Tootfinder

Sources: Databricks is raising $5B and expects sales to grow 55% this year, putting its post-money valuation at $134B, as AI costs squeeze gross profit margins (Cory Weinberg/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/datab…

Databricks Boosts Sales Forecast, Driving Valuation to $134 Billion
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi has been more vocal than other Silicon Valley executives about the dangers of an AI bubble. His company’s new $5 billion round of fundraising, at a higher valuation than ever, epitomizes the risks and rewards of the boom: While sales are growing faster than forecast, AI ...

The January wildfires that ripped through Los Angeles forced the state to spend billions in disaster aid
-- and delay tax filings for LA residents.
The cost of Medi-Cal,
the state-run health insurance program for low-income residents, ballooned to $6 billion more than anticipated.
Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policies rocked the stock market,
which California heavily relies on for tax revenue.
And the state lodged a flurry of lawsuits again…

Your one-minute guide to California’s budget outlook this year
Spoiler alert: California’s deficit grows, uncertainty looms, and state leaders may have fewer options than before to tackle it.

xAI rolls out Grok Imagine 1.0, which it says can generate 720p 10-second videos with better audio, and says Imagine generated 1.245B videos in the past 30 days (@…)
https://x.com/xai/status/2018164753810…

xAI (@xai) on X
Introducing Grok Imagine 1.0, our biggest leap yet. 1.0 unlocks 10-second videos, 720p resolution, and dramatically better audio. Imagine has generated 1.245 billion videos in the last 30 days alone. Try it now: https://t.co/zGhs9czkC5

Different Corners II ▶️
不同的角落 II ▶️
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Fujifilm NEOPAN SS, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

Sources: bids for GroqCloud, Groq's AI inference platform, are expected to exceed $1B after Nvidia's $20B non-exclusive licensing agreement with Groq (Kate Clark/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/nvidia-

Sources: Nvidia's licensing deal with Groq, which has raised ~$1.8B, includes payouts to Groq's key execs and investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidia-struck-20-billion-megadeal-gro…

Why Nvidia Struck a $20 Billion Megadeal with Groq
Nvidia stunned Silicon Valley on Wednesday by agreeing to pay about $20 billion to license technology from Groq, one of the best-funded startups trying to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in chips for powering AI applications, known as inference computing, according to a person involved in the deal. ...

Disruptive CEO Alex Davis says Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq for $20B in cash; leaked email: Jensen Huang says Nvidia is not acquiring Groq (David Faber/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-g…

Exclusive: Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq for about $20 billion in its largest acquisition on record
Nvidia is making its largest purchase ever, acquiring nine-year-old chip startup Groq for about $20 billion.

Different Corners ▶️
不同的角落 ▶️
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Fujifilm NEOPAN SS, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

Five months after the Trump administration stripped $8 billion in U.S. foreign aid from the world,
a Sudanese National Army helicopter bombed a hospital, pharmacy and market in a remote village of South Sudan known as Old Fangak.
Situated in a deep pocket of grassy swampland formed by floodwaters from the Nile that haven’t receded for five years thanks to climate change,
Old Fangak was home to thousands of internally displaced South Sudanese women and children
— inclu…

Trump Cut Their Lifeline. Months Later, They're Still Fighting Like Hell To Survive.
A small organization powered by the people who need it most has found a way to save lives abandoned by the Trump administration.

Silicon Valley, drunk on exponential curves and both terrified and entranced by endless funding rounds,
has given us the "Hero Developer":
a figure who ships features at midnight,
who “moves fast and breaks things,”
who transforms whiteboard scribbles into billion-dollar unicorns through sheer caffeinated will.
We celebrate this person constantly.
They're on the front page of TechCrunch et al.
They keynote conferences.
Their G…

The Rime of the Ancient Maintainer
Every culture produces heroes that reflect its deepest anxieties. The Greeks, terrified of both mortality and immortality, gave us Achilles. The Victorians, haunted by social mobility, gave us the self-made industrialist. And Silicon Valley, drunk on exponential curves and both terrified and entranced by endless funding rounds, has given us