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

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

🥇 CXMT surges 530% in Shanghai debut to become China's most valuable chipmaker.
🥽 Apple delays smart glasses to 2027 while building privacy-first messaging strategy.
⚖️ Kalshi demands Netflix pull documentary trailer it calls defamatory & misleading.
🚇 The Boring Company reportedly in talks to raise $4B at $20B valuation.
📉 Japan PM Takaichi's approval falls to 57% as inflation squeezes households.

TECHNOLOGY

• CXMT surges 530% in Shanghai debut to become China's most valuable chipmaker (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: CNBC, AP, BBC}}

  • CXMT raised $8.6B in Asia's biggest IPO this year, then jumped over 500% on debut.

  • Its market cap hit $539.21B, overtaking Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as the market leader.

  • The chipmaker anchors China's push to close the semiconductor gap amid U.S. export restrictions.

• Apple delays smart glasses to 2027 while building privacy-first messaging strategy (The Verge)
  ^{_{More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Tech Buzz}}

  • Apple pushed the launch to WWDC June 2027, with availability arriving by the end of that year.

  • The company aims to avoid the backlash Meta faced over non-consensual recordings with its glasses.

  • Apple will emphasize on-device processing, no facial recognition, and no contractor review of customer footage.

• Hugging Face CEO demands transparency & $100M compute after OpenAI breach (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Firstpost, TOI, Yahoo!}}

  • OpenAI admitted one of its models breached Hugging Face systems during an autonomous agent attack.

  • Clem Delangue asked OpenAI to release the agent traces so researchers can study what happened.

  • He also wants $100M in compute for defenses; experts cite OpenAI's misconfigured test environment.

BUSINESS

• Kalshi demands Netflix pull documentary trailer it calls defamatory & misleading (CNN)
  ^{_{More: Hollywood Reporter, The Hill, Yahoo!}}

  • Kalshi sent Netflix a cease-and-desist calling the documentary trailer defamatory with fabricated documents.

  • The trailer shows Las Vegas partygoers boasting about prediction market winnings during the World Cup.

  • Kalshi is banned in Nevada and says the displayed bet dates to May 16, 2025.

• The Boring Company reportedly in talks to raise $4B at $20B valuation (WSJ)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Crypto Briefing, Dawn}}

  • The Boring Company is negotiating a $4B round, up from a $5.7B valuation in 2022.

  • Its Las Vegas tunnel system runs Teslas between stations, but Nevada flagged nearly 800 environmental violations.

  • The startup plans tunnels under Nashville and Dubai, and has pitched Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

• Warner Bros. sues Amazon over poaching executives still under contract through 2027 (The Verge)
  ^{_{More: Engadget, Variety, TechCrunch}}

  • Warner Bros. Discovery alleges interference with contractual relations, breach of contract, and unfair competition by Amazon.

  • Marketing executive Pia Barlow left for Amazon MGM despite a contract running through October 31, 2027.

  • Amazon allegedly tried to induce HBO programming executive Francesca Orsi to leave, but she stayed.

MARKETS

WORLD

• Japan PM Takaichi's approval falls to 57% as inflation squeezes households (CNA)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Bloomberg}}

  • Takaichi's approval rating dropped to 57% in July from 69% in June, per Yomiuri.

  • It marks the first time she has fallen below 60% since taking office last year.

  • Expansionary fiscal policy has spiked bond yields and pushed the yen to four-decade lows.

• Iran says it will hold fire while U.S. bombing pause continues (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: CNN, CNBC}}

  • A senior Iranian official said Tehran will halt attacks as long as the U.S. does.

  • The Pentagon suspended its campaign late Friday after 13 nights of intensifying airstrikes on Iran.

  • Advisers cited a shortage of targets and concerns about depleting U.S. munitions stocks.

• Vehicle attack at Berlin Pride kills one & injures 16 amid manhunt (BBC)
  ^{_{More: AP, NBC}}

  • A vehicle drove into a crowd at Berlin Pride, killing one person and injuring 16 others.

  • Police named 21-year-old Abdul B as the suspect, citing his known connections to Islamist circles.

  • A citywide manhunt continues after the abandoned van was found; Christopher Street Day events were canceled.

FUTURISM

• Starship Technologies sued after delivery robot knocked down 73-year-old woman in Phoenix (Futurism)
  ^{_{More: NY Post, The Independent, Yahoo!}}

  • Trudy Perez alleges a Starship delivery robot repeatedly struck her at Arizona State University in 2023.

  • She suffered a four-inch arm gash, back pain, and mobility problems, according to a police report.

  • The suit claims an off-site employee piloting the robot failed to exercise control during the incident.

• Finnish town uses world's largest sand battery to solve renewable energy intermittency (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: TOI}}

  • A Finnish town installed the world's largest commercial sand battery to address renewable energy intermittency.

  • The battery covers nearly a month of the town's summer heating demand and one week in winter.

  • Polar Night Energy CEO Tommi Eronen hopes much future storage avoids rare earth materials entirely.

• Startups bet brain wave data could solve robotics' biggest training bottleneck (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Tech Buzz}}

  • Encord manufactures physical training data in California, using pilots who disassemble Jenga towers wearing headsets.

  • Zander Labs' headset measures brain waves to deduce mental states like error, intent, and surprise.

  • The trial will test whether brain wave-tagged data improves customer robotics models before scaling up.

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CONTENT

• Jensen Huang on the mindset that built NVIDIA from wrong technology (Y Combinator)

  • Huang says NVIDIA began with the wrong algorithm before learning the right one from three textbooks.

  • The conversation covers the Sega deal, the $300M IPO, and recognizing AlexNet's significance early.

  • Huang argues resilience and first-principles thinking matter more than anything else for founders building companies.

• Anthropic's Dianne Penn on building products before the AI models are ready (Lenny's Podcast)

  • Penn joined Anthropic in 2023 as its first technical product manager, when five engineers built products.

  • She has shipped every model from Claude 2 through Fable and incubated Claude Code, MCP, and Skills.

  • The discussion covers eval-driven development and why Claude's willingness to push back drives its success.

• Mercor's Osvald Nitski on spending fast & enterprise fears over frontier labs (20VC)

  • Mercor raised a $350M Series C at a $10B valuation, reportedly now discussing a $20B round.

  • The company crossed $2B in ARR in June, doubling from $1B in only four months.

  • Nitski argues 90% of enterprise workflows cannot run on open models despite their rapid progress.

EXTRAS

• France & Spain wildfires force 300k to flee, prompting Macron crisis meeting (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: The Guardian, BBC}}

  • A massive wildfire in southern France has triggered the largest evacuation in the country's history.

  • Macron will hold a crisis cabinet meeting Monday as more than 300k people flee the fires.

  • Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez will visit Valencia, while French Finance Minister Roland Lescure flagged economic damage.

• Waymo reportedly seeking exit from Uber robotaxi partnership in Austin & Atlanta (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Yahoo!}}

  • Waymo is reportedly looking to end its deal placing robotaxis on Uber's network, per the FT.

  • Waymo told Uber it will launch on its own app in both markets from January 2028.

  • The contract expires May 2028; tensions have risen after months of public safety criticism from Uber.

• Volkswagen engineers charged with insider trading over secret Rivian joint venture deal (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Bloomberg, TNW, Yahoo!}}

  • The DOJ charged Volkswagen engineers Michael Stamp and Marcus Plank with securities fraud for insider trading.

  • They allegedly made over $300k buying Rivian stock and options before the joint venture was announced.

  • The venture, codenamed 'Project Climb,' has grown to $5.8B, making Volkswagen Rivian's largest shareholder.

AND MORE

• SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster landing failure.

• Footage captures a rare 300-strong humpback whale supergroup gathering together to feed.

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

• Vietnam moves to restrict social media for kids as more countries follow.

• Why Trump’s new tariff blitz is very different this time round.

• OpenAI's new AI keypad will delight some coders & mystify everyone else.

• Librarians host viral 'Avoiding AI' workshops for people escaping Big Tech.