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šŸ•¶ļø Altman wants a piece of Muskā€™s brain game

Perplexity eyes Chrome, Anthropic hunts talent, and Altman steps into Muskā€™s brain arena.

Author

Lucila Sarquis
August 14, 2025

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Privacy and power shifts lead this weekā€™s tech news. Some firms are hiding opt-out pages from search, Perplexity is making a multi-billion-dollar play for Chrome, and a $1.5B crypto treasury backed by Donald Trump is taking shape. Apple pushes back on Muskā€™s AI lawsuit threat, while Sam Altman readies a Neuralink rival and Instagram tests a feature to connect users over shared interests.

Video pick: Why your bank balance isn't 'technically' real

-šŸ•¶ļø

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Eight bullets of updates

  1.  šŸ” Dozens of firms are making it tougher to find opt-out pages, with 38% hiding them from Google search results.

  2. šŸŒ Perplexity bids billions for Chrome, promising to invest $3B in Chromium development while keeping it open source.

  3. šŸŖ™ Trump-backed $1.5B crypto treasury aims to turn crypto speculation into a business model for a once-obscure firm.

  4. šŸ Apple shoots down Musk's lawsuit threat over App Store AI claims, as only 3 AI apps meet #1 spot criteria.

  5. šŸ¤ Anthropic taps ex-Humanloop pros to boost safe AI deployment for enterprises as the race for top talent intensifies.

  6. āš™ļø AI should reduce friction for overworked teams, boosting focus and potentially saving 20% of workweek hours.

  7. šŸš– Waymo finally integrates Spotify, enhancing its robotaxi rides with personalized music for $15 trips in San Francisco.

  8. šŸš€ NASA sparks a race for a Mars data pipeline as it shifts to buying connectivity as a service, with Blue Origin and Rocket Lab stepping up.

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Altman plugs in: Neuralink gets a new frenemy

Sam Altman is reportedly co-founding a brainā€“computer interface startup called Merge Labs, which may raise much of its funding from OpenAIā€™s ventures team, though talks are still early and no commitments have been made. Expected to be valued at $850 million, Merge Labs is collaborating with Alex Blania of Tools for Humanity and will compete with Elon Muskā€™s Neuralink, which is already trialing implants to help paralyzed patients control devices. The project reflects Altmanā€™s long-standing interest in ā€œthe mergeā€ of humans and technology ā€” a concept tied to the idea of the singularity ā€” and positions him as a direct challenger to Musk in this frontier field.

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Why your bank balance isn't 'technically' real

92% of the worldā€™s money doesnā€™t exist. We've been led to believe that money is printed, stored in vaults, and moved physically between banksā€”but thatā€™s an illusion. From the gold standard to the Nixon Shock, and how banks create money out of thin air, this is the real story of how our financial system works.

šŸ•¶ļø More videos here šŸ•¶ļø 

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Learn from this investorā€™s $100m mistake

In 2010, a Grammy-winning artist passed on investing $200K in an emerging real estate disruptor. That stake could be worth $100+ million today.

One year later, another real estate disruptor, Zillow, went public. This time, everyday investors had regrets, missing pre-IPO gains.

Now, a new real estate innovator, Pacaso ā€“ founded by a former Zillow exec ā€“ is disrupting a $1.3T market. And unlike the others, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.

Pacasoā€™s co-ownership model has generated $1B+ in luxury home sales and service fees, earned $110M+ in gross profits to date, and received backing from the same VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Paid advertisement for Pacasoā€™s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.

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These companies just raised money

  1. šŸ§¬ Fountain Life secures $18M Series B to expand its longevity centers, offering $21.5K/year health packages.

  2. šŸ¤– Continua raises $8M to bring AI agents to group chats, enhancing SMS, iMessage, and Discord interactions.

  3. šŸ’» Uno Platform secures $2.54M to boost enterprise productivity with cross-platform .NET tools for developers.

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Instagram wants to pick your brainā€¦ literally

Instagram is developing an internal prototype feature called ā€œPicksā€ designed to help users discover shared interests with friends by selecting their favorite movies, books, TV shows, games, and music. Spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, the feature would highlight overlaps to spark conversations and foster more personal connections, aligning with Instagram head Adam Mosseriā€™s 2025 focus on creativity and connection. While it could encourage deeper engagement, some users may see Picks as yet another addition to an already cluttered app, and thereā€™s no timeline for its potential public release.

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