📣 Headlines

• U.S. firms like a16z, Accel and Sequoia led 2025’s most active investor list as Europe continues to gain ground in the evolving startup economy.

• At CES 2026, Nvidia showcased open-source Alpamayo models for Level 4 autonomous driving alongside a broader wave of CES AI announcements.

• AMD pushed on-device AI with Ryzen AI 400 Series PC processors amid a wave of new chips and AI devices unveiled at CES 2026.

• Investors are already calling 2026’s likely AI winners and losers, raising expectations for clear differentiation and distribution advantage.

• Anthropic expanded enterprise adoption as Allianz rolled out Claude Code and custom agents with regulatory-ready logging.

• Microsoft and PayPal introduced Copilot Checkout for in-chat purchases, signaling faster paths from conversation to conversion in consumer and commerce products.

• Meta’s $2B Manus tie-up may reshape go-to-market for Chinese AI firms as it drives some startups toward Singapore while tightening scrutiny.

• Aurora Therapeutics is betting gene-editing commercialization accelerates as it builds a CRISPR platform assuming regulators loosen constraints.

🔧 Company Engineering Blogs

Why We Use Separate Tech Stacks for Personalization and Experimentation (engineering​.atspotify​.com). Spotify separates ML personalization stacks from experimentation, using contextual bandits within ML and a separate Confidence experimentation toolchain

Scaling Sales Agents: Engineering Next-Gen AI for the Enterprise Era (engineering​.salesforce​.com). How Salesforce re-architected a single-agent Engagement Agent into a dispatcher-driven multi-agent system using queues, prioritization, and quotas

Why AI is pushing developers toward typed languages (github​.blog). AI-assisted development drives demand for typed languages like TypeScript, boosting reliability and adoption across GitHub's ecosystem

Building a Global, Event-Driven Platform: Our Ongoing Journey, Part 1 (vinted​.engineering). Global, event-driven platform shift: from monoliths to DDD-guided domain boundaries, events, and Saga-like orchestration at Vinted

⚖️ Tech Policy & Society

Pluralistic: Predistribution vs redistribution (Big Tech edition) (10 Jan 2026) (pluralistic​.net). Predistribution versus redistribution of Big Tech, with Canada-focused policy ideas on data bans, anticircumvention repeal, and alternative app stores

You're being experimented upon (cooldudezone​.substack​.com). Alex Goldman critiques algorithmic moderation and Grok AI on Twitter/X, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, moderation era, 230, and platform experiments

Founders don’t need Europe. Europe needs founders. Urgently. (klinger​.io). Founders don’t need Europe; EU–INC as regulation with a central registry for all companies, decoupled from tax and employment rules

2025 Internet Law Year-in-Review (blog​.ericgoldman​.org). Overview of 2025 Internet law trends: Section 230, TOS, AI regulation, age authentication, and global censorship impacts

Europe needs an independent tech infrastructure (thetangent​.space). Europe must build an independent tech infrastructure, reducing dependence on US tech and embracing open, publicly-regulated alternatives

He was called a 'terrorist sympathizer.' Now his AI company is valued at $3B (sfstandard​.com). Replit founder Amjad Masad, a Palestinian entrepreneur, defies Silicon Valley while building a $3B AI coding platform amid Gaza-war controversy

💸 Venture & Valuations

a16z: The Power Brokers (notboring​.co). Deep dive into a16z’s $15B raise, its strategy, Databricks, and the firm’s market-shaping approach across tech and policy

🎧🍌 Kevin Hartz | Backing Teen Founders, Lessons from the PayPal Mafia (thespl​.it). Kevin Hartz, PayPal Mafia insights, AI bubble, early teenage founders, and building Xoom, Eventbrite, and Sauron from PayPal learnings

Vital yet At Risk: How to build resilience in Pre-Seed financing in Africa (thebigdeal​.substack​.com). Pre-seed funding in Africa needs private-led, patient, and scalable public support to unlock early-stage startups and regional VC maturity

When There Isn't Quite a Market (capitalgains​.thediff​.co). Imperfect market efficiency from investor preferences and information costs across venture, equities, and derivatives

The Incredible Valuation Heights of the OpenAI "Constellations" (spyglass​.org). OpenAI diaspora valuations surge past $1T including Anthropic, xAI, Ursa Major, and OpenAI itself, with potential future IPOs

Microsoft's Would-Have-Been $30B "Hackquisition" of OpenAI (spyglass​.org). Microsoft nearly executed a $25–$30B OpenAI hackquisition in 2023, foreshadowing the ‘hackquisition’ model and IP rights dynamics

#27 CDTI: cómo financiar proyectos de I+D+i en 2026 (startupsoasis​.substack​.com). CDTI funding for I+D+i in 2026: NEOTEC, PID and LIC explained for startups and tech-led growth in Spain

🧾 Money, Fraud & Risk

Calling All Hackers: How money works (2024) (phrack​.org). Hacker-turned-CEO explains money, finance basics, venture dynamics, and startup culture with crypto critique and market insights

Kontigo: Y Combinator's Venezuelan Sanctions Evasion Startup (fintechbusinessweekly​.substack​.com). Kontigo, a Venezuela-focused fintech in YC's Summer 2024 cohort, links to Maduro’s regime, uses JPMorgan via Checkbook to move USDC and bolívares

🚔 SEC Charges Software Company With Fraud (onlycfo​.io). SEC charges VC-backed ComplYant with fraud over fake revenue, personal spend from VC funds, and falsified CPA credentials

🧩 Open Source Sustainability

Tailwind et l'IA : quand la popularité ne paie plus les factures (loud-technology​.com). Tailwind CSS open-core model hits disruption as AI-driven demand drops revenue and prompts layoffs from Adam Wathan

The Hobbyist Maintainer Economic Gravity Well (softwaremaxims​.com). Explores the economics of hobbyist maintainers, income instability, and the impracticality of full-time funding models in OSS

None (dbushell​.com). Tailwind Labs faces layoffs as AI impact hurts revenue; developer Adam Wathan discusses docs traffic and open-source sustainability

Who maintains the maintainers? (coenjacobs​.com). Open source maintenance realities: burnout, funding gaps, and the hidden work behind WordPress tools like Mozart and WooCommerce

🧠 Founder Psychology

Becoming a Cult Leader (investing101​.substack​.com). Zeitgeist, mindshare, and capital: a founder’s framework for becoming a standard bearer in mission-driven tech ventures

Many Heads, Not Many Hats: The Founder’s Identity Crisis (thebootstrappedfounder​.com). Founder identity shift: multiple new heads, cognitive dissonance, and adapting from consulting to low-touch SaaS

Reflecting on 14 months of indie hacking - Building 7 projects and learning hard lessons (david​.coffee). Indie hacker quits engineering management to build 7 projects over 14 months, exploring monetization, marketing, and consumer-focused SaaS

The 2026 Founder Urgency Index: Why Millennials and Gen Z Are Rushing to Launch (wearefounders​.uk). Millennials and Gen Z rush to launch amid AI access and financial control, shifting from passion to practicality

The Architect (pawlean​.com). Thoughts on moving from a ‘doer’ to an ‘architect’ in 2026, focusing on community, autonomy, and personal foundations with AI-enhanced workflows

Is building a business supposed to consume your life - even when you do everything right? (chiaracokieng​.com). Explores why founders’ work consumes life despite tools, priorities, and systems, proposing a complexity-based model

How to Stop Resenting People Asking for More (dave-bailey​.com). A founder coach explains the ‘100 Reasons’ exercise to curb resentment when others ask for more and set boundaries

🧑‍💼 Hiring & Team Practices

How I hire engineers (werd​.io). Ben Werdmuller advocates hiring engineers for collaboration and communication, using take-home tests and structured panels over LeetCode-style metrics

Beyond the Financial Operating Plan: Establishing Your “Theme for the Year” (patricksalyer​.substack​.com). How a company-themed narrative, like #GigyaLeads, motivates teams beyond pure financial targets

Async vs. Sync Communication: A Guide for Remote Engineering Teams (beontech​.wpengine​.com). Balancing async and sync communication for remote engineering teams to reduce bottlenecks and boost delivery velocity

Differences Between Lead Roles and How to Find Your Right Path (newsletter​.eng-leadership​.com). Overview of four lead roles (Tech Lead, Team Lead, Engineering Manager, Architect) and how to choose a path with pros/cons and Notion template guidance

The Engineer to Executive Translation Layer (annashipman​.co​.uk). Practical guide for engineers to translate proposals for executives, focusing on user needs, business outcomes, and concise one-page briefs

Hiring (and Firing) Criteria (aman-agarwal​.com). Hiring and firing criteria emphasize culture, heart of a teacher, and handling dysfunctions within teams

🏢 Scaling Org Reality

What Your Software Engineering Job Buys You (newbry​.bearblog​.dev). Explores remote contracting, big tech benefits, small tech tradeoffs, and indiepreneurism for software engineers

Common misunderstandings about large software companies (philipotoole​.com). Understanding why coordination, executive input, and risk-focused process arise in large software firms like Google and Nortel, with context on meetings and bureaucracy

What are you optimizing for? (blog​.danielna​.com). Career decisions hinge on personal optimization goals, balancing stability, growth, compensation, and leadership alignment

Short Stints, Real Experience: Rethinking Career Tenure (eric​.mann​.blog). Tech hiring bias toward long tenure; short stints reflect layoffs and strategic moves, not lack of commitment

How to Navigate Rapid Growth (sloanreview​.mit​.edu). Growth-era integration hinges on shared language, identity, and a culture of dissent to unite early joiners and newcomers

📈 Sales & Revenue Ops

Startups I Didn't Start: Pipeline Optimizer (faingezicht​.com). Explores pipeline optimization in enterprise sales using queuing theory, ROI, and early AI decisioning within RevOps and data engineering

The Rise of Revenue-First Operations (webhosting​.today). Revenue-first ops trends and tools shaping SaaS growth, including analytics, automation, and leadership strategies

Unf*ck Your Sales (rasulkireev​.com). Practical B2B sales framework focusing on reach, resonance, timing, and trust using inversion and the Theory of Constraints

🧰 Devtools & Platform Building

What devtools founders making $100M+ ARR told me in San Francisco (evilmartians​.com). Devtools founders from Sentry, WorkOS, Resend, PlanetScale, Chroma, Mastra share DX-focused strategies and user-centric product lessons

Open APIs Are Over (tomtunguz​.com). AI accelerates incumbents to defend stacks as open APIs tighten, with Salesforce, Datadog & Epic locking data and enabling end-to-end platform competition

Ambassador Product Roadmap: Building the System Behind the Flywheel (getambassador​.com). Ambassador 2026 roadmap detailing HiroAI orchestration, unified feedback systems, automation, and enterprise-scale growth across channels

Marathon Row (slightknack​.dev). Rowing 26.2 miles sparks talk on Affetto, a Wasm-based distributed runtime, open-source ethos, and starting a meaningful, privacy-preserving company

What a Platform Engineer Is (and why it’s basically DevOps with a sharper purpose) (chris​.funderburg​.me). Platform Engineering blends DevOps with a product mindset, expanding to data, ML, and AI infrastructure using IaC, CI/CD, Kubernetes, and observability

🧪 PMF & Product Strategy

25 Things I Believe In to Build Great Products (creatoreconomy​.so). PM lessons from Roblox, Reddit, Amazon, and Meta emphasize speed, focus, user feedback, and anti-committee decision making

The Cold Start Problem (read​.thecoder​.cafe). Explore network effects, atomic networks, and the Tinder college strategy to solve the cold start problem with minimal initial users

The Value Pyramid as a Way to Structure and Define Your Offerings (skmurphy​.com). Value Pyramid guides startups in tiered offerings to reduce risk, validate demand, and grow revenue aligned with customer urgency

Fast-track product validation using AI (aiacceleratorinstitute​.com). Rapid product validation with AI; rapid prototyping, feedback analysis, hypothesis testing, and customer validation using Claude, ChatGPT, Loveable, and Figma AI

How to make Scalable Product Decisions (productify​.substack​.com). Scalability-minded product decisions, extensibility, defaults, versioning, composability, and progressive disclosure for future growth

Dashboard or pipes? (alearningaday​.blog). Be clear why you exist and measure what matters; classify products as dashboards or pipes to guide growth, UI, and infrastructure

Building Startups that Last (Part 2 of 5): The Two NECESSARY Company Traits to Win (sachinkamdar​.com). Persistence and speed are the two must-have traits for startups to win, balancing momentum with runway

📚 References & Takeaways

Three references for aspiring entrepnrenuers (olshansky​.info). Three references for aspiring entrepnrenuers: PMF, first customer, and zero-to-one product lessons

Product Growth’s 2025 Year in Review: Your Complete AI PM Course, PM MBA & Career Roadmaps (news​.aakashg​.com). Comprehensive AI PM & PM roadmaps, 90 deep-dives, 70 podcasts, and MBA-style curricula organized by MBA-like departments

Twenty One Lessons From Google (irreal​.org). A concise look at non- technical life lessons from Addy Osmani’s seven+ years at Google, touching on abstractions, on-call burdens, and software craft