's 2-2 World Cup opener reflected deep divisions among its diaspora fans (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Straits Times, AOL}}

  • Before a crowd of 70k in Los Angeles, Iran fought back twice for a 2-2 draw with New Zealand.

  • Whistles drowned out Iran's anthem as others sang along; many waved the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flag in protest.

  • Amid U.S. tensions, Iran based itself in Tijuana; the opener followed an Iran-U.S. war framework deal hours earlier.

• Sarvam becomes India's newest AI unicorn with a $234M HCLTech-led round (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, TOI, TNW}}

  • Sarvam raised $234M at a $1.5B valuation, making the Bengaluru-based startup India's newest AI unicorn.

  • HCLTech led with $150M alongside Bessemer, Khosla, and Peak XV; Sarvam targets $300M for its Series B.

  • The funding backs Sarvam's full-stack, sovereign AI built for Indian languages across banking, insurance, government, and defense.

FUTURISM

• Alibaba unveiled AI models for robots amid an industry shift toward agents (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AOL, Yahoo!, Morningstar}}

  • Chinese tech and e-commerce giant Alibaba unveiled its first suite of AI models for robots on Tuesday.

  • The launch reflects China's tech industry's pivot from chatbots to the more lucrative business of AI agents.

  • Such agents can execute complex tasks and make machines more intelligent, with a higher-value focus than conversational chatbots.

• A satellite has learned to identify targets autonomously using onboard AI (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, RocketNews, Bitcoin World}}

  • In April, an Earth observation satellite found its target autonomously, marking the first reported use of a vision-language model in orbit.

  • Onboard Loft Orbital's YAM-9, NASA JPL software ran DeepMind's edge-built Gemma 3 to answer natural-language image queries.

  • Near-term, onboard AI triages data to ease analyst overload; long-term, it points toward space-based AI infrastructure.

• A modified humanoid robot is now training to climb Mount Everest (Futurism)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, ThePrint}}

  • A modified Unitree G1 humanoid completed a trek up Ecuador's Chimborazo volcano, with Mount Everest the next target.

  • At 20,564 feet, Chimborazo's summit sits farther from Earth's center than Everest, owing to its equatorial position.

  • The robot walked autonomously on sections under a 30-degree incline of the 16-hour trek, but was carried elsewhere.

• Cut through the hype. Roko’s Basilisk distills the day’s AI breakthroughs, market moves, and workable workflows into a five-minute brief*

  • Get one sharp deep dive, fast Quick Hits, and a witty pro tip, plus links that actually matter.

  • Built for builders, operators, and curious leaders who need context fast. Join 100k+ readers who start decisions here each morning.

CONTENT

• A TJ Maxx cashier built a $200k mobile app using AI (Greg Isenberg)

  • George Lampropoulos, a 19-year-old founder, shares his framework for reaching $10k per month, roughly $333 per day.

  • His app WrestleAI has 100k-plus downloads and nearly $200k in revenue, powered by a sharp 'gotcha feature'.

  • The episode also covers closing influencers, hiring a VA, running paid ads, and reading metrics that drive growth.

• Aravind Srinivas says Micron will outvalue Meta & export controls aided China (20VC)

  • Aravind Srinivas, CEO of fast-growing Perplexity, tripled revenue this year to well over $500M in ARR.

  • He has raised over $1B for Perplexity, which has reached reported valuations of around $20B.

  • The conversation covers AI agents, power as the key bottleneck, export controls, and inference firms becoming $100B giants.

• Sara Fischer answers listener questions on the state of American media (The Prof G Pod)

  • Scott Galloway and Sara Fischer, an Axios correspondent and CNN analyst, discuss the state of American media.

  • They explore who could replace 60 Minutes and why billionaires keep buying up media companies.

  • The discussion also weighs the economics of podcasting and whether the medium has already peaked.

EXTRAS

• Bank of Japan raised rates to 1%, the highest since 1995 (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: BBC, Yahoo!, Financial Post}}

  • The board approved the rate hike in a split 7-1 vote, with Toichiro Asada favoring a hold.

  • The move comes as Japan grapples with a persistently weak yen and inflation that has begun creeping higher.

  • The Nikkei 225 climbed after the decision, the yen strengthened marginally, and bond yields also rose.

• The AI layoff wave is fast becoming a contentious blame game (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: MSN, Yahoo!}}

  • Tech layoffs hit a two-year monthly high last month with nearly 40k cuts, AI the most-cited reason.

  • Skeptics argue AI is a convenient cover story; Block's Jack Dorsey eventually admitted the company had overhired.

  • VC Marc Andreessen called AI the "silver bullet excuse" for layoffs, really driven by overstaffing and mismanagement

• Vance said the U.S. expects the Strait of Hormuz to remain 'toll-free' (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: MSN, Al Jazeera}}

  • Vice President J.D. Vance told CNBC that the U.S. expects the Strait of Hormuz to remain toll-free in the long term.

  • Iranian state media said the Strait of Hormuz will open to toll-free transits for a 60-day period.

  • Global shipping trade group Bimco warned that crossing the Strait of Hormuz remains "very risky" right now.

AND MORE

• Canada will restrict the use of personal data for custom pricing.

• Meta's new 'AI Mode' on Facebook pulls public info across its platforms.

• Hire vetted LATAM engineers in as little as five days, and save up to 70% on salary costs.*

• People in China are watching the World Cup differently this time.

• Pool owners reacted to the algae bloom turning Trump's reflecting pool green.

• Senator Cruz urged the regulator to impose conditions on T-Mobile's spectrum sale.

• The U.S. government's ban on Anthropic's models was never about an AI jailbreak.