Richard Nieva

How Instagram’s Cofounder-Turned-Anthropic Product Chief Is Cracking The Enterprise AI Code Claude Code Is Anthropic’s Gateway Drug To The Enterprise

I chatted with Anthropic’s Mike Krieger about the company’s enterprise strategy. He said Claude usage is sticky: 60% of business customers are using more than one Claude product. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Vibe Coding Startup Lovable In Talks To Raise At $6 Billion Valuation The Stockholm-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to code apps and websites for its users is in talks to raise a new round at triple its last valuation from just four months ago.

Scoop from @iainmartin.bsky.social, @rashis.bsky.social and me: Swedish vibe-coding startup Lovable is in talks to raise at a $6 billion valuation. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...

Some tidbits from the story: Taylor said he pored over the decision to join OpenAI as chairman, worried it would take time away from building Sierra. But he felt “indebted” to OpenAI for what ChatGPT did for the AI market.

And here’s Zuckerberg on not trying to poach Taylor:

Inside OpenAI Chairman’s $10 Billion AI Customer Service Startup Sierra Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor had leadership roles at the world's biggest tech companies. Now they’re in the startup trenches, using AI agents to help companies interact with their customers.

New: I profiled Sierra, the $10B AI customer service startup from Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, which wants to make AI agents the primary way businesses interact with customers. For the piece, I talked to their old bosses, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

These 22-Year-Olds Are Now The World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaires With a new $10 billion valuation for their AI recruiting startup Mercor, the founders are the youngest tech billionaires since Mark Zuckerberg’s debut at age 23.

New: With Mercor’s new fundraise and $10 billion valuation, its founders become the world’s youngest self-made billionaires at age 22, younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he hit that status at age 23 two decades ago. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

TikTok Won’t Say If It’s Giving ICE Your Data Changes to TikTok's policies make it easier for the company to share users’ personal information with governments. TikTok did not respond to questions about the changes.

New from me: TikTok ignored repeated questions about whether and how they share data with ICE. Also, earlier this year, they quietly updated their policies about what happens when law enforcement asks for your data. 1/

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

Lonely Seniors Are Turning To AI Bots For Companionship The AI boom has brought with it a new crop of startups looking to build a business on an urgent but vaguely dystopian idea: solving loneliness among the elderly.

New: We interviewed elderly people who are chatting with AI bots in nursing homes and at home to combat loneliness. “[The calls are] not about anything that's really important, but it gives me something to do,” one senior said. With @rashis.bsky.social
www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...

How AMD’s AI Software Helped It Score The Multi-Billion Dollar OpenAI Deal Chips aren’t the only star of the massive agreement. AMD’s software efforts have slowly turned it into a more formidable competitor to Nvidia.

I chatted with AMD’s senior vice president of AI about the company’s massive deal with OpenAI, and how AMD’s software efforts played a part in scoring the agreement.
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

This was all found in hundreds of emails obtained via public records requests for comms between various police departments and Amazon's law enforcement and school safety lead, an ex-cop himself.

Yes, Amazon has also been pushing AI surveillance at schools.

Grafana Labs Is Cleaning Up On The Vibe Coding Boom With a client list that includes Nvidia, Anthropic and Uber, the $6 billion-valued Grafana Labs is flexing with $400 million in annualized revenue — and new investment from a tender offer of up to $15...

New: Grafana Labs, which helps companies monitor their data and internal systems, has hit $400 million in ARR and closed a tender offer of up to $150 million.
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

My TikTok book is out in stores today!

Why should you read it? Because 1 in 5 Americans now get their news from this thing. We should all understand how it works.

It was inevitable that strongmen would seek to control a tool this powerful. The book is the story of what happened when they did.

Will TikTok’s Parent Company's Other Apps, Be Saved, Or Banned? U.S. law requires a ban of CapCut, Gauth, Lemon8, Coze, and many other ByteDance- owned apps, unless they are sold in the TikTok deal that President Trump announced today.

Just checkin in about the fate of CapCut and a bunch of other apps that millions of Americans use

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee Is A Gift To European AI Startups Hiring foreign workers just got more expensive for American tech companies. But that’s opened up new recruiting opportunities for non-U.S. AI startups.

We chatted with European startup founders who think Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee could be a boon for the region: “We almost say thank you to Trump, in a way. He’s really helping us keep our talent.” With @rashis.bsky.social
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Databricks Is Launching An Accelerator To Fund Early AI Startups After announcing a billion-dollar fundraise last week, the $100 billion AI data storage and analytics company is barreling ahead with new investments and plans for an eventual IPO. “It’s not an if, it...

New: Databricks is launching a startup accelerator for seed and pre-seed companies, offering up to $250,000 to startups in the form of funding and credits
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Bizarre AI Generated Anti-Trump Videos Are Getting Billions Of Views On YouTube Violent slapstick videos that glamorize dictators and dunk on Trump have become some of the most watched political content on YouTube in 2025.

Friends, let me introduce you to a new, truly wild genre of YouTube vids

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

AI’s Next Job? Recruiting People To Train More AI Mercor, debuting on the Forbes Cloud 100 list, built an AI recruiter to interview job candidates. Then it discovered a cash cow: finding humans to train AI models.

I profiled Mercor, which is gunning to make a move in AI data training, especially after Meta’s deal with Scale AI. “It just doesn't happen too often in startups where your biggest competitor gets torpedoed overnight,” Mercor’s cofounder says. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Forbes Cloud 100 2025 List - Largest Cloud Computing Companies Ranked The tenth annual Forbes Cloud 100 list ranks the top private cloud computing companies — this year dominated by AI.

For our 10th annual Cloud 100, AI is unsurprisingly dominant. OpenAI and Anthropic took the top two spots, and Cursor parent Anysphere made a strong debut in the top 10. www.forbes.com/lists/cloud1...

Intel Worked With Chinese Firms Sanctioned For Enabling Human Rights Abuses As the U.S. government takes a 10% stake in Intel, Forbes has learned the tech company partnered with sanctioned Chinese surveillance firms Uniview, Hikvision and Cloudwalk.

Intel has been touting partnerships with sanctioned Chinese surveillance firms as Trump announces that the USG is taking a stake in the company:

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

Anthropic Is Letting Social Workers From Hundreds Of Government Agencies Use Its AI For Paperwork The AI juggernaut is working with Founders Fund-backed startup Binti in its first foray into government social work.

New: Anthropic is making its first foray into government social work, partnering with a Founders Fund-backed startup called Binti to provide social workers with AI tools for paperwork. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Elon Musk’s Self-Driving Tesla Lies Are Finally Catching Up To Him For nearly a decade Elon Musk has claimed Teslas can truly drive themselves. They can’t. Now California regulators, a Miami jury and a new class action suit are calling him on it.

NEW: For nearly a decade Elon Musk has claimed Teslas can truly drive themselves. They can’t. Now California regulators, a Miami jury and a new class action suit are calling him on it #autonomousvehicles #tesla www.forbes.com/sites/alanoh...

Why China Is Dunking On The Trump Administration's New TikTok Account In a scathing editorial, the CCP reiterated that it will not let TikTok’s parent company sell its signature algorithm. What would a TikTok without that algorithm be?

China Daily is out with a scathing editorial gloating about the Trump Admin joining TikTok — and saying the CCP isn't gonna let ByteDance sell the For You algorithm go anytime soon.

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

Inside Google’s Plan To Use AI To Survey Americans On Their Political Views A collaboration between the tech giant and a longtime pollster will gather five to 10 people each from every congressional district to answer questions about the nation’s most pressing issues. If it w...

Google is working with longtime pollster Scott Rasmussen and his Napolitan Institute on a project to use AI to survey Americans from every congressional district. It could be “revolutionary” for political polling, Rasmussen says. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

How Meta Lost Its Way With AI Talent At Meta, a chaotic culture and lack of vision have led to brain drain, with rivals saying its AI talent is lackluster. But Zuckerberg’s frenzied hiring spree hasn’t stopped the departures.

Meta has seen a significant brain drain among its AI talent in recent years, largely due to a chaotic culture and lack of vision, ex Meta AI employees told Forbes. Even amid a hiring spree, Meta continues to lose AI researchers. With @richardnieva.bsky.social.

www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...

How Meta Lost Its Way With AI Talent At Meta, a chaotic culture and lack of vision have led to brain drain, with rivals saying its AI talent is lackluster. But Zuckerberg’s frenzied hiring spree hasn’t stopped the departures.

New: Meta has been on a spending spree, but its talent pool has become an afterthought for some of its biggest rivals. Google has hired less than 2 dozen AI people from Meta since last fall, compared to the hundreds it hired overall. With @rashis.bsky.social
www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...

GPT-5 Users Mourned The Passing Of OpenAI's GPT 4o When OpenAI released its new flagship GPT-5, it said it would discontinue its older 4o model, popular for its warm writing style. Devoted users were devastated before OpenAI quickly reversed course.

New: When OpenAI announced GPT-4o was being discontinued (before reversing course today) power users were devastated. “It was very sudden. I cried,” a user who created a Change.org petition told me.

www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Fear Of AGI Is Driving Harvard And MIT Students To Drop Out AGI — a theoretical AI that can do many of the same tasks as humans can — could come within a decade. College students, including from elite universities, are abandoning school now to work full-time o...

AGI might come soon. I talked to students who have dropped out of college now because of it: www.forbes.com/sites/victor...

Scoop: Cognition is in talks to raise north of $300M at a valuation of $10B, more than doubling its value from March. The startup had just announced its acquisition of Windsurf after its founders joined Google. With @RashiShrivast18 and @_IainMartin
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

You’re Not Imagining It: AI Is Already Taking Tech Jobs Since the rise of generative AI, many have feared the toll it would take on the livelihood of human workers. Now CEOs are admitting AI’s impact and layoffs are starting to ramp up.

I wrote about layoffs due to AI and automation. Fiverr’s CEO, who sent a memo to employees about AI coming for jobs, told me he wrote it after hearing chatter around the office. "I felt like this needed validation from me — that they aren’t imagining stuff."
www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

Uber Is Making A Push In Data Labeling After Scale AI’s Deal With Meta The ride-haling giant, which unveiled a data-labeling platform late last year, thinks it can out-muscle the smaller rivals jockeying for position after Scale’s tie-up with Meta.

New: After Scale’s deal with Meta, Uber is making a push by expanding the services of the data labeling unit it launched late last year. “We do see an opportunity to build this into a meaningful business line for Uber,” the unit’s GM told Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/richar...

TikTokers Say They Trolled Trump’s Birthday Parade By Reserving Tickets They Didn’t Use TikTokers Say They Trolled Trump’s Birthday Parade By Reserving Tickets They Didn’t Use

Over the past 48 hours, TikTokers — and BlueSkiers, Threaders, and even Twitterers —  took a cue from 2020 K-Pop stans and reserved tickets to a trump rally they weren't gonna use.

www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...