Techmeme
October 31, 2026, 9:30 AM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI now seeks ~$20B at a $1.25T valuation for its latest round, from $30B at a $1.4T valuation, as some investors cut commitments amid an AI selloff  —  ChatGPT maker is now seeking about $20bn at a $1.25tn valuation as it tempers its ambitions  —  OpenAI has slashed the target …
Tom Westbrook / Reuters:
TRM Labs attributes the Binance hack to North Korea-based TraderTraitor, which drained ~$6.36B from Binance wallets across 10 blockchains, mostly in ~20 minutes  —  North Korean hackers were behind a $6.3 billion raid on cryptocurrency exchange Binance, according to US blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs.
The Block:
More: Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, Reuters, Binance, Bloomberg, Techreport, The Information, Wall Street Journal, CryptoPotato, Forkast, Security Affairs, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, Motley Fool, Gizmodo, CoinDesk, The National, crypto.news, NBC Los Angeles, CoinDesk, Help Net Security, Decrypt, Associated Press, The Information, Bloomberg, and Web3 is Going Just Great
LinkedIn: James Ang and Eric Leon
Financial Times:
George Steer / Financial Times:
Rajveer Singh Pardesi / Reuters:
South China Morning Post:
Steven Levy / Wired:
John Ternus says Apple doesn't “want to ship AI for AI's sake” and that Tim Cook is “available to help wherever I ask” on policy; Ternus has yet to meet Trump  —  Apple doesn't need fixing, and it doesn't want drama.  Its new leader is a “product guy” who bleeds six colors.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle have a collective $3T+ in AI spending commitments over the coming years, including Alphabet's $1T and Meta's $800B  —  The five largest players in the data center race have committed more than $3 trillion in spending over the coming years …
Patturaja Murugaboopathy / Reuters:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
S&P downgraded Meta's outlook from stable to negative, citing high capex and negative free cash flow; META fell 15% in October, its worst month in four years  —  Meta's outlook has been revised downward by S&P Global Ratings on concerns surrounding cash flow and AI spending.
Felix Rieseberg / @felixrieseberg:
Anthropic says a malicious actor used access to Cursor's marketplace to publish a “tampered” copy of the Claude Code extension, which it didn't build or publish  —  We're working with Cursor on this incident, but it wasn't a compromise of Anthropic's systems or employee laptops. A malicious actor used access to Cursor's marketplace to publish a tampered copy of the Claude Code extension, which we didn't build or publish. The versions on our official channels a...
CNBC:
Intel stock closed down 28.58% on Friday, its worst day since the 1970s and wiping ~$12B off US government's stake, after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance  —  Intel shares plummeted 29% on Friday, their worst day since the 1970s, after the chipmaker issued weaker-than-expected guidance due …
Tim Fernholz / TechCrunch:
Google says its Suncatcher prototype data center satellite is online after an October 1 launch, with Gemma 4 generating a haiku about being in space  —  Google Suncatcher's prototype space data center is online and communicating with the ground after launching earlier this month alongside …
The Commanding Heights:
As AI models commoditize, lasting wealth will accrue to those controlling chokepoints like distribution, payment rails, and a stablecoin dollar, not to the labs  —  Scarce, controllable positions of Economic Power whose holders durably capture the gains of Increasingly Capable and diffused intelligence.
Zoho:
3 smarter updates for your staffing pipeline  —  Staffing recruiters manage multiple client requirements, large candidate databases, and tight submission deadlines.  Finding suitable candidates is only the first step.  They also need to review assessments, revisit interviews, compare applications …
Sponsor Post
Andrew E. Freedman / Tom's Hardware:
When talking about local inference, Sam Altman says supply-constrained DRAM is better used in data centers than sitting in PCs and “being used 5% of the time”  —  With data centers full of RAM, your PC is apparently the problem. … OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has data centers full of memory …

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Command Line:
GitHub Universe 2026: Highlights from the developer's developer conference  —  Copilot Fusion was the belle of the ball, but the hero at the heart of the two-day event was the developer community.
Zoho:
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Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Sources:
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
 

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Caleigh Keating / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Claude / @claudeai:
Sam Tobin / Reuters:
Amazon: