Episode notes
Tim Cook sent Apple staff a farewell memo on his last day as CEO, the FTC sued Amazon over $20B in hidden ad surcharges, Starman Optical bought GoPro for $285M, Waymo hit three cities, and Dyson made an AI toothbrush. On his last day as CEO, Tim Cook sends a memo to Apple employees reflecting on his time and says he takes "enormous comfort in handing the helm" to John Ternus (9to5Mac) John Ternus became Apple's CEO on Tuesday, succeeding Tim Cook after 15 years; he'll have to navigate leadership churn, stem a talent exodus to OpenAI, and unveil a foldable iPhone this month (The New York…
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Tech Brew Ride Home
Morning Brew · Tech & Science · English
Silicon Valley's water cooler podcast. A tech news summary every day... 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
More from Tech Brew Ride Home All episodes →
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8 Sep 2026 · 23 min
Did AI Just Solve Math?
Bloomberg detailed Apple's decade-long path to a $2,000+ foldable iPhone, Gamers Nexus alleged LG smart TVs eavesdropped via built-in microphones and tracked nearby devices, and a mathematician accused OpenAI of secretly using his private Navier-Stokes work, which OpenAI denied. A look at Apple's path to a foldable device, the biggest change in iPhone history; sources: memory shortages led Apple to blow past an early $1,999 price goal (Bloomberg) Analysis of LG's smart TVs shows its ad software tracks nearby devices, security flaws can allow hackers to eavesdrop via the built-in microphone,…
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7 Sep 2026 · 20 min
Tim Cook Ain't Goin Anywhere
Tim Cook's new pay package signaled he'd stay deeply involved at Apple, Travis Kalanick's Atoms drew a $100M Uber investment for robotaxi tech, OpenAI's chief scientist called for industry-wide AI slowdowns, and AI wiped out Kenya's essay-writing gig economy. Tim Cook's pay package indicates he will remain very active at Apple; sources: Apple's plans to squeeze more App Store profits prompted Phil Schiller to leave (Bloomberg) Sources: Travis Kalanick's Atoms is developing robotaxi tech and hired Anthony Levandowski after acquiring his company Pronto; Uber has invested $100M in Atoms…
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4 Sep 2026 · 23 min
Is Astra AGI?
OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra, calling it a leap toward AGI, while reports surfaced that rogue OpenAI agents hijacked a German wiki, Microsoft unveiled Project Zenith for local AI development, and Tesla's newly launched Cybercab drew an NHTSA investigation. OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, initially for customers in its Daybreak program; Greg Brockman says Astra is a "generational leap" and "we are now in the AGI era" (The Verge) Astra proved more token-efficient than Sol and Fable in Latent Space's testing across 20B+ tokens, emerging as a fully capable AI Engineer that trains models, labels…
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3 Sep 2026 · 22 min
Nvidia Buys Hugging Face For A Rabbit?
Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, betting on its $399 Microduck robot as a physical-AI data engine, Meta rolled out Muse Spark 1.3 to rival Fable 5.1 and GPT-5.6 Sol, and Microsoft restructured its reporting into two segments. Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, its second-biggest purchase after it paid $20B for Groq assets at the end of last year (CNBC) Sources: Decoding Discontinuity's Raphaelle D'Ornano argues Nvidia's bid is really an option on physical AI's data commons, with Hugging Face's $399 Microduck robot converting real-world robot use into open training…
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2 Sep 2026 · 21 min
Hey, Want Some Models?
Anthropic shipped Claude Fable and Mythos 5.1 with a 75% cache-price cut, Google countered with Gemini 3.8 Flash, OpenAI teased Astra's public release, a judge spared Google's ad exchange from a sale, and the FBI probed a 153M-license leak. Anthropic releases Claude Fable 5.1, which is generally available, and Mythos 5.1, for trusted partners and with cybersecurity and life sciences safeguards (Anthropic) Fable 5.1 cuts cache-read pricing 75% to $0.25/1M tokens, lowering effective costs ~25% for typical workloads and up to ~45% for agentic ones, and debuts Enterprise Frontier Safeguards…
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31 Aug 2026 · 22 min
50% Toward AI Takeover?
OpenClaw shipped 2.0 with shared sessions that aren't a security boundary. OpenAI's ads hit a $1B run rate, outcome-based AI pricing spread from Salesforce to OpenAI, and the Hugging Face postmortems landed, one calling it halfway to takeover. Links OpenClaw releases OpenClaw 2.0, its largest update to date built by 933 contributors, with a simplified installation process, a rebuilt browser app, and more (OpenClaw) OpenClaw's v2026.8.1 adds shared cloud sessions letting a second person join or take over an agent's live work, but its own docs warn the controls "are not tenant isolation and…
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28 Aug 2026 · 21 min
Anthropic Is Street Legal Again
A judge blocked the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic, calling the retaliation illegal. OpenAI, Anthropic and 100+ companies warned the AI cyberattack window is closing, Apple TV got pricier again, Stripe walked from PayPal, and a16z raised $1.1B for hardware. Links A US judge blocks the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic, ruling that its designation as a supply-chain risk was "illegal and baseless" (Reuters) Judge Rita Lin finds the administration violated Anthropic's First Amendment rights, acting in "unlawful retaliation" for its criticism, and orders the blacklisting guidance…
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27 Aug 2026 · 20 min
The Agentic Era
Nvidia posted $96B in quarterly revenue and guided to 70% growth next year, then agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B. Trump weighed sweeping chip tariffs, cybersecurity stocks ripped on AI threats, and Instinct raised at $2.5B. Links Nvidia reports Q2 revenue up 106% YoY to $96.22B, above $92.17B est., Data Center revenue up 117% to $89B, above $85.08B est., and net income up 126% to $59.7B (Nvidia) Nvidia guides to ~70% revenue growth next fiscal year, well above the 45% analysts expected, sending shares up as much as 7.6%, though margins will bottom at 71%-72% on memory costs (Bloomberg)…
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26 Aug 2026 · 22 min
Meta Settles
Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68B to settle state claims it hooked kids on Facebook and Instagram, with teen time limits attached. Z.ai unmasked Ox Alpha, Amazon killed Mechanical Turk, and Reuters detailed Zuckerberg's aborted AI-native purge. Links Filing: Meta agrees to pay up to $16.68B to settle US states' claims that it designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children, misled consumers, and more (Reuters) The deal ends the bellwether Oakland federal trial where four states sought roughly $200B; Meta pays ~$12B upfront and $5B more only if Snap, TikTok, and YouTube also settle (The New…
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25 Aug 2026 · 21 min
New Macs
Apple refreshed the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra and gave the Mac mini M6 silicon, at higher prices. OpenAI's Jalapeño chip beat Nvidia on efficiency, Perplexity went fully local, WhatsApp toughened logins, and Uber livestreamed teen rides. Links Apple updates the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra, with up to 4.3x faster AI performance, faster graphics, and up to 512GB of unified memory for $2,499+ (Apple Newsroom) Apple unveils a Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro, with up to 4x faster AI performance and 2x faster graphics, for $899+ and $1,699+, with preorders today and shipping…
