This Week in Tech (Week Ending Jun 12, 2026)
Hey folks!
Happy Friday! 😎 Tech news below!
🌎 Macro (Economic) and Trends
📉 Stocks were hit with a sharp sell-off on Tuesday but rebounded after the US said it would soon sign a deal w Iran.
💣U.S. forces launched a new wave of airstrikes on Iran on Wednesday. Secretary of Defense said the attacks were intended to persuade Tehran to make peace on terms agreeable to Trump.
🦠The Trump administration, fearing international travel could turn the World Cup into an Ebola superspreader, is pressuring Europe to dramatically step up infection prevention.
💼 A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s plan to charge $100,000 for new H-1B visa applications. That matters because tech companies rely heavily on H-1Bs to hire foreign engineers and specialists; a six-figure fee would have made that talent pipeline much more expensive.
🤯A key Social Security trust fund could run out of money in 2032. It would have to cut benefits in roughly six years — three months earlier than expected — unless Congress intervenes with a funding plan.
📍Massachusetts is voting to pass new privacy rights bill that bans sale of precise location data. The bill is expected to blanket ban companies and startups from selling people’s precise location data across the state.
💰Investors have poured an unprecedented $255 billion into five AI hyperscalers — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle — already this year, more than twice what those companies raised in all of 2025. Why it matters: Investors are more exposed to AI’s promises — and its risks — than ever. With savings dwindling and wages lagging inflation, portfolio gains are about the only place investors are making real money.
🔬 Micro (Tech Companies)
🥭It’s not FAANG anymore. It’s MANGOS.: Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI and SpaceX.
🎙️Apple unveiled its overhauled AI-powered Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC 2026, on Monday. Apple spent much of its WWDC keynote highlighting fixes, performance improvements, and long-requested features before unveiling its upgraded AI-powered Siri, signaling that the company wants users to see AI as just one part of a broader effort to improve its software.
Meta unveiled “America’s Workforce Academy,” a five-week program that trains people to become fiber technicians, welders, plumbers and electricians. Graduates will be guaranteed a job at a Meta data center.
📱 Meta is trying to build a subscription business beyond ads.
Kalshi is planning to require that participants in some prediction markets disclose the identity of their employers, after an advisory committee recommended tighter security measures to combat potential insider trading and market manipulation.
📌Pinterest is adding support for Amazon Storefronts, allowing creators to earn affiliate commissions more easily while showcasing their product recommendations in one place.
ServiceNow had a bug that left some of their data (including customer data) exposed to the internet.
Nvidia and SK Hynix signed a multiyear deal for next-gen AI memory chips.
🌐 Starlink hit a security roadblock in India. Regulators are worried that satellite internet used in conflict zones, including Iran, could leave critical communications controlled by a U.S. company.
🚘 Tesla delayed its next-gen Roadster demo again, now to August or later.
Layoffs: Tools for Humanity, Sam Altman’s identity verification company, is reportedly struggling to generate revenue and will downsize its staff. Microsoft Xbox is planning layoffs as margins reportedly fall to 3%.
🤖AI News
OpenAI
OpenAI is preparing to transform ChatGPT into a “superapp” that prioritizes coding tools and agents.
OpenAI announced a new feature that it says will provide additional protection from prompt injection attacks, where malicious chatbot instructions are hidden in web pages and other content sources.
OpenAI is in advanced negotiations to lease a proposed 10 gigawatt data center campus on federal land in Ohio as part of a deal that could include financial backing from Nvidia.
💸 OpenAI is reportedly considering steep price cuts to compete with Anthropic. The AI race is no longer just “who has the smartest model?” but also “who can make the monthly bill feel less cursed?”
Anthropic
Anthropic released a “safe” version of its powerful Mythos model, called Claude Fable 5.
Anthropic is warning about recursive self-improvement, where AI systems help build their own successors.
🧪 Anthropic launched a new model aimed at power users, but with safety rails that route some cybersecurity prompts to a weaker model. Very “you may build a video game from one prompt, but please do not build the bad thing.”
🏗️ Broadcom is putting together financing with Apollo and Blackstone for massive AI data-center buildouts tied to Anthropic and OpenAI.
Lovable says it has hit $500M in annualized revenue, with 1 million new projects a week.
🚫 Alibaba, Baidu, and other Chinese tech firms were added to a Pentagon blacklist for allegedly aiding China’s military. Another reminder that AI infrastructure is also national-security infrastructure.
$7500 —- what the most AI-obsessed firms are spending on AI per month, per employee.
🤝 Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
Waymo has acquired a massive 5,500-acre proving ground in Arizona owned by Route 14 Investment Partners LLC, a Delaware shell company associated with Apple.
Fundraising
Databricks, a provider of database management software, has discussed raising more money in a funding round that could kick off within the next month.
IPO
🚀 SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share, valuing the company around $1.75 trillion.
Bending Spoons, which owns Eventbrite and Vimeo, is filing to go public: Bending Spoons say its app caters to a user base of over 500 million monthly active users.
🚌 Zum, the electric school-bus startup, is reportedly interviewing banks for a potential IPO.
📈 OpenAI confidentially filed IPO paperwork and is also planning another employee share sale. The tender offer would use OpenAI’s March valuation of $852 billion.
Partnerships
💳 Visa is partnering with OpenAI so agents can make purchases on users’ behalf.
⚱️ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
⚽ FIFA World Cup kicked off its biggest tournament ever: 48 countries, three host nations, and 100+ games. The U.S. is hosting for the first time in 32 years.
🪐 Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be visible near one another in a “mini parade of planets” Fri through Monday.
🏊Swimmer Catherine Breed will spend the next four months swimming the length of California (900 miles) — as long as great white sharks, jellyfish and elephant seals leave her alone.
🏆The Tony awards were last weekend and “Death of a Salesman” collected the most statuettes, with six wins, including for best play revival.
🎬 The Social Reckoning dropped its first trailer, with Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg and Aaron Sorkin returning to Facebook-world. The sequel-ish follow-up shifts from dorm-room ambition to whistleblower-era platform rot.
📺Is anyone else watching Widow’s Bay? Love! “What elevates it to the best new show is how it reinvents a well-worn TV trope — the cozy backwater full of adorable kooks — and how it turns the town’s history into its biggest monster.”
A new mural painted on the grass at Minneapolis’ Boom Island Park. It’s the first U.S. painting in the “Beyond Walls” handshake series by Franco-Swiss artist Saype.
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