Today, we're taking a look at tech companies becoming war targets, layoffs in fintech, prediction markets, and why OpenAI has regained the global AI lead. #
Monday. To close out last week, ** CO** did a little blogging with one of our
[favorite VCs](https://x.com/ttunguz). Check it out
[here](https://www.cautiousoptimism.news/open-weights-local-inference-and-first-party-hyperscaler-models-confront-frontier-labs/).
Today, we’re taking a look at tech companies becoming war targets, layoffs in fintech, prediction markets, and why OpenAI has regained the global AI lead. To work! — Alex
📈 Trending Up #
Zoox! …missing the (generational) boat…Onyx Security, claiming 4x revenue growth in four months…government meddling in enterprise AI…stealing American equity…supporting the Yen…public corruption…EU compute…fintech dealmaking?
Financial data and earnings: Here’s the roster of financial data dropping this week:
- U.S. manufacturing PMI was released today ( here); - Job openings and factory order data on Tuesday;
- We’ll get ADP employment results for July on Wednesday;
- Thursday brings initial jobless claims and productivity updates; and
- Friday will bring us employment data for July.
On the earnings front, today we’ll hear from Palantir, Grab, Snap, Voyager Technologies, Backblaze and Ibotta. On Tuesday, we can look forward to SpaceX’s results, alongside numbers from AMD, Arista Networks, Spotify, EA, Astera Labs, Coupang, Toast, Lattice Semiconductor, Pinterest, DigitalOcean, Hut 8, ViaSat, Hinge Health, Qualys, Workiva, Wix, Freshworks, Marqeta, BlackLine, Talkspace, and Nextdoor.
Got all that? And then on Wednesday, we get to pore over results and commentary from Sandisk, Western Digital, Shopify, Uber, AppLovin, DoorDash, eBay, Block, GlobalFoundries, Figma, IonQ, and Amplitude. Thursday will bring data from Cloudflare, Datadog, Airbnb, Twilio, Roku, Unity, Instacart, and JFrog.
Hell yeah. Data time!
Tech becomes a target in war: The U.S.-Iran war saw the latter nation strike Amazon’s digital infrastructure in the Middle East, which at times took certain AWS zones offline.
For a war that felt far-off for many American companies — apart from the supply chain and energy price implications — Iran’s decision to put U.S. corporate assets under the hammer was notable. Iran’s not the only small country being attacked by a larger nation employing this strategy. Ukraine — yes, I know it’s a very different war — is employing a similar strategy to destroy Russian tech assets. Especially Wildberries, the largest Russian e-commerce company.
Starting in mid-July, Ukrainian drones have hammered Wildberries’ facilities, leading to fires and casualties. It’s also caused plenty of chaos in Russian consumer supply lines. Destroying the infrastructure of life (shopping, fuel and the like) has become a key Ukrainian tactic to try and force Russia out from inside its borders.
- The idea is to make the war real for citizens far from the frontlines.
The July 18 strikes on Wildberries facilities (in Kotovsk, Moscow) were quickly followed by more strikes on July 20, the 22, the 23, the 24, and nearly every day since. The AP counts a total of 16 Wildberries facilities attacked through the end of July, and the number seems to have risen by two in August.
Low-cost drones are how war is waged in 2026, and with data centers filled with billions of dollars worth of gear, you can see where this is leading. Asymmetric warfare thrives on low-cost wins, and trading drones for the stability of online computing systems is one hell of a bargain.
- How long until American tech companies invest in anti-drone defenses for their overseas installations?
- Amazon may have its own army in time. Neat.
[📉](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/servicenow-pledges-1-5bn-investment-110000403.html) Trending Down
[📉](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/servicenow-pledges-1-5bn-investment-110000403.html)
US GDP growth…power in Cuba…oil production growth in Venezuela? …Flock’s public rep…our shared cybersecurity…the US government’s lead in regulating AI…hiring junior staff…
Having a career in fintech: Following Robinhood’s decision to lay off about 10% of its staff, Visa followed with a 7% cut. Now, Chime is cutting 10% of its own workforce, worth about 150 jobs, saying it is doing so because AI is “changing what’s possible but requires new skills.” The company reports earnings this week.
As we’ve heard from other companies taking the axe to people’s livelihoods, Chime thinks that “smaller teams with fewer layers [move] faster than ever and [are] getting more done.” The very industry that keeps shouting that AI-predicated job loss is a myth keeps cutting staff and affixing either the “AI-driven labor efficiencies” (fewer staff needed) label, or “the desire to build smaller teams to take advantage of AI acceleration” (fewer staff needed) label to job cuts.
As far as I can see, they are the same answer explained from different directions.
- Block cut thousands of jobsearlier this year;Mastercard did, too, and Coinbasegot busy with the shears. As didKraken,Rapyd,BoltandLuno. - If I worked for a fintech company, I’d keep the resume updated.
Not gambling: When Robinhood reported earnings, we wrote that its prediction-market incomes were growing material, rising 10x in the quarter to $156 million. Coinbase, which reported earnings more recently, had similar notes to share: its prediction markets revenue rose 106% in its most recent quarter, to a run-rate (annualized) of more than $100 million.
This is why every company wants to offer prediction markets. People love gambling! Sure, some users employ prediction contracts to hedge risk, but I would hazard most folks are not. They are hedging against their net worth going up, if you will.
U.S. states are fighting back, from Utah to New York to Nevada. Entrenched gambling interests are up in arms over the competition (rent seeking), while some states merely want to limit gambling opportunities for their citizens, period (morality policing).
- It’s telling that DraftKings CEO and co-founder Jason Robins told investorsthat “most consumers can’t tell the difference between” sports betting and prediction markets (it offers both).
OpenAI reclaims the global AI lead #
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