Reading List

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

Databricks is raising $10B from a16z, Thrive, others at a $62B valuation, among the largest VC raises in history; documents show Databricks has $2.6B in revenue (Wall Street Journal)

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The US FTC issues long-awaited rules requiring companies to display the full price of hotels, concert tickets, and more up front, rather than hiding "junk fees" (Tony Romm/Washington Post)

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The Irish Data Protection Commission fines Meta €251M over a Facebook breach that affected ~29M users globally and ~3M in the EU and EEA in September 2018 (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

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Interpol says calling online scams "pig butchering", a widely used phrase, is unhelpful as gangs "appear to have" created the phrase to describe victims (Wired)

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A Taiwanese official says the country is in talks with Amazon's Kuiper over satellite internet as its current OneWeb deal does not offer sufficient capacity (Kathrin Hille/Financial Times)

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Taiwanese silicon wafer maker GlobalWafers finalizes $406M in CHIPS Act funding, part of a plan to invest nearly $4B to help build plants in Texas and Missouri (Bloomberg)

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After Trump's win, a look at what the crypto industry could do next, including weakening financial rules that might protect consumers from the next crypto crash (Molly White/Bloomberg)

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Toronto-based Hostaway, which offers vacation rental management tools, raised $365M led by General Atlantic at a $925M valuation, after raising $175M in 2023 (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

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Alibaba agrees to sell its Intime department store business, part of a plan to unify online and offline retailing in 2017, for ~$1B, taking a record $1.3B loss (Bloomberg)

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The European Commission opens a formal DSA investigation into TikTok over concerns foreign actors used it to interfere in the Romanian presidential elections (Edith Hancock/Wall Street Journal)

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Nigeria arrests 792 suspects, including 148 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals, in a raid on a building believed to be a crypto romance scam call center (Elisha Bala-Gbogbo/Reuters)

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The UK opens a consultation on AI and copyright, and aims to offer an "opt out" copyright exception, force companies to open models to scrutiny, and more (Financial Times)

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Framework releases a $39 modular component to add two extra M.2 slots to the Laptop 16, letting users have 26TB+ of storage, and updates the Laptop 16's cooling (Sean Hollister/The Verge)

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Turkish startup Agave Games, developer of Find the Cat, which has 10M+ downloads since its August 2024 release, raised an $18M Series A at a $100M valuation (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

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Beijing-based AI startup Zhipu, which aims to make services tailored to the China market, raised $412M, after raising $400M at a ~$3B valuation in May 2024 (Bloomberg)

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Congo files criminal complaints against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium, accusing the tech firm of using conflict minerals in its supply chain (Sonia Rolley/Reuters)

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Pune, India-based industrial AI startup Haber raised a $44M Series C, including $38M in equity and $6M in debt, led by Creaegis, BEENEXT, and Accel (FinSMEs)

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Australia's privacy watchdog says Meta agreed to a AU$50M settlement over a 2020 Cambridge Analytica lawsuit alleging 300K+ Facebook users' data was exposed (Rishav Chatterjee/Reuters)

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Digital bank Tyme Group, which operates in South Africa and the Philippines, raised a $250M Series D led by Brazilian digital bank Nubank at a $1.5B valuation (Bloomberg)

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Waymo plans to test its robotaxis in Tokyo in early 2025, its first international expansion, partnering with taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and taxi hailing app GO (CNBC)

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