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🕶️ Google’s Windsurf fiasco: founders feast, employees fast

🕶️ Google’s Windsurf fiasco: founders feast, employees fast

Billions spent, yet AI might have hit its ceiling. What happens next?

Lucila Sarquis
August 02, 2025

Sponsored by

As Europe wrestles with the AI Act, balancing worker protection against innovation, Tesla’s costly Autopilot verdict serves as a stark reminder of AI’s real-world consequences. Meanwhile, Anthropic overtaking OpenAI as enterprises’ favorite AI model suggests that innovation moves quickly—perhaps faster than regulators.

Video pick: AI has a fatal flaw—And nobody can fix it

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Six bullets of updates

⚖️ Europe's AI Act sparks debate: With one in four jobs at risk, can regulations balance innovation and worker protection?
🔎 Oops! OpenAI's experiment led to ChatGPT chats being indexed by search engines, but it was quickly removed.
💳 Klarna eyes September IPO as fintech stocks rise; previously paused plans aimed for $1B raise and $15B valuation.
🚗 A jury finds Tesla partly liable in a fatal Autopilot crash, awarding $329M in damages. Tesla plans to appeal.
🚀 Women now hold 18.6% of top VC roles, doubling since 2018, as female-led funds rise with $5.3B raised in 2023.
🔒 Lovense patches security flaws exposing user data, considers legal action; resolution took 14 months.
🍎 Apple beats revenue targets with a record $94B quarter, driven by iPhone, Mac, and Services growth.
📢 Amazon explores AI-driven ads in Alexa+ chats as its ad revenue jumps 22%, betting big on conversational commerce.
💡 Google unveils Gemini 2.5 Deep Think AI, scoring 87.6% on coding tasks—outshining rivals like OpenAI.
📈 Meta stock hits record high at $784.75, driven by AI-fueled ad revenue and smart glasses success. 👓

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Google pays big for Windsurf’s talent—but employees get the short end

Photo by Rajeshwar Bachu on Unsplash

Google's recent $2.4 billion deal with Windsurf, structured to acquire talent and IP without buying stock, continues to spark controversy in Silicon Valley. The arrangement, beneficial to co-founders and investors like Greenoaks and Kleiner Perkins, left most of Windsurf's 250 employees without payouts, especially those expecting gains from an earlier planned $3 billion acquisition by OpenAI. Despite a subsequent $250 million sale of the remaining Windsurf entity to Cognition, which benefited employees left out by Google, tensions remain high as many criticize the founders for failing to share their substantial gains, and some hired by Google face restarted vesting schedules, further fueling the backlash.

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AI has a fatal flaw—And nobody can fix it

AI might already be reaching a fundamental mathematical limit, hitting a plateau despite massive data and investments, raising questions about its future potential. From GPUs burning through billions of dollars to the surprising limitations of large language models, we’ll dive deep into why AI struggles with reasoning, creativity, and real-world problem-solving.

🕶️ More videos here 🕶️

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Learn from this investor’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 – founded by a former Zillow exec – is disrupting a $1.3T market. And unlike the others, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.

Pacaso’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.

Invest for $2.90/Share

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’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

🚀 OpenAI raises $8.3B at a $300B valuation, hitting $13B in annualized revenue with 700M ChatGPT weekly users.
💰 Alphabet’s CapitalG and Nvidia eye Vast Data for funding at a potential $30B valuation, up from $9.1B in 2023.
🛠️ Fundamental Research Labs lands $33M Series A to expand AI agents across industries, with backing from Stripe's CEO.
🎯 SixSense, a female-founded AI startup, raises $8.5M to boost chip defect detection, reducing manual inspections by 90%.
🏠 Detroit startup Pearl Edison raises $3.3M, partners with utilities to make home efficiency upgrades cheaper.
🎮 Google backs STAN, the Indian gaming app rivaling Discord, in an $8.5M round; 25M downloads, 5.5M active users!

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Inventory Software Made Easy—Now $499 Off

Looking for inventory software that’s actually easy to use?

inFlow helps you manage inventory, orders, and shipping—without the hassle.

It includes built-in barcode scanning and connects with Shopify, Amazon, QuickBooks, and more.

Try it free and save $499 with code EASY499—for a limited time.

🚀 Compare plans on our pricing page

Limited Offer: Save $499

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Anthropic's Claude is the new boss in enterprise AI

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI as the preferred enterprise AI model provider, capturing 32% of the market compared to OpenAI's 25%, according to a Menlo Ventures report. This shift marks a significant reversal since 2023, driven primarily by Anthropic’s highly successful Claude 3.5 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet models, particularly dominating the coding segment with a 42% market share—double OpenAI’s share. While Anthropic thrives in enterprise settings, OpenAI continues to hold strong appeal among general consumers.