Jensen Secures Top Spot on Naughty List, Rockefeller Christmas Tree Delivered, Timeline in Turmoil | Jonathan Neman, Bryce Strauss, Adam Blake, Adarsh Kulkarni, Josh Payne · podgraph
Jensen Secures Top Spot on Naughty List, Rockefeller Christmas Tree Delivered, Timeline in Turmoil | Jonathan Neman, Bryce Strauss, Adam Blake, Adarsh Kulkarni, Josh Payne
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admits an affair with a suspected Chinese spy, the first real crisis in Nvidia's three decades.
Anthropic's IPO roadshow is expected the week of November 9, with ticker ANT and valuation talk down to $1.2tn.
Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman says October same-store sales rose 5% and November accelerated.
Jensen Huang Affair Plunges Nvidia Into First Crisis
Funding and deals
Anthropic. The AI lab filed its public S-1 on 16 October and plans to list on Nasdaq under ANTH, with 22 underwriters led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley . Roadshow valuations have slid from $2tn to about $1.2tn .
Nominal. Builds software for engineers who build physical systems, across aerospace, manufacturing, energy and government. Announced a $240m Series C.
Mavria. Builds modular, factory-made data centers called Terrain as repeatable five-megawatt blocks. Raised a $30m pre-seed in June and a $100m round led by Paradigm.
Foundry Robotics. Runs autonomous factories and sells manufacturing as a service. Raised a $100m Series A ten months after founding.
Coframe. Builds self-improving websites and agent-friendly experiences. Raised a $25m Series A.
Guest interviews
Jonathan Neman, CEO of Sweetgreen. Neman said Sweetgreen's agentic orders roughly doubled from June to October and it is close to announcing connectors with Muse Instinct . He expects drone delivery to cut the restaurants needed in a city, perhaps from 60 to 40 in New York, and is far more bullish on drones than sidewalk robots .
Bryce Strauss, co-founder and CEO of Nominal. Strauss said Nominal serves aerospace, advanced manufacturing, energy and government engineers, and that testing never stops in a hardware product's life, making manufacturing a big opportunity . He said connectivity is the first constraint for these teams, who work offline on navy ships or factory floors, and he wants the engineers outside New York and San Francisco to benefit from AI too .
Adam Blake, co-founder and CEO of Mavria. Blake said Mavria's Terrain data centers come as repeatable five-megawatt blocks, with the first unit in Houston finishing by year's end and full production above one gigawatt a year targeted for mid-2027 . Liquid cooling means almost no on-site water, and he said over 100 gigawatts could sit on existing US distribution using batteries and curtailment .
Josh Payne, founder and CEO of Coframe. Payne said Coframe lets sites self-improve, and adding .agent renders an agent-friendly version that can talk back to agents . A Fortune 500 customer went live in three days and saw a 70% conversion lift within a month, and he predicted companies will soon go public with fewer than 50 people .
News
Nvidia CEO Admits Affair With Suspected Spy. Jensen Huang admitted an affair with Alice Wang, identified as a suspected Chinese spy, the first crisis in Nvidia's three decades . Commerce Department scrutiny of Mega Speed's GPU purchases and AMD's near-13% rise frame the fallout .
Apple May Ship Agentic Siri Next Year. Mark Gurman reported Apple could release an autonomous, agentic Siri as early as next year . John Coogan said rival assistants like Muse and Dots cannot match Siri's Shazam song recognition .
LAX Private Terminal Sells a Shortcut. PS, a private terminal at LAX, offers annual baseline membership from $1,250, and Jordi Hays called it a super smart business and a middle ground for people who cannot justify flying private .
Richard Sutton Doubts Brute-Force Compute. Richard Sutton wrote that brute force computation is not enough for intelligence and clever methods are needed . John Coogan said The Bitter Lesson refutes that view .
