This Week in Tech (Week Ending May 15, 2026)

May 15, 2026

Hey folks!

Happy Friday! 😎 Tech news below!

🌎 Macro (Economic) and Trends

Holding my breath for another pandemic: Seventeen American passengers from the cruise ship that was hit by hantavirus arrived in Nebraska this morning. Doctors will observe them at a quarantine center near Omaha.
The Senate voted to confirm Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve. He will replace Jerome Powell, whom the president has repeatedly criticized for failing to cut interest rates
📈 The Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, rose 3.8% in April year over year. That’s up from 3.3% in March.
The White House invited a splashy group of more than a dozen top American business leaders to accompany President Trump on his visit to Beijing on Thursday and Friday - including Elon Musk, Tim Cook and more.
“Scaling sin”: As Trump said last month, ““The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino.” Why it matters: Once-forbidden vices — weed, gambling and porn — are no longer confined to back alleys or the desert. The biggest factors that ushered in our more addicted, money-hungry America: legalized weed; legalized betting via Kalshi and Polymarket; ubiquity of porn esp w deepfake tech.
Random: Were you a fan of the reality show “The Hills”? bc one of its stars is running for Los Angeles mayor - Spencer Pratt. And surprisingly isn’t doing too bad in the polls.

Uber is leaning into a super-app concept with memberships - food, groceries, hotels - for Uber One.
Amazon launched 30-minute delivery across the U.S
Netflix is being sued by Texas, which accuses Netflix of “spying on” customers in the state and “exploiting their private data.”
Tiktok is launching TikTok GO, a way for users to discover and book hotels, attractions, and experiences directly within its app. TikTok is systematically converting its discovery engine into a transaction layer, which both deepens user retention and opens entirely new revenue streams for its new owners
Instagram’s new ‘Instants’ feature combines elements from Snapchat and BeReal. The feature lets users share disappearing photos with their close friends or mutual followers that can be viewed only once and remain available for 24 hours
Digg reboot 2.0: Just months after launching, the reboot of Digg, the popular link-sharing site shut down in March as the company shifted course again and is back with a new design.
Finally, texts between Android and iPhone users can be end-to-end encrypted
TikTok launched an ad-free subscription plan in the UK.
Layoffs: Cisco cuts nearly 4,000 jobs to spend more on AI, reports ‘record quarterly revenue.

Anthropic now has more business customers than OpenAI.
OpenAI announced the OpenAI Deployment Company, a joint venture seeded with a $4 billion investment that values it at $14 billion. The new company will embed applied A.I. engineers in businesses to “design, build, test and deploy production systems”.
Google plans to hire hundreds of engineers to help customers start using its business-focused AI products,
OpenAI is considering legal action against Apple over breach of contract related to the ChatGPT integration deal it announced with Apple two years ago.
Anthropic’s new tools are designed to help law firms automate specific clerical functions — things like document search and review, case law resources, deposition prep, document drafting, and other related areas
Anthropic launched of Claude for Small Business.
The U.S. Commerce Department has cleared Nvidia’s sales of its H200 chips to around 10 Chinese companies including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com, as Washington eases its restrictions on AI chip exports to China.
Musk vs OpenAI: The trial continued this week and it was Sam Altman’s first time testifying in court. Musk’s side pushed on Altman’s trustworthiness, while Altman accused Musk of making “hair-raising” demands.

BuzzFeed agrees to sell itself to the billionaire Byron Allen for $120mill.
Anthropic is in advanced talks to acquire developer tools startup Stainless for at least $300 million
EBay has rejected GameStop’s unsolicited $56 billion takeover proposal.

Anduril, the defense tech start-up, has raised $5 billion at a $61 billion valuation from investors including Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz

Anthropic partners with Akamai in a $1.8bn cloud deal.
Apple has reached “a preliminary agreement” with Intel in recent months for manufacturing some of its chips

Inter~~stellar~~stitium: Scientists are discovering that beyond the lymphatic and the cardiovascular system, there is a 3rd circulatory system that they’re calling the interstitium. It’s something that is part of traditional chinese medicine and acupuncture. There are “already promising possibilities in…how the interstitium might inform the treatment of diabetes, gut health and cancer, among others.”
Dirty soda: McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Dunkin’ have all recently added dirty soda to their menus. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a customizable blend of soda, flavored syrup, creamer and sometimes fruit. The drink originated in Utah and took off nationally a few years ago thanks to the reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
Comeback: Hacky Sack. A headmaster at a Boston schools said: “I’ve never seen something explode as quickly as this.” The N.Y. Times found stores from North Carolina to California that reported a boom in hacky sack sales. Does anyone else remember this scene from She’s All That?

End of an Era: Stephen Colbert of CBS’ “The Late Show” hosted a quartet of his “best television friends” last night ahead of his final show on May 21.

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