Briefing startups on the most important news in AI this week

"We don't believe in work-life balance":  Cognition gave Windsurf's 200 acqui-hires an ultimatum, work 80 hours per week or find a new job.

"LIVE5TREAM THURSDAY 10AM PT":  OpenAI launched GPT-5 yesterday as its default model saying it's the best in the world at coding, creative writing, health questions and 'the vibes are good'.

'It’s the shut up and grind era':  The big tech companies previously known for their dream cultures have aged into large bureaucracies.

Now it's Microsoft going after Deep Mind's AI Engineers:  The former Head of Engineering for Gemini has poached at least 20 from Google, saying MS is now the more startup-like environment.

China used an AI conference last week in Shanghai to showcase all of the AI products it's built free of U.S. technology.

Agentic AI Startups Have Raised $2.4B So Far in 2025

Europe Passed the World's First Legal Framework/ Guardrails for AI

AI Just Found 5 Powerful Materials That Could Replace Lithium Batteries

There's Now an Excel-Native AI Agent; OpenAI Just Put $14M In Their Cells

Harvard Business Review: Your AI Strategy Needs More Than a Single Leader

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