💬 Larry Ellison on WhatsApp’s $19B deal

Back in 2014, Silicon Valley was stunned when Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp for $19B and its 450M users.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison said the shock faded once people realized the sheer value of owning that customer base.

🖱 Traditional companies spend fortunes to acquire subscribers - WhatsApp gave Facebook direct access at scale

🖱 Ellison noted $1/year fees wouldn’t cut it, but the real play was monetizing users once inside the ecosystem

🖱 The deal was a bidding war - Zuckerberg outbid Google and paid up for a 21st-century distribution channel

Fast-forward to 2025: WhatsApp now has 3.1B MAUs. Looks like Zuckerberg’s “overpay” aged well.

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🦄 AI’s unicorn wave since ChatGPT

More than 100 AI startups have hit unicorn status since the launch of ChatGPT, a boom that has minted billionaires and reshaped private markets.

🖱 OpenAI and ByteDance lead at $300B valuations

🖱 Anthropic now sits at $62B, xAI at $75B

🖱 Scale AI ($30B), Anduril ($31B), CoreWeave ($19B), and Perplexity ($18B) among other big names

🖱 Canva ($32B) and Databricks ($62B) show how AI has supercharged adjacent categories

The AI cycle isn’t just about models, it’s fueling a new class of giant companies across infra, defense, and consumer tech.

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📊 VC money is now top-heavy

PitchBook shows how concentrated US venture has become. During COVID, investors spread capital across the long tail - top-10 deals took only a small share.

Now, with AI leading, nearly half of all VC dollars go to just 10 companies.

🖱 OpenAI alone represents ~20% of the 2025 market

🖱 Other giants include Scale AI, xAI, Anthropic

🖱 Billions are piling into a few AI leaders while the rest see shrinking access

The VC pie is getting smaller for everyone outside the top tier of AI.

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☀️ Meta signs $100M solar deal for AI data center

Meta will build a 100MW solar farm in South Carolina with Silicon Ranch to power its upcoming $800M AI data center.

Both projects are set to go live in 2027, with most equipment sourced from the U.S.

🖱 This marks Meta’s 18th deal with Silicon Ranch, totaling $2.5B+ in renewable investments

🖱 Meta has added over 2GW of solar capacity in 2025 alone

🖱 Recent projects include 650MW in Kansas/Texas with AES and nearly 800MW in Texas with Engie and Zelestra

For hyperscalers like Meta, solar isn’t just green - it’s cheap, fast to deploy, and critical for keeping AI data centers powered.

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🤖 Top 20 AI agent startups

Today’s leaders focus on fast ROI - writing code, handling customer support, and automating enterprise workflows.

The market is scaling faster than expected and new players are already rivaling Big Tech in efficiency.

🖱 AI agent market will more than double this year — from $5B to $13B
🖱 Anysphere (Cursor) leads with $500M ARR, 5x ahead of peers
🖱 Top startups match or exceed Microsoft’s $1.8M revenue per employee
🖱 42% of AI agent firms are already operating at commercial scale
🖱 Half of the top 20 by revenue were founded in just the past 3 years
🖱 Customer support agents generate a 127x revenue multiple vs. the average 52

AI agents aren’t just experiments anymore, they’re becoming real businesses at lightning speed.

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🤑 OpenAI hits first $1B month, but compute can’t keep up

OpenAI logged its first-ever $1 billion revenue month in July, driven by GPT-5 subscriptions, yet CFO Sarah Friar says the company’s biggest challenge is a shortage of computing power.

🖱 Demand for GPUs is “voracious,” forcing massive new builds like Stargate
🖱 Microsoft remains a core partner, alongside Oracle and CoreWeave
🖱 Annual recurring revenue has hit $10B, with 2025 revenue expected to triple to $12.7B
🖱 CEO Sam Altman says trillions will be spent on data centers to meet growth

The milestone shows how fast AI demand is scaling, but also how fragile the supply side remains.

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🧬 Biotech’s half-year of chaos

The first half of 2025 has been one of the toughest in a decade for biotech.

At least 14 companies have shut down, with job cuts hitting a four-year high.

🖱 Trump administration slashed grants, replaced agency heads, and cut thousands of staff
🖱 Plans for tariffs on drugs and strict price controls rattled the sector
🖱 April’s broader tariff proposal sent markets plunging, leaving biotech in “complete standstill”
🖱 IPO window closed, private capital scarce, startups cutting aggressively

Still, some investors see “a new normal.” Private biotech is adapting to multiple scenarios, and the feared fallout has been softer for certain players.

But the fundamentals haven’t changed, a long bear market, tight capital, and intensifying competition for niche therapies.

For biotech, recovery looks more like survival mode than revival.

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📊 PitchBook on valuations: AI vs. everyone else

PitchBook’s Q2 report shows an upbeat picture- startup valuations are climbing again.

But one chart stands out: the median AI startup isn’t valued that much higher than a non-AI peer at the same stage.

🖱 AI does get funded more easily, but the valuation gap itself is modest
🖱 The real edge for AI founders isn’t price — it’s access to capital

So the hype is real, but it’s not just multiples - it’s the smoother path to raising a round.

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❕ India bans real-money gaming

India’s parliament has passed a bill banning all real-money games - whether skill or chance based - in a move that threatens a $23B industry employing over 200,000 people.

🖱 Bill blocks transactions for real-money games and ads
🖱 Offenders risk 3 years jail or ₹10M ($115K) fine
🖱 Celebrities promoting such games also face penalties
🖱 Industry warns of 400+ companies shutting down
🖱 Stakeholders argue offshore gambling apps, not local startups, drive the harm

Supporters say it protects society from addiction, but critics warn it will kill regulated firms while fueling illegal offshore betting. The bill still needs upper house and presidential approval.

A $23B sector could vanish overnight, or just move underground.

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🦄 In venture, it’s not just about finding unicorns - it’s about growing them

Capital alone rarely makes the difference. The biggest returns go to investors who help their portfolio companies scale when it matters most.

🖱 Shopify — early investors built out the developer partner network that became the core of its ecosystem.

🖱 Tesla — backers who supported Musk through the Model 3 production crisis earned far more than passive funds.

🖱 Stripe — YC investors funneled their startup network as first customers, giving Stripe instant scale.

The lesson: venture isn’t a lottery ticket, it’s active work to turn early bets into enduring giants.

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🧠 Microsoft AI chief: “Models don’t have consciousness”

Mustafa Suleyman, head of Microsoft AI, criticized the growing field of “AI welfare,” which explores the idea of models having consciousness and rights.

He argues such debates distract from real issues - addiction to chatbots, breakdowns, and unhealthy emotional bonds with digital agents.

🖱 Suleyman: today’s models have no consciousness, but they can convincingly simulate emotions
🖱 Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind continue to study the topic
🖱 Anthropic even launched an “AI welfare” program, adding features like Claude ending chats with abusive users

The divide is clear: while some labs explore AI sentience as a safety frontier, Microsoft is pushing back - insisting the focus should stay on human wellbeing.

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💥 The AI bubble: why ARR alone doesn’t tell the story

ARR has become the go-to flex metric in tech.

Startups like Lovable brag about hitting $100m ARR in just months, breaking every old SaaS benchmark. But behind the headlines, the cracks are showing - and investors are starting to worry.

🖱 The math is misleading.
Many “$100m ARR” claims are just one hot week of revenue multiplied by 52. That doesn’t mean it’s sustainable.

🖱 Churn is the silent killer
Users jump in fast, but drop out just as quickly. One AI app went from $30m MRR to almost zero in a month.

🖱 Margins are razor-thin
AI startups often pay other AI companies for compute and models, leaving little room for profit. Switching to more advanced “agentic” models only increases costs.

🖱 It looks like grocery delivery all over again
Huge customer acquisition, fast growth, but no clear path to profitability.

The real question: can these AI darlings turn explosive ARR into durable, high-margin businesses? Growth is easy. Retention and profitability are the real test.

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🎧 5 podcasts every venture investor should follow

In venture, the sharpest insights often come from real conversations.

These shows will keep you close to the deals, strategies, and thinking that shape the market.

🖱 The Twenty Minute VC — Harry Stebbings interviews partners from Sequoia, a16z, Index in 20-min bursts.

🖱 Acquired — 2–4 hour deep dives into companies and deals, from OpenAI to Nintendo.

🖱 All-In Podcast — four VCs debating startups, macro, and politics — straight from Silicon Valley.

🖱 Masters of Scale — Reid Hoffman on how founders and investors scale companies.

🖱 This Week in Startups — Jason Calacanis tracking fresh startups and early trends.

The best way to sharpen your venture instincts is to listen where the insiders talk.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: August 18–22, 2025

$80M raised across 16 projects this week, alongside new Bitcoin treasury moves and a wave of M&A activity. DigiFT and Irys led the funding charts, while Kraken, Valantis, and Kerberus went shopping.

Here’s what the top 8 are building 👇

🖱 DigiFT ($11M, SBI, Polygon, Offchain Labs)
Singapore-based RWA exchange enabling regulated tokenized assets.

🖱 Irys ($10M, CoinFund, Hypersphere, Amber)
Programmable datachain for decentralized storage and retrieval.

🖱 OVERTAKE ($7M, Sui Foundation, Immutable)
P2P marketplace on Sui for trading in-game assets.

🖱 Legion ($5M, VanEck, Brevan Howard Digital, Coinbase Ventures)
Fundraising platform giving retail early access to ICOs and pre-token sales.

🖱 LO:TECH ($5M, 13books Capital, Faction VC)
London-based digital asset trading firm with a focus on new liquidity products.

🖱 o1.exchange ($4.2M, Coinbase Ventures, Alliance DAO)
Onchain trading terminal built on Base for advanced execution.

🖱 LYS Labs ($4M, Alchemy, Auros, dingaling)
Contextualized, machine-ready data for Internet Capital Markets.

🖱 Loop Crypto ($2M, Fabric Ventures, VanEck, a16z crypto)
Stablecoin and crypto payments processor simplifying merchant adoption.

Investor attention this week was on RWA exchanges, next-gen trading infra, and new payment rails.

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🤝 Trump’s Intel deal isn’t new money

Intel announced an $8.9B “investment” from the Trump administration - framed as the U.S. taking a 10% stake. But the funds aren’t fresh capital: they come from Biden-era CHIPS Act and Secure Enclave grants that were awarded but never paid out.

🖱 $5.7B from CHIPS Act grants + $3.2B from Secure Enclave program
🖱 Trump: “The U.S. paid nothing for these shares — a great deal for America and Intel”
🖱 Legal experts question if CHIPS Act funds can even be converted into equity
🖱 Government stake will be passive — no board seats, no governance rights

It’s a political win on paper, but whether this reshapes Intel’s future or survives legal challenges - is still an open question.

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🌍 Crusoe eyes $10B valuation with clean power data centers

Denver-based Crusoe Energy Systems is in talks to raise over $1B at a ~$10B valuation, up from $2.8B last year.

Backed by Founders Fund, Nvidia, and Fidelity, the startup converts stranded fuel into computing power for sustainable data centers.

🖱 Prevented 22B cubic feet of gas flaring - equal to 630K cars off the road annually
🖱 Abilene site: 1M sq ft, up to 100K GPUs, powered by 1.2 GW of clean energy
🖱 Key player in $500B Stargate project with $11.6B already secured
🖱 15+ GW of clean energy projects in development worldwide
🖱 Acquired Atero (GPU infra management) for $150M

Crusoe’s push shows how scaling AI compute and cutting emissions can align, but this round will test if green data infra can draw capital as fast as it burns energy.

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🧪OpenAI enters protein engineering

OpenAI and Retro Biosciences unveiled GPT-4b micro, a model trained on protein sequences and interaction data.

Its first breakthrough: redesigning Yamanaka factors - the Nobel-winning proteins that reprogram adult cells into stem cells.

🖱 The AI-designed variants showed 50x higher efficiency in cell reprogramming
🖱 DNA repair processes also improved, hinting at potential longevity benefits
🖱 Results held across multiple donors and delivery methods
🖱 Reprogramming sped up from weeks to just days

Researchers say this is only the beginning - such AI tools could radically accelerate regenerative medicine.

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💸 AI giants push back on shadow investors

OpenAI has issued a warning against buying its shares through resellers, SPVs, tokenized equity, or forward contracts.

The company says any transfer of its stock requires written approval, and unauthorized deals can be voided or lead to legal action.

🖱 SPVs have been a common way for smaller investors to access hot AI rounds like OpenAI and Anthropic, with funds earning fees along the way.

🖱 Anthropic recently told Menlo Ventures to stop using SPVs, urging them to invest directly instead.

🖱 Robinhood began offering tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX to European clients, sparking OpenAI’s public pushback.

Small investors are eager to ride the AI wave through any channel available. For now, giants like OpenAI and Anthropic only warn. The real test will come with the first canceled deal.

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⚡Tesla swaps AI voice in China

Tesla will add a new voice assistant to its Chinese cars, powered by ByteDance’s Deepseek and Doubao models. Drivers will control navigation, media, and climate by voice, and even get news updates.

🖱 Doubao handles voice recognition, while Deepseek manages dialogue.

🖱 In the US, Tesla uses Grok, but Chinese rules push it to local AI models.

🖱 Competition is heating up, as BYD and Geely are already adopting Deepseek.

A reminder that in China, even Tesla has to localize its tech stack to stay in the race.

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🤖 McKinsey claims AI is rewriting corporate revenues

McKinsey’s latest survey says 10–20% of large corporations boosted revenue by 10%+ thanks to generative AI. Half to two-thirds reported at least some gain.

🖱 Even “boring” industries like oil drilling or grocery chains supposedly saw jumps.

🖱 Marketing, the obvious use case, reported smaller growth than others.

🖱 At the low end, 10% gain at 10% of big business equals ~1% of US GDP.

Numbers sound spectacular, but the reality check is simple: surveys measure optimism more than accounting.

When managers round up answers to avoid looking clueless, research drifts far from reality.

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🧠 Bill Gates launches $1M Alzheimer’s AI Prize

Bill Gates has unveiled a $1M competition calling on researchers, engineers, and startups to use AI against Alzheimer’s disease.

The initiative is run through the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative, with finalists set to compete in Copenhagen in March 2026.

🖱 Alzheimer’s affects over 7M Americans today, a number expected to rise with longer lifespans
🖱 AI could accelerate research by spotting hidden patterns, biomarkers, and drug opportunities at scale
🖱 Gates’ personal drive comes after his father’s death from Alzheimer’s in 2020
🖱 Applications open now, semi-finalists will be announced in December

AI has the power to shift research from reactive to predictive, a chance to change the trajectory of one of medicine’s hardest challenges.

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