Russell Brandom

if you accept the gift, ppl will assume you're in the pocket of Big Lube

way ahead of you, ishmael

OpenAI raises $110B in one of the largest private funding rounds in history | TechCrunch The new funding consists of a $50 billion investment from Amazon as well as $30 billion each from Nvidia and SoftBank, against a $730 billion valuation.

The topline is the $110 billion figure for obvious reasons, but it’s unclear how much cash OpenAI is getting from Amazon and Nvidia here, if any. techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/o...

Great news for xAI: Grok is now pretty good at answering questions about Baldur’s Gate | TechCrunch A new report from Business Insider reveals that high-level engineers at xAI were pulled off other projects to make sure Grok could answer detailed questions about the video game "Baldur's Gate."

I’ve created a test to see how good different models are at giving Baldur’s Gate advice.

I call it BaldurBench.

techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/g...

I have some major questions about that doctrine

I think AI appeals to Paul Schrader because he sees it as a way for lonely men to isolate themselves, confessing their innermost thoughts as they gradually go insane. That’s his whole deal!

SpaceX's Starbase city is getting its own court | TechCrunch Elon Musk's company town already has a volunteer fire department, and is forming a Starbase Police Department. Now it wants its own court, too.

Elon Musk's company town already has a volunteer fire department, and is forming a Starbase Police Department. Now it wants its own court, too.

The flood of merge requests has gotten so bad that open-source developers are building new tools to manage it. Earlier this month, developer Mitchell Hashimoto launched a system that would limit GitHub contributions to “vouched” users, effectively closing the open-door policy for open-source software. As Hashimoto put it in the announcement, “AI eliminated the natural barrier to entry that let OSS projects trust by default.”

AI coding tools have resulted in a flood of low-quality merge requests to open-source software projects, making some developers rethink the whole structure of OSS techcrunch.com/2026/02/19/f...

@groktr.bsky.social is this true

An interesting observation about Elon Musk (on Dwarkesh/Cheeky Pints), from the latest @thezvi.bsky.social thezvi.substack.com/p/on-dwarkes...

Somehow, Strom Thurmond returned

what a beautiful cat

It’s this endless feedback loop of self-radicalization built around some of the most toxic personalities I’ve ever encountered. It would be nice to talk about politics without being in a blizzard of seething hatred and abuse all the time!

Never has a combination of names been both so exciting and so mystifying

People really stereotype rhinos based on the horn. They're more than just a horn!

Musk needed a new vision for SpaceX and xAI. He landed on Moonbase Alpha. | TechCrunch "I really want to see a mass driver on the moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space."

So stoked to have @timfernholz.com onboard to help tackle Musk madness

techcrunch.com/2026/02/12/m...

Why the economics of orbital AI are so brutal | TechCrunch A 1 Gw orbital data center would cost roughly $42.4B—almost three times its ground-bound equivalent.

A great rundown from @timfernholz.com on the orbital data center idea -- and why it will be very hard for Elon to make it work techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/w...

omg let them have this

*Green card application in process and work permit, married to US citizen
*Lived in US for 20 years, no criminal record
*In detention for five months with no charge, despite judge approving release
*He disputes ICE claim that he signed forms agreeing to deportation

woke culture wants you to think Ian Malcolm is Colombian

Billionaires march leader ID'd, says effort sincere Startup founder not billionaire, but supports them.

Billionaire disenfranchisement is a real and serious problem, but a movement of non-billionaires is not the answer. We need to be elevating voices from *within* the billionaire community. www.sfexaminer.com/news/technol...

Ah yes, the two genders

A very good passage from Vineland on the ecstatic potential of collective civil disobedience.

"There was no telling, in those days, who might unexpectedly change this way, or when."

With respect to trans folks, I'm just not sure the FBI needs a hormone replacement therapy division

Meta burned $19 billion on VR last year, and 2026 won’t be any better | TechCrunch The reported financial losses follow a series of layoffs at the VR unit.

$19 billion here, $19 billion there — pretty soon you’re talking about serious money techcrunch.com/2026/01/28/m...

I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

This development would've been extraordinary, especially coming from Chief Judge Schiltz, even *before* last week's contretemps over DOJ's (now-dropped) attempt to strong-arm him into signing arrest warrants for the other five Cities Church protestors.

Schiltz isn't just talking about *this* case.

Are AI agents ready for the workplace? A new benchmark raises doubts. | TechCrunch New research looks at how leading AI models hold up doing actual white-collar work tasks, drawn from consulting, investment banking, and law. Most models failed.

A new benchmark shows how far AI agents still have to go before they’re ready to take over knowledge work techcrunch.com/2026/01/22/a...

An interesting milestone in AI reporting: The NYT used open-source image classification algorithms to estimate the scale of Grok's sexualized imagery problem www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...

I haven't said anything about elections, focus groups, or public opinion. But if you're doing politics, these distinctions matter.