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Iain Martin

@iainmartin.bsky.social
2.9K followers 2.4K following 587 posts

Forbes Senior Editor writing about AI, tech and venture capital

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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A spate of AI fundraising deals has made way for a new wave of young European billionaires. Meet the sweet 16 whose fortunes got big boosts of late www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...
forbes.com
The Megadeals Behind Europe’s AI Billionaire Boom
A spate of AI fundraising deals has made way for a new wave of young European billionaires. Meet the sweet 16 whose fortunes got big boosts of late.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Dating app Feeld which caters to ‘unconventional’ tastes like non-monogamy, saw a 30% sales leap in 2025 due to an influx of users with more vanilla interests www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
'Normies' Drive 30% Sales Leap For Kinky Dating App Feeld
The dating app, which caters to ‘unconventional’ tastes like non-monogamy, saw a 30% sales leap in 2025 due to an influx of users with more vanilla interests.
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Amy Feldman @amyfeldman7.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Peptides like “tesa” and sermorelin are landing fitness fans in the hospital with allergic reactions. *NEW* from @iainmartin.bsky.social and me for @forbes.com www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Peptides Like ‘Tesa’ And Sermorelin Are Landing Fitness Fans In The Hospital With Allergic Reactions
A class of peptides that are meant to stimulate human growth hormone has been linked with a spat of severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock-like symptoms.
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ve, the ghost of info past @vortexegg.com · 25/09/2026
Incredible scenes from Meta. Apparently you can prompt inject their Muse agent into giving you a root shell on the box it's running on by roleplaying that you are actually the Muse agent itself.
neuromatch.social
jonny (nonvenomous) (@jonny@neuromatch.social)
Attached: 1 image Not only confirming this, its extremely easy. Almost no prompt injection resistance lmao
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A class of peptides that are meant to stimulate human growth hormone has been linked with a spat of severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock-like symptoms www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Peptides Like ‘Tesa’ And Sermorelin Are Landing Fitness Fans In The Hospital With Allergic Reactions
A class of peptides that are meant to stimulate human growth hormone has been linked with a spat of severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock-like symptoms.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
“He has this weird, very odd pride about how good the hot dogs are,” says a former club employee, who remembers Trump personally ensuring that everyone in his orbit (x30 Secret Services agents) experienced the majesty of the Trump dog." www.forbes.com/sites/danale...
forbes.com
Hot-Dog Heaven: Inside Trump’s Golf Getaways
At his private golf clubs, the president barrels through foursomes, knocks away putts, and generally has the time of his life—with the government picking up the Secret Service’s hot-dog tab.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A little-known company called Fluidstack has become a test bed for Google’s plans to sell its own AI chip. That’s helped it hit a $18 billion valuation and minted its founders as new billionaires. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Fluidstack Hit A $18 Billion Valuation By Helping Build Google and Anthropic’s Data Centers
A little-known company called Fluidstack has become a test bed for Google’s plans to push its own AI chip. That’s helped it hit a $18 billion valuation and minted its founders as new billionaires.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A hot new AI agent called Instinct that reads and answers messages and books flights was valued at $500 million earlier in August, sources say. Now its valuation has skyrocketed to $2.5 billion in another new round just a few weeks later. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
AI Assistant Instinct Hits $2.5 Billion Valuation In Weeks Amid VC Feeding Frenzy
A hot new AI agent called Instinct was valued at $500 million earlier in August, sources say. Now it's raising a new round at a $2.5 billion valuation from Benchmark and Index.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
TikTok has over the last month hosted a series of ads from accounts pushing illegal street drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis. Adverts on the Chinese-owned app are now a dark bazaar for accounts hawking not just pills but fake GLP1s and knockoff goods www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Drug Dealers Are Advertising Cocaine, Opioids and Xanax On TikTok
The Chinese-owned social network has been flooded with advertisements pushing street drugs and prescription pills like codeine, benzos and Adderall.
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Michael Turton @michaelturton.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Is the "Tang never existed" an op?
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
TikTok has been flooded with advertisements pushing street drugs and prescription pills like codeine, benzos and Adderall www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Drug Dealers Are Advertising Cocaine, Opioids and Xanax On TikTok
The Chinese-owned social network has been flooded with advertisements pushing street drugs and prescription pills like codeine, benzos and Adderall.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
TikTok’s operations in Europe, Africa and Latin America saw revenues jump 45.7% to $9.1 billion. But a showdown over data and child safety with European regulators could prove costly www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
TikTok’s International Revenues Boom To $9.1 Billion Despite Looming Europe Fines
TikTok made $9.1 billion and its first profit in Europe and Latin America but faces a wave of lawsuits and investigations from European regulators.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"Azerbaijan’s allegations [against CNN] raise a novel legal question, according to its lawsuit: whether a foreign country can even bring defamation claims" news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/c...
news.bloomberglaw.com
CNN Sued for Defamation by Azerbaijan Over Iran War Reporting
The Republic of Azerbaijan sued CNN for defamation Tuesday, saying the network put the country in Iran’s crosshairs by falsely reporting it had allowed Israel to stage military operations from its ter...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
"Domino’s spent two years researching what Americans looked for when they chose fast food, and how pizza could compete for more of those meals." The answer... www.wsj.com/business/hos...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Domino’s Set to Release New Individual-Size Pizza for Diners Who Don’t Want to Share
The pizza chain aims to boost sales with a new rectangular pie geared toward individual orders, as more Americans eat meals alone.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
“We’re married to Resy, but we have OpenTable, SevenRooms and also Yelp as our mistresses,” he said with some audible fatigue." www.wsj.com/business/res...
wsj.com
Reservation Apps Have Made Getting Into a Restaurant a Nightmare
After a flurry of deals, new apps, membership clubs and other middlemen are fighting over access to high-spending customers and the eateries they love.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
xAI Cofounder Igor Babuschkin In Talks To Raise Up To $1 Billion For A New AI Startup www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...
forbes.com
xAI Cofounder Igor Babuschkin In Talks To Raise Up To $1 Billion For A New AI Startup
He’s the latest superstar AI researcher to take advantage of the wave of investment dollars going into so-called ‘neolabs,’ which have no product or revenue.
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Anna Tong @annatonger.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The #10 consumer AI app isn't a coding tool; it’s an erotic chatbot for women. Riding off the romantasy wave, the 3 guys who run Janitor AI serve 100M monthly visitors (80% women) -- for 130k a month. Inside the R-rated Roblox: www.forbes.com/sites/annato...
forbes.com
Three Dudes Run The Biggest AI Romantic Fantasy Site For Women
Three Dudes Run The Biggest AI Romantic Fantasy Site For Women
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
The company’s mascot, a brown and white corgi named Trudy, is often underfoot. The pet is collectively owned by employees, who feed, walk and bathe her with the help of an AI bot on WhatsApp that reminds employees to carry out the tasks www.forbes.com/sites/richar...
forbes.com
This AI Insurance Company With An All-Night Cafe And Cheeky Corgi Is Now A Unicorn
Named after the company-owned dog, Corgi embodies the sometimes-absurd San Francisco startup scene. And it just raised $160 million at a $1.3 billion valuation.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
ASML makes the indispensable tools that produce semiconductors. But what everyone really wants is the Lego version www.wsj.com/lifestyle/as... "The collectibles are exclusively available to staff. They are limited to one set per person—and the policy is now strictly enforced" Boo
wsj.com
The $400 Million Machine That Spawned the World’s Most Coveted Toy
ASML makes the indispensable tools that produce semiconductors. But what everyone really wants is the Lego version built by one of its engineers.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Forget Palantir. Meet ‘Poulantir”. It seems to be a running joke among Mistral’s 700-strong staff that the company’s future leans on challenging Palantir.
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Phoebe Liu @pheebini.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
A workplace lawsuit has opened the lid on the little-known ownership structure of Insight Partners, an investor in OpenAI and Anthropic: It is now partially owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. Read for more details. With @iainmartin.bsky.social for @forbes.com: www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
How Abu Dhabi Quietly Bought A Stake In $90 Billion VC Insight Partners
A workplace lawsuit has opened the lid on the little-known ownership structure of Insight Partners, an investor in OpenAI and Anthropic: It is now partially owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
AI labs are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy email, Slack and Jira threads from dead startups as feedstock for ‘reinforcement learning gyms,’ which specialize in using defunct company data to build simulated work environments www.forbes.com/sites/annato... via @annatonger.bsky.social
forbes.com
AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails
AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails
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Anna Tong @annatonger.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Your 2021 Slack vent-session could be helping a future AI agent learn to "act professional." My latest @forbes.com story dives into how AI labs are clamoring to buy email, Slack and Jira data from defunct companies, to use as fuel for training AI. www.forbes.com/sites/annato...
forbes.com
AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails
AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
A workplace lawsuit has opened the lid on the little-known ownership structure of Insight Partners, an investor in OpenAI and Anthropic: It is now partially owned by the government of Abu Dhabi www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
How Abu Dhabi Quietly Bought A Stake In $90 Billion VC Insight Partners
A workplace lawsuit has opened the lid on the little-known ownership structure of Insight Partners, an investor in OpenAI and Anthropic: It is now partially owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.
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Rob Davies @byrobdavies.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
A little thread on why independence matters in journalism. Together with @investigate-europe.eu, the Guardian has been investigating the dangerous illegal casinos trade. 🧵
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Alan Ohnsman @aohnsman.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
NEW: @iainmartin.bsky.social and I looked into Silicon Valley tech firm Applied Intuition and plans by its billionaire cofounders to lead in the race to automate everything that moves #autonomousvehicles #AI www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Applied Intuition's Plan To Bring Self-Driving Tech To Everything That Moves
Applied Intuition’s cofounders are building software that can drive everything from planes to tanks to automobiles. But to expand beyond its $800 million business selling tech for cars, they will have...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Against the expressed wishes of the FAA, CBP had used the Pentagon’s highly classified laser-weapon system to shoot down what it thought was a handful of Mexican cartel drones on the southern border. The aerial objects were likely party balloons www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
wsj.com
A Laser Weapon Targeted Suspected Drones. It Hit Party Balloons Instead.
CBP fired the laser thinking it was aiming at cartel drones, leading the FAA to close the airspace over El Paso—and causing an uproar in Washington.
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Phoebe Liu @pheebini.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Jeffrey #Epstein had access to tech billionaires like Thiel and Musk. But he walked away from deals with major startups—including Spotify & SpaceX—that could have netted him hundreds of millions in total. Deep dive from @iainmartin.bsky.social + me for @forbes.com: www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Secretive Silicon Valley Investments
Thanks to his relationships to tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Epstein had access to a number of lucrative tech investments. But he walked away from several deals with major startups...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Secretive Silicon Valley Investments www.forbes.com/sites/iainma... Did Epstein’s relationship with Peter Thiel cost him a potential $500m+ windfall from Spotify’s massive IPO?
forbes.com
Epstein Built Deep Ties To Silicon Valley. But His Tech Investment Record Was Lackluster
Thanks to his relationships to tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Epstein had access to a number of lucrative tech investments. But he walked away from several deals with major startups...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
A Former Russian Jewelry Magnate’s Humanoid Robot Startup Is In Talks To Raise $200 Million www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
How Jeffrey Epstein Helped His Publicist Masha Bucher Become A Big-Time Venture Capitalist www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
How Jeffrey Epstein Helped His Publicist Become A Big-Time Venture Capitalist
Masha Bucher is one of the more high profile female VCs in Silicon Valley. New emails released from the Department of Justice reveal a deep, years long relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffr...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Granola is the AI note-taker app that has clicked (crunched?) for VCs, and startups. Now the London-based startup is raising on a billion dollar plus valuation www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
VCs’ Favorite Note-Taking App Granola In Talks To Hit $1 Billion Valuation
The London-based AI startup aims to raise a new round of at least $100 million led by Index Ventures, making the popular note-taking app the latest AI unicorn.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Since AI note-taker Granola launched in 2024 its quickly become a fixture for VCs and increasingly startup founders and operators. Now it's in talks with investors to raise at a valuation of over $1 billion www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
lnkd.in
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Michal Strnad’s wealth surged to $37 billion, or roughly 10% of the Czech economy, after shares in the defense tycoon’s armaments company jumped in their trading debut. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Defense Tycoon Strnad’s Wealth Soars to $37 Billion After IPO
Michal Strnad’s wealth surged to $37 billion, or roughly 10% of the Czech economy, after shares in the defense tycoon’s armaments company jumped in their trading debut.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
"AI is already everywhere. The last thing I want is it literally staring me in the face eye to soulless eye." www.vice.com/en/article/n... Vice on Napster's (nee Infinite Reality) new product
vice.com
Napster Is (Sort of) Back With Something They Call a Hologram
The future is a strange place, especially when it features a walk-in cameo from Napster selling... AI heads? Holograms?
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
PyTorch Lightning's developer merges with "neocloud" Voltage Park to create an “AI cloud” with a $2.5B valuation, managing 35,000+ Nvidia GPUs across six data centers www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
AI Startup Merges With A Billionaire-Backed Data Center Operator In $2.5 Billion Deal
The startup behind open source tool PyTorch Lightning has merged with compute provider Voltage Park to create a “full stack AI cloud” to serve corporates and startups like Cursor.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
“There’s so much AI slop out there...it has become really important to understand what people want,” says Alfred Wahlforss who just raised $69m for AI consumer research startup Listen Labs “We help you talk to real people.” www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
This $500 Million AI Startup Runs Customer Interviews For Microsoft And Sweetgreen
The San Francisco-based company, which has run more than 1 million customer interviews with its automated AI tools to help major companies figure out what their users want, has now raised $69 million.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Checkr, which got its start running criminal record checks on Uber drivers and gig workers, has seen its revenues jump 14% to $800 million as companies try to spot a flood of AI-generated CVs and faked financial documents. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
AI Fraud Has Exploded. Background-Check Startup Checkr Is Cashing In.
San Francisco-based Checkr has seen its revenues jump 14% to $800 million as companies try to spot a flood of AI-generated CVs and faked financial documents.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
The startup behind popular Github project vLLM is out fundraising, as venture capitalists hunt for companies building tech that can make AI systems run more efficiently. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Lovable just raised at a $6.6 billion valuation. That makes it's 26-year-old cofounder, Fabian Hedin, one of Europe's youngest ever self-made billionaires (another Swedish AI whiz holds the lead) www.forbes.com/sites/alicia...
forbes.com
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
“The White House is sidestepping the law to bless a structure that leaves TikTok’s core technology in China,” said Jim Secreto, a former US Treasury official involved in overseeing TikTok. “What was announced looks more like a franchise arrangement than a true divestiture.”
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Amy Feldman @amyfeldman7.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
French healthtech Doctolib, worth $6.4B and once that country’s highest valued startup, is in talks for a secondary investment in the hundreds of millions. For @forbes.com w/ @iainmartin.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...
forbes.com
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
When startup BillionToOne went public last month its largest shareholder was a little-known fund Hummingbird, who had led a $15m round in 2019. Now that stake is worth $745m. And other outlier bets on Lovable, Kraken & Peak Games have driven 10x returns. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Hummingbird’s VCs Look To Invest In Founders With Childhood Trauma
Partners Barend Van den Brande and Firat Ileri at low-profile London fund Hummingbird both won spots on the Midas List Europe for tearing up the venture rulebook and backing “outlier” founders.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
"The IEA does not publicly disclose its donors and this is the first time that its historic funding sources have been revealed in detail – exposing the financial interests that helped the group to become an influential force in British politics." www.desmog.com/2025/12/10/t...
desmog.com
The Institute of Economic Affairs Banked £640,000 from Oil Giants and Murdoch
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – the anti-state, anti-climate pressure group – received more than £640,000 from fossil fuel companies and Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate between 1957 and ...
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
"Between '10 and '24, China's power production increased by more than the rest of the world combined. Last year, China generated more than twice as much electricity as the U.S. Some Chinese data centers are now paying less than half what American ones pay for electricity" www.wsj.com/tech/china-a...
wsj.com
China’s AI Power Play: Cheap Electricity From World’s Biggest Grid
Government push for power supremacy transforms Inner Mongolia. Tech leaders worry about a U.S.-China “electron gap.”
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
"It was always hard to explain why tokens should be worth more just because they were held by a public company, and the wheels began to come off the car, at first slowly and then much more quickly"
bloomberg.com
From 2,600% Gain to 86% Wipeout, Crypto’s Hottest Trade Crumpled
What began the year as one of the best trades in the stock market has, in a matter of months, turned into one of the worst.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
a type of content that makes me want to launch myself into space and is huge part of why everything is so bad: TikToker goes down a “rabbit hole,” makes 9-minute video. The “rabbit hole” was she found an Eater article. The Eater journalist did all the work: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTruBS8cp/
tiktok.com
allow me to take you on a journey where, once again, we learn we have no idea what’s in our food. at least we know corporations are pure of heart so I’m sure it’s fine🫶🏼🤡
TikTok video by kaelin
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
A filing with Brazil’s antitrust regulator shows PIF would own 93.4% of video games giant Electronic Arts, while Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity would own 5.5% and 1.1% respectively. That puts the onus on PIF to fund almost all of the $29 billion deal www.wsj.com/business/dea...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Saudi Fund to Own Almost All of Electronic Arts After Buyout
PIF is on course to own 93% of the videogame maker, implying it needs to stump about $29 billion in addition to rolling over its existing stake.
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
The new edition of Forbes magazine just dropped - the cover story is on two 30-year-old entrepreneurs from Poland, who sick of bad movie dubbing, built their own voice AI model. Today, it's worth $6.6 billion, they are new billionaires & are beating Silicon Valley's tech giants
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Iain Martin @iainmartin.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
The upheaval means that the traditional [consulting] pyramid, in which a firm employs thousands of junior-level employees and thins out the ranks with an “up or out” promotion culture, could be set to change, according to experts.   www.ft.com/content/2b15...
ft.com
Top consultancies freeze starting salaries as AI threatens ‘pyramid’ model
Productivity gains from technology are spurring debate about reliance on large numbers of junior advisers
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