Anthropic is preparing for a blockbuster initial public offering that could raise $100 billion and value the five-year-old AI startup at $2 trillion, according to bankers pitching the deal to potential investors. The valuation would exceed that of Elon Musk's SpaceX. Source
Starcloud, an orbital data center startup, has raised $250 million as competition intensifies for access to space launch capacity. The company is betting that demand for computing infrastructure in orbit will grow as terrestrial launch options become scarcer. Source
The Department of Justice has been investigating Andreessen Horowitz for nearly a year over potential antitrust violations, deploying a rarely used 112-year-old law against the venture capital firm. The probe centres on board conflicts involving two a16z partners: Ben Horowitz sits on Databricks' board while Martin Casado sits on Fivetran's, companies that now compete with each other. Source
LinkedIn's "Seems like AI slop" button, introduced on July 30th, has been clicked over a million times, according to Hari Srinivasan, the platform's chief product officer. The button allows users to flag low-quality AI-generated content directly from the three-dot menu on posts. Source
TikTok has settled a Justice Department lawsuit alleging it illegally gathered children's personal information, agreeing to pay $400 million. The settlement resolves accusations that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected vast amounts of data on millions of users under a certain age. Source