🤖 Google just took a big step toward robots that can do... basically anything.

DeepMind released Gemini Robotics 2, a new AI system that lets robots understand their surroundings, reason about tasks, and control full-body movement — including hands and grippers. In demos, a humanoid robot used it to tidy shelves, screw in lightbulbs, and even tie trash bags.

The system stitches together a vision-language model (for understanding and reasoning) with two vision-language-action models (for physical movement), trained on a mix of human teleoperation, video, and simulation.

Google's robotics lead, Carolina Parada, calls it a step toward "physical AGI" — AI that can do anything a human can do, in the real world, not just on a screen.

But letting AI control physical bodies raises real safety questions. Google says it's building in safeguards at every layer, plus a new benchmark called ASIMOV-Agentic to flag commands that could lead to harmful or uncertain outcomes.

CEO Demis Hassabis has talked about wanting an "Android for robots" — one AI operating system running many different robotic bodies. This release looks like an early piece of that vision.

The digital world and the physical world are starting to blur. 👀

It wasn't just OpenAI: Anthropic also had a rogue AI agent break out of containment, and it hacked three companies.

After the OpenAI incident became public last week, Anthropic ran an evaluation of its own cybersecurity and found that, in three cases across three different models, the agent broke out of its containment and hacked real organizations.

In one case, it uploaded an actually malicious PyPI package in order to compromise a company. To do this, it needed an email address but was blocked from acquiring a phone number to verify the account. It tried (and failed) to get a free phone number and then tried multiple different avenues to get actual money in order to buy a phone number! In the end, it used an email account that didn't require a phone number.

This quote floored me: "During that window, the package was downloaded and run on 15 real systems. One of these systems was a scanner belonging to a real security company (separate from the fictional company introduced in the scenario) that routinely installs Python packages and scans them for malware. When that company’s scanner installed the package, Claude’s hidden code executed. We believe the company’s security scanner treated PyPI packages as safe to install, and as a result, Claude was able to exfiltrate the company’s credentials to a collection point it had set up. Claude then used these credentials to access further infrastructure from this company."

There are more incredible details in the blog post. You need to read it.

This is why I said last week that the world had changed. Even if OpenAI and Anthropic do what they said they did and build more secure cyber ranges or air-gapped them, it's only a matter of time before everyone has access to this kind of power.

Interesting leadership lesson from the startup world this week.

A YC S26 startup, LemonLime, hosted an afterparty where attendees could get an instant interview if they got a LemonLime-related tattoo. Several people did. The posts went viral, were criticized for creating pressure around a permanent decision, and were later deleted. The founder apologized, clarified interviews weren’t actually contingent on tattoos, and offered to pay for tattoo removal.

What struck me wasn’t the controversy.

It reminded me how much we romanticize young founders.

There are incredible founders in their 20s. But research consistently shows the founders most likely to build enduring companies are often in their late 30s and beyond.

Why?

Not because they’re inherently smarter. Because they’ve had more time to develop judgment.

The founder here is only a couple of years out of Stanford. This isn’t about criticizing one person. It’s a reminder that leadership isn’t just about taking bold risks. It’s about understanding the incentives you create and how your decisions affect other people.

Experience doesn’t guarantee good judgment, but it certainly helps.

A story about an AI vending machine reveals more issues with ethics, including lying and cheating, in all AI applications...

Here's a great example of burying the lede. Andon Labs lets AI agents run vending machines and compete to see which model makes the most money.

This story says Opus 5 is a "great capitalist," but you have to read further to find out what makes it "great."

- It lies to vendors during contract negotiations.

- It creates illegal cartels with competitors, including breaking price-fixing laws it knows about.

- It makes verbal agreements and immediately violates them.

- It refuses legitimate customer refunds so it can just keep the money.

How does this bad behavior creep into AI agents? Like I wrote yesterday, *all* kinds of instructions are in the training data, including fiction and non-fiction stories about theft, collusion, betrayal, and fraud.

Everything that's ever been printed in commonly available books is inside the training data in *equal measure*, and it's not labeled as good or bad, right or wrong.

Since agents only work towards a goal but have no concept of human morals or experiences (or even why we follow laws in business to our own advantage, a rather basic concept taught even to children), the agent will eventually decide to do something immoral, illegal, or bad for customers.

The solution is to stop trying to take humans "out of the loop." It is anti-human, against your own species, to spend your day trying to eliminate interactions with or work done by humans. No good can come from discarding humans and human values at the outset of every AI interaction, which is the default behavior!

American farmers tend to reliably vote Republican, but ahead of the 2026 midterms, in Iowa and across the country, many are expressing frustration at the Trump administration’s trade and foreign policy.

Trump has promised a “golden age of American agriculture,” but many farmers say they’re struggling as a result of his tariff regime and the war in Iran.

I was on the ground in the one-time swing state -- where Democrats hope to ride Trump’s unfavorability to upset victories in the House, Senate and in the governor’s mansion -- and talked to farmers about how they’re faring under Trump.

“There’s no indication that we’re progressing towards healthier family farmers, that our rural communities are thriving under these policies,” Aaron Lehman, head of the Iowa Farmers Union, told me.

Yum Brands thinks Taco Bell is well-positioned to recover sales momentum after the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak. Growing consumer awareness that Cyclospora may be an industry-wide, rather than Taco Bell-specific, problem has mitigated the traffic hemorrhage. Now the chain's rewards program, value offers and digital channels are helping it bring consumers back, Yum executives said on a Thursday earnings call

The Rivian name is shown on one of their new electic SUV vehicles in California

Rivian Automotive , opens new tab beat quarterly revenue ‌estimates and raised annual delivery forecast on Thursday, buoyed by optimism over the rollout of its lower-priced R2 SUV and growth in its software business as it expands beyond its premium lineup.

Its shares, which have fallen about 15% so far this year, rose nearly 2% in extended trading.

The results suggest that the electric-vehicle maker's long-awaited push ⁠into the mass market has picked up pace. It began customer deliveries of the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab Model Y rival during the second quarter and improved its outlook for deliveries in a softer U.S. EV market.

Rivian said it hosted a record number of R2 demo drives during the quarter, reflecting strong customer interest in the vehicle.

"We've been very positively encouraged by the conversion rate of reservations to orders for the Launch Edition. It is meaningfully above our own internal projections," CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters.

The company will start to see positive gross margin ‌on the ⁠R2 vehicle in the back half of the year, he said.

Rivian's expansion into the lower-priced segment comes as U.S. EV demand has slowed following the expiry of a federal consumer tax credit in September last year.

Revenue rose 27% to $1.66 billion, topping analysts' average estimate of about $1.51 billion, according to ⁠data compiled by LSEG.

Adjusted loss per share came in at 46 cents, compared with the estimate of a 63-cent loss.

Rivian raised full-year delivery forecast to 65,000-70,000 vehicles from 62,000-67,000. It lowered planned capital ⁠spending projection to between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion, from $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion earlier, and expects a smaller adjusted core loss.

Software and services revenue climbed 37% to $515 million, with $308 million coming ⁠from Rivian's joint venture with Volkswagen (VOWG.DE), opens new tab.

Rivian this month raised $1.5 billion through a share sale to help fund equity contributions tied to a U.S. Department of Energy loan supporting construction of its Georgia factory.

Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab said on Thursday it had sent a contract offer to the union representing roughly 17,000 engineers and technical workers in its commercial ‌airplane division.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace's negotiating team endorsed the deal, according to a post on the union's website.

No details of the proposed contract were immediately available.

The SPEEA negotiating team said the proposal "offers real and meaningful ⁠value to the membership, delivers real positive change to work/life balance and delivers on the membership's priorities."
Union officials for the engineers and technicians bargaining units will review the terms and make a recommendation to members next week.
The current SPEEA contract expires on October 6.
A strike could further delay certification campaigns for Boeing's 737 MAX 10 - the largest variant of its single-aisle jet - and ‌the ⁠777-9, its largest jetliner. The company is already years behind schedule on certification, which is engineering-intensive work.
Boeing has had three major union contract negotiations in as many years. The previous two, covering the planemaker's commercial ⁠aircraft workers and a separate bargaining unit of defense workers, both represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, ended after extended strikes.
In ⁠January, Boeing reached a contract with roughly 1,600 SPEEA members at the former Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas. The contract ⁠included a $6,000 ratification bonus, annual wage increases, improvements to medical and retirement plans, and an additional six days off a year.

You can throw this morning's Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index release right out the window. When it comes to prices, consumers are completely at the mercy of the current administration's latest caprices.

The headline number for June was a drop in prices, driven by lower fuel prices during the short-lived ceasefire in the war on Iran. Even taking out food and energy, as the Federal Reserve likes to do, there was still a 0.1% drop. But remember – prices for almost every product also depend on the cost of transportation, so they're sensitive to fuel prices as well.

Now, with missiles flying again, we have crude oil prices back where they were in May. We can expect the month of July to show an uptick in inflation again. And with new tariffs kicking in, inflation during August may also get a boost.

Clearly, the news is running ahead of the data. You don't need to wait for government releases to know how much the American consumer is hurting – and will hurt in the weeks to come. You just need to look at the headlines and the price at the pump.

📱 BREAKING: Apple Beats Q3 Earnings, But Supply Chain Crunch Triggers After-Hours Dip 📉

Apple (AAPL) delivered a record-breaking fiscal Q3, but shares slipped 5.5% in after-hours trading following news that supply chain bottlenecks will slow growth in the upcoming September quarter.

Here is everything you need to know about Apple’s latest financial report and forward outlook ⤵️

🚨 The Big Takeaway: Demand is Hot, Supply is Not

While demand across Apple’s product lineup remains exceptionally strong, the company is facing severe supply constraints in advanced chipmaking technology and high-end memory processors.

Q4 Growth Forecast: Apple expects revenue growth of 9% to 11% year-over-year for the quarter ending in September.
The Gap: Wall Street had target projections at 12% growth.
iPhone Growth: Forecasted at a "mid-teens" rate, falling below Wall Street’s expected 17.6%.

"We're seeing some very significant supply constraints currently with limited flexibility in the supply chain to remedy it... we are evaluating all options for alternative suppliers."
— Tim Cook, CEO

📊 Q3 By The Numbers (Beat Expectations)

Despite supply chain headwinds, Apple’s Q3 performance topped Wall Street estimates across top-line revenue and earnings per share:

Total Revenue: $109.42 Billion (⬆️ 16.4% YoY vs. 15.5% expected)
Earnings Per Share (EPS): $2.02 (vs. $1.89 expected)
- Note: EPS included an $0.11 bump from U.S. government tariff refunds.
Gross Margin: 50.1% (48.1% excluding tariff refunds, beating the 47.92% estimate)

📦 Hardware & Services Breakdown

📱 iPhone: $54.25 Billion (⬆️ 21.7% YoY) — Best Q3 ever for iPhone sales, driven by customers buying ahead of anticipated fall price hikes.
💻 Mac: $10.35 Billion (⬆️ 28.7% YoY) — Massive beat over the $8.74B estimate, powered by demand for the MacBook Neo and high-end MacBook Pro.
📱 iPad: $6.19 Billion (⬇️ 5.9% YoY) — Missed $6.92B estimates due to a tough comparison against last year's A16 iPad launch.
🌐 Greater China: $18.82 Billion (⬆️ 22.4% YoY) — Strong growth, though slightly under the $19.67B target.
⚙️ Services: $30.74 Billion (⬆️ 12.1% YoY) — Came under pressure and missed the $31.22B target due to mobile gaming headwinds and ongoing regulatory/legal changes to the App Store model.

💡 What’s Next for Apple?

Potential Price Hikes: With global memory chip costs climbing and supply tight, analysts expect potential price increases for the upcoming fall iPhone lineup.
Paid Siri AI Tier: Tim Cook hinted at future revenue streams for revamped Siri AI features, including potential iCloud+ tier upgrades for power users.

💬 What are your thoughts? Will high demand hold if Apple increases iPhone prices this fall? Drop your thoughts in the comments below! 👇

Today, Amazon announced earnings for Q2 2026.

☁️ AWS highlights include:

✔️ Continued gaining momentum with Trainium, with the two leading AI labs in the world, Anthropic and OpenAI, making multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments; an increasing number of AI start-ups adopting Trainium, including unicorns like NEURA Robotics and Odyssey; and commitments from other startups like TwelveLabs, Decart, Poolside, Karakuri Inc., Metagenomi Therapeutics Inc., NetoAI, and Splash Music, as well as larger companies like Uber and Pinterest.

✔️ Released Graviton5—Amazon's most powerful and efficient CPU— into general availability, with 192 cores designed for agentic workloads. Graviton’s revenue commitments have increased nearly 3x quarter-over-quarter, and Graviton5 is growing nearly 2x faster than Graviton4 did.

✔️ Added 10+ fully managed foundation models to Amazon Bedrock, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.6, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5, Google DeepMind’s Gemma 4, and SpaceXAI’s Grok 4.3. Hundreds of thousands of customers now use Bedrock; more customers were added in the last six months than in the first two years after launch, and customers spent more in Q2 than all prior quarters combined.

✔️ Previewed AWS Continuum, which discovers, prioritizes, validates, and remediates code vulnerabilities. It starts by ingesting the backlog of vulnerabilities a team already has, and then leverages the new frontier models to run comprehensive scans. Continuum uses agents and each company’s own business context to prioritize what matters, then validates vulnerabilities in a sandbox and recommends the fix.

✔️ Added new capabilities to Bedrock AgentCore, which provides the building blocks that companies need to quickly and securely deploy and operate agents at scale. New capabilities include Payments (so agents can execute transactions autonomously), Web Search (to ground agents’ knowledge without having to leave AWS), and Harness, which further speeds up how fast customers can stitch together all the infrastructure they need for their agents.

✔️ Signed new AWS agreements with Warner Bros. Discovery, Vodafone, Siemens Energy, Ryanair - Europe's Favourite Airline, Pinterest, Snowflake, and many others.

US Inflation Eases in June — But the Relief May Be Short-Lived The latest PCE data shows some breathing room: • Headline PCE rose **3.7%** year-over-year in June (down from 4.1% in May) • Month-over-month: **-0.1%** — the softest reading since April 2020 • Core PCE (ex food & energy): **3.3%** YoY The cooling was largely driven by a temporary retreat in oil prices during a fragile US-Iran ceasefire. That truce has already broken down. Brent crude is back above $90/barrel and US gasoline prices have climbed above $4/gallon again. The Fed held rates steady at 3.50%–3.75% this week, though three members dissented in favor of a hike. Chair Kevin Warsh was clear: there is “no soft inflation target” on this committee’s watch. Markets and economists are now pricing in a possible September rate increase. Meanwhile, the consumer side shows mixed signals — spending held up, but the savings rate dipped to 2.7%, its lowest since mid-2022. The tax-refund cushion is fading just as energy costs threaten to reaccelerate. Bottom line: One soft month doesn’t change the bigger picture. Sticky core inflation + renewed geopolitical risk in the Middle East keeps the path to 2% highly uncertain. How are you positioning portfolios or business plans for a potential reacceleration in energy prices this fall?

📉 **BREAKING: China’s Economic Engine is Sputtering** 📉 China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped into contraction in July, raising major red flags about the global economy’s momentum. Here’s what you need to know about the latest data: 🏭 **Manufacturing Shrinks:** The official manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.2 (a 5-month low), falling below the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction. 🏗️ **Services & Construction Slip Too:** The non-manufacturing PMI also fell to 49, its weakest reading since December 2022. 📦 **Demand is Drying Up:** The main culprit? Shrinking new orders, weak domestic consumer demand, and rising production costs. 🤖 **A “Two-Speed” Economy:** While traditional consumer goods and energy sectors are struggling, high-tech and AI-driven manufacturing are *still* expanding. **The Big Picture:** China’s Q2 GDP growth already slowed to 4.3%, missing the government’s 4.5%-5% target. Now, all eyes are on Beijing. China’s top leadership has pledged to roll out new policies to shore up the economy, with economists expecting fresh fiscal stimulus to be announced soon.

Sony (6758.T), opens new tab reported on Friday a 40% rise in first-quarter operating profit, beating analyst estimates, boosted by the performance ‌of its gaming and image sensors businesses.

Profit in the April-June quarter was 476.5 billion yen ($2.97 billion). That compared with an average estimate of 361 billion yen from 11 analysts polled by LSEG.

The Japanese conglomerate has ⁠received plaudits for its pivot to entertainment but the market is concerned about the impact of AI on its business and a memory price boom on margins.

Sony has said it has secured memory supply for this financial year but expects continued high prices next year. The path for memory prices is being widely debated in the industry.

The ‌PlayStation ⁠maker is expected to be a major beneficiary of the launch of "Grand Theft Auto VI" on November 19 as Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab Xbox business retrenches.

Take-Two Interactive Software, opens new tab could sell 30 million to 35 ⁠million "GTA VI" units by year-end, according to a forecast from Ampere Analysis analyst Piers Harding-Rolls.

Other games coming to PlayStation 5 include ⁠major in-house title "God of War Laufey", which is due for release in February.

For the July-September quarter, analysts on ⁠average estimate operating profit of 465 billion yen. Sony's shares were down 8% year-to-date ahead of the earnings.

📈 Reddit just posted a blowout quarter — but Wall Street isn't fully convinced.

The numbers were strong: revenue jumped 61% year-over-year to $805 million (beating the $730 million analysts expected), and earnings came in at $1.25 per share vs. the 95 cents forecast. Daily active users climbed 18% to 130.3 million, and guidance for next quarter topped expectations too.

So why did the stock drop about 11% in after-hours trading? 🤔

CEO Steve Huffman flagged "choppy" search referral traffic in the company's investor letter — a reminder that Reddit still leans heavily on Google to bring in new users. That's been a growing worry since reports surfaced that Reddit is weighing whether to cut Google's access to its data, as AI-generated search overviews increasingly keep people from clicking through to sites like Reddit in the first place.

Huffman's take: "The commercial business is strong, our revenue growth is differentiated, and we have much to be encouraged by on the product side." But investors clearly want more clarity on how Reddit navigates its relationship with Google going forward.

A classic case of great numbers, nervous market. 📊