Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Some YouTube creators are using AI tools to make videos for kids and babies, raising concerns that such AI content may negatively impact early brain development (Alexandra S. Levine/Bloomberg)

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AI Forensics: 354 AI-focused TikTok accounts pushed 43K posts made with GenAI tools that hit 4.5B views, including posts with anti-immigrant and sexual material (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)

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Vinci, which uses AI simulations to accelerate chip and other hardware design, raised a $36M Series A led by Xora Innovation, taking its total funding to $46M (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)

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Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump's American Bitcoin closed down 38.8% on December 2, wiping out ~$1B in market value; TMTG is down nearly 70% so far in 2025 (George Steer/Financial Times)

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HBO Max's 4K Mad Men re-release had many problems, including lacking post-production edits in some scenes; a source says Lionsgate delivered the wrong 4K file (Tony Maglio/The Hollywood Reporter)

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A look at startups like AGI and Plato, which build replicas of websites to let AI agents learn to navigate the internet and complete tasks, like booking flights (Cade Metz/New York Times)

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Half of US states now require users to upload IDs or biometric data to access pornographic content, as Missouri became the 25th state to enact such a law (Samantha Cole/404 Media)

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Copper demand is being boosted by AI data centers, which require 27 to 33 tons per MW, over 2x that of conventional data centers, per miner Grupo México (Camilla Hodgson/Financial Times)

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London-based Sokin, which develops tech for B2B cross-border payments, raised a $50M Series B led by Prysm Capital at a $300M valuation (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)

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Binance names co-founder Yi He as co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, making her one of the few women leading a crypto company; she also has children with ex-CEO CZ (Jeff John Roberts/Fortune)

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An analysis of Waymo's data covering ~100M driverless miles across four US cities: Waymo cars have far lower crash rates per million miles than human drivers (Jonathan Slotkin/New York Times)

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Waymo's self-driving cars appear to be bending traffic laws and growing impatient with pedestrians as the company seeks to make them "confidently assertive" (Katherine Bindley/Wall Street Journal)

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Stripe agrees to acquire Metronome, which offers APIs to help SaaS companies charge customers based on usage and has raised $128M in total funding (Scott Woody/Metronome)

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MongoDB stock jumped 22% on December 2 after Q3 revenue rose 19% YoY to $628M, above $592M est., and raises full-year guidance on Atlas growth and AI demand (Samantha Subin/CNBC)

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Software testing startup Antithesis raised $105M led by trading firm Jane Street, as demand grows for software to vet code generated by AI coding tools (Financial Times)

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YouTube says it will comply with Australia's social media ban for under-16s, after rejecting its inclusion in the crackdown and calling the regulation "rushed" (Angus Whitley/Bloomberg)

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After a backlash, India says its pre-installed cybersecurity app is optional for users, who "have complete freedom to activate, or delete the app at any time" (Shruti Srivastava/Bloomberg)

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Filing: JD.com's JingDong Industrials, or JDi, a supply chain technology and services provider in China, aims to raise up to ~$420M in its Hong Kong IPO (Reuters)

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Sources: Anthropic taps law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on its IPO, which could come as soon as 2026, and held preliminary talks with big investment banks (George Hammond/Financial Times)

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Check Point is raising $1.5B from the sale of a five-year zero-coupon convertible bond; proceeds will go toward buying back as much as $225M of stock (Bloomberg)

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