Venture Daily

U.S. has escalated the Israel‑Iran conflict by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—in a surprise operation codenamed "Operation Midnight Hammer. Bloomberg reports Apple execs have held internal discussions about potentially acquiring AI startup Perplexity AI. And in Austin, Tesla has quietly launched its long‑awaited Robotaxi service. Featured Guests: Bradley Tusk,...

Europe’s top diplomats are racing to Geneva for emergency talks with Iran today, hoping to stop Trump from bringing the U.S. into full-blown war. And Cloudflare’s CEO warns that publishers are getting gutted by AI bots that scrape their content without paying. He says it’s only going to get worse. Featured Guests: Oliver Libby, managing partner and co-founder, H/L Ventures | Ben Narasin, founder a...

The new pope is making AI his holy war, warning Silicon Valley that unchecked algorithms threaten human dignity, and he’s calling for global rules to rein them in. And a pro-Israel hacking group just vaporized $90 million from Iran’s top crypto exchange, accusing it of funding terror, then torching the evidence on the blockchain. Featured Guests: Bob Van Luijt, co-founder and CEO, Weaviate | Brian...

OpenAI just scored a $200 million deal with the Pentagon to bring cutting-edge AI into U.S. defense, signaling its deepening role in national security. And at the same time, OpenAI is pushing to rewrite its partnership with Microsoft, risking a high-stakes rupture as it tries to reclaim more control over its future... and its profits. Featured Guests: Jackson Moses, founder and managing partner, S...

The Trump family is launching a gold, U.S.-built smartphone that blends MAGA branding, a $47 wireless plan, and a direct challenge to Apple and Samsung. And a former Navy airstrip in Silicon Valley could become the launchpad for America’s fastest-moving robotics hub, aiming to beat China in the physical AI race. Featured Guests: Josh Gerben, founder, Gerben IP | Aidan Gold, investor, Ensemble VC D...

The U.S. Army is enlisting Silicon Valley’s top tech execs into a new elite Reserve unit, tapping their brains to modernize battlefield technology. Kevin Weil (CPO, OpenAI), Shyam Sankar (CTO, Palantir), Bob McGrew (former CRO, OpenAI and engineering director, Palantir), and Andrew “Boz” Bosworth (CTO, Meta) are trading their hoodies for fatigues to help drag Pentagon systems out of the digital da...

Microsoft is gearing up to unleash its AI Copilot inside the Pentagon, marking what could be the largest deployment of generative AI in U.S. government history. And in a stunning escalation, Israel has bombed Iran’s nuclear and military elite without U.S. backing, killing top generals and scientists and igniting what could be a high-stakes regional war. Featured Guests: Christine Yen, CEO and co-f...

Hollywood heavyweights Disney and Universal are suing AI darling Midjourney for allegedly mass-producing bootleg versions of their iconic characters, from Yoda to the Minions, in what they call a billion-dollar AI-powered copyright heist. And Trump claims he’s sealed a “great deal” with China restoring trade peace, locking in rare earth mineral access and student visas, while slapping a fixed 55%...

Mark Zuckerberg, frustrated by Meta’s lagging AI models, is hand-picking a secretive “superintelligence” dream team. He's courting researchers at his homes and betting billions to outbuild OpenAI in the race to AGI. And Snap announces its first ever consumer AR glasses will be available in 2026: sleek, AI-powered Specs that promise games, gesture control, and a digital life beyond your phone....

Los Angeles continues to erupt in fiery protests over ICE raids, with Waymo cars torched, streets blocked, and 4,000 National Guard troops deployed, igniting a political firestorm between Trump and California leaders. And a suspected cyberattack has forced Whole Foods’ main distributor offline, threatening grocery deliveries nationwide and exposing fresh cracks in America’s supply chain. Featured...

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 25 begins today, but expectations are low, and the company may have much bigger things to worry about than a disappointing keynote. And we give you a recap of the messy breakup heard round the internet, and how we predict Trump’s expected retaliation will affect Musk’s companies. Featured Guest: Jaymes Davis, chief technical evangelist, Kasm Technologies DOW...

Featured Guests: Andrew Bud, founder and CEO, iProov | Tyler Ganim, investor, Powerhouse Capital Ryan Reynolds’s Wrexham, the Welsh football club he bought three years ago for only £2 million, is now eyeing a staggering $475 million valuation. A shadowy cybercrime group called "Grey Nickel" is bypassing banks' identity checks with deepfakes and AI, exposing massive gaps in global dig...

Featured Guests: Marc Freed-Finnegan, co-founder and CEO, Chalk | Abe Murray, general partner, Alleycorp | Jack Kennedy, co-founder and CTO, Whippy AI Amazon is pouring $10 billion into North Carolina to supercharge its AI ambitions with massive new data centers. Utah is teaming up with nuclear startup Valar Atomics to not only test a new reactor, but potentially manufacture next-gen TRISO fuel. A...

Colossal says it’ll release recordings of its so-called dire wolves howling later this year. Deel is countersuing Rippling, claiming it was the real victim of corporate espionage. And the Venture Daily team tries something new--unscripted. DOWNLOAD PUBLIC:  Public.com/venture Invest in everything—stocks, options, bonds, crypto. You can even earn some of the highest yields in the industry—like the...

Featured Guests: Jason Shuman, general partner, Primary VC | Eleonore Crespo, CEO and co-founder, Pigment Elon Musk’s xAI is seeking a $113 billion dollar valuation as he doubles down on AI dominance after stepping away from the White House. Chime is finally going public at less than half its peak valuation, but with serious growth claims. And Mary Meeker, the “queen of the internet,” warns AI pla...

Featured Guests: David Daneshgar, CEO, Whippy AI | Jake O’Shea, principal, Antler President Trump is quietly wiring Palantir across the government, laying digital rails for what may become a master database on American citizens. Business Insider slashes 21% of staff and doubles down on AI, betting automation can rescue a shrinking newsroom. And a judge now holds Google’s fate as the DOJ pushes to...

Featured Guests: Ross Fubini, founder & managing director, XYZ Ventures | Matt McRoberts, CBO, Aampe | Chad Metcalf, CEO, Continue Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey have squashed the beef and are teaming up to build a combat VR headset called EagleEye for the US Army. The New York Times just cut a deal to license all of its content to Amazon for AI training, while still suing OpenAI for doing the s...

Featured Guests: Aidan Gold, investor, Ensemble VC | Leif Abraham, co-founder and co-CEO, Public | Yvette Schmitter, co-founder and CEO, Fusion Collective Elon Musk is targeting 2026 to launch a SpaceX rocket to Mars. Public announces “Generated Assets,” a new AI feature that lets users build and backtest their own hyper personalized stock indexes. And Nvidia crushes earnings with $44.1B in revenu...

Featured Guests: Oliver Libby, managing partner and co-founder, H/L Ventures | Mat Vogels, partner, Harpoon Ventures | Graham Brown, managing partner, Lerer-Hippeau Trump is threatening Apple with a 25% tariff unless it builds iPhones in the U.S., a move experts say is nearly impossible. Taiwan’s drone army is dangerously outmatched by China’s, and its tech giants aren’t stepping in to help. And A...

Featured Guests: Shahin Farshchi , partner, Lux Capital | Connor Love , partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners The Trump administration has banned Harvard University from enrolling foreign students, seriously threatening the admission status of 6,800 Harvard students, OpenAI is building a mega AI hub in Abu Dhabi, its first “Stargate” outside the U.S., and the European Union just made its first ever...

Featured Guests: Maria Palma, general partner, Freestyle Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up to build an AI device, Trump unveils his plans to build $175 billion dollars worth of space lasers to create a shield around America capable of shooting nuclear missiles out of the sky, and OpenAI secures nearly $12 billion in funding to build the world’s biggest AI training facility in Abilene, Texas....

Featured Guests: Jason Warner, co-founder, Poolside & former CTO, Github | Dan Magy, founder and CEO, Firestorm | Sasha Kaletsky, co-founder and managing partner, Creator Ventures | Jeff Becker, general partner, Antler NVIDIA is doubling down on Taiwan with a new AI supercomputer and a cutting-edge headquarters, signaling big bets on the island’s tech future, the Pentagon is pushing smart new...

Featured Guests: Bradley Tusk, CEO, Tusk Ventures | Tyler Norwood, general partner, Antler | Ross Fubini, founder and managing partner, XYZ Ventures | Gregory Bernstein, founder and CEO, The New Industrial Corporation | Lily Lyman, partner, Underscore VC | Mark Fiorentino, partner, Bain Capital Ventures After 462 days, Venture Daily is back. And for the first time, on camera. For this special epis...

Featured Guests: Richard Dulude , co-founder & general partner, Underscore VC | Derek Xiao , investor, Menlo Ventures Disney invests $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games, Apple’s Vision Pro, its first new product in nearly a decade, is hated by social media comment sections but loved by tech reviewers, and will China and the US find a way to cooperate regarding AI? Subscribe t...

Featured Guests: Joey Mak , CEO, Chicago:Blend | Parker McKee , principal, Pillar VC The CEOs of Meta, Tik Tok, and X face the music during a spirited US Senate hearing, Chicago emerges as one of the most diverse venture markets, and vertical AI applications may be the hottest investment of 2024. Read our newsletter : https://venture-daily.beehiiv.com/subscribe