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Ten bullets of updates

1. 🌐 After 23 years, Skype shuts down, marking the end of an era for the pioneering video-calling platform.

2. 🚗 Tesla struggles in Europe as sales slump despite a 25% surge in April EV sales—what's driving this downturn?

3. 📱 Trump considers delaying the TikTok ban again, hinting at warmth for the app amid a looming June 19 deadline.

4. 💡 Meet Bono, a startup redefining charity donations with AI and $1.6M in funding, engaging over 1.5M U.S. charities.

5. 🦉 Is Duolingo the face of the AI jobs crisis? With AI doing 30% of the work, jobs are starting to feel the heat.

6. 🛡️ Navigate the U.S. fundraising maze: know your securities laws or risk penalties, even refunds to investors.

7. 🚀 Residents around SpaceX’s Starbase launch site voted 212-6 to incorporate as a new city, also named Starbase.

8. 💸 Shein faces IPO struggles and tariff woes despite spending $3.9M on lobbying to win over the Trump administration.

9. 🔐 U.S. government & firms use open-source easyjson, which is linked to Russia’s VK—a potential security risk with Kremlin ties.

10. 🤝 CNCF and Synadia reconcile, ensuring the NATS project stays open-source with a focus on community growth.

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Dear America: teach your kids to code, love—CEOs

Over 250 CEOs, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Etsy’s Josh Silverman, and Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi, have signed an open letter calling for AI and computer science to become essential parts of K-12 education. Published in The New York Times, the letter warns that the U.S. is lagging behind global competitors like Brazil, China, South Korea, and Singapore, all of which have made these subjects mandatory in schools. The push aligns with President Trump’s recent executive order promoting AI in education and the workforce, though concerns linger over federal budget cuts that could undermine foundational AI research.

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Idea to exit (and the most common mistakes founders make)

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Cake is fixing equity management for startups

Cake is fixing equity management for fast-growing startups.

We make tasks like cap table management, issuing stock options and contracts easier and more affordable. Most importantly, Cake helps keep your team motivated with equity.

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These companies just raised money

1. 💻 Anysphere lands $900M at a $9B valuation in funding led by Thrive, a16z, and Accel for its AI coding tool Cursor.

2. 🇪🇬 Egyptian fintech MoneyFellows raised $13M to expand its profitable ROSCA-based savings model beyond its 8.5M users.

3. 🚀 Rork’s founders went from $15k debt to $2.8M funding after a viral tweet; now at $550k ARR and climbing.

4. 🇨🇱 Chilean AI sales assistant diio secured $2.5M to boost its platform’s reach in LatAm, already seeing 20% monthly growth.

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Leaky by design? TeleMessage’s encryption fail exposed

A hacker exploited a flaw in TeleMessage—a service that provides modified versions of encrypted apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp—to extract sensitive archived messages and data tied to U.S. government officials and companies, 404 Media reported. While the hack didn’t compromise messages from cabinet members or ex-national security adviser Mike Waltz, it exposed message contents, contact info of officials, and backend login credentials. Victims included U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Coinbase, and Scotiabank. Crucially, the breach revealed that TeleMessage’s modded Signal app does not maintain end-to-end encryption between users and its storage system, raising major security concerns.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. Slidebean’s Crash Course in Financial Modeling l May 8 l Online

2. Crash Course on Startup Fundraising with Caya (Slidebean CEO) l May 20 l Online

3. Startup Battlefield 200 | Deadline: June 9 | Global

4. Entrepreneur First London - Summer | Deadline: July 1 | UK

5. Startmate | Deadline: July 13 | Australia

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