💰 TikTok’s US sale looks like a steal

The Trump-approved deal values TikTok US at $14B, a fraction of what comparable platforms trade for. The app generates an estimated $10–20B annually in the US, yet sold for roughly 1× revenue.

🖱 By comparison: Snap trades at ~2.5× revenue, Reddit at ~25×, making TikTok’s price look like daylight robbery.
🖱 The Chinese side has not commented publicly, leaving questions about consent or coercion.
🖱 Trump claims the agreement is final, though details on buyer structure and governance remain vague.

If the valuation holds, this may go down as one of the most lopsided deals in tech history.

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🔔 How Larry Ellison Kept 40% of Oracle

Oracle’s founder still owns ~40% of his $300B company, a rare feat when most tech founders get diluted down to 5–15%. The reason? In 1977, no venture capitalist would fund software.

🖱 Late ’70s VC dollars flowed to hardware and biotech, Intel, Apple, Genentech all raised millions.
🖱 Ellison couldn’t even get a meeting. He and two co-founders pooled $2,000 and lived off consulting.
🖱 Their first break was a $50K CIA contract; nights were spent building their own database product.
🖱 Oracle launched in 1979 with “Version 2” (nobody trusted a Version 1). By 1984 revenue hit $70M; by 1987 it was the world’s largest database company.

By necessity, Ellison bootstrapped, making money from day one, avoiding dilution, and keeping control.

The irony: being ignored by VCs turned $2K of founder capital into one of the greatest fortunes in tech history.

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🎓 MBAs in Venture Capital

PitchBook tracked where VC firm employees earned their MBAs. The leaders look familiar, HBS, Stanford, Wharton, but unlike unicorn founder charts, the distribution is much smoother.

🖱 Top schools still show up, but the drop-off is gentle rather than steep.
🖱 Normalized by class size, the gap would shrink even further.
🖱 Takeaway: for breaking into VC, the brand of your MBA matters far less than in founder circles.

VC isn’t about heavy lifting, any solid MBA can open the door.

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💡 Bill Gates on Why You Shouldn’t Compare Yourself

“Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.” ~ Bill Gates

In venture (and in life), comparison is a trap. Others’ wins often look effortless, but you rarely see the mistakes, resources, and timing behind them.

🔥 What matters:
🖱 Focus on your own path: test your ideas instead of copying others.
🖱 Learn from experience: treat others’ wins and failures as lessons, not standards.
🖱 Think like a portfolio investor: diversify approaches instead of chasing one “perfect” play.

In Business @ the Speed of Thought, Gates explains how systems thinking lets you make decisions without looking back at competitors, staying ahead by design, not by comparison.

A useful selection of Bill’s books:
1. Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999): how IT and “digital nervous systems” transform decision-making.
2. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021): a roadmap to net zero with industry-specific solutions.
3. The Road Ahead (1995/96): forecasts of the digital revolution and its societal impact.
4. Showing Up for Life (2009): wisdom and life lessons from Gates’ father.

Venture is a marathon, not a sprint. Your victories are unique, your mistakes are priceless, don’t trade them away by measuring against others.

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🔔 Robinhood wants to let everyone invest in startups

Robinhood has filed to launch Ventures Fund I, a new vehicle that would give retail investors access to early-stage startups, something usually reserved for VCs, institutions, and the ultra-wealthy.

🖱 The SEC filing outlines a venture fund targeting sectors like AI, robotics, aerospace, and fintech.
🖱 Unlike traditional venture funds, this one is pitched as “open to all” regular Robinhood users could buy in.
🖱 Exact details on fees, minimums, and launch timing are still unclear.
🖱 It’s part of Robinhood’s push to expand beyond trading into broader wealth and investing products.

If it works, Robinhood could democratize venture investing, but it also means everyday investors taking on the same high-risk, high-reward bets as VCs.

The open question: will retail see this as empowerment, or as Robinhood pushing risky assets onto its users?

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💰 EA Goes Private in a Record $55B Buyout

Electronic Arts is set to go private in the largest leveraged buyout ever, a $55 billion deal led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. Shareholders will receive $210 a share, a 25% premium.

🖱 The deal is financed with ~$36B in cash and ~$20B in debt, a massive leverage bet.
🖱 EA’s cash cow franchises like FIFA and Madden give investors confidence in steady recurring revenue.
🖱 Timing is key: the deal lands just before the launch of Battlefield 6, EA’s biggest new release in years.
🖱 Going private shields EA from quarterly earnings pressure, letting it refocus on long-term strategy.

This isn’t just about gaming, it’s about capital markets shifting. Big LBOs are back, sovereign wealth money is flowing into entertainment, and private ownership is reshaping the future of blockbuster gaming.

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💳 Ex-OpenAI & DeepMind Researchers Raise $300M to Automate Science

Periodic Labs, a new startup from AI veterans Liam Fedus (ex-OpenAI) and Ekin Dogus Cubuk (ex-DeepMind), just pulled in a $300M seed round to build autonomous labs powered by AI “scientists.”

🖱 Fedus helped lead large language model research at OpenAI; Cubuk pioneered AI-driven materials discovery at Google Brain/DeepMind.
🖱 Their vision: robotic labs where AI designs experiments, runs them, collects data, and iterates without humans in the loop.
🖱 First focus: superconductors, materials that could unlock breakthroughs in energy and computing.
🖱 The pitch: turn science into scalable software, cutting years of trial-and-error into rapid AI-driven discovery cycles.

If it works, Periodic Labs could redefine R&D itself, shifting science from slow human bottlenecks to autonomous discovery engines.

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🚀 Musk becomes the first $500B man

Elon Musk just became the first person in history to see his net worth hit $500 billion, thanks to Tesla’s rebound and soaring valuations for SpaceX and xAI. By the market close, it dipped slightly to $499.1B, but the milestone was crossed.

🖱 Tesla remains the core driver: Musk still owns ~12% of the EV giant, whose stock has surged this year.
🖱 SpaceX and xAI have added billions in private-market value, boosting his fortune far beyond Tesla alone.
🖱 Tesla’s board has dangled a new $1T compensation package, tied to aggressive growth targets.
🖱 Much of the wealth isn’t liquid, it’s paper value tied to stock and private equity, making his net worth highly volatile.

For Musk, hitting half a trillion isn’t just a personal record, it’s a signal that the world’s richest person is building wealth on an unprecedented scale, faster than anyone before.

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🤖 OpenAI crowned the first $500B startup

OpenAI’s secondary share sale has vaulted its valuation to $500 billion, making it the most valuable private company ever and a symbol of how far the AI boom has run. Unlike a traditional fundraise, the deal let insiders cash out while investors fought for a seat at the table.

🖱 Roughly $6.6B worth of employee and early-backer stock changed hands.
🖱 Heavyweights like SoftBank, Thrive, Dragoneer, MGX, and T. Rowe Price joined the cap table.
🖱 The valuation leap, from $300B just months ago, reflects both AI demand and scarcity of access.
🖱 Still, OpenAI is burning cash, betting scale and distribution will cement its lead over rivals.

The $500B milestone isn’t just about valuation, it’s proof that in AI, investors are willing to pay sovereign-nation prices for a private company.

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🔔 Durov opens Telegram’s AI lab in Kazakhstan

Pavel Durov has just launched a specialized AI laboratory in Kazakhstan, partnering Telegram with the country’s AI supercomputer cluster to extend AI access globally.

🖱 The lab is housed in the Alem.ai building as part of a joint project with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of AI and the national supercomputer cluster.
🖱 Durov says the goal is to let over a billion people use AI tools in a way that’s confidential, transparent, and efficient.
🖱 Telegram’s own mini-apps will be among the first to leverage the new tech.
🖱 The Kazakh supercomputer cluster is expected to be a major provider of compute power for the network.

This move signals Telegram’s pivot from messaging into AI infrastructure, using the state’s compute assets to deepen its technological footprint in Central Asia and beyond.

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🎵 Universal and Warner near historic AI licensing deals

The music industry is on the verge of a major shift as Universal Music and Warner Music prepare to sign AI licensing agreements within weeks, according to the Financial Times.

Talks with Google, Spotify, and AI startups like Klay Vision, ElevenLabs, and Stability AI aim to set a precedent for how copyrighted songs are used to train and generate AI music. Some firms, including Suno and Udio, are already facing lawsuits from these same labels.

🖱 The proposed system would mirror streaming royalties - AI firms would pay micropayments each time a song is used or referenced.
🖱 To enable this, AI companies would need tools to track how and when music data is applied during model training and generation.
🖱 Universal and Warner’s catalogs cover global megastars like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Charli XCX, giving them strong leverage in negotiations.

If finalized, these deals could define the industry’s financial and legal framework for AI-generated music and decide who gets paid when machines start making hits.

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📊 PitchBook found a “founder discount” that never goes away

A new PitchBook study compared startups led by first-time founders vs. repeat founders and the gap is wider than expected.

Even after controlling for growth, revenue, and market stage, companies run by first-time founders remain undervalued. The effect doesn’t fade at later rounds: even at $100M+ in revenue, startups with rookie founders still command lower valuations.

🖱 Experienced founders raise capital faster and on better terms at every stage.
🖱 Investor perception of “execution risk” persists long after traction appears.
🖱 The premium for past success acts almost like a permanent multiplier.

Makes you wonder how much higher Google’s valuation would’ve been if Page and Brin had built something before it.

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💰 Kraken raises $500M at $15B valuation ahead of IPO

Crypto exchange Kraken has secured $500 million in new funding at a $15 billion valuation, as it prepares for a planned IPO in 2026. The round drew multiple institutional backers, including Tribe Capital, led by Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, who also invested personally.

🖱 Funding will fuel global expansion, product development, and compliance upgrades.
🖱 The round had no single lead investor, signaling broad institutional confidence.
🖱 Kraken’s valuation positions it as one of the top private exchanges globally, rivaling Coinbase pre-IPO.
🖱 Comes amid renewed institutional interest in regulated crypto platforms.
🖱 The company aims to differentiate through transparency and licensing strength.

As crypto matures, the next bull run may belong less to token traders, and more to the infrastructure players building trust.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: September 29–October 3, 2025

$312M was raised across 18 projects this week, led by Flying Tulip’s $200M seed round and xMoney’s $21.5M strategic raise. Meanwhile, AlphaTON Capital, Strategy, and VivoPower International allocated a combined $112M into TON, BTC, and XRP treasuries.

Here’s what the top 8 are building 👇

🖱 Flying Tulip ($200M seed, $1B valuation)
Full-stack onchain exchange combining a hybrid AMM and order book model.

🖱 xMoney ($21.5M, Sui Foundation)
European payments company bridging stablecoins with global commerce.

🖱 Lava ($17.5M, Extended Series A)
Platform for bitcoin-backed loans with participation from top fintech angels.

🖱 Ethena ($14M, MEXC Ventures)
DeFi protocol behind USDe, a crypto-native stablecoin backed by delta-hedged collateral.

🖱 KGeN ($13.5M, Jump Crypto, Accel, Prosus Ventures)
Building a Verified Distribution Network across AI, DeFi, gaming, and consumer apps.

🖱 Talus ($10M, Polychain, Foresight, dao5, Inception, Sui Foundation)
Developing infrastructure for AI agents and “Prediction AI.”

🖱 Mesta ($5.5M, Circle Ventures, Paxos, Village Global)
Global fiat and stablecoin payments network connecting banks and crypto rails.

🖱 BaseVol ($6M, Altos Ventures, Neoclassic, Base Ecosystem Fund)
Options trading layer on Base using 0DTE strategies and AI agents.

Investor attention this week centered on hybrid exchanges, AI-integrated infra, and stablecoin payments, while treasury allocations and fund launches underscored rising institutional interest in onchain assets.

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🎬 OpenAI gives content owners control as Sora plans monetization

OpenAI is rolling out new tools for rights holders to manage how their characters and content appear in Sora, its AI video app, and introducing a revenue-sharing model for those who opt in. The update follows rapid user growth and rising copyright scrutiny.

🖱 Studios can now block or approve use of their IP within Sora-generated videos.
🖱 Rights holders who allow usage will receive a share of Sora’s revenue.
🖱 OpenAI says the monetization model will involve “trial and error” before becoming standard.
🖱 The move follows Disney and others opting out of AI content reproduction.
🖱 Sora’s short-form AI videos are already generating more content than expected.

By giving studios both control and upside, OpenAI may be crafting the first sustainable business model for AI-generated media.

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💡 Bezos says AI is in an industrial-bubble but will benefit society

Jeff Bezos argues that AI today is riding a classic industrial bubble full of hype and overvaluation, yet its long-term impact will be transformative for society.

🖱 He sees the current frenzy as speculative excess around AI infrastructure and investment.
🖱 Despite that, Bezos believes AI will boost productivity, transform industries, and improve lives.
🖱 The innovation wave will take years, and many early bets may fail.
🖱 He warns of overinvestment in platforms without real utility.
🖱 The key winners will be those who build fundamental capabilities, not just hype.

In short: don’t mistake the bubble for the future many crashes ahead, but the underlying engine is real.

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🤖 Where startups actually spend their AI budgets, a16z’s top 50 list

Andreessen Horowitz analyzed real transaction data from thousands of startups to find which AI tools are getting the most money, not hype, but actual spend.

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⚙️ OpenAI partners with AMD to build the next generation of AI infrastructure

OpenAI has signed a multi-year deal with AMD to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of GPU compute, marking one of the largest AI hardware partnerships to date.

🖱 The first phase rolls out 1 GW of AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs starting in 2026.
🖱 AMD will issue OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares, tied to hardware deployment milestones.
🖱 The partnership spans hardware, firmware, and software co-design to optimize large-scale AI systems.
🖱 It gives OpenAI a diversified GPU supply beyond NVIDIA, securing long-term compute capacity.
🖱 For AMD, it locks in a flagship AI customer and deepens its position in the AI accelerator race.

OpenAI is locking in the next decade of compute and AMD just became its second engine.

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🍎 Apple quietly preps for life after Tim Cook

Apple is setting the stage for its next era shelving experimental projects like the Vision Air headset and focusing on steady leadership as Tim Cook’s eventual successor comes into view.

🖱 John Ternus, Apple’s hardware chief, is now seen as the frontrunner to succeed Cook.
🖱 Longtime operations head Jeff Williams is reportedly stepping back, while Sabih Khan takes over as COO.
🖱 The transition hints at a generational shift toward product and engineering leadership.
🖱 Apple’s priority is stability, Cook is expected to remain through major launches like the next-gen iPhone and AI rollout.
🖱 The company is also tightening product focus, delaying Vision Air and the M5 iPad amid strategy reshuffles.

Apple is entering its next act, less visionary experiments, more disciplined execution as Cook readies the handover.

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📊 Vanity metrics: numbers that look good but mean nothing

Vanity metrics are flashy stats that make a startup seem successful, but don’t reflect real growth or product health. They impress investors or media, yet offer little help for actual decision-making.

🖱 They create an illusion of traction that’s easy to inflate with ads or PR.
🖱 Common examples: app downloads, registered users, followers, or page views.
🖱 None of these show whether users stay, pay, or engage.
🖱 Founders often misuse them to signal momentum without substance.
🖱 Real progress comes from metrics tied to retention, revenue, or unit economics.

Vanity metrics feed your ego, actionable metrics feed your company.

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🤖 Deloitte doubles down on AI right after refunding a client over AI errors

Deloitte is going all-in on artificial intelligence, announcing a massive partnership with Anthropic to bring Claude to its 500,000 employees just days after refunding the Australian government for an AI-generated report riddled with fake citations.

🖱 Deloitte agreed to repay part of a contract after its AI-assisted report for Australia’s employment department included false academic references.
🖱 The firm quickly corrected the document, then unveiled its new global AI partnership with Anthropic the same day.
🖱 Claude will be deployed across Deloitte’s workforce, powering “AI agent personas” for accountants, developers, and consultants.
🖱 The firms will co-develop compliance and governance tools for finance, healthcare, and public-sector clients.
🖱 Deloitte says the move aligns with its “responsible AI” strategy, even as the refund highlights the risks of overreliance on generative tools.

A telling moment for Big Four consulting: AI is now unavoidable, but accountability will define who leads the next era.

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