Tech and startups: 23rd September 2025

• AI hardware and wearables heat up: Meta unveils Ray‑Ban Display smart glasses with an in‑lens screen and Neural Band wrist control, plus an Oakley athletes model, while Nothing raises $200M to build AI‑first devices and OS features.

• AI infrastructure alternatives accelerate as Upscale AI raises $100M seed for open‑standards AI networking and industry leaders push to escape the 'Nvidia tax'.

• Startup hiring hit by policy: the U.S. imposes a $100,000 fee on new H‑1B applications, reshaping recruiting economics for tech teams.

• AI in fintech operations draws funding: SEON raises $80M for fraud/AML compliance, Rekord raises $2.1m for AI‑driven credit decisioning, and Eagl secures €825k for AI agents automating month‑end close.

• Cybersecurity innovation ramps up: Terra Security blends agentic AI with offensive security backed by CrowdStrike, AWS and Nvidia, while Hack The Box acquires LetsDefend to expand defender training.

• VC landscape snapshot: startups are sprinting from Series A to C faster than ever, investors like Foundation Capital are backing ‘zero billion‑dollar markets’, and M&A demand clusters around agents, edge compute and security.

• Data platform shift: Microsoft expands Fabric with a native graph engine and real‑time geospatial maps, tightening the analytics stack for product teams.

• Fusion commercialization signal: Commonwealth Fusion Systems secures a $1B+ power offtake with Eni, with Google buying half, pointing to early market demand for its ARC reactor.

Gemini achieves gold-level performance at the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals (deepmind​.google). Gemini 2.5 Deep Think achieves gold-medal level at the 2025 ICPC World Finals, solving 10/12 problems with advanced reasoning and reinforcement learning techniques

Defending 20 Trillion Transactions: How Hyperforce’s Trusted Perimeter Stops DDoS Attacks with AI (engineering​.salesforce​.com). Explains Trusted Perimeter for Hyperforce: TLS termination, CDN caching, DDoS protection, AI-driven threat detection, and 10-minute global rollback

Meet the GitHub MCP Registry: The fastest way to discover MCP Servers (github​.blog). GitHub introduces the MCP Registry to centralize MCP server discovery for Copilot, agents, and MCP-enabled tools

Scaleway on Hugging Face Inference Providers 🔥 (huggingface​.co). Scaleway joins Hugging Face Inference Providers, enabling serverless inference with Scaleway API keys and HF routing

Learn Your Way: Reimagining textbooks with generative AI (research​.google). Google Research explores Learn Your Way, using GenAI to generate multimodal, personalized educational materials and measure learning efficacy

From $0 to $40M ARR: Inside the tech that powers Bolt.new (newsletter​.posthog​.com). Bolt.new’s 40M ARR pivot: WebContainer, in-browser VM, Rust filesystem, Web Workers, and service‑worker networking powering AI app builds

Is the innovator's dilemma outdated? (benn​.substack​.com). Explores platform vs product, AI tooling shifts, Claude and Anthropic ads, WriteSonic/Jasper pivots, and Apple’s AI-driven relevance in markets

Letter #297: Paul Buchheit and Dalton Caldwell (2025) (aletteraday​.substack​.com). Transcript of Paul Buchheit and Dalton Caldwell introducing Standard Capital, its 10% Series A, group office hours, and interview process

JOIN Online Session: How to Boost Deal Flow Using AI, Scouts, Networks, and Viral Content (spaceambition​.substack​.com). Online session with VCs from Hustle Fund, Antler, Harlem Capital, Beyond Earth Ventures on AI, scouts, networks, and viral content for deal flow

Getting Caught on the Inside (fredbenenson​.com). Builder-investor pivots to building with AI and personal capital, shifting from fund management to hands-on product and angel investing

Why VCs Are Funding $100M Remote Control Toys (Ep. 290) (datascienceathome​.podbean​.com). VC-backed $100M remote control toys; defense tech startups, software engineers, and misaligned Pentagon needs

CodeRabbit Just Raised $60M at a $550M Valuation – Here's Why VCs Are Betting Big on AI Code Reviews (wearefounders​.uk). CodeRabbit raises $60M at a $550M valuation; AI-powered code reviews aim to speed PRs using GPT-5, Claude Opus, and Sonnet

Microstacks or megadependencies over at Webdevcon 2025 (berthub​.eu). Bert Hubert argues for microstacks: minimal build dependencies, no runtime third-party services, with SQLite, Alpine.js, Inja/Jinja, OCRMyPDF, and careful vendor choices

Are you an experienced software buyer? I could use some help. (charity​.wtf). Software buying guidance sought for Observability Governance and enterprise tooling; invites practitioner anecdotes and context

From Linux Parties to Global Impact: An Interview with Sylvain Corlay, Founder of QuantStack (open-source-ward​.com). QuantStack founder Sylvain Corlay discusses open-source impact, Jupyter, conda-forge, Apache Arrow, Mamba, and sustaining a 30-person engineering-led company

What I Learned During My Paternity Leave (thecoder​.cafe). Paternity leave recap covers books like Code Health Guardian, Systems Thinking, C++, and non-technical reads including The Mom Test and Made to Stick

September 2025 (azuen​.net). Travel plans to Kentucky, Long Beach, Taiwan, Des Moines retreat; Tabroom UI and architecture redesign; hiring junior developer challenges

Reddit, Digg, and the Threadiverse (gary​.onl). Digg revival, Threadiverse explores Fediverse microblogging, Lemmy alternatives, and indie app ecosystems alongside Piefed and Blorp

Announcing FinFam (sedimental​.org). FinFam unveils collaborative financial planning platform with View marketplace, AI-assisted guidance, open-source models, and private by default collaboration

Ten Years Strong: Craft, Courage, Community (debliu​.substack​.com). Decade of Women in Product: craft, courage, and community amid AI-driven change and industry layoffs

This Company Eliminated All Managers and Turned Every Product Team Into a Profitable Startup (flowchainsensei​.wordpress​.com). Rendanheyi and Quintessence: autonomous product teams, internal markets, and market-driven software organisations

Dev Culture Is Dying The Curious Developer Is Gone (dayvster​.com). Curiosity-driven tinkering, old-school learning, and the shift toward metrics and ownership concerns in software culture

Popping the Filter Bubble (schembri​.me). Explores crossing into other tech ecosystems, challenging filter bubbles in Ruby, Rails, .NET, Blazor, JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Java, Kotlin, and Laravel

Ditch those words! (notes​.jim-nielsen​.com). Ditch those words across AI, UI, design, and tech culture from Mandy Brown to Rivers Cuomo with reflections on UX, legacy code, and collaboration

Collaboration as a Culture Builder: A Guide for Entrepreneurs (drews-review​.com). Entrepreneurs leverage SCALE framework, psychological safety, cross-functional teams, and predictive analytics to build a collaborative culture

🌻 are you high-agency or an NPC? (jasmi​.news). Silicon Valley vibe shift: high-agency vs NPC, AI anxiety, 'taste' culture, 996 work hours, and economic inequality in SF

Plan Slow, Act Fast (candost​.blog). Plan slow, plan thoroughly, identify smallest repeatable module, use prior data to anchor estimates, and build contingency via modularity

Feasibility vs Viability: A Product Manager’s Guide to Making the Right Call (aakashg​.com). Feasibility vs viability frameworks for PMs, with MVPs, NPV/IRR, and trade-off visualizations guiding governance

Solving impossible problems (aha​.io). Steps to solve seemingly impossible software problems: change constraints, prune edge cases, rethink solutions, regroup, and persist with communication

How to Target Non-Developers with Your Developer Product (everydeveloper​.com). How to reach developers, product managers, engineering leaders, and executives with depth-graded content for dev tools

“Not our biggest problem.” A painful startup lesson. (jasonevanish​.com). Lessons on urgency, customer problem prioritization, and founder enthusiasm in building a customer-driven SaaS with Product Arrow

Early stage enterprise product management, requirements and roadmaps (thomasotter​.substack​.com). Insights on enterprise product management in incumbents vs. startups, co-creation with Origin Benefits, AI data strategy, and customer advisory dynamics

On Being a Developer (articles​.pragdave​.me). Deliver value simply, avoid unnecessary tech, and focus on user leverage through clear communication and relationships

How tech companies measure the impact of AI on software development (newsletter​.pragmaticengineer​.com). How 18 tech firms measure AI impact on software development with metrics like PR throughput, Change Failure Rate, CSAT, and DX frameworks

[journal] Context and Trust, or: Test Suites Reflect Teams (v5​.chriskrycho​.com). Context and trust in test suites; scaling teams, linting, and cloud CI considerations for large apps like Stripe and 37Signals Basecamp/HEY

Operating Principles That Guided Me to Staff Engineer (Part 2: Expanding Influence) (read​.highgrowthengineer​.com). Guiding principles to expand influence: stay curious, engineer communication, nurture relationships, find third solutions, and be responsive

Forward Deployed Engineers (svpg​.com). Forward Deployed Engineers embed with customers to uncover problems, deliver outcomes, and accelerate product discovery using prototypes and platform services

Useful engineering management artifacts (bjorg​.bjornroche​.com). Collection of practical management templates and notes for growing teams, remote work, roadmapping, and hiring

Stop Hunting for Heroes and Villains: Start Thinking in Systems (chaoticgood​.management). Systemic thinking over agentic blame; metrics like DORA / SPACE / DevEx; Hawthorne Effect; Goodhart's Law; Cobra Effect; Deming principles; No-Stats All-Star concept; emphasis on governance and cultural glue

The common sense unit of work (blog​.nilenso​.com). Defines a 'unit of work' as the central abstraction in software lifecycle, stressing slicing, value, negotiability, context, acceptance criteria, and refactoring

How I Use LLMs to Write the Majority of My Code (boredhacking​.com). Staff engineer uses Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT to write less code and move faster, with prompts, debugging, and design focus

Brian (bex) Exelbierd: Day 2: Microsoft Hackathon — Distractions, Brainstorming, and Infrastructure (winglemeyer​.org). Distractions, brainstorming with ChatGPT, and SQLite-based MVP infrastructure for a Microsoft hackathon project

Rise of the Agent Engineer: Trunk Tools’ Bobby Vinson (arize​.com). Trunk Tools’ Bobby Vinson on AI agent use cases, evaluation, observability, and AX partnership in construction tech

Rucord - the vibe coded iOS app (fastchicken​.co​.nz). Explores using Amp, Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Stitch, and CI ideas to build RUCord, a NZ RUC recorder iOS app, via agentic coding

AI is good news for Australian and European software engineers (seangoedecke​.com). Australian and European engineers benefit from AI-assisted programming in a centaur-like model using Claude Code; peak-hour quantization and off-peak outsourcing implications

Employees, AI, and AI employees (slobodan​.me). Explores AI cofounders, AI employees, Wardley Maps, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, and the future of knowledge workers in software development

Lessons from the Solo Developer Using Modern Tools (blog​.kestrelsnest​.social). Solo Rails-to-SvelteKit rewrite using Claude Code, tests/docs generation, password migration, and specialized agents for audits

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