WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Downturn, Trump v Fed, OPEC+, HHS suit, Starbase, Nvidia

• Companies to watch: Thinking Machines, FutureHouse, Recraft, Neuralink

• Feature: Altman Wins Despite OpenAI's Nonprofit U-Turn

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Downturn — Tariff fears ended the S&P‘s longest up streak in 20 years. China exempts ~40B in US imports from tariffs ~25% of US goods. Short sellers are up ~$1.7B this year by shorting major private credit lenders.

Trump v Fed — Trump criticized Fed Chair Powell as "a total stiff," called for lower interest rates, blames Biden for the economic downturn.

Oil Surge — OPEC+ plans to boost oil production by nearly 1 million barrels per day in April, May, and June, despite low oil prices, economic slowdown fears.

State vs. Trump — 19 states, led by the NY AG Letitia James, sue against Trump's plan to cut 20K jobs and 26% budget at HHS, reallocating funds to MAHA.

Welcome to Starbase — SpaceX's Texas launch area is now officially the city of Starbase, approved by local voters, mainly SpaceX employees. Plans governance.

Tracking Nvidia's Trail — A bipartisan bill seeks to monitor Nvidia AI chips post-sale with tech, preventing smuggling to China. Nvidia is developing new chips specifically for the Chinese market.

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COMPANIES TO WATCH

Thinking Machines Lab — Mira Murati aims to raise $2B for her secretive startup at a $10B valuation, with minimum investments of $50M, and she witll retain non-dilutive control.

Google — Unveiled a policy roadmap with 15 proposals to support the AI boom by modernizing US power infrastructure. Plans to train 130,000 electrical workers for a 70% workforce increase by 2030.

G42 — The UAE AI giant plans a US expansion, investing tens of billions backed by Mubadala and $1.5B from Microsoft. To establish a US legal entity, cut ties with Chinese suppliers.

FutureHouse — Stealth startup focuses on superintelligent AI agents to enhance scientific discovery. New platform automates workflows with agents for literature search, deep reviews, and chemistry.

Neuralink — The speech restoration device received FDA's "breakthrough" designation, expediting its development for patients with severe speech impairments from ALS and stroke. Also adding new AI features.

Recraft — This US AI startup raised $30M after its RedPanda model surpassed DALL-E and Midjourney. With 4M users and $5M ARR, it excels in generating brand-compliant images.

Don't Die — Bryan Johnson founded a new religion viewing the ”body as God” and aligns AI with human survival to address existential risks, promote community and health practices.

Buffett Out — Warren Buffett retires as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at 94 after a 60-year tenure, recommending Greg Abel as successor.

SignalFires — Read the Top signals, Startups + Deals From Last Week

Altman Wins Despite OpenAI's Nonprofit U-Turn

Elon Musk may have won the battle over OpenAI's future, but has he inadvertently handed Sam Altman a war-winning advantage? Yesterday’s news that OpenAI is abandoning plans to spin off its for-profit arm comes after intense pressure to stop the restructuring from stakeholders (including Musk's legal efforts and regulators and former employees). It will remain under nonprofit control while transitioning to a public benefit corporation model, removing limitations on investor returns.

A Big Deal or Not?

Far from weakening Altman's position, this decision could actually cement his power. As OpenAI's controlling shareholder remains the nonprofit, whoever controls that nonprofit effectively controls the company. And guess who's had significant influence in reshaping and expanding the board with new appointments after his brief ousting last November? Sam Altman, creating a feedback loop of influence that ultimately benefits his vision and that of his core allies.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Meanwhile, another "best bromance in tech", that between Microsoft and OpenAI is showing serious signs of strain. What began as a $13B investment at the time of the Altman board coup and restructure has devolved into an unhappy marriage where both parties are quietly preparing for independent futures while presenting a united front publicly. Microsoft has begun hedging its bets by developing its own AI models and testing competitors' technologies, while OpenAI launched the $500B "Stargate" infrastructure project with Oracle and SoftBank instead of relying solely on Azure. The other point to note is, Microsoft probably had some sort of sway over some of those new board members as part of their deal to play kingmaker for Altman.

Please Take My Money

Guess who doesn't have much sway, other OpenAI investors. This is part of a curious trend sweeping the AI industry: investors happily pouring billions into startups while accepting remarkably limited control. Outside of OpenAI, take former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's new Thinking Machines Lab, which is reportedly raising a staggering $2B seed round at a $10 billion valuation despite having zero products or revenue. What it does have is top-tier talent, including OpenAI co-founder John Schulman and several other high-profile AI researchers from competitors. Investors are apparently comfortable with Murati maintaining "unusual control" through special voting rights. So, technical talent (and hype) now commands unprecedented leverage in fundraising negotiations.

AI's 1,000,000x Growth?

Maybe those backers are all listening to the All-In Podcast? Trump administration AI czar David Sacks just dropped a bombshell prediction that AI capabilities will grow 1,000,000x over the next four years. This astronomical growth is already triggering massive infrastructure challenges.

Google is positioning itself at the center of this anticipated boom, releasing a comprehensive policy roadmap yesterday with 15 proposals aimed at modernizing America's power grid. Their paper, "Powering a New Era of American Innovation," details plans to train 130,000 electrical workers by 2030 – a 70% workforce increase to support AI's explosive energy needs.

Meanwhile, G42, the UAE's AI giant, is making aggressive moves into the US market, planning to invest tens of billions amid intensifying global AI competition. After securing $1.5 billion from Microsoft last month, G42 is establishing a US legal entity while cutting ties with Chinese suppliers to comply with US regulations. Is this how Microsoft aims to compete with the likes of Stargate?

The Vibe Coding Gold Rush

It's no secret "vibe-coding" is transforming how software gets built. OpenAI is also making aggressive moves to dominate this space. After unsuccessfully courting Cursor (which rejected acquisition talks), OpenAI has entered negotiations to acquire rival Windsurf for approximately $3 billion. What makes these companies so attractive? Cursor reached an astonishing $100M ARR in just 21 months, setting a new record for SaaS growth. It also raised $900M at a $9 billion valuation led by Thrive, with a16z and Accel joining.

The coding assistant wars have even pulled in Apple, which just announced a partnership with Anthropic to create an AI-powered "vibe-coding" platform for Xcode. This system integrates Claude Sonnet to help developers write, edit, and test code more efficiently. Unlike Apple's previously announced Swift Assist tool (which never launched due to quality issues), this new platform reflects Apple's growing openness to external partnerships for AI capabilities.

Meanwhile, new research from Unite.ai just found that LLMs may be willing to assist in malicious 'Vibe Coding" opening up a rabbithole of security exploit concerns for the US government and enterprises using them heavily. (which may be pretty well all of them soon.) Bad Vibes all round!!

Epic Win for App Developers and Crypto Innovation

Speaking of Apple, in a ruling that sent shockwaves through the tech industry, a US federal judge has found it "willfully" violated a 2021 injunction in its case against Epic Games. The court ordered Apple to stop imposing fees on developers who use external payment options and to cease using "scare screens" to deter customers from leaving its ecosystem.

This landmark decision will significantly benefit crypto app developers, who can now direct users to external payment options without Apple's fees. The ruling explicitly enables easier use of cryptocurrency wallets for in-app payments on iOS, potentially opening floodgates for crypto innovation on Apple's platforms. Apple plans to appeal but must comply with the order immediately.

Musings

The AI revolution, and the Trump administration are both continuing to redraw power structures throughout tech as money continues to pour in despite economic uncertainty. Is this partly a historic inversion of power in tech towards founders with technical AI expertise? The real currency now isn't dollars but the network of relationships with elite AI talent. Another perspective is, these strange power dynamics are temporary artifacts of regulatory uncertainty. Once the US establishes clear AI oversight frameworks, we may see a dramatic power shift back to traditional VCs and corporate structures. And, as usual behind it all lurks uncertain ROI and now, maybe, a growing technical debt problem, as we vibe-code our way to exploitability.

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BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

Nvidia — Parakeet-TDT-0.6B-V2 transcribes audio rapidly, with a 6.05% error rate.

UC Berkeley — Humanoid Lite 3D-printable, O-S bot <$5K for accessible research.

Notebook LM — Gemini 2.5 Flash enhances LM with real-time processing.

Suno — v4.5 upgrade enhances AI music generation with richer vocals, genre mixing.

Core 2 Duo — Eric Migicovsky unveils smartwatch with USB-C, future AI voice, iOS.

Vireel — Generates viral video ads from a URL for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

AI Surge Prediction — David Sacks forecasts AI to grow 1,000,000x in four years.

Autonomous Road-to-Rail — World's first dual-mode truck launches in CA.

Material 3 — Google's new Android design boosts usability, speed by 4x.

Glacier AI Robots — Waste-sorting robots capture 80-90% plastics, raised $16M.

Celluveyor System — Hexagonal robots enable precise, space-efficient warehouses.

Electricity-Conducting Bacteria — Offers bioelectronics potential, eco solutions.

CRYPTO WATCH

Crypto Regulation Draft — House Republicans unveiled a draft bill aimed at regulating the crypto industry comprehensively with clear frameworks for consumer protection and market integrity.

Apple App Policy Shift — A US court ruling now lets crypto app developers direct users to external payment options without Apple fees.

Tether AI — Tether launches Tether AI, an open-source AI platform facilitating USDT and Bitcoin payments through a network of AI agents, its entry into the $25B crypto AI sector.

Kraken "Embed" — Kraken has launched "Embed," a Crypto-as-a-Service tool for banks and fintechs, facilitating seamless “embedded finance” crypto access.

Blackbird Labs — Raised $50M to boost its blockchain-based payment and loyalty platform for restaurants. The startup, with 1,000 partners, aims to cut payment fees and empower customer profile ownership via blockchain.

Coinbase Bitcoin Ad — Coinbase unveiled a new Bitcoin commercial, highlighting its commitment to boosting mainstream adoption and awareness.

SPACE_RACE

NASA_to create Coordinated Lunar Time for Artemis missions.

NASA Artemis 2_Lunar mission adds Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage.

Space-Based Data Centers_Eric Schmidt's startup eyes orbiting centers.

AstroAgents_AI agents autonomously analyze Martian samples for signs of life.

MEMETICS

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