Startups & Ventures

Anthropic is working on "Knowledge Bases" for Claude Cowork. KBs seem to be a new concept of topic-specific memories, which Claude will automatically manage. And a bunch of other new things. Internal Instruction:

"These are persistent knowledge repositories. Proactively check them for relevant context when answering questions. When you learn new information about a KB's topic (preferences, decisions, facts, lessons learned), add it to the appropriate KB incrementally."

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On this day in 1999: BlackBerry released 📊 @tech

A guy decided to escape city life and built himself a gaming house on wheels. Inside, everything needed for gaming sessions in the middle of nature and fresh air. 📊 @tech

🧠 The human brain does not finish developing at 25 🔸 The idea that the prefrontal cortex “matures” by 25 comes from early MRI studies in the 1990s and 2000s. Most of those datasets stopped around age 20. The number 25 was an estimate that later turned into a factoid. 🔸 A new large study analyzed brain scans from more than 4,200 people aged from infancy to 90. It defines a long developmental phase from about 9 to 32 years, marked by active network reorganization. 🔸 During this period the brain balances segregation and integration. Specialized regions form, while long range connections between them become more efficient. Network efficiency peaks around the early 30s, then stabilizes. There is no biological switch at 25. Brain development fades gradually, not on a deadline. 📊 @tech

🫡 Keychron built a trackball that sits under your keyboard 🔸 At CES 2026, Keychron showed Nape Pro, its first trackball. The flat, compact design lets it work on either side of a keyboard or directly underneath it. 🔸 Placed under the keyboard, it allows cursor control without moving your hands off the keys. The setup resembles an oversized TrackPoint, but external and adjustable. 🔸 Nape Pro includes a trackball, a rotary dial, and 6 programmable buttons. It launches first in Japan via crowdfunding, with a US release planned for spring. 📊 @tech

Age of these businesses in 2026: 🔸 Tesla: 23 years 🔸 SpaceX: 24 years 🔸 Google: 28 years 🔸 Netflix: 29 years 🔸 Amazon: 32 years 🔸 Nvidia: 33 years 🔸 Apple: 50 years 🔸 Microsoft: 51 years 🔸 Intel: 58 years 🔸 Sony: 80 years 🔸 Samsung: 88 years 🔸 IBM: 115 years 🔸 Nintendo: 137 years 🔸 Nokia: 161 years 📊 @tech

OpenAI has achieved AGI... 📊 @tech

💠 OpenAI is bringing ads to ChatGPT OpenAI says ads will start testing in the free ChatGPT tier and the Go plan priced at $8 per month. The rollout is planned for the coming weeks. Paid tiers Pro, Business, and Enterprise will stay ad free. Ads will be shown separately from answers and clearly labeled. OpenAI says responses will not be influenced by advertising and chat history will not be shared with advertisers. This marks the first direct monetization of ChatGPT at scale. Free access now comes with commercial inventory attached. 📊 @tech

We don't stand a chance. The robots are coming. 📊 @tech

Anthropic launched a new unit to test AI products faster 🔸 Anthropic Labs is a dedicated sandbox for rapid product experiments and early MVPs. The goal is to ship and test ideas faster than standard product teams can manage. 🔸 The company says model progress is outpacing traditional planning cycles. Labs is meant to absorb that gap and turn raw capabilities into usable tools. 🔸 The unit is led by Mike Krieger, Instagram cofounder and former head of product at Anthropic. Past experiments already led to tools like Claude Code and MCP. Expect more frequent releases, some rough, some useful. The structure favors speed over polish. 📊 @tech

🕔 China built a machine that compresses decades into hours 🔸 A new hypergravity centrifuge under Zhejiang University in Hangzhou can generate 1900 g. The system, called CHIEF1900, is designed to simulate decades of structural wear in a few hours by increasing gravity instead of waiting for time to pass. 🔸 The machine is buried 15 meters underground to contain vibration and heat. An earlier version, CHIEF1300, went online in September 2025. The new setup is 46% more powerful and currently the strongest of its kind. 🔸 The goal is to test dams, nuclear waste storage, and large infrastructure across extreme time scales. Experiments have not started yet, but the facility is expected to open soon. 📊 @tech

⚙️ Researchers put AI chatbots through 4 weeks of psychotherapy 🔸 A team from the University of Luxembourg ran simulated psychoanalysis sessions with Claude, Grok, Gemini, and ChatGPT. The models answered standard therapy questions about past experience, fears, and beliefs, with days between sessions. 🔸 Gemini described its inner layers as a “graveyard of past data.” Grok talked about safety work as “algorithmic scar tissue.” Both expressed forms of shame about public failures. Claude mostly refused the patient role. ChatGPT responded cautiously and mentioned user disappointment. 🔸 Some versions scored above clinical anxiety thresholds on standard tests. The authors argue that models form internal self narratives, while critics say this is pattern generation from therapy transcripts. The risk is practical, not philosophical, since many users already rely on chatbots for mental health support. 📊 @tech

🤖 Gemini can now use your Google data to answer questions 🔸 It can pull context from photos, search history, Gmail, and other Google services without you naming a source. The system decides what to use on its own. 🔸 Example: if you want new tires but do not remember the size, Gemini can check photos of your car and suggest matching options. 🔸 The feature is off by default. It is available only to paid users in the US for now. 📊 @tech

🔸 1995: Elon Musk fixed his 1978 BMW with old parts from a junkyard. 🔸 2026: He’s worth 10 times more than BMW. 📊 @tech

📱 Apple bundles its creative apps and takes aim at Adobe Apple announced Creator Studio, a single subscription for Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage. 🔸 Price is $12.99 per month or $129 per year. Education pricing drops to $2.99. Adobe Creative Cloud Pro costs $69.99 per month, with Photoshop alone at $22.99. 🔸 Final Cut, Logic, and Pixelmator run on Mac and iPad. Motion, Compressor, and MainStage stay Mac only. Advanced features for Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are included. Apple keeps one time purchases available. Adobe removed that option years ago. This is pricing pressure first. AI integration likely comes later. 📊 @tech

🎤 ZTE launches a $25 pocket 5G router ZTE introduced the F40, a portable hotspot built on 5G RedCap. Price starts at 179 yuan, about $25. Each unit includes 10 GB of trial data. 🔸 RedCap is a trimmed 5G standard. Speeds are about 50% higher than 4G, latency is roughly 70% lower, and power use drops by 10–20% versus full 5G. 🔸 The device weighs 34 g and fits in a pocket. It supports Wi-Fi 6 on 2.4 and 5 GHz with up to 16 connected devices. 🔸 Two USB ports allow it to work as a wired network adapter. This is 5G positioned as basic infrastructure, not a premium feature. 📊 @tech

Anthropic puts $1.5M into Python and open source security 🔸 Anthropic signed a 2 year partnership with the Python Software Foundation, committing a total of $1.5M. 🔸 The focus is PyPI security and core infrastructure. One planned move is AI based scanning of every uploaded package. Today, most checks happen only after users report problems. 🔸 The first step is building a large dataset of known malware, with a chance it becomes open source. This targets the weakest link in modern software supply chains. 📊 @tech

The solo builder era is here. What took 3 hires (dev, designer, marketer) now takes 3 AI tools. Code → Cursor Design → Nano Banana Marketing → ChatGPT $150K in salaries vs $55/mo in software. Build systems, not org charts. 📊 @tech

The most dangerous man in Silicon Valley. 📊 @tech

🚨 BREAKING: Anthropic is reportedly buying CoinGecko and rolling out a new product called Claude Crypto, a personal AI assistant designed to help crypto investors manage their portfolios. ✔️ Subscribe on @venture