📣 Headlines

• 2025’s biggest venture rounds were dominated by AI (including OpenAI’s $40B), and VCs expect bigger rounds and fewer winners in 2026 as this year’s mega-deals set a new bar.

• AI M&A momentum is rising as Meta acquired AI agent startup Manus for ~$2B and Nvidia is reportedly in talks to buy LLM startup AI21 Labs for ~$2–3B.

• Investors are betting on post-smartphone interfaces, from True Ventures’ view of what comes after the phone to new AI-enabled wearables like Subtle’s noise-isolating earbuds with dictation and chat.

• India’s agrifintech Arya.ag raised an $81M Series D while staying profitable as it scales storage, lending, and warehousing tech, per TechCrunch.

• The infrastructure race is escalating as the industry scales data centers, while scrutiny grows over AI’s environmental and labor costs highlighted in AI’s Imperial Agenda alongside xAI’s planned 2GW Colossus expansion.

• Electronics prices may climb in 2026 because RAM prices are surging amid AI-driven data-center demand, pressuring phone and PC bill-of-materials costs.

• Product and policy strategy for next year is shifting as MIT Technology Review lays out what’s next for AI in 2026, from regulatory battles to new consumer AI shopping flows.

• Space-based manufacturing moved forward with Space Forge’s on-orbit plasma generation demo aimed at producing advanced semiconductor materials in LEO.

📓 Founder Yearbooks

a year of working for myself (varunraghu​.com). A personal, reflective account of starting up, accelerator rejections, hackathons, and growth while working solo in 2025

2025 in review (codakuma​.com). Indie developer shares 2025 focus on Personal Best, pricing experiments, iOS 26 design lift, and transition to part-time contracting

2025 in Review · Starting Up · Natecation (natecation​.com). 2025 in review: startup journey, travel, San Francisco to San Diego, product work with Lovable, TypeScript/Next.js stack, and early traction cues

My first AI startup. It was 2012… (shawnharris​.com). Firms Nyopoly explores CEP, dynamic pricing, reinforcement learning, B2B proof via NYFT Lab, and lessons from 2012 retail AI pivot

Shutting down my startup (lachlangreen​.substack​.com). Founder shares lessons from starting and shutting down a venture-backed startup, exploring compliance, mental health tech, and personal growth

API Zen evolution and source code (jsloop​.net). Restor evolved into API Zen, detailing iOS/macOS Swift UI work, app store challenges, and GitHub monorepo with multiple modules

Five years in production (goulven-clech​.dev). Reflection on five years as a junior lead developer in Elixir/Phoenix, with testing, observability, and Sampo-driven releases

Bonnané 2026  ! 👀 (jasonrouet​.com). Product management shift to Mediapapa, focusing on product advocacy, community engagement, and iterative development with WordPress and BeApi

🧑‍💻 Careers in Tech

What The Best Engineers Do—and What Actually Got Them Promoted, from an Amazon VP (read​.highgrowthengineer​.com). Five traits—ship complete products, boost organization speed, do dirty work, grow others, and see around corners—promoted by an Amazon VP

Anthropic Eng Leader and Ex-Senior Director at Meta on Advice That Changed Her Career (developing​.dev). Anthropic Eng Leader and ex-Meta senior director share mentorship, dogfooding, and culture lessons from Microsoft, Facebook, and Anthropic

How to Help Engineers Define Their Growth Goals (newsletter​.eng-leadership​.com). Growth goals for engineers: navigate company size, roles, and personal ambitions using GROW framework and tailored questions

Anti-Patterns Concerning Engineering Career Ladders (blog​.petrzemek​.net). Explores anti-patterns in dual-track engineering ladders, highlighting unclear expectations, inconsistent scopes, and salary-driven promotions

How the hell are you supposed to have a career in tech in 2026? (anildash​.com). Navigating a grim tech job market in 2026 by understanding systems, power, and non-traditional roles across industries

A Short Message of Hope to Software Engineering Graduates (quantumformalism​.substack​.com). Structural re-sorting of software work amid AI, focusing on depth over breadth and the shift toward high-assurance systems

The Next Two Years of Software Engineering (addyosmani​.com). Five AI-influenced software engineering questions with dual futures for juniors, skills, roles, specialization, and education

💸 VC & Market Signals

Narratives pick the KPI, and the KPI picks the losers (jamesthomason​.com). Explores how KPI narratives in emerging tech steer valuation, favoring user growth, GMV, or tokens over long-term profitability and sustainability

The Cult of Venture Capital Wants Your Future (thenerdreich​.com). VCs as state planners critique, network states, NFTs, AI, crypto speculation, and threats to democracy and the public sphere

Anthropic Goes Public (Predictions 2026 #9) (battellemedia​.com). Anthropic eyeing a 2026 public debut as OpenAI, SpaceX pursue IPOs amid high valuations and corporate governance clarity

Crypto Startup Ideas for 2026 That Actually Matter (newsletter​.dynamodefi​.com). Explores internet capital markets, DeSci, stablecoins, onchain governance, and censorship-resistant funding with actionable crypto startup ideas

[CASE] O que eu aprendi com Hernan Kazah, fundador do Mercado Livre e Kaszek (abreu​.substack​.com). Lessons from Hernan Kazah on passion, competition, long-term thinking, execution, and opportunity in startups and venture investing

Manus: The Hands of AI Fate (spyglass​.org). Meta buys Manus to accelerate enterprise AI, integrating agentic tech with an AI-first business arm and ecosystem

El fin del SaaS 15 meses después (estrategiadeproducto​.com). 15 months after, examining software stocks' health, SaaS fatigue, AI threats, and hardware play influencing software valuations

🧩 Open Source Futures

On Why We Won’t Have Nice Things (radekmie​.dev). Radosław Miernik critiques enshittification, shares case studies (Looker, Nx, Unity) and offers open-source–friendly strategies to resist enterprise paywalls

Reviewing open source trends in 2025 (duckalignment​.academy). Open source trends in 2025 cover software supply chain, funding gaps, regional events, and AI-related dynamics with Ben Cotton

The Next Thing Will Not Be Big (blog​.glyph​.im). Open source proponent argues against a next ‘big thing,’ urges medium-scale projects and downscaling in tech, AI, and infrastructure

🚀 Founder Strategy 2026

Beyond the Deck: The 2026 Founder’s Survival Guide (wearefounders​.uk). AI-native growth, non-dilutive funding, and orchestration-led teams drive 2026 founder success and moat-building

Building a Lean High-Revenue Startup in 2026 (wearefounders​.uk). Lean, AI-enabled growth with revenue-based funding for high-revenue startups in 2026

Desperation vs urgency (olshansky​.info). Desperation vs urgency in enterprise software: go slow to go fast, avoid marketing-spend traps, with insights from Ross Lazerowitz

Should I buy a company after visiting Victoria, BC? (olshansky​.info). Entrepreneur reflects on buying an existing cash-generating company to buy time, leveraging Victoria trip and Andrew Wilkinson’s network

The end of the beginning (topthree​.rowansimpson​.com). Long-form reflection on Callaghan Innovation's disestablishment, NZ startup ecosystem, and measured path to growth

🧭 Leading People & Culture

Year 5 as RevenueCat Head of Product – Takeaways and lessons learned (jefago​.com). Year 5 insights from RevenueCat Head of Product on team growth, design ascension, org coordination, focused goals, multi-product ambitions, and personal health

Put an end to being the “go-to” engineer (leaddev​.com). Protect energy as an IC by setting boundaries, documenting FAQs, and enabling others to answer rather than being the sole go-to

Growing Engineering Managers (nemethgergely​.com). Strategic approach to growing engineering managers: compassionate career conversations, apprenticeship with real scope, explicit outcomes, and gradual transition

Either micromanage your people or lean on them (betterthanrandom​.substack​.com). Two management modes—involved (micromanage) and lean-on—with a critique of the amorphous middle and emphasis on empowering teams

Manage Communication and Coordination to Achieve Synergy (skmurphy​.com). Synergy through better communication and cross-functional collaboration, applying Conway’s Law and learning from Pixar’s team dynamics

DoorDash's Values (planspace​.org). DoorDash's twelve values organized into sections, as presented on planspace, highlighting company culture and priorities

🎯 PMF & Monetization

How Superhuman Went From 22% to 58% Product-Market Fit in 9 Months (writings​.founderlabs​.io). How to measure product-market fit with customer discovery, focusing on Nicole, 40% target, and a 50/50 roadmap split

Community Driven Development (usetrmnl​.com). TRMNL founder discusses community driven development, DX-centric plugins, and user expansion strategies using hackable devices and open-ended product iteration

2025: Another SaaSy Year In Review (staysaasy​.com). A look back at 2025: AI-driven SaaS growth, blogging shifts, Substack/X communities, and lessons for scale from Stay SaaSy

How to set boundaries around free in an Excel authority business (stringfestanalytics​.com). Explores boundaries in an Excel authority business to curb perpetual freebie consumption using paid offers and structured access

2025: The year consulting wasn't the only thing (newsletter​.masilotti​.com). Reflections on monetizing writing, products, and talks beyond consulting; lessons from a book, Bridge Component library, paid newsletter, and a Rails World keynote

🔐 Enterprise Readiness

When to Build Reliability (monkeynoodle​.org). Reliability drives renewals and enterprise trust; startups must balance quick demos with scalable, compliant reliability work

Enterprise chargeback - can we do this? (some-natalie​.dev). Lessons from building an enterprise chargeback system using PostgreSQL, Python scripts, and data integrity challenges

What is Enterprise Identity — And Why Most Companies Get SSO & RBAC Catastrophically Wrong (guptadeepak​.com). Enterprise identity architecture for SSO and RBAC at scale, bridging B2C and B2B with ABAC, multi-tenancy, and delegated administration

🏛️ Policy, Privacy & Power

Perché l’Antitrust italiana ha imposto a Meta di aprire WhatsApp ai chatbot concorrenti (e cosa c’entra con Meta AI) | Corriere.it (blog​.quintarelli​.it). Italian Antitrust forces Meta to open WhatsApp to rival chatbots, linking AI market rules and Meta AI implications

Santa’s Naughty and Nice list for privacy 2025 (peterfleischer​.blogspot​.com). Privacy critique of AI data practices, ad tech, regulators, and wealth inequality highlighted by Santa’s satirical list

Finding Ground: Identity and Values in 2025 (virtualpatrick​.com). Explores culture, digital sovereignty, and AI economics in Europe with Culture Map, ProductTank Frankfurt, and German identity

Pluralistic: The Post-American Internet (01 Jan 2026) (pluralistic​.net). Discussion of a post-American internet, anticircumvention laws, EU/US tech sovereignty, jailbreaking, and coalition-building with tech activists and natsec hawks

🛠️ Systems & Infra Craft

I'm changing my mind about serverless (advancedweb​.hu). Tamás Sallai questions serverless dominance, weighs a Linux-NixOS/Postgres approach, and conferences with AWS, Cloudflare, and cost considerations

Things I like to do in infrastructure projects (chanux​.me). A concise list of values for infrastructure projects, emphasizing clear goals, naming conventions, lightweight prototyping, and accessible testing

Change is the root of all (evil) bugs (fhur​.me). Change drives bugs across dependencies, distributed systems, configurations, and environments, and mastering it reduces failures

GitOps with ArgoCD feels like the right abstraction (nick​.scialli​.me). GitOps with ArgoCD enables developers to manage Kubernetes infrastructure via Git, embracing declarative config and improved collaboration

Твиты DDH (grishaev​.me). Russian developer critiques microservices, detailing complexity, tooling, and organizational challenges with examples like JSON, Protobuf, gRPC, API gateways, and Postgres