Why this LA-based VC firm was an early investor in Slate Auto

July 8, 2025
Slate Auto, which came out of stealth mode earlier this year with a surprising – and surprisingly affordable – customizable electric truck, has raised $700 million to date. But long before the EV startup broke cover, it quietly raised a Series A round of more than $100 million in 2023. And while Jeff Bezos was […]

The Download: hunting an asteroid, and unlocking the human mind

July 8, 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it might not seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet,…

Why the US and Europe could lose the race for fusion energy

July 8, 2025
Fusion energy holds the potential to shift a geopolitical landscape that is currently configured around fossil fuels. Harnessing fusion will deliver the energy resilience, security, and abundance needed for all modern industrial and service sectors. But these benefits will be controlled by the nation that leads in both developing the complex supply chains required and…

How scientists are trying to use AI to unlock the human mind 

July 8, 2025
Today’s AI landscape is defined by the ways in which neural networks are unlike human brains. A toddler learns how to communicate effectively with only a thousand calories a day and regular conversation; meanwhile, tech companies are reopening nuclear power plants, polluting marginalized communities, and pirating terabytes of books in order to train and run…

Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever

July 8, 2025
If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it really wouldn’t seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet, it was huge.  On February 18, astronomers determined that a 130- to 300-foot-long asteroid had a 3.1% chance of crashing into Earth in 2032. Never had an asteroid of…

UAE proptech Huspy raises $59M to scale in Europe

July 8, 2025
If you walked into a Dubai bank to apply for a mortgage in 2020, chances are you’d spend months buried in paperwork or face a huge price discrepancy when it came to listings. Such experiences led Jad Antoun to start Huspy, a startup streamlining how people in the UAE buy homes digitally. Over the past […]

OpenAI tightens the screws on security to keep away prying eyes

July 8, 2025
OpenAI has reportedly overhauled its security operations to protect against corporate espionage. According to the Financial Times, the company accelerated an existing security clampdown after Chinese startup DeepSeek released a competing model in January, with OpenAI alleging that DeepSeek improperly copied its models using “distillation” techniques. The beefed-up security includes “information tenting” policies that limit […]