This Week in Tech (Week Ending Apr 24, 2026)
Hey folks!
Happy Friday! đ and happy belated Earth day! đ Tech news below!
đ Macro (Economic) and Trends
Kevin Warshâs confirmation hearings were this week as Jerome Powellâs potential replacement of the Chair of the Federal Reserve.
đ° FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic and one of its reporters for $250 million, alleging they defamed him in a story alleging he has an excessive drinking habit and a pattern of âerraticâ behavior.
Joe Rogan rolling up to the Oval office like itâs a party
đŹ Micro (Tech Companies)
đ Tim Cook, Appleâs chief executive, announced that he would step down later this year. Cook, 65, will become Appleâs executive chairman in September. He will be replaced by John Ternus, the 50-year-old head of hardware engineering. What to know about him, besides the fact his Linkedin has zero posts: heâs considered an even-tempered collaborator; and In his role as senior vice president for hardware engineering, heâs in charge of developing devices that generate about 80 percent of Appleâs top line.
Meta will record employeesâ keystrokes and use it to train its AI models. Meta says that it has a new internal tool that is converting mouse movements and button clicks into data that can train its AI models.
Hollywood and tech platforms are converging as studios chase new formats and talent while social apps add more premium programming
Netflix announced this week that its redesigned mobile app will include vertical video.
Disney+ launched a vertical video feed on its app in March.
Amazon Web Services introduced tools to convert live and on-demand video into vertical formats. Fox Sports and NBCUniversal are partners.
YouTube acquired the global rights to the Oscars.
TikTok and Snapchat have hosted their own award shows for creators.
Instagram launched a TV app for Reels.
Palantir published a 22-point manifesto last weekend. The post outlined how the company views its mission and denounced âinclusivityâ.
Earnings
Teslaâs Q1 earnings saw an uptick in revenue and profit year-over-year, due to an increase in automotive revenue and other services. Tesla shares rose 4% in after-hours trading.
ServiceNow reported 22% growth in revenue for the first quarter, but ServiceNowâs stock plummeted more than 13% in after-hours trading, possibly a response to the companyâs projection that its recently completed $7.8 billion purchase of the cybersecurity firm Armis would likely âcreate headwindsâ to its profits this year.
Andreessen Horowitz launched a 24/7 livestream news show called âMonitoring the Situationâ. MTS is being pitched as Silicon Valleyâs answer to cable news. Skeptics were quick to mock the format as a well-funded livestream of venture partners switching tabs among X, prediction markets and Wikipedia.
But why? Cash App said this week that it is expanding its youth-focused services in an effort to build a relationship with Gen Alpha and the upcoming generation of adolescents in the U.S. The new program will let parents create financial accounts for children between the ages of 6 and 12.
Instagram tests a new âInstantsâ app for sharing disappearing photos.
Vercel says it was hacked and customer data was stolen. Vercel blamed its breach on an earlier hack at Context AI, which allowed hackers to hijack a Vercel employeeâs account to steal customer data.
Layoffs: Meta to cut 10% of jobs, or 8,000 employees,
đ¤AI News
Google has assembled a strike team of researchers and engineers to improve its AI coding models, as it looks to automate more of its own coding and ultimately its AI research.
Microsoft-owned GitHub said Monday it is restricting how much customers can use its Copilot AI coding tool and pausing new sign-ups for individual accounts as it struggles to handle an influx of traffic, triggering outages.
OpenAI releases GPT-5.5, bringing company one step closer to an AI âsuper appâ.
OpenAI has started to offer ChatGPT ad campaigns that charge advertisers based on how many people click on the ads.
OpenAI is in discussions to invest up to $1.5 billion in a private equity joint venture called DeployCo. OpenAI seeks to accelerate businessesâ adoption of its AI tools by selling to private equity firmsâ portfolio companies through DeployCo.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last Friday, in what both sides described as a âproductive and constructiveâ discussion. The meeting signals a potential shift in the relations between the AI startup and the Trump administration after months of bitter conflict.
đ¤ Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
âď¸ SpaceX is working with Cursor and has an option to buy the startup for $60B. Cursor was on track to close a $2 billion funding round this week but chose to halt discussions after SpaceX offered a $10 billion âcollaboration feeâ and a path to a $60 billion acquisition.
đĽ Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of a nearly $111 billion megamerger with Paramount. WBD expects the deal to close in Q3, but it still faces regulatory approval.
Deutsche Telekom is said to be weighing a merger with T-Mobile US, potentially creating the worldâs biggest wireless carrier.
Sierra, the AI customer service agent startup founded by Bret Taylor, acquired the YC-backed French startup Fragment.
Fundraising
âď¸ Amazon is investing up to $25 billion more in Anthropic. The e-commerce giant will put $5 billion into the artificial intelligence start-up now, and up to $20 billion later depending on milestones. (Thatâs on top of the $8 billion it has already invested in Anthropic.) Anthropic, in turn, pledged $100bn in cloud spend.
Polymarket is talking to investors about raising $400 million in funding at a valuation of about $15 billion.
đ¨đłTencent Holdings and Alibaba Group are in talks to invest in DeepSeek, the AI upstart owned by Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer Capital Management.
Partnerships
Thinking Machines Lab has signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with Google Cloud for AI infrastructure powered by Nvidiaâs latest GB300 chips.
IPO
Cerebras, an AI chip startup, filed for IPO.
âąď¸ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
So what are the kids snorting these days? Not cocaine. Cocaine use among 18- to 25-year-olds in the US has âplummetedâ from 2.1 million in 2017 to 811,000 in 2024. Instead, Gen Zâs drugs of choice are ketamine, GHB, psychedelics, 3-MMC, and prescription stimulants, like Adderall.
Trending - chicken caesar wraps: Millennials apparently canât get enough of the â90s-era chicken Caesar wrap (CCW). Theyâre waiting in hours-long lines at specialty shops, going viral for taste tests on TikTok, and obsessively ranking the offerings from New York delis like Lenwich, Milano Market, and Bobwhite
âď¸Collectibles: The La Marzocco espresso machine changed the course of American coffee history. After a Seattle cafe owner spotted one in Florence a half-century ago, the machines became the backbone of Starbucksâs successful push to create a mainstream market for high-end coffee. Then, when Starbucks moved to automatic machines, their old La Marzoccos fueled a wave of independent shops. Now, old La Marzoccos have become even more coveted than new ones.
đżBut does he have any ferns?: Zach Galifianakis has a new series on Netflix where he teaches children about the wonders of gardening
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