📣 Headlines

• Global venture funding jumped 38% in Q3 2025 as AI megarounds dominated and late-stage dealmaking/exits accelerated AI-fueled venture funding soars 38% and Q3 2025 venture funding rises 38% as AI megarounds dominate .

• Notable startup raises: Axiom secured $64M to build an AI mathematician , Heidi Health raised $65M for clinician AI tools , and Oneleet closed $33M to automate security and compliance .

• AMD will supply OpenAI with six gigawatts of GPUs starting with MI450 in 2026 , challenging Nvidia’s dominance, while Meta ramps spending and deals to chase AI leadership .

• Agentic browsing and home AI heat up as Opera launches its Neon browser with Tasks/Neon Do and on-device privacy / early access details , and Google outlines Gemini for Home Q&A rollout across Nest and third-party speakers .

• OpenAI reversed course on Sora copyright, giving rights holders more control and takedowns for character usage .

• IPO planning in 2025 remains tricky , with delayed timelines, valuation risk, and alternatives like M&A, direct listings, and PE buyouts in focus.

• As the AI value chain shifts, founders are urged to own data, price by usage, and avoid model lock-in , while True Ventures doubles down on the application-building phase amid massive AI capex .

• Startup culture in AI intensifies as weekend work becomes the norm and teams are sourced globally under capital pressure .

🔧 Company Engineering Blogs

Inside the AIPCon 8 Demos Redefining the Future of Enterprise AI (blog​.palantir​.com) . Demos showcase Palantir Foundry and AIP across industries— Andretti RaceOS, Nebraska Medicine RCM automation, HSS Patient Card, and retail product intelligence

LLMs Are the Key to Mutation Testing and Better Compliance (engineering​.fb​.com) . Meta's ACH uses LLMs for mutation-guided test generation to improve compliance testing and scalability

Revolutionizing Data Cloud: Unleashing the Power of the New ML Recommendations System (engineering​.salesforce​.com) . Data Cloud-native ML recommendations system; flexible abstract schemas; multi-cluster architecture; CI/CD NDCG evaluation; Cursor AI-assisted development

Spec-driven development: Using Markdown as a programming language when building with AI (github​.blog) . Spec-driven development: write app logic in Markdown and compile with AI copilots and prompts like compile.prompt.md

🗣️ Indie tech perspectives picks

Telegram and Weird Al (ma​.tt) . Lex Friedman interviews Pavel Durov on Telegram; Weird Al and John Mayer as hackers; cross-posting to Telegram; Jetpack bot; design and engineering philosophies

Amazing 3 Years of Writing the Engineering Leadership Newsletter 🥳 🎉 (newsletter​.eng-leadership​.com) . Three-year newsletter journey with AI metrics, growth stats, and plans to become the go-to engineering leadership resource

European Tech Alternatives 🇪🇺 (matthiasott​.com) . European non-US alternatives to popular digital tools across analytics, browsers, writing, design, CMS, and open-source options

Not My Cup of Tea (dbushell​.com) . Discussion on AI policy, funding, open source ethics, Svelte, Vercel, and the Next.js critique in a UK web dev blog post

👥 Leading and scaling tech orgs

Building AI-ready teams: Why documentation and culture matter more than tools (stackoverflow​.blog) . AI adoption in engineering teams hinges on documentation quality and cultural shifts, featuring Peter O'Connor and Ryan J. Salva

What US engineering managers can expect to earn in 2026 (leaddev​.com) . Salaries for US engineering managers and senior developers in 2026 include base pay trends, with CTOs, software managers, and AI/machine learning skills driving increases

Business Thinking for Tech Executives (avivbenyosef​.com) . Tech executives should align goals to business outcomes, avoid waste, and inject team leverage to drive growth and reduce churn

Brian (bex) Exelbierd: Project Membership (bexelbie​.com) . Membership in projects, roles and alignment strategies; co-authored with Ben Cotton on duckalignment.academy

5 steps to running a successful paid work trial. (partly​.work) . Paid work trials for startups: prequalification, quantum of utility, IP paperwork, real projects, and internal ownership

Awesome Motive Behind the Scenes: Origin Story and Operating Manual (syedbalkhi​.com) . Founder Syed Balkhi explains Awesome Motive’s origin, remote-first structure, portfolio (OptinMonster, WPForms, AIOSEO), and operating principles

Build your engineering team like a dungeon party (newsletter​.manager​.dev) . Build a 5-person engineering team like a dungeon party: warrior, tank, healer, wizard, rogue, with focus on complementary skills over DPS

🧠 AI-first product and teams

Directing AI Native Development (adrianco​.medium​.com) . AI-native teams of agent swarms, BDD tests, modular design, open-source emphasis, and rapid cloud-like provisioning for product development

AI and Home-Cooked Software (mrkaran​.dev) . AI accelerates DIY software, enabling non-technical users to build production-like tools quickly, though edge cases and security remain risks

Challenge: Build something with AI before the year ends (dariusforoux​.com) . Encourages building a real AI-enabled project within 90 days to gain ownership, learn skills, and ship publicly

The Best Tech Stack in the Age of AI (thebootstrappedfounder​.com) . AI can understand code, but foundational knowledge and careful language choice keep the stack human-centric and controllable

AI First Teams (kaiomagalhaes​.com) . AI-first teams use AI as the first draft generator to accelerate ideation, prototyping, and validation across product, design, and engineering

AI is changing the PM craft (bharath-site​.vercel​.app) . AI reshapes PM craft: prototype-first workflows, exploring multiple approaches, prompts as specs, and small, safe ship cycles

🛠️ Real-world engineering practice lessons

Struggling teams, task forces, and testing in production 💡 (refactoring​.fm) . Durable teams, task forces, and testing in production insights from Shopify and Slack engineers

The Never Rewrite Podcast, Episode One Hundred Twenty-Four: Treating Communication Gaps Like Tech Debt ft. Austen Tucker (shermanonsoftware​.com) . Austen Tucker discusses communication gaps as tech debt and their impact on SaaS scaleups and rewritten projects

Thoughts on Vibe-coding (mark​.biek​.org) . Vibe-coding vs AI-assisted engineering; caution against conflating rapid prototyping with professional software practices

The Inverse Matrix problem (talesfrom​.dev) . Explores how overemphasis on code and patterns like DDD/DDD, AggregateRoot, and decorators can trap teams; advocates domain thinking and question-driven design

Half Right (skillstopractice​.com) . Half Right cautions that quick, vibe-driven coding hides systemic tech debt and real dependencies, urging informed, controlled approaches

Complex systems for complex systems (iamcal​.com) . Explores flight-booking complexity, fare components, priceable units and open jaws from a Google Flights co-founder’s perspective

🔒 Security and platform ownership

The Server in the Closet (robertgreiner​.com) . Owning core technology, building in-house servers, and moving away from SaaS to maintain competitive advantage

Hacking YC (again) (contraption​.co) . Hacking YC security, discovering an investor feed leak, and a $500 bounty for a non-technical authorization bug

Building an Internal Developer Portal: Insights from the Journey So Far (medium​.com/criteo-engineering) . Criteo Platform teams build self-serve blocks and Backstage-based IDP, emphasizing shared roadmaps and domain collaboration

The Startup Race To Secure AI Agents Is On (upstartsmedia​.com) . Descope raises $35M to secure AI agents, competing with Okta, Ping, and Auth0 through no-code security for agents and integration with platforms like Google Drive and SharePoint

🧪 Product case studies and playbooks

One is not the loneliest number for API calls (stackoverflow​.blog) . Merge reduces multiple third-party APIs to a single call with normalized, opinionated data models and AI-assisted tooling

Benable (nbt​.substack​.com) . Footwork-backed Benable platform aims to monetize word-of-mouth recommendations with creator-driven content and brand partnerships

User research, multi-disciplinary teams and balancing strategic versus tactical fixes (benjystanton​.co​.uk) . Insights from a weeklong exploration of user research, a multi-disciplinary team, and balancing strategic versus tactical product fixes

The Story of Alloggiati.pro: A Tool To Simplify Italian Bureaucracy (panasiti​.me) . Ruby on Rails solution to Italian bureaucracy: iCal integration, RubyLLM, multi-tenant Rails app, and a monolith-first approach for Alloggiati.pro

The 20-Year Playbook: How to Build an AI Startup That Lasts (nibzard​.com) . Condensed wisdom from Marc Andreessen and Charlie Songhurst on building AI startups for decades, not quarters

🤖 Coding agents in practice

AI coding test turned to product (owehrens​.com) . Hands-on use of Cursor with planning poker app: implementing steps, git commits, WebAuthn passkeys, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, SQLite, Tailwind CSS v4

AI Coding Tools I Use to Ship Faster - Q4 2025 (joshtronic​.com) . Explores AI coding tools like Cursor and Claude Code for CLI-first workflows, GitHub Copilot alternatives, and productivity strategies

Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle (simonw​.substack​.com) . Parallel coding agents, proof-of-concept research, maintenance tasks, and DSPy/Litestream 0.5.0 with Sora 2 cameo prompt-injection notes

The Claude Code Tutorial for AI PMs: Why You Need to Use It + How (news​.aakashg​.com) . Claude Code tutorial for AI PMs: context engineering, parallel agents, plan mode, CLAUDE file, and the $37/month hack with Carl Vellotti

Whiteboarding with AI (jfernandez​.github​.io) . Whiteboarding with AI uses Markdown planning, Mermaid diagrams, Claude and Sonnet for design-first coding workflows

How I'm using coding agents in September, 2025 (blog​.fsck​.com) . Practices for using Claude Code, git worktrees, brainstorming prompts, planning with docs/plans, and CodeRabbit reviews in September 2025

👋 Before you go

I've got a big favor to ask - keeping Blaze running isn't expensive, but it does all add up, so I'm asking readers like you to help, if you can. That's why I'm launching a Patreon page! . Nothing flashy, just a way for folks who find value in these newsletters to chip in a little each month. In return, you'll get:

• Real say in how Blaze evolves — vote on new topics, features, topic curation ideas
• First dibs on merch (details still cooking)
• That warm fuzzy feeling knowing you're supporting something that saves you time and keeps you plugged into great tech writing

If you are getting value from blaze, checking this out would mean the world. And if you can't contribute, no worries—the newsletters keep coming either way, and you can follow along on patreon for free. Thanks for reading and being part of this nerdy corner of the internet. All the best - Alastair.