Tech and startups: 16th September 2025

• Satellite and optical‑ground‑station makers secure growth capital and Cailabs raises €57M to scale optical ground station production.

• AI training and infrastructure heat up as Mercor eyes a $10B+ valuation on $450M ARR, OpenAI explores its own AI chip for 2026, and Microsoft/OpenAI talks hint at an IPO path.

• Voice and personal AI startups attract investor attention with voice AI valuations rising, ex‑Google X’s TwinMind raising $5.7M to build an ambient ‘second brain’, and Anthropic adding memory to Claude for smoother workflows.

• Preemptive cybersecurity startups get funding and ship products — Silent Push raises $10M, AegisAI raises $13M to neutralize email threats, early‑stage Miru raises $2.7M for AI‑driven investigations, and Lookout launches Smishing AI.

• Hardware is back on the roadmap for investors and builders as coverage explains why hardware is the next frontier, Arm unveils Lumex for on‑device AI, and mobile battery innovations promise thinner devices though US adoption trails phone battery advances.

• VC dynamics and exit appetite shift with warnings that raising too much early funding often backfires while the Big Five remain selective about acquisitions.

• AI policy scrutiny increases — California seeks frontier AI transparency to guard against worst‑case scenarios even as some lawmakers push for regulatory waivers and sandboxes.

A Recap of the 2025 Experimentation Conference at Booking.com (booking​.ai). Second Experimentation Conference at Booking.com covers meta-analysis, interference, switchback experiments, and platform design across 126 practitioners from 40 companies

Going Edge-to-Edge: How Android SDK 35 Modernizes the Wealthfront App (eng​.wealthfront​.com). Wealthfront upgrades targetSdk to 35, enabling edge-to-edge UI with manual window insets handling for XML and Compose

A framework for pricing AI products (stripe​.com). Pricing AI products: value- and cost-aligned charge metrics, hybrid and usage-based models, guardrails, and ongoing experimentation like tiered plans

Scientific frontiers of agentic AI (amazon​.science). Agentic AI explores embedding languages, context, negotiation, common sense, and privacy with embeddings, context windows, and behavioral economics insights

None (dbushell​.com). Notes on web development, dependency management, edge cases, and insights from James Garbutt

3D No-Code, nights and weekends - a director of engineering’s side project (newsletter​.manager​.dev). Florian builds a 3D no-code tool while working as a Director of Engineering; pivots to test-driven AI for engineers

14/Sep/2025 - Week Note 37 (chris​.funderburg​.me). Rainy week highlights DIY kitchen install, Terraform EKS upgrade, Dynatrace ARM64 issues, and Liminal Radio progress

Stream Work Note: Post Stream 1.6 Work (rob​.crabapples​.net). Notes on Stream 1.6 work, Mac vs iOS layouts, SwiftUI ideas, keyboard shortcuts, and onboarding feedback

MonkCast with the Monks: AI’s Grumpy-Fun Era (redmonk​.com). RedMonk discusses AI’s grumpy-fun era: ROI concerns, vibe coding, spec-driven development, AI code assistants, and the push for more deterministic tooling

Coffee, Omelettes, and Five-Course Meals: A New Software Menu (tomtunguz​.com). Ephemeral software, instant questions, and durable foundations reshape enterprise tools with AI-driven, short-lived apps

Developer Relations at Theory (tomtunguz​.com). Theory Ventures launches developer relations to share AI building experiences, tools, and workflows with agents, tool calls, and large action models

3 Billion Developers (biilmann​.blog). AI code agents expand web development from 17M professionals to ~3B online users, enabling non-programmers to build for the web

9 ways growth is different in AI companies (elenaverna​.com). Nine differences in AI growth: PMF treadmill, activation in prompts, big bets over optimizations, creator-driven marketing, rapid shipping, brand as product, founder-led social, product-led loops, and growth shipping features

Building personal apps with open source and AI (github​.blog). Personal tools built with open source and AI; workflows, automation, and Copilot-powered guidance

How AI is reshaping developer teams and the future of software development (stackoverflow​.blog). AI-assisted tools reshape the developer experience, breaking deployment bottlenecks and transforming collaboration across the software lifecycle

Issue no.12: New roles, new rules (figma​.com). Shifting roles across product, design and development with AI-assisted workflows and new engagement rules

Good tokens 2025-09-12 (atvbt​.com). Dillard discusses AI tools, Markdown coding, OpenRouter market share, fact checking, and a forthcoming piece on ‘Vibe Craft’ with reflections on work and past computing eras

Mahesh Yadav Podcast Transcript: AI Agent PM Roadmap (aakashg​.com). AI agent PM roadmap, Langflow backend with no-code, V0 frontend, prompts, RAG, multi-agent concepts, and FAANG interview path

Your First 10 Users > Your First 10 Features: Hard Truths About SaaS MVPs (taylorbrazelton​.com). Lessons from six mental hurdles in bootstrapping a SaaS MVP, focusing on shipping fast, value over tech, and early user growth

Find Good Problems (dontbreakprod​.com). Identify and pursue important, approachable software problems by mapping organizational values to system gaps and data-driven insights

Founders as Sysops: The Forgotten Heroes of BBS Culture (brajeshwar​.com). Founders as Sysops draw parallels between BBS sysops and modern startup founders, highlighting full-stack roles, community as product, and iterative bootstrapping

What I've learned about startups (claudio​.uk). Key startup lessons: focus on paying clients, avoid unnecessary tech, rely on Postgres, and question Kubernetes and over-engineering

Keeping Teams Agile and Creative: Unlocking New Ways of Thinking (jdstraughan​.com). Cross-functional teams, flat structure, and continuous customer feedback drive agility and creativity in growing organizations

Argumentum ad colossum (chrisdone​.com). Explores why copying tech culture, architectures, or orgs from giants fails due to unique DNA and context

You are not going to turn into Google eventually (idiallo​.com). Don’t future-proof for a Google-scale future; adopt simple, robust microservices focused on real team needs

Tom's Philosophy Of Project Management For Software Development (tomdalling​.com). Iterative risk-focused software project management emphasizing autonomy, stakeholder communication, lean overhead, and fail-fast learning

Raise the "I'm Stuck" Flag (jakeworth​.com). Raise the 'I'm Stuck' Flag: recognize signs, seek help early, and collaborate to resolve debugging blocks

More Boring Technology (alt​.management). Advocates boring, mature tech stacks and slow-upgrade stability over bleeding-edge approaches in software projects

Why Europeans Reject Their Own Tech Innovations But Worship Americans’ (flowchainsensei​.wordpress​.com). European reliance on American tech branding contrasted with independent European origins of Agile-inspired methods like Jerid/Javelin

Leveraging Internal Platforms through InnerSource (building​.nubank​.com). InnerSource at Nubank uses open-source practices internally to boost collaboration, reuse, and faster delivery across developer communities with the Backend Driven Content platform

Normal people, infra decisions, and input vs output metrics 💡 (refactoring​.fm). Normal people in infra decisions, and distinguishing input vs output metrics with DX-focused guidance and a chat with Abi Noda

Lessons from Twilio’s multi-year platform consolidation (newsletter​.getdx​.com). Twilio’s multi-year platform consolidation covers platform adoption, developer experience, and AI with a pragmatist, non-mandate approach

Babysitting and AI agents -- Six-year recap at Sourcegraph (unknwon​.io). Six-year recap at Sourcegraph on AI agents, IAM, abuse management, and platform engineering with SAMS

Building an Immune System for AI Generated Software with Animesh Koratana - #746 (twimlai​.com). Animesh Koratana discusses AI-assisted coding at scale, PlayerZero's code simulations, memory of bugs, and an immune-system approach to software reliability

Philosophy of Design: Observability (akshayd​.dev). Observability-focused design philosophy for engineering teams to standardize decisions and speed, using written guiding principles

Our Philosophy on Developer Rotation (feed​.thoughtbot​.com). Thoughtbot advocates regular developer rotations to inject fresh perspective, broaden expertise, and improve onboarding and offboarding through documentation

Vibe code is legacy code (notes​.jim-nielsen​.com). Vibe coding and AI-generated code debt, design ethics, AI impacts on work, privacy, and the web

The last programmers (xipu​.li). shift toward AI-assisted coding, distribution, and user insight over pure implementation, with two camps: experimenters and guardians

The Only Skill That Matters Now (worksonmymachine​.ai). AI-driven shifts: from kitchen robots to flavor design, Gretzky’s skate philosophy, AI pucks, RAG, agents, and the need for Zambonis in software

Coding Agent Companies Are Shortsighted and Blind to Their Role in History (pashpashpash​.substack​.com). Frontier labs focus on coding capabilities amid AGI race; need real-world coding data, repository context, and cross-model usage insights

all vibe coding tools are selling a get rich quick scheme (varunraghu​.com). Critique of hype around AI coding tools claiming easy startup success and 'vibe coding' limitations

A Year’s Evolution of AI and APIs: A World Apart (nordicapis​.com). Kristen Womack discusses agentic AI, MCP protocol, and the impact on APIs and DX ahead of Platform Summit 2025

How to Use Claude Code Subagents to Parallelize Development (zachwills​.net). Parallelize development with Claude Code subagents: planning, implementation, and review via a core trio

Web Directions Engineering AI - Notes (halans​.com). Notes on Web Directions Engineering AI: talks on copilots, agents, MCPs, context engineering, and human-in-the-loop practice

La guerre des frameworks pour Claude Code (shmck​.substack​.com). Claude Code Framework Wars outlines structured prompts, memory, and tools like MCP, ADRs, repo artifacts, and role-based AI workflows for scalable AI-assisted coding

Web Directions Engineering AI Notes (halans​.com). Notes on Web Directions Engineering AI: talks on copilots, agents, MCPs, context engineering, testing, and workplace impact

Coders End, From Typers To Thinkers (etsd​.tech). Architectural thinking over typing in AI-assisted web development, MCP-Pointer, Claude Code, and agentic coding concepts

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