📣 Headlines

• Global VC investment in generative AI reached $49.2bn in H1 2025 , with VCs chasing the AI wave but with increased caution and Iconiq Capital leading massive funding rounds including a $3-5 billion raise for Anthropic .

• Figma's IPO is lighting a spark in the market while Firefly Aerospace shares surged 34% on their Nasdaq debut following an $868 million IPO, signaling renewed optimism for tech unicorns.

• OpenAI announced GPT-5 models with enhanced coding capabilities while Google released Jules, an AI coding agent available to everyone , marking significant advances in AI-powered development tools.

• Decart.AI raised $100M at a $3.1B valuation for its real-time AI video platform, while Uzum became Uzbekistan's first unicorn at $1.5B and Alaan raised $48M in one of MENA's largest Series A rounds .

• Global venture funding remained flat at $29.7 billion in July 2025 , with Insight Partners leading venture deals and Y Combinator dominating seed investments .

• Startup advisors are highlighting critical pivot signs and red flags for SaaS companies while emphasizing the importance of navigating AI hype cycles effectively .

• The Browser Company launched a $20 monthly subscription for its AI-powered browser and European search engines Qwant and Ecosia debuted Staan to challenge Big Tech .

• Nigerian food delivery startup Chowdeck raised $9M from Novastar and Y Combinator with expansion plans across Ghana, highlighting continued investment in emerging market logistics.

🔧 Company Engineering Blogs

Diff Risk Score: AI-driven risk-aware software development (engineering​.fb​.com) . Diff Risk Score utilizes AI to assess code changes, enhancing software reliability and developer productivity while minimizing production incidents at Meta

Seamless Istio Upgrades at Scale (medium​.com/airbnb-engineering) . Airbnb utilizes Istio for Kubernetes and VM orchestration, implementing a sophisticated canary upgrade model to manage ten thousand pods with zero downtime

Optimising serverless architecture for horizontal scaling (medium​.com/vanguard-technology) . Vanguard optimizes serverless architecture using AWS Lambda, implementing a Functions as a Service framework for horizontal scaling, cost savings, and improved development efficiency

💰 VC, Investment & Business Ecosystem

The state of VC within software and AI startups – with Peter Walker (newsletter​.pragmaticengineer​.com) . Peter Walker discusses VC trends in software and AI startups, highlighting hiring shifts, funding challenges, and the importance of ARR per FTE

Building software in Japan, with Jim Weisser (complexsystemspodcast​.com) . Jim Weisser discusses Japan's software ecosystem, startup challenges, cultural differences, and success stories like Salesforce and Rakuten with Patrick McKenzie

Masterclass: How to Invest in SpaceTech – The Case of Rocket Lab (August 14, 2025) (spaceambition​.substack​.com) . Masterclass evaluates Rocket Lab's investment case using Space Ambition's framework; reviews Bessemer Venture Partners' 2014 stake, VC decision processes, memo insights, Denis Kalyshkin's deep expertise

Looking For A Signal? Congrats, You Found It (forwardthinking​.substack​.com) . Virtual AMA series for founders at $20/mo with Delian Asparouhov, Niko Bonatsos, Christian Keil, Eric Ries, Lori Berenberg; topics include regulatory, PR, marketing, finance, LTSE

🎥 Hg's Nic Humphries - investing at an inflection point in history (altgoesmainstream​.substack​.com) . Nic Humphries discusses strategic investment in enterprise software, AI impact, and Hg's approach to creating European software giants

What is a good VC? (geoffreywoo​.com) . Explores VC goodness through five attributes—Game, Insight, Speed, Vibe, Aura—detailing insider information, deal terms, AI trend leadership, funding speed, founder-VC culture fit, and aura amplification

🚀 Career Growth & Engineering Success

Fifty Bits of Career Advice (benjamincongdon​.me) . Explains explore vs exploit, internships, mentors, low-hanging problems, engineering constraints, career seasons, two-way interviews, manager support, promotions, kindness, owning your career, RSUs, 401(k), Monte-Carlo, Vim/Emacs

Instagram Staff (IC6) Promo Despite 10 Team Switches in 9 Years (Career Story) (developing​.dev) . Career insights from Sash Zats on navigating 10 team switches at Meta, exploring design, blockchain, hardware, and AI prototyping

What Developers Can Learn from the Guy Who Landed Multiple YC Jobs in a Tough Market (relocateme​.substack​.com) . Soham Parekh's method of securing multiple tech jobs through effective cold outreach and tailored applications offers valuable strategies for developers in a competitive market

How to be a cracked dev (saiyangrowthletter​.com) . Insights on becoming a proficient developer: focus on technical skills, user engagement, project management, and adopting a founder's mindset

Business Hall of Fame (richardtoad​.substack​.com) . Profiles of influential tech founders and CEOs, including Sam Altman, Brian Armstrong, Tope Awotona, Marc Benioff, and Michael Bloomberg, highlighting their achievements

An engineer’s perspective on hiring (jyn​.dev) . Tech hiring critique contrasts live coding, take-home tests, architecture design, and team meetings with Oxide's extended essays, code reviews, work samples, and 'taste' as signals

My coding journey (bhrigu​.dev) . From 9th grade Java tinkering to C++ data structures, competitive programming, Django apps, a Stack Overflow-like IIT-JEE Q&A site, and Amazon engineering, AI-driven code futures

🤖 AI-Powered Development & Coding Tools

What the windsurf sale means for the AI coding ecosystem (ethanding​.substack​.com) . Windsurf’s margin call, $82M ARR exit, and the AI coding ecosystem race: OpenAI, Cognition, Google hires; Claude Code vs Anthropic; hosting infra, databases, low-code shifts

AI: The Secret to Lovable's $100MM ARR and Unicorn status (lex​.substack​.com) . Lovable, co-founded in 2023, achieves $100MM ARR in 8 months using AI-driven software development and developer-led growth strategies

Building in Public: The 7 AI Tools I'm Using in My $1M+/Yr Business (news​.aakashg​.com) . Aakash Gupta shares seven AI tools powering his $1M+/yr business, from Zapier+Claude email automation to Cursor backends, Lindy content ops, Gemini+Veo3 ads, Riverside+Opus Clips editor

The Monolith That Made AI Actually Useful (ashwch​.com) . Diversio's approach using git submodules and worktrees enhances AI-assisted development, reducing bugs and accelerating feature delivery across multiple repositories

Rebuilding Yield.io with Cursor (baus​.net) . Christopher Baus rebuilds Yield.io using Cursor for code generation and Gemini for yield curve analysis, enhancing interpretive capabilities despite deployment challenges

AI Native Software and Hardware is Here (thatwastheweek​.com) . AI-native software and hardware redefine workflows: GPT-5 as router-driven engine, edge AI, Claude Opus 4.1, gpt-oss, Perplexity debates, internal AI tools replacing SaaS and provisioning

📊 Product Management & Leadership

How Amplitude built an internal AI tool that the whole company’s obsessed with (and how you can too) | Wade Chambers (lennysnewsletter​.com) . Amplitude builds Moda, an AI tool unifying Slack, Jira, Confluence, Salesforce with Glean, ChatGPT, Cursor, Bolt, Figma, Lovable, v0 to speed PRDs and feedback analysis

LIVE from Denver with Nora Jones! (changelog​.com) . Nora Jones discusses Jeli.io's acquisition by PagerDuty, reliability, incident response, and her new role in human-centered engineering

Images of leadership, IaC, and an in-person interview 💡 (refactoring​.fm) . Explores leadership archetypes inspired by Jungian theory (Administrator, Guide, Achiever, Catalyst), Thiago Ghisi’s, and infrastructure as code with Terraform, Ansible, AI assistance, and in-person interview

The one way to crack technical estimations under pressure (leaddev​.com) . Involving two cross-functional groups to generate level-of-effort estimates, assign engineering days and T-shirt sizes, identify scope cuts, then buffer 30% and build a time-based roadmap

Agile, PMI, and everything in between: this is our moment (brettharned​.com) . Brett Harned discusses Agile and PMI convergence, his Teamangle framework from Same Team, resilience, human-centric leadership, soft skills, AI disruption, and strategies for guiding teams

Planning is everything. Just don't tell them that (relativesanity​.com) . Autonomy in software teams through deferred planning: question-driven leadership, reframe success metrics, bypass unnecessary scopes, telemetry, code diagrams, remote buddy setup, and iterative refactoring disciplines

CPO Stories: Shiri Mosenzon Erez - commercetools (oneknightinproduct​.podbean​.com) . Shiri Mosenzon Erez, CPO at commercetools, discusses API-first composable commerce, teaming at a 55-person product org, value streams, AI agents, MCP layer, and strategy-driven leadership

⚙️ Software Development & Engineering Efficiency

Linear sent me down a local-first rabbit hole (bytemash​.net) . Exploring local-first architecture through Linear, utilizing tools like Jazz and Electric SQL, revolutionizing web apps by minimizing network latency and bypassing traditional APIs

Unnecessary Anxiety in Software Development (simplethread​.com) . Explores software anxiety via the 2X4 parable, advocating guardrails: tests, automated deploys, linters, fuzzing, backups, staged rollouts, rollback plans, blameless culture, personal skill-building and learning

Deleting the Wrong Part or Process: Concrete Thinking in Software Organizations (blog​.colinbreck​.com) . Concrete thinking risks deleting the software parts; discusses Elon Musk design steps, abstractions, SQLite vs file storage, Kubernetes, DORA metrics, and promoting incremental, adaptable software

Omakase - let the chef decide (no-kill-switch​.ghost​.io) . Omakase philosophy for tech stacks and workstations, inspired by DHH; champions unified, opinionated setups (Omarchy, Omakub), prioritizing languages like Python, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, C#, DX

Fixing Engineering’s Biggest Time Waste: Finding Information (aviator​.co) . Explores engineering time wasted finding information, organizational inefficiencies, and fragmented workflows; discusses IDPs and ownership with Aviator Teams, LinkedIn's Prince Shekhar Valluri, Atlassian findings, AI

How You Ship Matters (codecube​.net) . Two extremes: upfront design (roadmaps, sign-offs, wireframes) and fast shipping—contrast, with emphasis on requirements churn, Agile realities, cross-team alignment, burnout, and trade-offs as teams scale

Follow up to “Microwaves” (colincornaby​.me) . Follow up to 'Microwaves' argues LLMs won't lower bar; no-code trends fade, tools like web frameworks and iPhone SDKs raise standards, urging coding or UX

👋 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:

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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.