An interview with Nomad List and Photo AI founder Pieter Levels, aka @levelsio on X, on launching 12 startups in 12 months, the digital nomad life, and more (Lex Fridman)

Lex Fridman:
An interview with Nomad List and Photo AI founder Pieter Levels, aka @levelsio on X, on launching 12 startups in 12 months, the digital nomad life, and more  —  This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #440 with Pieter Levels.  The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links …

Midjourney CEO David Holz says anyone can now generate AI images on its website; previously, the site was limited to users who generated 10K+ images on Discord (Lance Whitney/ZDNET)

Lance Whitney / ZDNET:
Midjourney CEO David Holz says anyone can now generate AI images on its website; previously, the site was limited to users who generated 10K+ images on Discord  —  Need a good AI image generator?  You can now try Midjourney's dedicated website for free.  On Wednesday, Midjourney CEO David …

A profile of TollBit, which has raised $7M and aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers for their content on an ongoing basis (Pranav Dixit/Engadget)

Pranav Dixit / Engadget:
A profile of TollBit, which has raised $7M and aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers for their content on an ongoing basis  —  So far though, its business model of becoming a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers directly for their data is a complete hypothetical

A look at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts, as a study of 603 weekly podcast consumers finds 31% use YouTube, followed by Spotify at 21%, and Apple at 12% (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A look at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts, as a study of 603 weekly podcast consumers finds 31% use YouTube, followed by Spotify at 21%, and Apple at 12%  —  Hello!  Welcome back to Soundbite.  Today we're looking at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts.

Japanese chipmaker Kioxia applies for a Tokyo Stock Exchange listing; source: Kioxia plans to list as soon as October and raise $500M+ at a $10B+ valuation (Leo Lewis/Financial Times)

Leo Lewis / Financial Times:
Japanese chipmaker Kioxia applies for a Tokyo Stock Exchange listing; source: Kioxia plans to list as soon as October and raise $500M+ at a $10B+ valuation  —  Memory products maker could achieve $10bn valuation as investors pile into AI and chip stocks  —  Kioxia, the Japanese chipmaker taken private …

Twitch plans to raise its new Tier 1 sub and gift sub prices on mobile in 40+ countries on October 1; in an email, Twitch says Tier 1 will rise by $2 to $7.99 (Michael Gwilliam/Dexerto)

Michael Gwilliam / Dexerto:
Twitch plans to raise its new Tier 1 sub and gift sub prices on mobile in 40+ countries on October 1; in an email, Twitch says Tier 1 will rise by $2 to $7.99  —  Twitch has announced yet another increase to the price of subs after already raising the cost earlier in the summer.

Since 2023, Chinese investors, including Alibaba and Tencent, have valued 6+ China-based startups developing LLMs, dubbed "Little AI Dragons", at $1B+ each (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Since 2023, Chinese investors, including Alibaba and Tencent, have valued 6+ China-based startups developing LLMs, dubbed “Little AI Dragons”, at $1B+ each  —  Since 2023, 40% of Alibaba's deals in China and 30% of Tencent's have targeted AI startups

Xiaomi reports Q2 revenue up 32% YoY to ~$12.5B, above ~$12.2B est., and a ~$715M net income, above ~$533M est., as its core smartphone business recovers (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Xiaomi reports Q2 revenue up 32% YoY to ~$12.5B, above ~$12.2B est., and a ~$715M net income, above ~$533M est., as its core smartphone business recovers  —  Sales rose a better-than-projected 32% to 88.9 billion yuan ($12.5 billion), versus the average analyst estimate of 86.9 billion yuan.

TSMC breaks ground on its €10B chip fab in Dresden, Germany, its first European plant; the EU approves Germany's ~€5B subsidy for the project (Kamil Kowalcze/Bloomberg)

Kamil Kowalcze / Bloomberg:
TSMC breaks ground on its €10B chip fab in Dresden, Germany, its first European plant; the EU approves Germany's ~€5B subsidy for the project  —  - Taiwanese firm begins work on its first European chip plant  — German subsidies will cover about half of the fab's costs

Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges as Mike Lynch over Autonomy's sale, died after a road accident, per his lawyer, days before Lynch went missing (Reuters)

Reuters:
Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges as Mike Lynch over Autonomy's sale, died after a road accident, per his lawyer, days before Lynch went missing  —  Stephen Chamberlain, once Mike Lynch's co-defendant in the U.S. fraud trial over the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard …

Girls In Tech, Women Who Code, and other groups that aimed to diversify Silicon Valley are closing or rebranding to stay afloat, as critics attack DEI efforts (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Girls In Tech, Women Who Code, and other groups that aimed to diversify Silicon Valley are closing or rebranding to stay afloat, as critics attack DEI efforts  —  Groups like Girls In Tech and Women Who Code promised to attract women and people of color to the tech industry.

In Q2, Walmart said its ad business grew 30% in the past year; eMarketer says Walmart will claim 6.8% of 2024 US retail media spending, for $3.7B in ad revenue (Gregory Meyer/Financial Times)

Gregory Meyer / Financial Times:
In Q2, Walmart said its ad business grew 30% in the past year; eMarketer says Walmart will claim 6.8% of 2024 US retail media spending, for $3.7B in ad revenue  —  A high-margin and fast-growing ad business is changing the chain's relationship with brands  —  Walmart last week reported rising sales …

AMD agrees to buy New Jersey-based ZT Systems, founded in 1994 to design and make servers, server racks, and other infrastructure, for $4.9B, closing in H1 2025 (Asa Fitch/Wall Street Journal)

Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal:
AMD agrees to buy New Jersey-based ZT Systems, founded in 1994 to design and make servers, server racks, and other infrastructure, for $4.9B, closing in H1 2025  —  ZT Systems produces servers, other equipment used in data centers for artificial intelligence

How Worldcoin is building its World ID identity system, trying to assuage government and privacy activists' concerns about its iris scanning tech and data usage (Angus Berwick/Wall Street Journal)

Angus Berwick / Wall Street Journal:
How Worldcoin is building its World ID identity system, trying to assuage government and privacy activists' concerns about its iris scanning tech and data usage  —  More than a dozen jurisdictions have either suspended the project's operations or looked into its data processing

Arize AI: 56% of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a "risk factor" in their recent annual reports, up from 9% in 2022; 86% of software firms cited AI as a risk (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
Arize AI: 56% of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a “risk factor” in their recent annual reports, up from 9% in 2022; 86% of software firms cited AI as a risk  —  Study finds more than half of Fortune 500 groups cited new technology as a potential hazard in their latest annual reports