Exaggerated
On February 6, the Wall Street Journal called investor fears of AI-driven software extinction "exaggerated." The same day, Anthropic released a model that found 500 security vulnerabilities humans missed and does financial research. OpenAI released an agent for "nearly anything professionals do on a computer." The denial and the evidence arrived together.
Amazon reports Q4 revenue up 14% YoY to $213.39B, vs. $211.33B est., EPS of $1.95, vs. $1.97 est., and net income up 6% YoY to $21.19B; AMZN drops 8%+
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2025. Fourth Quarter 2025
The EU says that TikTok's “addictive design” is illegal under the DSA, citing the app's infinite scroll and recommendation algorithm, in preliminary findings
European Union regulators said the app's infinite scroll and personalized algorithm led to “compulsive” behavior, especially among children.
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft forecast a combined ~$650B in 2026 capital expenditures, an estimated 60% YoY increase, driven by data center construction
Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that will reach about $650 billion in 2026 …
Waymo says it is using DeepMind's Genie 3 to create realistic digital worlds for its autonomous driving technology to train on edge-case scenarios
Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo said it is using DeepMind's Genie 3 AI model to create realistic, digital worlds for its autonomous driving technology to train on edge-case scenarios.
Analysis: Claude Code currently authors 4% of all public GitHub commits and is on track to cross 20% of all daily commits by the end of 2026
Goldman Sachs says it has been working with Anthropic on AI agents to automate more roles at the bank, like trades, transactions, client vetting, and onboarding
Goldman Sachs has been working with the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic to create AI agents to automate a growing number …
Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.6, which it says can analyze company data, regulatory filings, and market information to create detailed financial analyses
Anthropic is releasing a new version of its most powerful AI model that's designed to carry out financial research …
Crypto.com co-founder Kris Marszalek buys the domain AI.com for $70M, the highest disclosed price for a domain name, as he plans a site offering an AI agent
Kris Marszalek plans to launch new site with a Super Bowl ad this weekend — The founder of cryptocurrency trading site Crypto.com …
Sources: Apple plans to allow third-party voice-controlled AI chatbots in CarPlay within the coming months; it won't let users replace CarPlay's Siri button
Apple Inc. is preparing to allow voice-controlled artificial intelligence apps from other companies in CarPlay …
Heroku says it is transitioning to a “sustaining engineering model”, as it focuses on “helping organizations build and deploy enterprise-grade AI”
Today, Heroku is transitioning to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability, and support.
Spotify rolls out About the Song, swipeable stories in English, summarized from third-party sources to highlight song details, in beta for Premium users
Spotify is rolling out a new “About the Song” feature that lets users explore the stories behind the music they're listening to, the company announced on Friday.
Amazon's annual tax bill fell 87% YoY to $1.2B in 2025, as profits grew 45% to ~$90B, mostly due to GOP's depreciation breaks in the One Big Beautiful Bill
The 87 percent drop is largely due to a more generous depreciation break in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act.’
Galaxy Digital stock jumps 17%+ after the company approved a share buyback program of up to $200M over the next 12 months
The repurchase plan follows a volatile earnings week and signals confidence in the firm's balance sheet. — What to know:
Sources: AI chip startup SambaNova is raising a $350M+ Series E led by Vista Equity Partners; Intel plans to invest $100M to $150M
Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners is leading a new funding round of over $350 million in artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems …
A civil subpoena shows the US DOJ is investigating Netflix for potential anticompetitive tactics as DOJ probes the company's proposed acquisition of WBD
As it probes bids for Warner, the department is asking if the streamer has engaged in conduct that could make it a monopoly
Croatian-founded Daytona, which aims to build infrastructure for large-scale agent workloads, raised a $24M Series A led by FirstMark
Daytona is building agent-native infrastructure to support large-scale, stateful agent workloads through fast, flexible computing environments designed for long-running execution.
Sources: Intel and AMD have notified Chinese customers of supply shortages for server CPUs, with Intel warning of delivery lead times of up to six months
OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex goes beyond an agent that can code “to an agent that can do nearly anything developers and professionals can do on a computer”
Expanding Codex across the full spectrum of professional work on a computer. — Join the Codex app waitlist
SIA: chip sales hit $791.7B in 2025, up 25.6% YoY, with advanced Nvidia, AMD, and Intel chips accounting for $301.9B, up 40%; SIA expects $1T in 2026 chip sales
Amazon projects its 2026 capex to hit $200B, above $146.6B est. and up from ~$131B in 2025, and reports Q4 AWS revenue up 24% YoY to $35.58B, above $34.93B est.
Amazon shares plunged more than 10% in extended trading Thursday after the company posted mixed fourth-quarter earnings …
Palmer Luckey's Erebor becomes the first newly created bank to receive a national charter under the second Trump administration, launching with $635M in capital
Erebor founder Palmer Luckey was one of the tech industry's early Trump supporters and is known for his penchant for Hawaiian shirts
Sources: OpenAI is working with G42 to build a ChatGPT version tuned for the UAE that accommodates local language, political outlook, and speech restrictions
The Scoop — Step Back — Reed's View — Know More — Notable — THE SCOOP — OpenAI is working with Abu Dhabi-based G42 …
Sources: London-based 9fin, a data provider for debt markets, is in talks to raise as much as $150M at a pre-money valuation of $1B, about 20x its ARR of ~$50M
Debt intelligence provider 9fin Ltd. is in talks to raise fresh capital at a valuation of as much as $1 billion as it seeks …
Spotify changes Developer Mode to require a Premium subscription and reduces the cap on test users per app from 25 to five, to curb AI-aided or automated usage
London-based Bound, an automated FX risk management platform, raised a $24.5M Series A led by AlbionVC as it seeks to expand across Europe
How an appeal changed the way the USPTO assesses AI patents under the US Patent Act, signaling a shift toward more favorable treatment of AI and ML inventions
AT&T launches amiGO Jr., a mid-tier Samsung-made smartphone for kids with parental controls on contacts, app access, screen time, and more, for $2.99 per month
Women in rural India report experiencing trauma from data annotation work, which requires them to review violent content and porn for global tech companies
Meituan agrees to buy Dingdong, a Chinese fresh grocery e-commerce company, for $717M in cash; Dingdong had 7M+ monthly transacting users as of September 2025
China's food delivery giant Meituan said on Thursday that it had agreed to acquire Dingdong, a leading on-demand commerce platform in China specialising in fresh groceries.
Filing: Zuckerberg considered changing how Meta studies social issues after a WSJ story about Instagram and teen mental health, noting Apple faces less scrutiny
Inside the SpaceX-xAI $1.25T deal, the most valuable corporate tie-up in US history: sources: SpaceX had an orbital data center technical breakthrough last fall
Sapiom, which is developing a financial layer for enterprises to let AI agents automatically buy the services they need, raised a $15M seed led by Accel
Tether acquires a 12% stake, worth $150M, in Gold.com, which enables access to physical and tokenized gold, and plans to integrate XAUT, its gold-backed token
What to know: … Tether, issuer of the world's most popular stablecoin USDT … , has acquired a $150 million minority stake in Gold.com …
Anthropic details using 16 Claude Opus 4.6 agents in parallel to build a 100K-line Rust-based C compiler, incurring $20K in API costs over nearly 2,000 sessions
Why this is the worst crypto winter ever: AI crowds out BTC for mindshare and power grid access, crypto is mainstream, gold beats BTC as a safe haven, and more
Hello and welcome to the newsletter, a grab bag of daily content from the Odd Lots universe. Sometimes it's us …
French authorities charge four people with spying for China by allegedly seeking to obtain satellite data from Starlink and other critical entities
Tim Cook told Apple staff at an all-hands that he's “deeply distraught” with the US' current approach to immigration and he will press the issue with lawmakers
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told employees that he's “deeply distraught” with the US's current approach …
Only 35 countries signed a declaration affirming “human responsibility over AI-powered weapons”, with the US and China opting out; the US endorsed prior pledges
OpenAI launches GPT-5.3-Codex, which it says runs 25% faster, enabling longer-running tasks, and “is our first model that was instrumental in creating itself”
ZDNET's key takeaways — GPT-5.3-Codex helped debug and deploy parts of itself. — Codex can be steered mid-task without losing context.
A federal jury in Phoenix ordered Uber to pay $8.5M to a passenger who said a driver raped her in November 2023, the first case where Uber was found liable
In a federal bellwether case, the jury ordered the ride-hailing giant to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean, who said one of its drivers assaulted her in 2023.
Roblox reports Q4 bookings up 63% YoY to $2.22B, vs. $2.05B est., DAUs up 69% YoY to 144M, and forecasts FY 2026 bookings above estimates; RBLX jumps 10%+
Roblox (RBLX.N) forecast fiscal 2026 bookings above Wall Street expectations on Thursday, signaling another year of strong growth …
Reddit reports Q4 revenue up 70% YoY to $726M, vs. $665M est., DAUq up 19% to 121.4M, above est., forecasts Q1 revenue above est., announces a $1B share buyback
Reddit shares rose 5% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat on the top …
Anthropic introduces “agent teams” in Claude Code as a research preview that launches agents “to coordinate in parallel”, and a Claude in PowerPoint plugin
biggest wins on agentic search, HLE & ARC AGI 2 — claude.com/blog/opus-4-... [image]
Affirm reports Q2 revenue up 30% YoY to $1.12B, vs. $1.06B est., GMV up 36% YoY to $13.8B, net income up 61% YoY to $129.6M, and forecasts Q3 revenue above est.
Consumer financing firm Affirm Holdings (AFRM) reported fiscal second quarter earnings and revenue that topped consensus estimates.
Strategy reports Q4 net loss up 1,749% YoY to $12.4B, as BTC trades below the company's $76,052 average purchase price; MSTR is down ~60% over the past year
Shares of the bitcoin-stockpiling company have fallen sharply since crypto prices touched all-time highs in October
Sources: Apple wound down plans for an AI-based virtual health coach in recent weeks; Eddy Cue has told colleagues that Apple needs to move faster in health
Apple Inc. is scaling back plans for a virtual health coach, according to people with knowledge of the matter …
Q&A with Elon Musk on plans for 1TW of space GPUs, Grok and human consciousness, Optimus, xAI's business plan, China's manufacturing win, DOGE, and more
Timecodes — Transcript — Are there really three hours of questions? Are you fucking serious? — Dwarkesh Patel
YC adds Canada back to its accepted countries of incorporation list, saying the initial decision was due to its top Canadian companies reincorporating in the US
Duna, a European fintech making AI-powered identity and compliance tools for banks, raised a €30M Series A led by CapitalG, bringing its total funding to €40M+
US tech stocks slide for a third consecutive day amid a sell-off in the software sector; the Nasdaq closed down 1.6%, MSFT 4.95%, QCOM 8.46%, and PLTR 6.83%
Nasdaq drops as recent high-flying companies pull market lower — US tech stocks fell on Thursday, as weak jobs data piled further pressure …
Meta confirms it is testing a standalone app for Vibes, its feed of AI-generated short-form videos, after “strong early traction”, without sharing exact numbers
OpenAI launches Frontier, an AI agent management platform that provides shared context, onboarding, and permission boundaries, for “a limited set of customers”
Gemini exits the UK, the EU, and Australia, and cuts 25% of its staff; the crypto exchange is refocusing on the US as “foreign markets have proven hard to win”
DOJ files reveal Epstein's deep Silicon Valley relationships and how key insiders offered access to buzzy startups like Coinbase, long after his 2008 conviction
The disgraced financier regularly courted tech industry figures not just for their prestige but also for access to promising companies.
The US FCC grants Starlink rival Logos clearance to deploy up to 4,178 low Earth orbit broadband satellites by 2035; Logos raised a $50M Series A in June 2025
Fundamental, which has developed a Large Tabular Model to analyze structured data, comes out of stealth with $255M in funding at a $1.2B valuation
Sources: Nvidia delays the release of its incremental gaming GPU upgrade, codenamed Kicker, marking the first year in three decades without a new GPU for gaming
Spotify partners with Bookshop.org to let Premium US and UK subscribers buy hardcover and paperback books via its app starting in spring; Spotify will get a cut
Anthropic says it found that Opus 4.6 “brings more focus to the most challenging parts of a task without being told to” and “often thinks more deeply”
Last Friday they dropped domain-specific plugins for Cowork (sales, marketing, legal, finance). …Magnus Oxenwaldt:Anthropic just dropped Claude Opus 4.6. — Here's why it matters for enterprise AI. ...
Anthropic says that during its testing, Opus 4.6 found 500+ previously unknown high-severity security flaws in open-source libraries with little to no prompting
https://www.axios.com/... Here's the blog post that goes into more detail: …Forums:Hacker News:Opus 4.6 uncovers 500 zero-day flaws in open-source code
How Anthropic's ruthless efficiency comes in part from its mission-obsessed culture, which eliminates the friction that tends to slow things down at Big Tech
and Still Claim the Moral High Ground?
Anthropic says Opus 4.6 has a 1M-token context window in beta, scored 90.2% on BigLaw Bench, the highest of any Claude model, and boosts agentic capabilities
David Gewirtz /ZDNET:
Interviews with Anthropic executives and other tech industry leaders and engineers about Claude Code's success, which some say has been a long time coming
Since the holidays, Claude has gone viral across sectors. Can Anthropic prolong the hype with Opus 4.6? www.theverge.com/report/87430...
Amazon reports Q4 ad revenue up 23% YoY to $21.32B, slightly above expectations, and subscription services revenue up 14% to $13.12B
Todd Spangler /Variety:
Bitcoin briefly dropped to as low as $60K on February 5, its lowest level since November 2024 and down ~50% from its October 2025 peak, as global markets fall
from Epstein to quantum to AI to the death of crypto twitter — clobbering the coins [image]@luke_metro:how low does crypto have to drop before I never have to hear about Fairshake again@samczsun:on on...
DOJ files reveal how Jeffrey Epstein helped his Russian-born publicist Masha Bucher become a prominent VC who now boasts of investments in 22 unicorns like xAI
Here's a gift link for those who want to read the full piece: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...Sam Blum /@samblum:New reporting from Forbes confirms Bucher's role as a matchmaker between Jeffrey Epstein...
Investor fears that software companies are facing an AI-driven extinction event are exaggerated, but the persistent belief has damaged their stocks for months
and they're terrifiedMelia Russell /Business Insider:Anthropic's latest AI tool was seen by the legal software industry as a ‘shot across the bow.’ Here's what it means.Reuters:‘Software-mageddon’ lea...
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft reported a collective $1.1T backlog of cloud computing revenue in their latest quarterly earnings, including Microsoft's $625B
APPLE OF ANOTHER'S AI — 2H
Nvidia stock closes up 7.87% after Jensen Huang said the tech industry's surging capex for AI infrastructure is justified, appropriate, and sustainable
Kif Leswing /CNBC: