This Week in Tech (Week Ending Aug 29, 2025)
TL;DR - ⭐️Nvidia earnings; 🍎Apple potentially using Gemini for Siri
Hey folks!
Happy Friday and autumn 🍂🎃 Did you get your PSL? They returned this week ☕️🍂 And enjoy the long weekend ahead! Tech news below.
TL;DR -
😢Minneapolis suffered a tragedy this week when a shooter opened fire at a Catholic school, killing 2 children and wounding 17 others.
⭐️Nvidia’s earnings didn’t disappoint - or did they? Nvidia reported strong, record results on Wednesday: Sales rose by over 50%. However, Nvidia shares fell nearly 3% in aftermarket trading, likely because of the lukewarm revenue outlook and the narrow miss of revenue forecasts for the company’s data-center business.
🍎Apple is reportedly in early talks with Google about using Gemini to power a completely rebuilt Siri, following setbacks that pushed the voice assistant's major upgrade to 2026.
American royals: 💍Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged.
🌎 Macro (Economic) and Trends
📰 Top editors from Reuters and the Associated Press sent a joint letter to Israeli officials demanding a "clear explanation" for airstrikes on a Gaza hospital that killed five journalists this week. Why it matters: The deaths underscore growing fears that Israel's Gaza campaign is endangering journalists at unprecedented levels, threatening global press freedom.
😢Minneapolis suffered a tragedy this week when a shooter opened fire at a Catholic school, killing 2 children and wounding 17 others.
🛢️Cracker Barrel is going back to its old logo after backlash for its simplified, “sterile” logo. Sound silly? It was a whole “culture war” conversation where even Trump got involved.
❗️Protesters stormed Microsoft’s headquarters on Monday and made it into president Brad Smith’s office in Building 34, forcing a temporary lockdown. Redmond police had to physically remove them from the building. Monday’s escalation follows months of protests over Microsoft’s cloud contracts with Israel
✨Trending - Streamers and splashy in-person experiences: Streamers are eyeing splashy in-person experiences to court younger demographics who crave stronger connections with their favorite shows and platforms. Netflix revealed details about its new Netflix House locations in Philadelphia and Dallas, which open later this year. What’s Netflix House? think Museum of Ice Cream but Netflix-themed. Plus: 🪷 HBO Max partnered with the Four Seasons to promote "The White Lotus." And 🦚 Peacock hosted an interactive experience in Los Angeles for "The Traitors" earlier this year.
🤖Trending - AI-driven private schools: An AI-driven private school that teaches core subjects for just two hours a day is nearly doubling its footprint, adding eight new campuses from California to Puerto Rico. How it works: In Alpha Schools, students spend no more than two hours on core academics, then devote the rest of the day to developing life skills.
📕Don’t forget to touch grass and read a book: The share of Americans reading for pleasure has been falling for the past two decades
🔬 Micro (Tech Companies)
Everyone while waiting for Nvidia’s earnings to assure us that the AI boom isn’t ending anytime soon:
⭐️Nvidia — the biggest company in the world by market cap — reported strong, record results on Wednesday: Sales rose by over 50%. However, Nvidia shares fell nearly 3% in aftermarket trading, likely because of the lukewarm revenue outlook and the narrow miss of revenue forecasts for the company’s data-center business.
Confirming last week’s news: President Donald Trump and Intel said Friday that the U.S. would take a 10% in the company at a slight discount to its recent share price, becoming the struggling chipmaker’s largest shareholder. The U.S. is making the $9 billion investment by converting funds that Intel would have received from the Biden Administration’s Chips Act designed to encourage domestic semiconductor production.
🍎Apple is likely to debut a new curved glass design for the 20th anniversary iPhone in 2027
🎥Netflix had a major win at the theaters when they released a singalong version of the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters”, which was the #1 movie at the domestic box office.
😠YouTube is facing backlash after creators discovered the platform using AI to apply effects like unblur, denoise, and clarity to videos without notice or permission. Says one creator: “…the bigger thing is it looks AI-generated. I think that deeply misrepresents me and what I do and my voice on the internet. It could potentially erode the trust I have with my audience in a small way. It just bothers me."
🚀SpaceX’s tenth launch of its Starship rocket was successful. The rocket launched from Texas and successfully deployed dummy satellites modeled on those that support SpaceX’s Starlink wireless internet service.
OnlyFans’ revenue is still growing, but not at the same rapid pace as recent years.
Revenue rose 9% to $1.4 billion for the year ending in November 2024. In the prior fiscal year, revenue rose about 20% year over year, and revenue soared 160% in 2021, driven by lockdowns during the pandemic.
💬Spotify launched a messaging feature to try and be more social.
🏫Instagram added a new feature (nearly identical to Tiktok’s) aimed at helping college students connect with people on campus. Students can add their college to their profile banner and browse a list of students at their school.
😱Did you know… when you buy a movie on Prime Video, you don’t actually own it? Amazon is facing a new class action lawsuit over their “buy” button on Prime Video bc customers are actually just getting a revocable license. If Amazon loses the rights to that media, your purchased movie could disappear overnight or get replaced with a different version.
🤖Robomart unveiled a new delivery robot with a $3 flat fee to challenge DoorDash and Uber Eats
📰Activist investor Fivespan Partners has built a stake in the New York Times, pitching that artificial intelligence could further build its subscription base. The Times' stock price did not meaningfully move on the news.
TransUnion says hackers stole 4.4 million customers' personal information:
Layoffs: TikTok is planning to lay off hundreds of staff in London working on content moderation and security as it outsources more of these efforts to artificial intelligence. Paramount will cut 2,500–3,000 jobs in November as Skydance seeks cost savings exceeding $2B. Klaviyo, the marketing software company, is laying off less than 100 staffers due to a restructuring of its R&D organization.
🤖 AI News
⭐️Apple is reportedly in early talks with Google about using Gemini to power a completely rebuilt Siri, following setbacks that pushed the voice assistant's major upgrade to 2026.
Elon Musk's xAI just filed a lawsuit against both Apple and OpenAI, alleging that the iPhone maker’s exclusive partnership surrounding ChatGPT is an antitrust violation that locks out rivals like Grok in the App Store.
😢A family is suing ChatGPT over their son’s suicide. ChatGPT repeatedly recommended that Adam tell someone about his feelings. But it also sometimes deterred him from seeking help and, once, told him not to clue in his family.
Anthropic just rolled out 'Claude for Chrome' — a new AI agent for Chrome, which adds its flagship Claude model directly into the browser. Dubbed an ‘early experiment’, it requires no extra logins, allowing the AI to read, summarize and act on web pages in real-time.
AI-friendly PACs: A group of Silicon Valley companies and executives have put more than $100 million into launching a network of political action committees aimed at shaping artificial intelligence policy. Backers of the effort, “Leading the Future,” include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and 8VC managing partner Joe Lonsdale.
Perplexity just unveiled a new revenue-sharing initiative that allocates $42.5M to publishers whose content appears in AI search results.
New court filings revealed that Elon Musk asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help finance a $97.4B takeover of OpenAI in February, though Meta did not agree to the letter of intent.
💥Will “the slap” Smith was on his European tour recently and received criticism for seemingly sharing AI-generated videos from his tour. The truth might be more complicated: Smith’s team likely used AI to generate footage from real photographs to create a more visually gripping social media post.
Some Midjourney art (see the prompt here):
🤝 Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
Keurig Dr Pepper announced an agreement to acquire Peet Coffee's parent company for around $18 billion.
Fundraising
Snap, the parent of social media app Snapchat, is discussing raising money from outside investors for its augmented reality glasses, known as Spectacles.
Framer, a no-code website builder that claims over half a million monthly active users, has reached a $2 billion valuation after raising a $100 million Series D funding round
Nuro, a self-driving startup, raised $203 million in a Series E funding round
Twin Health, which develops digital models of healthcare patients, raised $53 million at a valuation over $950 million in a Series E funding round
Partnerships
⭐️Meta just announced a new partnership with Midjourney to integrate the startup’s ‘aesthetic technology’ into future AI models and products, a major shift from the company’s in-house creative model development.
NASCAR launched its first-ever Substack newsletter this week, becoming the first major sports league to partner with the email platform. Why it matters: It's part of a broader effort by the league to provide younger fans with a closer connection to drivers and their stories off the racetrack.
Netflix and Major League Baseball have struck a distribution deal for the 2026 World Baseball Classic in Japan, bringing 47 live baseball games to the global streamer for the first time.
⚱️ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
Burning Man opened this past weekend and lasts through Sept 1. It was unfortunately pummeled this weekend with harsh weather - “blinding dust, searing heat and fast-moving winds that dismantled hours of camp and art setups.”
🎶The Goo Goo Dolls’ 1998 hit “Iris” is making a comeback. The almost 30yr old song held a spot in Spotify’s global top 25 for three months. Its revival began with Deadpool & Wolverine, and has remained sticky due to social media.
The latest in wellness trends - back scratching: professional back scratching is an emerging trend in the wellness industry popularized by viral videos of long-nailed women scratching clients into blissful trances. How it works: Soft scratching can trigger ASMR — autonomous sensory meridian response — a tingling sensation most often associated with soothing videos featuring whispered audio.
💍Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged. Cue the bridal lewks - the dress from Taylor’s engagement is already sold out but here are some dupes.
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