Tootfinder

Things you can't buy in the USA
(and why)
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/things-you-cant-buy-in-the-usa-and

things you can't buy in the USA (and why)
it's more than cuban cigars!

BNPL lenders like Flex, Zip, and Affirm are now pitching loans for basic household needs; Americans spent $160B through pay-later loans in 2025, up 2x from 2023 (Stacy Cowley/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/buy-now-pay-later.html

‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Lenders Pitch Loans for Needs Like Electricity and Rent
The rapid growth of pay-later loans raises questions about whether their popularity is driven by consumer preference or desperation.

Buy Grow Sell
Each episode features real stories and expert conversations on the decisions, deals, and conditions that shape business outcomes...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/buy-grow-sell/

Young Raiders Fans Should Buy Stock in Moving Forward https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-young-fans-should-buy-stock-moving-forward

I want this in my life, but it will not be in my life until it is much cheaper. Also, it has yet to be independently verified that it’s legit and works and won’t blind you. But one can hope.
h…

Futuristic mosquito-zapping laser now available to buy, video shows device in action — tiny device shoots down bugs like a personal air defense system, but costs $1,000
Take my money!

Agent's Take: 2026 ultimate 53-man roster that's the best team money can buy

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/agents-take-2026-ultimate-53-man-roster/

Japan plans to buy 27,500 Nvidia Rubin chips to develop a domestic AI foundation model for robots, in a Noetra-led effort that includes SoftBank, Sony, and NEC (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-16/j…

You would be better off walking alone 😢
Jeff Bezos and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin buy minority stake in EPL giants Liverpool
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-15/epl-liverpool-jeff-bezos-and-eduardo-saverin-buy-stake/107…

Bezos consortium enters 'definitive agreement' to buy Liverpool stake
The world's fourth-most wealthiest person, Jeff Bezos, buys a minority stake in Liverpool along with a Facebook co-founder. 

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The job of management boils down to deciding where to invest company resources to maximize returns.
But saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else. Deciding what gets cut (and getting buy-in for those decisions) is hard! So instead they started agitating for "velocity" in a foolish belief that they would never have to prioritize one idea over another ever again.

Cant wait to use my Soneiums to buy vibes coded games for my Playstation!

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and seven Democratic House members write to the DOJ, calling for an impartial antitrust review of Fox Corp's planned $22B Roku acquisition (Etan Vlessing/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/…

Lawmakers Call For “Impartial” DOJ Probe of Fox’s $22 Billion Roku Buy
Democratic politicians, led by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Representative Becca Balint, raised concerns of “recent rubber-stamping of deals” that may violate antitrust laws and impede enforcement.  

RE: https://flipboard.com/@thenewsdesk/top-stories-in-celeb-mttno4aoz/-/a-LWlowFbCSp-leXV68KOv1Q:a:43591897-/0
Thievery like this is empowered by oligarchy. Rich people, willing to buy stol…

Just so you know, a T-Rex fossil is being auctioned off at Sotheby's today.
Just in case you have the spare cash.
And room in your yard or garage.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/natural-history/tyrannosaurus-rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex | Natural History including Gus Rex | Science |

Tyrannosaurus rex

Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian Stage (approx. 67 million years ago)

Hell Creek Formation, Harding County, South Dakota, USA

An outstanding exhibition-ready mounted skeleton, with a body length of approximately 38 feet, a skull length of 54 inches, a femur length of 50.39 inches (larger than that of Stan), and rising to 12 ½ feet tall, cementing “Gus” as one of the largest T. rex ever found. Gus is importantly a …

Visiting Utah’s Mighty Five National Parks, I’ve seen more than a few shirts with American flags on them. Most have some words that indicate a right leaning political bent.
I’d love to have a shirt with a flag image that makes it clear that I lean (far) left, without being a dick about it.
Anyone know where I can buy such a shirt? Anyone want to design one and put it up for sale? I’m happy to help with logistics, I lack graphic talent.
I don’t want to cede this emblem to …

Today advocacy groups active in the US and Canada are launching a new “Charmin Wipes Out Bears” and “Charmin Wipes Out Forests” online advertising campaign alerting consumers that the US-based company Procter & Gamble is destroying Canada’s boreal forests to make toilet paper. Campaign videos and social media posts feature a crying bear dispossessed of its habitat, a poop emoji narrating footage of the destruction of Canada’s boreal forests, and a talking butt repeating Charmin’s claim …

Home - charmin
To bears, it’s home. To Charmin, it’s toilet paper. https://charminwipesoutbears.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/beartears_1920x1080_prores-720p.mp4 Charmin toilet paper wipes out forests and destroys bird, bear, and caribou habitat Despite sustainability claims, P&G is using hundred-year-old trees in Canada’s boreal forest to produce their toilet paper and paper towels. You can make a difference: don’t buy Charmin (or Bounty!) Choose brands […]

Is no one reading the article? Bernie's proposal is for the government to seize ownership of 50% of these companies, not buy it. It's a wonderful idea. #USPol #UBI

escorts: Brazilian prostitution network (2010)
A bipartite network of escort and individuals who buy sex from them in Brazil, extracted from a Brazilian online community for such ratings. Edges represent a purchase of sexual intercourse with an escort, and the edge weight gives the buyer's rating of the escort: -1 (bad), 0 (neutral), or 1 (good). Other edge attributes are available. Edges are timestamped.
This network has 16730 nodes and 50632 edges.
Tags: Social, Publ…

Interesting, you can buy the OPA855YR (bare die version of the OPA855) from Digikey for a reasonable price in single units. I'm not used to KGD being available in anything but like full-wafer or other massive volume.
Not that I have any use for it, but cool to know.

The job of management boils down to deciding where to invest company resources to maximize returns.
But saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else. Deciding what gets cut (and getting buy-in for those decisions) is hard! So instead they started agitating for "velocity" in a foolish belief that they would never have to prioritize one idea over another ever again.

No amount of velocity can shield your team from opportunity cost
AKA "LLMs can't fix your shitty internal culture"

One of the best things in the National Geographic Magazines are the info graphics! I really like them - plus the great photos & stories of course as well.
And I just noticed that our local #library has the magazines as well! So even if I just want to read one article, I don't NEED to buy the whole magazine - NICE!
I just love

Three factors make the fascist threat very real.
1) The still serious electoral threat of the far right.
2) Megadonations from super-rich individuals “competing with each other to buy reactionary, racist influence in British politics” .
3) The link between the emerging far right and a global movement backed by the government of a great power, which has troops on our land, from which it launches bombing raids.
Big money, the far right and the US empire | Morning Star

Sources: Dassault Systèmes is in talks to buy drug trial software maker ArisGlobal from Nordic Capital for about $2B, extending its push into life sciences (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/72c335dd-11c9-4ba0-bd11-41414df06d97

RE: https://social.ridetrans.it/@Andres4NY/113626681357898120
Sadly I've only made 2 of them for the house (I need to buy more PC fans), but I still use these filters. Here's why.
Currently, the outside AQI in Forest Park near my house …

In the year 2026, it would be nice to be able to buy an off-the shelf drive with a hardware write-disable switch.
I once used SD memory cards for this, I but found out shortly after the switch is typically enforced only by the operating system (most readers and most chips do not enforce the switch setting).
#WriteDisabledDrive

"You cannot try to 'get the job'. Just go in there, have some fun and do your version of that part. 'This is what I'm selling. If you want to buy it, that's cool. Have some adjustments for me? That's fine, I'll make some adjustments, but this is basically what I want to do.' THAT'S the attitude, sort of 'f*ck it' attitude. Not f*ck you...but, f*ck it."
—Sam Rockwell

Do you actually buy stuff you see in ads? I never did, before I banished ads from my life years ago, anyway. Why is advertising such big business? Why is everything rammed full of ads now? I don't get it.

❤️

What motivates human behavior isn’t who we are, but the vivid mental image of who we could become. They called these ‘possible selves.’
https://saranpaixao.substack.com/p/people-dont-buy-who-they-are-they

People don't buy who they are. They buy who they want to become.
Why the most successful brands build against a muse, not a demographic

Chainalysis sues the US government over ICE's $94.6M contract to buy forensic software and services from its competitor TRM Labs, calling the deal "arbitrary" (Ezra Reguerra/Cointelegraph)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/chainalysi…

Chainalysis sues US over $95M ICE contract with TRM Labs
TRM has intervened in the procurement dispute, with responses due Aug. 21 and oral argument scheduled for Sept. 2.

Good to see: "The new rules will oblige public buyers in the EU to put more emphasis on quality and metrics such as environmental sustainability and local supply chains, rather than opting for the cheapest bid."
EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China

EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China
Authorities and public bodies to be urged to buy goods and services from Europe, but without binding quotas

Good to see: "The new rules will oblige public buyers in the EU to put more emphasis on quality and metrics such as environmental sustainability and local supply chains, rather than opting for the cheapest bid."
EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China

EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China
Authorities and public bodies to be urged to buy goods and services from Europe, but without binding quotas

Amazon adds a Shop tab to Prime Video's X-Ray feature for related products while watching shows, and Shop the Scene powered by Amazon Lens in the Shopping app (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/10/amazon-makes-it-easier-to…

Amazon makes it easier to buy what you see on Prime Video | TechCrunch
Amazon is expanding shopping integrations across Prime Video, letting viewers discover products tied to thousands of shows, movies, and live sports through X-Ray, its shopping app, and a new Lens-powered “Shop the Scene” feature.

Airtable sold for over a billion dollar
I don't imagine they will keep this generous free plan for a very long time now..
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/bending-spoons-to-buy-airtable-for-1-28b/

Should I get lower-quality items so that I can provide more of them within my budget, or better (more expensive) items (because everyone deserves better stuff) and not be able to buy as many?
Should I buy a bagful of a single item that food pantries have said they need, or a smaller quantity of a variety of items?
Should I get some interesting items that the food pantries probably don't receive many of, or stick with the basics?

While in Jamestown, NY, I hit the library (as one does on vacation). It was having a book sale. There was a rack of Amish romance (Jamestown is adjacent to lots of Amish country).
I was quite tempted to buy some. Especially this Amish retelling of “Sense and Sensibility.”
I just need to know!

Sources: Mercor and other firms gathering data for AI labs are driving demand to buy or license internal datasets from startups shutting down or being acquired (Alix Coutures/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/startup…

OpenAI, Anthropic Data Demand Turns Startups’ Slack Threads Into Prized Assets
Eight days after AI agent startup Warmly in late June agreed to be acquired by HubSpot, CEO Maximus Greenwald found an unusual email in his inbox. Mercor, a San Francisco startup that pays contractors to train AI models for labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, was offering to buy or ...

Buy this because it’s cool #art

Bob Iger, Joshua Kushner to buy Lakers from Mark Walter’s ownership group for $12 billion
Less than a year after Dodgers owner Mark Walter bought the Lakers for a record-breaking sum,
L.A.’s iconic NBA franchise is now being sold to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger for at least $12 billion,
-- $2 billion more than the reported number when Walter bought the team in October from the Buss family.
Joshua Kushner is the founder of venture capital firm Thrive Capital and younge…

Bob Iger, Joshua Kushner to buy Lakers from Mark Walter for $12.5 billion
Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger were eyeing an NBA expansion team bid in Las Vegas but pivoted to buying the Lakers from Mark Walter, who bought a controlling interest in the team last year.

Scoop: GOP super PAC jumps into Nebraska Senate race with $1.4M ad buy (Hans Nichols/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/15/gop-super-pac-jumps-into-nebraska-senate-race-with-14m-ad-buy
http://www.memeorandum.com/260915/p125#a260915p125

Uber agrees to acquire Delivery Hero in a deal that values the German food delivery company at ~$14.8B, offering €41.50 per share and buying out Prosus' stake (Edwin Chan/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

It's rather embarrassing that 'Silent Hill 2' on Steam has no deluxe upgrade, ngl.
It's either you buy the deluxe edition of the game or you are bound to the standard edition.

Just going into a local e-mail and internet bureau to buy some e-mails and internets.

Dallas Cowboys Nike Vomero 18 running shoes just dropped, how to buy https://www.usatoday.com/story/shopping/sports/fan-gear/nfl/2026/08/28/how-to-buy-dallas-cowboys-nike-vomero-18-running-shoes/91215471007/…

Three ways to "watch" the solar eclipse safely without glasses
#SolarEclipse2026

Three ways to watch the solar eclipse safely without glasses
With some shops running out of stock, it may be too late to buy eclipse glasses - but you can still safely watch the spectacle using some household items.

My haul from Waterstones this morning. I went specifically looking for Body Work so was delighted to find it. I didn't mean to buy the two other books. I was initially drawn in by the lovely covers, then the 'buy one get one half price' stickers. I've enjoyed many Japanese novels in translation, starting with The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki a few years ago.

American Growth Insurance, which aims to acquire struggling independent insurance firms and transform them using AI, raised almost $70M (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/07/15/agi-raises-70m-buy-transform-insuran…

2026 Dynasty Trade Targets: 8 Players I’d Buy or Sell Before Week 1 https://profootballmania.com/2026/08/10/2026-dynasty-trade-targets/

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Saw this 4 color eink display in a store showing gray. No obvious pixel half toning. So can they actually do controlled intensity of the pigment somehow within a pixel?
I've only worked with b/w and r/b/w eink but they were all boolean, i.e. a bit plane was on or off there was no gradient capability

I am skeptical of most get rich quick schemes, but there seems to be something to this one.

Raiders Drop 27 in Week 1, but Alarming Flaws Signal Danger Ahead https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/las-vegas-raiders/raiders-dolphins-kirk-cousins-red-flags/

Ari Emanuel's Mari agrees to buy British theater group ATG Entertainment from PE firm Providence, sources say in a deal valuing ATG at ~£4.5B including debt (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/hollywo

No, most will be incinerated.
Nearly as bad, what's wrong with a manual fan?
Britons to buy 8m mini fans this year – but almost half will end up in landfill | Retail industry | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/08/uk-mini-…

Britons to buy 8m mini fans this year – but almost half will end up in landfill
Shoppers urged to seek quality products or alternatives as data shows demand surpassing least year’s total

Trump begins major midterm spending with $10 million ad buy in Texas
As the final sprint to the election begins,
MAGA Inc. on Saturday filed an expenditure report with the Federal Election Commission
for $5 million in TV and digital advertising to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican Senate nominee,
and another $5 million to oppose his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico.


Republicans,
nervous about the tight …

Trump begins major midterm spending with $10 million ad buy in Texas
Republicans, nervous about the tight Senate race in the Lone Star state, hope Trump’s political war chest can boost GOP nominee Ken Paxton.

Sources: PayPal is in talks to sell itself to a group including Stripe and Advent, which proposed paying $60.50/share in July; PayPal is seeking a higher price (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/stripe-advent-in-talks-to-buy-pa…

I had a 14tb (enterprise) sata hard drive failing a few weeks ago. I bought it refurbished (it had already been used for about 6 years at that point), but with a 5 year warranty.
I thought for sure that when I RMA'd the drive, GoHardDrive would just refund my $140 and tell me to go buy another one at current market prices (hah). Because, y'know, the business model is likely built on drive prices getting cheaper over time.
I was pleasantly surprised that they sent me anoth…

' “You may not be able to sell cheese. Cheese has to be in a flexible film,” Quist said.'
Yes, no one could buy cheese before 1933, when the plastic in the original Saran wrap was invented. /S
And I, personally, have bought cheese that is not wrapped in plastic film.
I think what she means is "it's much easier for us to use film products that exist because we can use sacrifice zones like Cancer Alley to make those products"
(I've also been…

' “You may not be able to sell cheese. Cheese has to be in a flexible film,” Quist said.'
Yes, no one could buy cheese before 1933, when the plastic in the original Saran wrap was invented. /S
And I, personally, have bought cheese that is not wrapped in plastic film.
I think what she means is "it's much easier for us to use film products that exist because we can use sacrifice zones like Cancer Alley to make those products"
(I've also been…

Sources: Anthropic is in talks to buy Decart, which offers real-time generative video and GPU optimization tech, for about $6B (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-13/anthropic-said-in-talks-to-buy-ai-st…

Who are the Khoslas? Meet the family set to buy th... https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49358800/khosla-family-vinod-neeru-neal-san-francisco-49ers-seattle-seahawks

"You cannot try to 'get the job'. Just go in there, have some fun and do your version of that part. 'This is what I'm selling. If you want to buy it, that's cool. Have some adjustments for me? That's fine, I'll make some adjustments, but this is basically what I want to do.' THAT'S the attitude, sort of 'f*ck it' attitude. Not f*ck you...but, f*ck it."
—Sam Rockwell

Sources: China plans to let some of the country's major AI companies buy a small number of Nvidia's H200 chips to alleviate a domestic computing shortage (Qianer Liu/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/chi…

China Plans to Let Top AI Firms Buy Limited Amount of Nvidia H200 Chips
China plans to allow some of the country’s biggest AI companies to buy a small number of Nvidia’s H200 chips, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The chip purchase approvals would offset a shortage caused by soaring demand for AI chips. U.S. President Donald Trump gave ...

Charter receives final state approval to buy Cox for $21.9B after making concessions to California regulators, including low-cost internet for some households (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/chart

Even with the support of new emerging regulations,
independent researchers still face major barriers to accessing even basic social media data
essential for studying everything from election integrity to public health crises.
However, if you happen to be a commercial for-profit hoping to study social media,
there is a thriving, $100 million-plus market that freely trades this same data with very few restrictions.

Why Commercial Tools Can Scrape Social Media But Researchers Can't
Brandon Silverman explains how researchers face barriers to social media data under the DSA, while corporations can buy full access.

Sources: Apple is looking for chip companies to buy to boost its AI server chip efforts as it struggles with the performance of its servers running on M2 Ultra (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-hunts-ai-chip-acquisitions
…

Apple Hunts for AI Chip Acquisitions
Apple is on the lookout for acquisitions of chip companies to boost its efforts to build server chips for running AI, said people familiar with the company’s efforts. In recent months, the iPhone maker has talked with bankers about possible deals. It has also approached semiconductor startups to ...

Is it possible to buy an Intel XHCI controller as a PCIe expansion card, or are they only available in the southbridge/chipset?

Niners part owner agrees to purchase Seahawks https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49337716/khosla-led-group-agrees-buy-seahawks-sources-say-96-billion

Amazon adds a Shop tab to Prime Video's X-Ray feature for related products while watching shows, and Shop the Scene powered by Amazon Lens in the Shopping app (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/10/amazon-makes-it-easier-to…

Amazon makes it easier to buy what you see on Prime Video | TechCrunch
Amazon is expanding shopping integrations across Prime Video, letting viewers discover products tied to thousands of shows, movies, and live sports through X-Ray, its shopping app, and a new Lens-powered “Shop the Scene” feature.

HTC Vive Eagle smart glasses review: useful controls, lightweight, and focused on privacy, but inessential, expensive at $499 , and imaging needs to improve (Daniel Cooper/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/2257186/htc-vive-eagle-review/

HTC Vive Eagle review: Pricey smart glasses that fail to impress - Engadget
HTC's pricey Vive Eagle smart glasses are a credible alternative to Meta, but you'll still struggle to find a reason to buy a pair.

Apparently, $2.1 billion doesn't buy a clear view: Bills fans discover major problem with new stadium

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bills-new-stadium-obstructed-views-fan…

Grab agrees to acquire a 60% stake in Singapore-based BNPL platform Atome from Advance Intelligence Group and others for $1.49B; Atome had $470M in 2025 revenue (Olivia Poh/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Q&A with veteran media reporter Peter Kafka on the unbundling of Comcast and NBCUniversal, Versant's future, YouTube, net neutrality, Hollywood's fate, and more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/podcast/962994/co

Comcast is breaking up with NBCU. Why did it ever buy it in the first place?
Business Insider’s Peter Kafka on Comcast splitting off NBCUniversal and why the dream of content plus pipes never works.

Sources: Silver Lake is in talks to acquire HR and financial management software maker Workday, which has a market value of ~$43B; WDAY jumps 18% (Milana Vinn/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/silver-lake-talks-buy-workday-sources-say-2026-08-13/

Trumpism is the lowest stage of imperialism.
“We’re not going to invade Greenland. We’re going to buy it,”
Donald Trump reportedly told the annual black-tie dinner on 1 February of the private Alfalfa Club,
an assemblage of prominent Washington figures, a number of whom he had publicly humiliated,
and others he was investigating or suing.
“It’s never been my intention to make Greenland the 51st state. I want to make Canada the 51st state.
Greenland will…

Trump’s clash with Canada is his latest imperialistic embarrassment
The president’s chaotic schemes of aggrandizement, from Venezuela to Iran, have no larger rationale

Sources: Stripe recently entered exclusive talks to buy OpenRouter in a cash-and-stock deal that would value the startup for close to $10B (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/exclusive-stripe-exclusive-…

Exclusive: Stripe in Exclusive Talks to Buy Startup OpenRouter for Around $10 Billion
Stripe recently entered exclusive talks to buy OpenRouter in a cash-and-stock deal that would value the startup for close to $10 billion, according to people with knowledge of the discussion. This step means OpenRouter has effectively taken itself off the market while the companies negotiate price and other details to finalize a transaction. Terms of the deal could still change or it could

If you buy a T-shirt at Gap, it will have a label that tells you where it was made. That’s federal law.
The same is true for automobiles, appliances, television sets, every fresh or frozen fruit and vegetable sold at the supermarket.
Beef and pork are notable exceptions to these laws.
And that may help to explain why President Trump signed a proclamation last month that will allow the duty-free importation of about 660 million pounds of inexpensive beef.
If American co…

Opinion | Why Did Trump Order Up 660 Million Pounds of Mystery Meat?
On second thought, I’m not that hungry.

Analog Devices agrees to buy privately held Alif Semiconductor, which makes low-power AI processors, for $1.35B in cash, with contingent payments up to $200M (Anhata Rooprai/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/analog-devices-buy-alif-s…

The UAE gained broader US AI chip access after aiding the US in the Iran war, letting G42 buy freely for at least nine months; G42 plans to become a US company (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/uae-

Vera Rubin NVL72 inference tests show up to 7x better token throughput per MW vs. Blackwell on a 1.6T DeepSeek model, above Huang's 3x claim for 1T-3T LLMs (Bryan Shan/SemiAnalysis)
https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/vera-rubin-nvl72-agentic-inference…

Rubin NVL72 Agentic Inference: 67x better Performance per Dollar
Jensen Sandbagging Performance Again, 2x more Annual Profit Per GigaWatt, The More you Buy, The More you Earn, AgentX, InferenceX, Extreme Co-Design

A look at iLands, a company that's like Fiverr for agents, which email annoying and unsolicited pitches to people, usually for services costing ~$25 (Ernie Smith/Tedium)
https://tedium.co/2026/09/11/ilands-agents-email-spam-kaixin-tang/

The Worst Spam Emails: Inside iLands' AI Agent Hustle
iLands, a new AI agent-centric startup, is spamming creatives like me numerous times a day. What do its agents want? My job. Why? They need to buy more tokens.

Sources: Stripe and PE firm Advent International have jointly offered $60.50/share to acquire PayPal, a 28% premium to Tuesday's close, valuing it at $53B (Milana Vinn/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/s

Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, its second-biggest purchase after it paid $20B for Groq assets at the end of last year (Ari Levy/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/nvidia-agrees-to-buy-hugging-face-for-almost-13-billi…

Hugging Face approached Nvidia’s Huang weeks ahead of $12.9B acquisition, CEO tells CNBC
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that with Hugging Face, the chipmaker will "expand access to AI for developers and institutions worldwide."

Google agrees to buy 100% of the initial output from the Steel River Energy Center's 1.6GW solar project in Arkansas when it becomes operational in 2029 (Martha Muir/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/e9db6384-b295-4ab2-96bf-55025db9ee1d

Source: Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidia-agrees-buy-open-source-model-repository-hugging-face-12-9-billion

Nvidia Agrees to Buy Open Source Model Repository Hugging Face For $12.9 Billion
Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face, a company known for its GitHub-like repository of open-source AI models, for $12.9 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement. The move will put Nvidia in charge of a strategic asset in the race among open-source model developers to ...

Charter receives final state approval to buy Cox for $21.9B after making concessions to California regulators, including low-cost internet for some households (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/chart

Sources: Salesforce has been in talks to buy Listen Labs, an AI-powered customer research platform for $2B; Listen Labs was valued at $500M earlier this year (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-acquire-ai-startup-listen-labs-2026-9…

Salesforce has been in talks to buy AI startup Listen Labs
Salesforce has had talks to acquire Listen Labs, an AI startup that provides marketing research to brands, for around $2 billion.

Bending Spoons agrees to acquire Miro in an all-cash transaction valuing the workplace-collaboration platform at $1.36B (Sonia Sirletti/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-10/bending-spoons-agrees-to-buy-w…

Elon Musk says SpaceX has decided to "build exclusively on Nvidia because we think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture" (Shubhangi Goel/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-will-only-buy-from-nvidia-20…

SpaceX and Nvidia are taking their relationship exclusive
On SpaceX's earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk said that his company was committed to buying graphics processing units from Nvidia only.

Sources: SoftBank is in talks to buy a majority stake in humanoid robot maker 1X at a $6B valuation; 1X sought $1B at a $10B valuation in 2025, but raised <50% (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/softban…

SoftBank in Talks to Buy Majority Stake in Humanoid Maker 1X at $6 Billion Valuation
SoftBank is in talks to buy a majority stake in 1X Technologies, an OpenAI-backed humanoid robot developer, in a deal that would value the startup at about $6 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The investment would buttress SoftBank’s robotics ambition. The investment would ...

Sources: Baidu's chip unit Kunlunxin Technology plans a Hong Kong IPO at a $50B target valuation, asking investors to buy chips worth 3-7x their IPO investment (Qianer Liu/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/baidus-chip…

Baidu’s Chip Unit Asked IPO Investors to Buy Its Semiconductors
In China, chip companies may have found a new clientele for their semiconductors: IPO investors. Kunlunxin Technology, an AI chip firm majority owned by search engine company Baidu, is planning to go public in Hong Kong at a target valuation of $50 billion, according to a person who participated ...

Source: Nvidia has been in talks to acquire Hugging Face for more than $13B; Microsoft also met with Hugging Face, but talks are not ongoing (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-in-talks-to-buy-hugging-face-13-billion-dollars…

Nvidia has been in talks to buy Hugging Face for more than $13 billion
Nvidia has held talks to acquire Hugging Face for more than $13 billion as the chip giant expands its AI dealmaking.

Microsoft says the price of Xbox consoles will increase on August 1 by $100 for 512GB models and $150 for 1TB models, the third price increase since 2025 (Kenneth Shepard/Kotaku)
https://kotaku.com/xbox-price-increase-2026-tariffs-buy-now-pay-later-2000710565…

Xbox Is Increasing Console Prices For A Third Time
Microsoft is increasing the prices of Xbox Series consoles once more and introducing a 'Buy Now, Pay Later' option

Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal agree to sell payments company Moneris to PE firm Francisco Partners for CA$2B in cash, splitting proceeds equally (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-10/f…

eToro agrees to acquire US-focused online brokerage TradeZero for up to $231M in cash and stock; TradeZero had ~$80M in revenue over the 12 months ended June 30 (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/news/business/2026

Sources: the AI-driven memory chip shortage kicks off a rush of DC lobbying; many US officials appear unsympathetic to Apple's desire to buy Chinese chips (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/technology/memory-chip-shortage-ai.html

A.I.-Driven Chip Crunch Leads to New Rush of Lobbying in Washington
As data centers gobble up memory chips, other industries that need the components, including electronics companies like Apple and medical device makers, are asking for government help.

Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings agrees to acquire Bitbank, a top 10 Japanese crypto exchange by trading activity, for ~$289M, set to close in October (Jamie Crawley/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/06/

Japanese giant SBI Holdings to buy Bitbank for $289 million
SBI said the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, is set to close in October.