Tootfinder

"People are trying BPC-157 and TB-500 for healing injuries by stimulating new blood vessel growth, oxytocin for improving eye contact (one OpenAI researcher called it “Ozempic for autism”), epitalon for sleep and retatrutide — a next-generation weight-loss drug still in clinical trials — for everything from appetite suppression to increased focus."

‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World
The gray-market drugs flooding Silicon Valley reveal a community that believes it can move faster than the F.D.A.

Tech analyst Dan Wang reflects on the Chinese Communist Party vs. Silicon Valley, AI and manufacturing, and how China and the US are building the future (Dan Wang)
https://danwang.co/2025-letter/

2025 letter | Dan Wang
Corgis, compute, Cold War; Ecclesiastes; ties; Stendhal; humor; Pascal's Wager; deep infrastructure; Germanic obedience; Texas State Fair

(LinkedIn) #Paradromics: "A #BCI capable of capturing and delivering rich neural signals could stream visual information directly to the cortex, bypassing external displays and generating experiences indistinguishable from the physical world."

#bci #technology #biotech #augmentedreality #virtualreality #arvr #braincomputerinterfaces | Paradromics
Our daily mission is to restore independence for those living with severe motor impairment. But as our CEO Matt Angle and CSO Reema Khan (Green Sands Equity) discuss at the OPEN Silicon Valley Annual Forum, the long-term potential of high data rate BCIs extends even further.   A #BCI capable of capturing and delivering rich neural signals could stream visual information directly to the cortex, bypassing external displays and generating experiences indistinguishable from the physical world.   …

🗜️ The Silicon Valley Stack Doesn’t Work Here: Why Africa Will Lead the Post-Bloat Web
https://paulallies.medium.com/the-silicon-valley-stack-doesnt-work-here-why-africa-will-lead-the-post-bloat-web-e7c34b577c61

The Silicon Valley Stack Doesn’t Work Here: Why Africa Will Lead the Post-Bloat Web
For years, we’ve followed the global tech narrative: Bigger is better. We import heavy-duty JavaScript ecosystems from the US, implicitly…

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 ...

Fascinating illustration of the number of surveillance cameras we interact with.
https://apnews.com/photo-essay/chinese-surveillance-silicon-valley-tech-photo-essay-2da6d9ae5c29d973955e761fa42f7798

Photo essay shows how AP photographers captured infrared technology used in surveillance
When you unlock a phone, step into view of a security camera or drive past a license plate reader at night, beams of infrared light - invisible to the naked eye — shine onto the unique contours of your face, your body, your license plate lettering.

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. ...

Ricursive, founded by ex-Google researchers to automate advanced chip design, raised $335M from Sequoia, Radical, Lightspeed, and others at a $4B valuation (Cade Metz/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/technology/recursive-ai-ricursive.html

Silicon Valley Wants to Build A.I. That Can Improve A.I. on Its Own
Ricursive Intelligence, founded by two former Google researchers and valued at $4 billion, is among several efforts to automate the creation of artificial intelligence.

Tech workers in Silicon Valley are increasingly experimenting with gray-market peptide drugs from China, legal for personal use, for improving focus and more (Jasmine Sun/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/bus…

‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World
The gray-market drugs flooding Silicon Valley reveal a community that believes it can move faster than the F.D.A.

Sequoia, a16z, and other VC firms invested $1.2B into police and public safety tech startups over the past year, following the success of Palantir and others (Abram Brown/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/a

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Add to $1.2 Billion Funding Boom for Police Tech Startups
Over the past year, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and many of Silicon Valley’s other top venture capital firms have funneled at least $1.2 billion in funding to startups selling technology to city police departments and local public safety agencies. Those companies illustrate the technology industry’s growing enthusiasm for making software and hardware for the government and law