For Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, there’s little doubt that parts of the A.I. industry are in a bubble. The harder question, he says, is figuring out which areas are fueled by hype and which truly have the potential to be transformative.

“There are parts of the A.I. ecosystem that are probably in bubbles,” Hassabis said during a recent episode of Google DeepMind: The Podcast. He pointed to the soaring valuations of nascent startups as a particular red flag, noting that companies landing “tens of billions of dollars valuations just out of the gate” are probably not sustainable.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Hassabis doesn’t put DeepMind, co-founded by him in 2010 and still led by him following Alphabet’s 2014 acquisition, in this category. When it comes to investment from Big Tech, he said, “there’s a lot of real business underlying that.” A.I., in his view, is “overhyped in the short term and still underappreciated in the medium to long term.”

Hassabis’ confidence is rooted in firsthand experience, particularly in science. Last year, he won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, an A.I. system that predicts protein structures. He also leads Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary focused on applying A.I. drug discovery.

Still, Hassabis is clear-eyed about how far the technology has to go, especially when it comes to advanced milestones like AGI. Today’s systems can deliver Ph.D.-level performance in some areas, even earning honors like gold medals from the International Mathematical Olympiad, while still making basic errors. Closing those inconsistencies is essential, he said. “We’ve got to close those gaps.”

Beyond pushing toward human-level intelligence, Google DeepMind is focused on building so-called world models—systems that understand not just language, but the physical world itself. Through products like its Genie systems, the lab is working on A.I. that can grasp how objects move and interact. That kind of physical understanding, Hassabis said, is crucial for advances in robotics and universal assistants.

World models could also reshape gaming, a longtime passion of the Google DeepMind CEO. Hassabis began his career as a video game programmer, later founding Elixir Studios, a games development company, and serving as lead A.I. programmer at Lionhead Studios. Physical A.I., he suggested, could one day enable “the ultimate game—which of course, was maybe always my subconscious plan.”

Today, Hassabis is one of a small group of leaders shaping the future of A.I. He describes himself as friendly “with pretty much all of them,” referring to fellow tech executives—a level of harmony that isn’t universal in the field. “Some of the others don’t get on with each other.”

Those cordial relationships don’t erase the competitive pressure. Google is racing alongside competitors like OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic to achieve AGI, a contest that has unleashed a wave of investment reminiscent of the dot-com boom. “It’s hard, because we’re also in the most ferocious capitalist competition there’s ever been.”

Company perks can range from commuter benefits and free meals to on-site gyms and pet insurance. At Ken Griffin’s Citadel and Citadel Securities, they also include a program that encourages employees to join nonprofit boards, backed by personal gifts from Griffin himself. The initiative provides nonprofits with checks of up to $20,000 when Citadel employees take on board roles, as first reported by Bloomberg. Griffin’s funding helps cover board donations and is paired with additional resources, including governance training and nonprofit matching.

“Our people are driven to make a difference,” said Julia Quinn, Citadel’s director of philanthropy, in a statement to Observer. “By empowering employees to engage more deeply in their communities and giving them the tools and resources to do it well, we are developing the next generation of civic leaders and strengthening organizations and communities over the long term.”

Citadel’s Community Leaders program, launched last year, has already attracted more than 350 sign-ups and is expanding beyond the U.S. to Citadel’s global offices. To date, Griffin has committed more than $10 million to support the effort.

While the program is designed to encourage employees to deepen their civic and philanthropic engagement, it also addresses a persistent challenge for nonprofits: recruiting active, fundraising board members. More than 70 percent of nonprofit leaders say they struggle to get board members to participate in fundraising, according to a 2024 report from NonProfit PRO.

The initiative adds to Griffin’s long track record of philanthropy. The Citadel founder, whose net worth is estimated at $50.5 billion, has donated more than $2 billion over the past few decades to causes spanning education and medicine. His largest gifts include $500 million pledged to Harvard University, a joint $400 million donation to Memorial Sloan Kettering alongside fellow billionaire David Geffen, and $15 million to the National Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.

The charitable interests of Citadel employees span universities and local community organizations focused on health, the arts, and anti-poverty efforts. Nonprofits that have benefited from the Community Leaders program include Mount Sinai, the New York Piano Society, Serpentine Galleries, Minds Matter NYC, Lotus House and Harlem Lacrosse.

Griffin’s direct financial involvement makes the program relatively unusual, but Citadel is not alone in using workplace perks to spur philanthropy. Other corporations have rolled out benefits to support employees’ nonprofit involvement.

Microsoft and Apple, for example, match employee donations up to $15,000 and $10,000, respectively. Both companies pledge $25 for every hour an employee volunteers. Chevron allows staff to apply for $500 grants for every 20 volunteer hours served, in addition to offering a matching-gifts program.

Chai Discovery, a San Francisco-based startup backed by OpenAI, is the latest drug discovery company to benefit from a flurry of investments at the intersection of health care and A.I. In its latest funding round, the company raised $130 million to accelerate the development of new drugs. The Series B round, announced today (Dec. 15), was co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst. It brings Chai Discovery’s total funding to more than $225 million and more than doubles its valuation to $1.3 billion.

Other participants included OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Menlo Ventures. Yosemite, the oncology-focused venture firm founded by Steve Jobs’ only son, Reed Jobs, also joined the round, along with Emerson Collective, the investment firm led by Laurene Powell Jobs.

Founded in 2024, Chai Discovery is led by CEO Josh Meier, a computer scientist who formerly worked at Facebook (now Meta) and OpenAI. The company aims to use A.I. to turn biology from a descriptive science into an engineering discipline. Chai released its latest model, Chai-2, which can design novel antibodies to target disease.

Chai Discovery plans to deploy the new capital to expand its commercialization efforts while accelerating research and product development. “We’re in awe of the rate of progress on the models—what looked like five-year problems just months ago are now getting solved in weeks,” Meier said in a statement.

Chai Discovery is one of a growing number of drug discovery startups drawing intense interest from Silicon Valley. As enthusiasm builds around A.I.’s potential in health care, prominent tech leaders are backing ventures at a rapid clip. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has invested in Formation Bio, while LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman launched his own drug discovery startup earlier this year, Manas.

Among the most well-funded companies in the space is Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary spun out of Google DeepMind in 2021. Led by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the company raised $600 million in March in its first external funding round. The capital is aimed at advancing its ambition to use A.I. to help cure many of the world’s diseases.

That optimism has been matched by a surge in investment. Venture funding for seed- through growth-stage A.I.-powered health tech companies has reached $10.7 billion this year, according to data from Crunchbase, representing a more than 24 percent increase compared to the $8.6 billion raised in all of 2024.

Meier is confident the spending will pay off. “We’re standing on the precipice of a new era for the biopharmaceutical industry,” he said, adding that A.I. models “will unleash a new wave of first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutics, and the early adopters in pharma will be the big winners.”

The integration of A.I. into the workforce has fueled widespread fears of job displacement, as workers across industries worry their roles could eventually be replaced by the technology, but those concerns have done little to slow its adoption in U.S. offices. The share of American workers using A.I. “a few times a year” reached 45 percent in the third quarter of 2025, up from 40 percent in the prior three-month period, according to a Gallup survey of more than 23,000 employed U.S. adults.

Employees who use A.I. are  also turning to it more frequently. The proportion using the technology a few times a week or more rose from 19 percent to 23 percent over the same period, while daily use increased from 8 percent to 10 percent.

Adoption varies significantly by industry. A.I. is most prevalent in knowledge-based roles, Gallup found, with more than three-quarters of workers in technology and information systems using it a few times a year or more. More than half of those in finance and professional services reported similar usage.

Meanwhile, rates fall sharply among frontline workers. Just 38 percent of manufacturing employees, 37 percent of health care workers and 33 percent of retail workers said they use A.I. on a regular basis.

The sectors adopting A.I. the fastest are also those facing the greatest labor risks. Earlier this year, Stanford researchers found that early-career workers aged 22 to 25 saw a 13 percent decline in jobs for roles most exposed to the technology, such as coding and customer service, while employment in occupations like nursing remained steady.

The most common use of workplace A.I. is consolidating information or generating ideas, according to the Gallup survey, with more than 40 percent of respondents citing those applications. Other frequent uses include learning new things, automating basic tasks, identifying problems and interacting with customers.

Chatbots are by far the most popular A.I. tool in the U.S. workforce, with more than 60 percent of workers naming them as their primary option. A.I. writing and editing tools came in second at 36 percent, followed by coding assistants and image, video and audio generators.

Despite growing individual use, many employees remain unclear about their employers’ A.I. strategies. Around 23 percent of surveyed workers said they don’t know how their companies are implementing A.I. This group represents nearly half of the employees who are already using A.I. several times a year, suggesting many are adopting A.I. tools without clear insight into their employers’ broader plans.

Lululemon is searching for a new leader as it navigates an increasingly crowded athleisure market, tariffs and renewed criticisms from its founder. Calvin McDonald, the company’s longtime CEO, will step down next year, the company announced yesterday (Dec. 11) along with its latest quarterly earnings release.

Shares of the Canadian retailer, down 44 percent this year, jumped by more than 10 percent today following the news and a stronger-than-expected earnings report for the August-October period. Lululemon beat analyst estimates on both revenue and profit, with sales rising 7 percent year-over-year to $2.6 billion, while net income fell 13 percent to $307 million.

“The timing is right for a change,” McDonald said during Lululemon’s earnings call. He will exit at the end of January and stay on as an advisor through March as the board begins its search for his successor.

In the interim, CFO Meghan Frank and Chief Commercial Officer André Maestrini will serve as co-CEOs, while chairwoman Marti Morfitt will assume an expanded role as executive chair.

McDonald took the helm at Lululemon in 2018 after leading Sephora’s Americas division. Under his leadership, Lululemon more than tripled its annual revenue, but in recent months, growth has slowed amid intensifying competition from activewear brands like Alo Yoga and Vuori.

The company expects sluggish sales to continue into the holiday season. It forecast net revenue of $3.5 billion to $3.58 billion for the final three months of 2025, below Wall Street expectations.

Tariffs cost Lulumen $210 million in 2025

Lululemon is also grappling with the effects of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy and the termination of the ‘de minimis’ exemption, which previously allowed for goods valued under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. Lululemon said it expects tariffs to cut its profit by $210 million for the year, with this figure rising to $320 million in 2026.

McDonald’s tenure was defined in part by a rapid global expansion that pushed Lululemon into more than 30 geographies and made China its second-largest market. But sales in its largest market, the U.S., have begun to slip. American revenue fell 2 percent last quarter, compared to a 33 percent jump in international sales.

Looking ahead, the next CEO will be tasked with executing a three-part turnaround plan focused on product creation, improving in-store and online experiences and boosting enterprise efficiency. “We believe these priorities position us well for the near term and will continue to set Lululemon up for long-term sustainable growth,” he told analysts.

McDonald’s departure comes after renewed public criticism from founder Chip Wilson, who launched Lululemon in 1998. In October, Wilson bought a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal accusing the CEO and board of presiding over a “loss of cool,” comparing the company’s trajectory to “a plane crash.” Wilson resigned as the retailer’s chairman in 2013 after making controversial comments about customers’ bodies.

Wilson escalated his critique today. “I am deeply concerned about what appears to be a tremendous failure by the board to competently plan for the future and manage an effective succession process,” Wilson said, denouncing the board as one that has failed “to deliver product innovation and instead has led with complacency.”

Justin McLeod, the founder and CEO of Hinge, tore his company down a decade ago and rebuilt it after realizing the dating app was engineered for engagement rather than genuine connection. Now, ten years later, McLeod says he’s had another revelation—but instead of overhauling Hinge, he’s channeling it into an entirely new venture.

McLeod’s next venture, an A.I.-powered dating company called Overture, will prompt his immediate departure as Hinge’s CEO. He will be replaced by Jackie Jantos, the company’s current president and chief marketing officer.

McLeod acknowledged that technological developments risk harming relationships as users increasingly turn to chatbots instead of human companionship. “A.I. should always stand behind us, not between us,” he said in a blog post announcing Overture. His new company aims to use the technology to create something “less like a social platform” and “more like the experience of working with an all-star personal matchmaker.”

McLeod and a small team within Hinge have been building the project for about a year. The standalone company has support from Match Group, Hinge’s parent company, which participated in Overture’s pre-seed financing, plans to lead its initial funding round early next year and will hold a substantial ownership stake. Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff will also join Overture’s board.

“We’re proud to have incubated Overtone within Hinge and to now lead its funding round as he builds his next venture,” said Rascoff in a statement. “With a strong foundation and leadership team in place, Hinge is poised for its next chapter under Jackie’s leadership.”

Hinge gets a new leader

Jantos, who formerly worked at Spotify and Coca-Cola, joined Hinge in 2021 and has served as president since March. Her tenure has been marked by Gen Z-focused initiatives like “No Ordinary Love,” a campaign highlighting successful Hinge couples through ads, a Substack and a zine.

As she assumes the CEO role, Jantos will oversee Hinge’s ongoing integration of A.I. The company has rolled out numerous features that use the technology to boost personalization and improve safety. Earlier this week, Hinge introduced a new A.I. tool designed to help users start conversations with each other.

Despite industry-wide challenges in online dating, Hinge continues to grow. Match Group, which also owns Tinder and OkCupid, reported a 5 percent year-over-year decline in paying users in its most recent quarter. But Hinge remains a standout, with paying users up 17 percent.

Hinge will be advised by McLeod through March to ensure a smooth transition. “The company’s momentum, including being on track to reach $1 billion in revenue by 2027, gives me full confidence in where Hinge is headed,” McLeod said, calling his work building the platform “the privilege of my life.”

If Doug McMillon’s reign at Walmart was defined by digitalization, the retail giant’s next chapter under incoming CEO John Furner is set to be dominated by A.I. “When you see somebody who’s ready to run the next lap better and faster than you are, it’s time to hand the baton and get out of the way,” McMillon, who will step down early next year, said on CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday (Dec. 9) after the company moved its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq to align itself with the tech-heavy index.

“Walmart’s changed a lot, and we’re trying to make sure everyone knows it,” said McMillon.

McMillon joined Walmart more than 40 years ago and has served as CEO for roughly a decade. His tenure has been marked by a sweeping e-commerce transformation and major internal investments in wages and development programs. Walmart’s shares increased more than 300 percent during his leadership. Still, the executive insists he simply got lucky. “I drew an ace off the deck.”

The outgoing CEO said he realized it was time to step aside after recognizing that commerce’s next phase will be agentic. “I could start this next big set of transformations with A.I., but I couldn’t finish it,” said McMillon.

Those transformations aim to overhaul the shopping experience with A.I. at the core. Walmart plans to replace its traditional app and website with A.I.-native platforms that are personalized and filled with multimedia content that, in some cases, could even resemble TikTok, according to McMillon. Early pieces of that strategy are emerging in Sparky, Walmart’s A.I. assistant, which offers custom recommendations, compares options and synthesizes customer reviews.

As he steps into the role, Furner will inherit a company that has expanded its e-commerce muscle enough to compete effectively with Amazon. In its most recent earnings report, Walmart beat expectations on both sales and profit, posting a 4.8 percent year-over-year revenue increase to $180 billion.

Much of that growth stems from Walmart’s broad appeal across income groups. Once seen primarily as a haven for bargain hunters, the retailer has recently drawn more affluent shoppers as even wealthier households look for deals in a strained economy. Its core middle- and lower-income customers remain a steady force, though inflation has created “pressure at the bottom end,” McMillon noted, pointing to rising grocery prices as a particularly “sticky problem.”

As for McMillon’s next chapter, he hasn’t settled on a plan yet. He said that it will likely involve some combination of business and philanthropy. For now, though, he’s looking forward to a “blank calendar” for the foreseeable future.

Jensen Huang’s months-long charm offensive in Washington seems to be paying off. President Donald Trump is granting Nvidia permission to sell the H200 GPU, its second-most powerful A.I. chip, to China, reversing a Biden-era ban. The decision came after months of lobbying from Huang, who had been pushing to regain the company’s foothold in its largest overseas market.

“I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow Nvidia to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong national security,” said Trump in a Truth Social post yesterday (Dec. 8). Similar approvals will be granted to AMD, Intel and other U.S. chipmakers, said the President.

Nvidia was previously only allowed to sell the H20—a special GPU designed to comply with U.S. export rules—to China. H200 is six times more powerful than H20, according to a recent report from the Institute for Progress, and significantly outperforms GPUs made by Chinese chipmakers.

Nvidia has been facing trade blockage on both sides. Sales of the H20 were blocked by the Trump administration earlier this year, and the ban was later lifted. Chinese regulators have since moved to restrict those imports, and Beijing will also impose limits on H200 sales, according to the Financial Times. Chinese buyers will have to go through an approval process requiring them to explain why domestic suppliers can’t meet their needs.

The H200 remains less powerful than Nvidia’s latest Blackwell generation or its upcoming Rubin chips. Those top-tier products are not part of the China deal, Trump said, describing the H200 approval as one that will still “support American jobs, strengthen U.S. manufacturing and benefit American taxpayers.”

Nvidia welcomed the move. The decision “strikes a thoughtful balance,” the company said in a statement. “We applaud President Trump’s decision to allow America’s chip industry to compete to support high-paying jobs and manufacturing in America.”

But critics argue the policy undercuts U.S. national-security interests. “It is difficult to see how this move will benefit national security, on the one hand, or technological competitiveness,” said Larry Ward, a national security law expert with Dorsey & Whitney LLP, in a statement that suggested the U.S. “may be a little too late on both fronts.”

Trump’s approval also appears to contain a transactional component. The chip sales will see “$25 %” paid to the U.S., said the president, without clarifying what revenue figure that percentage applies to. This summer, the administration floated a similar deal in which Nvidia would have given the U.S. 15 percent of its China H20 revenue. The deal failed to materialize.

The announcement caps months of successful lobbying by Huang, who has argued that Chinese A.I. companies should be required to build on American technology rather than alternatives. The CEO has spent much of 2025 shuttling between Washington and Beijing in an effort to win support. China represents a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia that Huang said will grow at 50 percent annually. In August, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress estimated the company could generate $2 billion to $5 billion per quarter from H20 sales alone if restrictions eased.

For now, Huang appears to have secured at least part of what he wanted. He and Trump met in Washington as recently as last week to discuss export controls. The Nvidia CEO is a “smart man,” Trump told reporters following the meeting.

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, is celebrating his 73rd birthday by giving his fortune away. The entrepreneur is the latest signee of the Giving Pledge, a campaign urging the ultra-wealthy to donate the majority of their net worth to charity. Ringing in his birthday earlier this month caused Newmark and his wife Eileen to decide “it was time to firmly announce my intentions,” he told Observer over email. “Also, I figured that might inspire other folks to pony up some dough.”

Newmark is best known for launching Craigslist, which started out as a mailing list in the 1990s before growing into the popular classifieds website beloved for its utilitarian layout. Since stepping away from Craigslist in 2018, Newmark has largely shifted his focus to philanthropy, steadily giving away his wealth to causes including veteran support, cybersecurity, journalism and even pigeon rescue.

By signing the Giving Pledge, which was established in 2010 by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, Newmark joins more than 250 wealthy philanthropists, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman.

In a LinkedIn post, Newmark pointed out that the pledge is often dubbed the “Billionaire’s Pledge.” He insisted he’s never been a billionaire himself, “particularly after I gave away all my Craigslist equity to my charitable foundation.”

Newmark said his pledge was inspired by the teachings of his Sunday School teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Levin, and by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. He also framed it as a continuation of his 1999 decision to monetize Craigslist “as little as possible.” His limited monetization strategy, which involves charges for only a small set of posts, meant turning down an estimated $11 billion from bankers and venture capitalists looking to capitalize on the site.

Even so, Craigslist’s success still made Newmark a wealthy man. He has since funneled much of that money into philanthropic causes aimed at protecting America, donating or pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations working in areas like cybersecurity defense and veteran support.

He’s also a major backer of trustworthy journalism, supporting independent newsrooms and journalism schools such as the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The school was renamed in 2018 after receiving a $20 million donation from Newmark, who promised another $10 million last year.

And then there are the birds. A longtime avian enthusiast, Newmark is particularly fond of pigeons and earlier this year gave Palomacy, a pigeon rescue in Northern California, its largest-ever donation: a $30,000 gift. Newmark and his wife Eileen even nicknamed their favorite neighborhood pigeon “Ghost Faced Killer” and frequently chronicled his adventures on social media. The bird, which has since passed away, “now looks down at us from Pigeon Heaven,” Newmark told Observer.

Looking ahead, Newmark is especially eager to expand his work combating online scams. Alongside launching the PauseTake9 campaign, which urges people to take a nine-second pause before downloading or sharing information, he supports the Global Anti Scam Alliance and the Global Signal Exchange. Earlier this month, the latter received a $1 million pledge from him.

“I’ve been quietly fighting scams for over 25 years,” said Newmark. “Time to get serious.”

Hinge wants users to skip the small talk. Instead of opening with a generic “Hey,” the dating app today (Dec. 8) launched an A.I. feature designed to help users start more interesting conversations. Known as Convo Starters, the new tool pulls from a match’s profile to suggest personalized opening lines. A photo of someone playing soccer, for example, might inspire a prompt about post-game celebrations. The tool reflects Hinge’s broader effort—shared by many dating apps—to embrace A.I. carefully without turning off daters wary of too much automation.

“We’ve heard from daters that not knowing what to say can hold them back from sending a comment at all,” said Jackie Jantos, Hinge’s president, in a statement. “With Convo Starters, we’re easing that pressure.”

Hinge says the feature was inspired by research showing how much first impressions matter. Around 72 percent of daters are more likely to consider someone who sends a message alongside a like, the company found. Early testing of Convo Starters boosted users’ confidence, with more than a third saying they felt more comfortable reaching out to matches.

Hinge, founded in 2011, was one of the popular dating apps blamed for creating a “dating apocalypse,” a term coined in 2015 that led its founder, Justin Mcleod, to rethink the purpose of social media.  

Still, not everyone is thrilled by A.I.’s expanding role in online dating. Gen Z users, in particular, are less comfortable than older generations with using A.I. to draft prompts or craft replies, according to a recent survey by Bloomberg Intelligence. Half of the respondents said they didn’t need the technology to create profiles or communicate with matches.

Amid rising demand for authentic interactions, dating apps risk making the experience “easier but, at the same time, more superficial, more shallow,” Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor at Arizona State University who studies technology’s role in dating, told Observer.

Hinge emphasized that Convo Starters are optional and that A.I. won’t write messages itself—only suggest topics users can build on.

A.I. already powers a variety of other features at Hinge, including its recommendation system, coaching tools and safety features that remove accounts engaging in inappropriate behavior.

Other dating apps have also embraced the technology. Tinder—like Hinge, owned by Match Group—is testing an A.I. tool that scans a user’s camera roll to suggest the strongest profile photos. Grindr offers an A.I. “wingman” for tips, while Bumble uses A.I. to detect and blur explicit images on the app.

The industry is navigating a delicate balance as A.I. becomes more prominent. While icebreaker tools like Convo Starts “can be really helpful,” they could also heighten concerns about deception if daters over-rely on A.I. to communicate, according to Sharabi.

“It’s a really pivotal moment in the industry,” she said. “They have to figure out how are we going to embrace this, and how are we going to integrate it,  without having this just completely destroy the experience to where no one can trust anyone anymore.”

Meta is acquiring Limitless, the maker of a wearable A.I. pendant that records, transcribes and provides feedback on conversations. The deal comes as Meta, which has been spending heavily on A.I. in recent months, expands further into the wearables market. “We’re no longer working on a weird fringe idea. We’re building a future that now seems inevitable,” said Dan Siroker, CEO of Limitless, in a blog post announcing the acquisition on Dec. 5. The startup didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Founded in 2020, Limitless is best known for its $99 pendant that uses A.I. to listen to a user’s everyday conversations and provide personalized insights. The startup has raised more than $33 million from backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

“We’re excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables,” said Meta in a statement to Observer.

Siroker framed the acquisition as one that will support Meta’s growing focus on A.I.-enabled wearables, which the company has elevated through an internal restructuring. Earlier this year, Meta split its A.I. initiatives into four departments dedicated to hardware products, infrastructure, long-term research and superintelligence—a form of A.I. more capable than humans.

Meta is already developing a range of wearables with EssilorLuxottica, the company behind Ray-Ban and Oakley. In the future, those without A.I.-integrated glasses will face a “significant cognitive disadvantage,” Zuckerberg claimed in July.

The company’s smart glasses efforts fall under its Reality Labs division, which added a new executive last week: Alan Dye, the former head of Apple’s user interface design team. Dye will reportedly oversee design across Meta’s A.I.-integrated devices.

“Our general view is that we want to build these out to reach many hundreds of millions or billions of people,” Zuckerberg said of Meta’s wearables strategy during Meta’s most recent earnings call in October. “That’s the point at which we think that this is going to just be an extremely profitable business.”

Big Tech embraces A.I. hardware

Earlier this year, Amazon purchased Bee, the startup behind a $50 A.I.-integrated bracelet that transcribes a user’s daily activities and provides summaries. Google parent Alphabet has embraced A.I.-integrated glasses through a partnership with Warby Parker, while China’s Alibaba is also pursuing smart glasses.

Consumer reactions to these products have been mixed. Friend, a startup creating A.I. pendants similar to Limitless’s device, drew backlash this summer after a city-wide New York subway campaign promoted its product as a replacement for real-life companionship.

Silicon Valley’s flashiest A.I. hardware initiative belongs to OpenAI, which is collaborating with famed Apple designer Jony Ive on a mysterious wearables project. Their project is expected to debut within the next two years and will promise “peace and calm” amid the chaos of notifications, scrolling and screens, according to Altman.

Harry Potter, Batman and Tony Soprano are coming to Netflix. The streamer has beaten out rival media giants to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and HBO Max streaming service in a $72 billion deal sending shockwaves through Hollywood.

The two companies announced the agreement today (Dec. 5). WBD’s global networks business, which includes CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, remains on track to spin out into a separate publicly traded company, as previously announced this summer.

“For more than a century, Warner Bros. has thrilled audiences, captured the world’s attention, and shaped our culture,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in a statement. “By coming together with Netflix, we will ensure people everywhere will continue to enjoy the world’s most resonant stories for generations to come.”

The transaction, approved by both companies’ boards, is expected to close in 12 to 18 months. That timeline assumes the deal can withstand significant regulatory scrutiny given the companies’ dominance in streaming. Netflix currently has more than 300 million paid subscribers, while WBD has 128 million.

Some politicians have already voiced concerns. The deal “would raise serious competition questions—perhaps more so than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade,” said U.S. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, in a post on X. The Trump administration is also viewing the transaction with skepticism, according to CNBC, which cited a senior White House official.

The acquisition would bring hit HBO shows like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and The White Lotus to Netflix, along with WBD’s studio and television and film archives, which include Harry Potter, Friends, and the DC Universe. If the merger falls through, Netflix will owe a $5.8 billion termination fee, according to an SEC filing. WMD’s breakup fee would total $2.8 billion.

Beyond antitrust concerns, the acquisition has raised questions about how WBD’s theatrical business will fare under Netflix’s ownership. While Netflix has historically prioritized streaming and released only a limited number of films in theaters, the company said it intends to maintain WMD’s theatrical slate.

Not everyone is convinced. “The proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. by Netflix poses an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business,” said Cinema United, a trade association representing movie theater owners, in a statement. The organization warned that the deal threatens 25 percent of the annual domestic box office, adding, “Theaters will close, communities will suffer, jobs will be lost.”

Netflix will also face pushback from rivals after emerging victorious in a heated bidding war. Comcast pursued WBD’s studio and streaming businesses, while Paramount sought to acquire the entire company, including its global networks division.

Paramount reportedly criticized both Netflix’s size and what it described as a skewed bidding process in a series of letters to WMD’s lawyers earlier this week. Awarding the deal to Netflix would “entrench and extend global dominance in a matter not allowed by domestic or foreign competition laws,” Paramount wrote, later accusing WMD of embracing “a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder.”

Dollar stores have emerged as one of the few winners amid America’s economic crunch. As shoppers across all income levels face financial strain, even wealthy consumers are turning to Dollar General and Dollar Tree in search for bargains.

The two largest dollar store operators in the U.S. saw their shares surge today (Dec. 4) after beating Wall Street estimates for the August-September quarter and raising their profit forecasts for the year. Their strong results underscore the current demand for discounted goods: roughly one-quarter of Dollar General’s items cost  $1, while 85 percent of Dollar Tree’s inventory is priced at $2 or less.

Tennessee-based Dollar General reported a 4.6 percent year-over-year increase in sales, while net income soared 44 percent to $282.7 million. Virginia-based Dollar Tree reported a 9.4 percent year-over-year jump in quarterly revenue to $4.7 billion and a $4.8 percent increase in profit to $244 million.

Dollar General, which operates more than 20,000 stores nationwide, said a jump in customer traffic drove a 2.5 percent increase in same-store sales during the quarter. But while more shoppers are coming through the doors, they’re buying fewer items per visit on average.

“This traffic and basket composition is consistent with what we have historically observed when our core customer feels more pressured on their spending,” Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said during today’s earnings call. “That low- to middle-end consumer continues to be stretched.”

Affluent shoppers seek out deals

The discounters also highlighted a notable shift: as higher-income households feel the sting of economic uncertainty, wealthy shoppers are increasingly turning to dollar stores. Vasos said he saw “disproportionate growth” from this segment, while Dollar Tree reported that 60 percent of its 3 million new shoppers last quarter came from households earning more than $100,000.

At the same time, “lower-income households are depending on us more than ever,” Dollar Tree CEO Mike Creedon told analysts yesterday. The average spending among customers earning under $60,000 grew more than twice as fast as that of higher-income households, he added.

Creedon hopes the company’s influx of affluent shoppers sticks around. “We want to create a very sticky relationship with them,” he said, noting that Dollar Tree aims to “wow” customers by curating a relevant assortment of items and improving in-store experiences across its 16,500 locations.

Dollar stores are the latest discounters to thrive in a challenging economic environment that has pushed consumers of all backgrounds to stretch their budgets. Walmart, another retailer renowned for low prices, reported last month that it, too, has seen a surge in affluent customers seeking cheaper options for groceries and health and wellness products.

Jimmy Donaldson, known online as MrBeast, isn’t just the world’s most popular YouTuber—he’s also a successful chocolatier, theme park operator and television producer, and his business empire keeps expanding. His company, Beast Industries, is now preparing to push into new sectors, including telecommunications and financial services.

“We’re also launching a phone company—Beast Mobile—and a financial services platform,” announced Jeffrey Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, during the New York Times’ DealBook Summit yesterday (Dec. 3). Donaldson hired Housenbold, a venture capitalist and the former CEO of Shutterfly, last year to manage his various efforts under a $5 billion holding company.

Today, Donaldson’s consumer products division generates as much revenue as his social media content. Beast Industries now includes the Feastables snack line, a lunch kit brand, a beef jerky collaboration with Jack Link’s and the toy line MrBeast Lab.

It will also soon include Beast Mobile, a phone company that will reportedly pursue the mobile virtual network operator (MNVO) strategy of running on infrastructure from a major carrier. This approach has already been successfully pursued by celebrities like Ryan Reynolds, who sold his Mint Mobile phone service to T-Mobile in 2023 for more than $1.3 billion.

Donaldson’s financial services bet is expected to be similarly broad. In October, the influencer filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that outlined plans for a mobile app offering banking, cryptocurrency, consumer lending and financial advisory services.

On the media side, Beast Industries still revolves around Donaldson’s dominance on YouTube, where the 27-year-old has more than 450 million subscribers. He has also built large audiences on Instagram and TikTok—though he prefers YouTube to the latter, which he described as filled with “brain rot”—and in 2024 partnered with Amazon to launch the competition show Beast Games. The collaboration helped expose the MrBeast brand to new viewers, said Donaldson, noting that the “demographic on streaming platforms is a little older.”

But the rollout of Beast Games also triggered controversy. A handful of former contestants filed a lawsuit alleging unsafe conditions, prompting Donaldson to shrink the number of participants for the show’s upcoming second season. “I learned why people don’t have 2,000 people compete in a show, because you’re essentially creating a scenario where 1,999 aren’t happy because they didn’t win,” he said.

Beyond consumer products and media, Beast Industries is preparing to add a third pillar to its business. The company plans to build a two-sided marketplace that matches creators with Fortune 1000 marketers, according to Housenbold, who described Beast Industries’ broader ambition as becoming “the most impactful entertainment brand in the world.”

As Donaldson expands into new industries, he finds “nuggets” of inspiration from entrepreneurs he admires. He keeps posters of Steve Jobs in his office and says he looks up to Elon Musk’s ability to “push boundaries in multiple industries at the same time.”

Still, Donaldson acknowledges that his own path is unique. “There’s not really anyone who’s doing YouTube content at the level we’re doing while also trying to run a chocolate company, while also trying to run a bank and this and that,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s one person I would want to be.”

In the 25 years since the Gates Foundation was established by Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates, the organization has helped drive a steady decline in global child mortality rates. In 2000, more than 10 million children died before the age of five—a number that has since been more than halved. This year, however, a concerning reversal has begun to emerge.

Child deaths are forecast to rise in 2025 for the first time this century, according to the Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeepers report. The primary cause? Widespread cuts to government funding from wealthy nations like the U.S.

“We could be the generation who had access to the most advanced science and innovation in human history—but couldn’t get the funding together to ensure it saved lives,” said Gates in the report.

Around 4.6 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024. This year, that figure is estimated to have increased by 200,000 to 4.8 million.

“Clearly one of the key causes has been significant cuts in international development assistance from a number of high-income countries,” Mark Suzman, the foundation’s CEO, told reporters during a conference call on Monday (Dec. 1). “We need to reverse course.”

The toll is expected to get even worse. An additional 12 million children could die by 2045 if global health funding cuts persist at levels of 20 percent, the report warned. Sustained cuts of 30 percent would raise this figure to 16 million.

This isn’t the first time that the Microsoft co-founder has sounded the alarm over backsliding progress in global health. Gates, a critic of the Trump administration’s decision to cut agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and reduce funding for programs like the HIV relief initiative PEPFAR, announced earlier this year plans to accelerate his foundation’s donations amid a deluge of “urgent problems.”

The Gates Foundation, which has already given more than $100 billion to charitable causes since its inception, now plans to spend down $200 billion over the next two decades before closing its doors for good. Drawing from its endowment and Gates’ $104.2 billion net worth, the organization will focus on cutting down preventable maternal and child deaths and combating diseases like polio, malaria and HIV.

The Gates Foundation, which has already donated more than $100 billion since its inception, now plans to spend down $200 billion over the next two decades before closing its doors for good. Drawing from its endowment and Gates’ $104.2 billion net worth, the organization will focus on reducing preventable maternal and child deaths and combating diseases such as polio, malaria and HIV.

Still, reversing the current trajectory of child mortality will require far more funding. Several emerging economies and middle-income countries, such as China, Indonesia and South Africa, have increased their contributions to global health initiatives, said Suzman. “But the truth is, while those are very welcome moves, they can’t compensate for the size of the cuts from the very large traditional contributors.”

A deadly slowdown in global aid

Global aid cuts from the U.S. have been particularly difficult to track due to their opaque nature. “There was very little information and understanding of what had been cut, what was being resumed,” said Suzman. The country did recently pledge $4.5 billion to the Global Fund, a financing partnership founded in 2002 to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria—but it also plans to end its support for vaccine alliance Gavi, another major global health fund.

Combined with pullbacks from other high-income nations, including the U.K., France and Germany, these cuts are accelerating a reversal of the last quarter century of progress, according to the Gates Foundation. “It is these cumulative cuts which are leading to the sad news we’re reporting today,” said Suzman.

The foundation said it will continue urging governments and philanthropic actors to direct more resources toward global health. But for now, it must operate with less. Going forward, the organization plans to prioritize effective approaches such as investments in primary healthcare interventions, new malaria and pneumonia interventions, and expanded HIV-prevention tools.

“By making the right priorities and commitments, and investing in high-impact solutions, I’m confident we can stop a significant reversal in child deaths,” said Gates. “We can’t stop at almost.”

Dario Amodei, head of Anthropic, is concerned that some A.I. firms may be playing fast and loose with the staggering sums they’re spending on data centers and compute power. “I think there are some players who are ‘YOLO’ -ing, who pull the risk dial too far,” said the CEO during The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit today (Dec. 3).

Even Anthropic, which Amodei decribed as more “conservative” than its rivals, recently pledged to invest $50 billion in building out data centers across the U.S. Others are spending far more. OpenAI, for example, has struck data center and GPU deals worth more than $1 trillion in 2025 alone.

A.I. startups are increasingly caught in a delicate balancing act: the long timelines needed to build data centers versus the uncertainty surrounding the technology’s ultimate economic payoff. Navigating these variables comes with “some amount of irreducible risk,” said Amodei, who, without naming any specific companies, warned that not all players are managing that risk responsibly.

“Even if the technology is really powerful and fulfills all its promises, I think that with some players in the ecosystem, if they get it off by a little bit, bad things could happen,” he said.

Like its rivals, Anthropic has leaned more heavily into circular financing deals with chipmakers and cloud providers. Under these arrangements, hardware companies invest in A.I. model developers, who then use that funding to purchase their compute products. The deals have raised eyebrows across Silicon Valley about whether they are sustainable for companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, which are currently valued at $183 billion and $500 billion, respectively, but are not yet profitable.

There’s nothing inherently “inappropriate” about such deals, according to Amodei. “You can overextend yourself, of course,” he added, noting that companies must balance the danger of spending too much on compute with the risk of not acquiring enough to serve customers.

One area where the executive has fewer concerns is competition. Earlier this week, OpenAI chief Sam Altman reportedly declared an internal “code red” to improve ChatGPT after Google’s newest Gemini model surpassed the chatbot on benchmark tests. The release didn’t perturb Anthropic,said Amodei, who emphasized that his company targets a different market and is focused primarily on enterprise rather than consumer products.

“I’m just very grateful that Anthropic is taking a different path,” he said. “We don’t have to do any code reds.”

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, is standing by his firm’s work with U.S. government agencies, its stance on surveillance and its ambitious outlook. The software company’s confidence has so far been backed up by rapid growth, noted the outspoken executive during the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit today (Dec. 3).

“The critique I get on Wall Street is that I’m an arrogant prick. Okay, great,” Karp said during a heated onstage interview with the DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin. “If you’re right a lot, maybe exerting that you’re going to be right tomorrow is pretty important.”

There’s no question that Palantir, which specializes in data analytics, has surged amid the A.I. boom. Its stock price has skyrocketed more than tenfold in the past two years. The company reported a 63 percent year-over-year increase in revenue in its most recent quarter. It has benefited from a wave of government deals, securing more than $126 million in federal contracts in September alone, according to USAspending.gov.

Palantir’s flurry of federal deals under the current administration has coincided with scrutiny over whether it is enabling government surveillance. Karp pushed back against such claims bluntly: “Are we building a database that can be used for surveillance? No.”

He noted that Palantir has historically been selective about the clients it takes on. The company has turned down business from cigarette manufacturers and ended contracts with U.S. institutions engaging in racial profiling, Karp said, adding that Palantir also refuses to work with China or Russia.

“We did this at points where it was critical, and we were in desperate times financially,” said the CEO. “We did this at times when it could have absolutely crushed our company.”

Palantir was founded in 2003 by Karp and Peter Thiel, a major donor to the Republican Party. Karp has long identified as a Democrat, in contrast to Thiel’s more conservative politics. Sorkin noted how the two founders’ differing political leanings may have helped Palantir win business from both sides of the aisle early on. Today, both Karp and Thiel seem firmly on the right and embracing President Trump’s policies.

Palantir’s most controversial work recently is helping the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify immigrants and aid in the administration’s deportation campaign. Karp defended his company’s work, noting that he supports Trump’s performance on immigration and encouraging Americans to “stay skeptical” on the topic. Politically, he stressed that he is an “independent” whose vote “remains up for grabs.”

Palantir is among the world’s most valuable companies, with a market cap of $416 billion. Its meteoric rise has become entangled in concerns about an A.I. bubble marked by unsustainably high valuations. Karp dismisses bubble worries and maintains that Palantir’s high value is backed by business fundamentals, especially in the U.S., which accounts for roughly three-quarters of its revenue.

Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies, and his wife Susan are putting $6.25 billion toward expanding a new government project that will establish savings accounts for millions of American children. The donation from the billionaires will place $250 each in the accounts of 25 million kids aged ten and under. “If there’s one investment that never stops growing, it’s investing in children,” said the Dells in a statement. “They are our future.”

The tax-advantaged accounts, nicknamed “Trump accounts,” were created this year through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. All children under 18 with a U.S. Social Security number are eligible. The accounts, which can be used to invest in stock market index funds, will begin accepting sign-ups on July 4 of next year.

For children born on or after Jan. 1, 2025, the U.S. Treasury will provide a $1,000 seed deposit. The Dells’ funds, meanwhile, will target older children. Their $250 deposits will reach nearly 80 percent of kids under ten and under across 75 percent of U.S. ZIP codes, with an emphasis on areas where the median household income falls below $150,000. If money remains after the initial wave of sign-ups, the Dells said their donation will also benefit children older than ten.

Each account can receive up to $5,000 annually from parents and community members, while employers can contribute up to $2,500 each year to the accounts of their employees’ children. Philanthropists, charitable organizations and state and local governments can contribute with no annual cap.

Upon turning 18, beneficiaries of the accounts can start using a portion of their savings to invest in education, job training, starting a business or buying a first home. Accounts will also convert to traditional IRAs at this age.

The Dells were inspired to launch their seeding initiative after discussions with Brad Gerstner, founder of Invest America, a nonprofit that helped push for the legislation behind the Trump accounts. Michael has publicly supported the concept before and earlier this year attended a White House roundtable dedicated to the idea.

Dell, the world’s ninth wealthiest person with an estimated net worth of $151 billion, launched Dell Technologies in the 1980s while attending the University of Texas. He and Susan have since given much of this fortune to charity, with the couple donating nearly $3 billion to causes including health, education and economic mobility through the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

To ensure the savings accounts grow meaningfully, the couple is urging philanthropists, employers and parents to contribute additional funds. Dell Technologies also plans to participate by matching the U.S. Treasury’s $1,000 deposit for newborn children of its U.S. employees.

“We believe this effort will expand opportunity, strengthen communities, and help more children take ownership of their future,” said the Dells. “And we believe everyone has a role to play.”

A.I. is helping holiday shoppers empty their wallets at an unprecedented pace. U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online this Black Friday, according to Adobe Analytics, and are expected to shell out another $14.2 billion on Cyber Monday. Driving this shopping frenzy is a growing reliance on A.I. systems to recommend gifts, track prices and place orders.

Shoppers are especially turning to chatbots to research products and hunt for deals. On Black Friday, A.I.-driven traffic to retail sites—measured by shoppers clicking on links provided by A.I. tools—surged 805 percent year-over-year, said Adobe. This traffic was particularly strong in categories like video games, appliances, electronics, toys, personal care and baby products. Shoppers who found retail sites via A.I. services were also 38 percent more likely to purchase something compared to visitors arriving from non-A.I. traffic sources.

“For every product, there are a million different variants or brands,” Luca Cian, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business who focuses on consumer behavior, told Observer. “A.I. simplifies a lot of our choices.”

The rise of A.I.-assisted shopping comes alongside a broader surge in holiday e-commerce, even amid economic pressures. In the first 23 days of November, U.S. consumers spent $79.7 billion online—a 7.5 percent increase from last year. Adobe predicts online spending across the 2025 holiday season will reach $253.4 billion.

Adobe first took notice of an A.I.-driven spike in holiday shopping last year, when generative A.I. boosted e-commerce visits by 1,300 percent during November and December. Shoppers who arrived via A.I. tools not only converted at higher rates but also spent more time browsing, explored more content and had lower bounce rates.

The continued growth of A.I.-powered shopping can be attributed to improvements in previously “clunky” features, according to Cian, who added that tight budgets may motivate shoppers to lean on A.I. to seek out deals. The technology is also gaining steam as younger consumers enter the market—around 61 percent of Gen Z and 57 percent of Millennials already use A.I. tools to shop, according to a recent Mastercard survey.

Shopping assistants are evolving

Adobe isn’t the only firm tracking A.I.’s growing influence in retail. Salesforce, which also monitors holiday shopping, said A.I. tools such as autonomous agents influenced $22 billion in global online sales throughout Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

And these tools are rapidly becoming more capable. OpenAI recently introduced an instant checkout feature that lets users buy products from Etsy or Shopify merchants like Glossier and Spanx without leaving ChatGPT. Amazon’s upgraded assistant can automatically make purchases when prices fall within a set budget. Last month, Google introduced a feature that can call local stores to check whether a particular product is in stock.

Brands are joining in as well. Walmart’s Sparky A.I. assistant provides personalized recommendations, compares options and synthesizes reviews. Its rival Target has introduced similar tools to help holiday shoppers find specialized gifts through guided prompts.

As A.I. boosts shopping efficiency, questions remain about how model developers might eventually monetize these tools—and whether shoppers will become overly dependent on them, said Cian, who noted that A.I. could also diminish the joy of wandering through stores or browsing online.

“Shopping can also be an enjoyable and enriching experience,” he said. “If we move everything towards using A.I., we may lose that excitement.”

Last month, SoftBank sold $5.8 billion worth of Nvidia shares, and CEO Masayoshi Son now says he’s “crying” over the decision. “I don’t want to sell a single share,” he said at the FII Priority Asia forum in Tokyo today (Dec. 1). Son explained that the sale was meant to fund SoftBank’s investment in OpenAI and other A.I. bets—not because he believes Nvidia’s stock has entered bubble territory.

Son is currently Japan’s second wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of $52.8 billion. His fortune stems from founding and running SoftBank, which has increasingly shifted its focus toward A.I. initiatives and startups in recent years. Today, SoftBank’s Vision Funds hold stakes in more than 400 A.I.-related companies. Major deals this year include backing U.S.-based data centers through Project Stargate, promising to funnel more than $30 billion into OpenAI by the end of the year, and acquiring Ampere, a semiconductor design company, for $6.5 billion last month.

Son’s optimism places him at odds with a growing group of investors worried that today’s sky-high valuations for A.I. companies aren’t sustainable. Nvidia shares have fluctuated in recent weeks amid concerns about a potential A.I. bubble. “People that talk about such a stupid question are not smart enough, period,” said Son in response to such concerns.

The billionaire argued that A.I.’s rapid growth will quickly justify the massive inflows of capital. If the technology eventually captures 10 percent of global GDP, he said, it could generate tens of trillions of dollars in just a few months. With that in mind, Son asked, “Where is the bubble?”

known for his bold projections, Son predicted that A.I. could become 10,000 to 100,000 times smarter than humans in the coming decades. “Nothing is actually stopping the process to make AGI and ASI happen,” said Son, referring to artificial general intelligence and artificial superintelligence. “The funding is coming, chips are coming, models are evolving—whole world is waiting.”

But Son was less bullish when discussing Japan’s own A.I. strategy, which he has criticized as lagging behind global rivals. “The biggest opportunity is still in the United States,” he said, warning that Japan is moving too conservatively and too slowly when it comes to embracing generative A.I. “Wake up, Japan.”