Tootfinder

Day 8 (a bit late): Timnit Gebru
Academic authors are authors too, and there are a bunch of people I deeply respect both in my fields and adjacent.
Gebru is someone I have huge respect for because she stood up for her (mild, completely reasonable) principles to the point of losing her job on Google's AI ethics team (since disbanded entirely), and then went ahead and founded an independent research institute to continue doing AI ethics research.
Why was she fired? Because she insisted on publishing her "Stochastic Parrots" paper after it passed Google internal review only to have extra nonstandard scrutiny applied at the last minute. Why did Google want to suppress her paper (which included an academic co-author)? Because it expressed valid criticisms of the large language models fad, and Google was planning to make money off that fad. Personally, I don't think I'd hire an "AI ethics" team only to then try to suppress their publications, and Google seems to now agree, having scrapped the team (during the initial furor, Timnit's boss also effectively quit to support her).
That "Stochastic Parrots" paper? Indeed, it predicts the core underlying problems with large language models that lead to so many of their user-side harms today. You can read it here: #20AuthorsNoMen

Source: HR software company Gusto paid ~$600M to acquire Guideline, which offers 401(k) plans to SMBs; Guideline raised $340M and had a $1.15B valuation in 2021 (TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/01/sources-g…

Sources: Gusto paid $600M to acquire Guideline, plans to divest customers linked to rivals | TechCrunch
While the HR tech Guideline was last valued at $1.15 billion, the sale will likely yield a profit for most investors.

Acer zeigt das erste Notebook mit Intels Panther Lake
Das Swift 16 AI kommt in den nächsten Monaten mit dem Core Ultra 300. Das besonders leichte Swift Air 16 setzt dagegen auf Ryzen.
https://www.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Goat Girl:
🎵 Cracker Drool
#GoatGirl
https://goatgirl.bandcamp.com/track/cracker-drool
https://open.spotify.com/track/4Vc73PwaWJh5sHqBM4BKOa

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #RoundMidnight
Awen Ensemble:
🎵 Agor
#AwenEnsemble
https://open.spotify.com/track/4osgEPZwVxU4WSbaK5hC3O

The Bari Market -- With Paramount securely in his pocket, David Ellison is on the verge ... (Dylan Byers/Puck)
https://puck.news/david-ellison-set-to-acquire-the-free-press/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250903/p170#a250903p170

Microsoft says it agreed to give the US GSA $6B in potential savings on Office, Azure, 365, and other tools over three years, including $3.1B in the first year (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/microsoft-offers-us-…

Microsoft offers U.S. government over $6 billion in savings on cloud services over 3 years
Microsoft is the latest company to discount the cost of its software to the General Services Administration.

Lambda announces a multibillion-dollar agreement with Microsoft for AI infrastructure powered by Nvidia chips; the specific deal value was not disclosed (Jaures Yip/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/03/lambda-ai-microsoft-nvidia.html

Lambda, Microsoft agree to multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure deal with Nvidia chips
The new infrastructure with Microsoft will include the NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 systems, which are also deployed by hyperscaler CoreWeave.

Varonis Systems agrees to acquire email security company SlashNext for up to $150M, including retention awards, after buying database company Cyral for ~$25M (Emily Forgash/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025…

Acer unveils the $3,999 Veriton GN100 AI Mini Workstation with a Nvidia GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip to run AI models locally, its first Mini AI workstation (VideoCardz.com)
https://videocardz.com/newz/acer-unveils-verit…