Saturday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said they still planned a "huge" investment in OpenAI, according to CNBC. Friday the Wall Street Journal had reported that Nvidia's plan to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI "has stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal, people familiar with the matter said..." [T]he talks haven't progressed beyond the early stages, some of the people said. Now, the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership, some of the people said. The latest discussions, they said, include an equity investment of tens of billions of dollars as part of OpenAI's current funding round. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has privately emphasized to industry associates in recent months that the original $100 billion agreement was nonbinding and not finalized, people familiar with the matter said. He has also privately criticized what he has described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI's business approach and expressed concern about the competition it faces from the likes of Google and Anthropic, some of the people said... OpenAI is laying the foundation to go public by the end of 2026, and has spent much of the past year racing to secure large amounts of computing capacity to help power OpenAI's future products and growth. The stalled Nvidia pact is a blow to this effort and shows how Chief Executive Sam Altman's penchant for announcing flashy big-ticket deals carries the potential to backfire if the terms have yet to be finalized. In a joint announcement unveiling the September deal with Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Huang called the deal "the largest computing project in history...." OpenAI went on to sign a string of other agreements with chip and cloud companies that helped fuel a global stock market rally. But investors have since grown jittery about the startup's ability to pay for these deals, leading to a sell-off in some tech stocks tied to OpenAI. Altman has said that the deals put the startup on the hook for $1.4 trillion in computing commitments — more than 100 times the revenue it was on pace to generate last year. OpenAI executives say the total commitments are lower when you account for overlap in some of the deals, and that the agreements will take place over a long period of time.... Huang has indicated to associates that he still believes it's crucially important to provide OpenAI with financial support in one form or another, in part because OpenAI is one of the chip designer's largest customers, people familiar with the matter said. If OpenAI were to fall behind other AI developers, it could dent Nvidia's sales. "Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Huang said it was 'nonsense' to say he was unhappy with OpenAI," CNBC reported Saturday: "We are going to make a huge investment in OpenAI. I believe in OpenAI, the work that they do is incredible, they are one of the most consequential companies of our time and I really love working with Sam," he said, referring to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. "Sam is closing the round (of investment) and we will absolutely be involved," Huang added. "We will invest a great deal of money, probably the largest investment we've ever made." Asked whether it would be over $100 billion, he said: "No, no, nothing like that." Elsewhere the Journal has reported that Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI. Thanks to Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

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A new study [PDF] examining the United States between 1850 and 1920 found that expanded market access -- driven largely by railroad expansion -- made Americans more trusting of strangers and more outward-looking, but weakened family-based care for the vulnerable. Researchers Max Posch of the University of Exeter and Itzchak Tzachi Raz of Hebrew University compared places and people gaining different levels of commercial connectivity. In better-connected regions, Americans became more likely to marry outside their local communities, and parents more likely to pick nationally common names for children. Trust toward others rose, as measured through language in local newspapers. The researchers used multiple tests to rule out the possibility that these shifts simply reflected places getting richer. The cultural changes were concentrated among migrants in trade-exposed industries; workers in construction and entertainment showed no effect. But market access also meant orphans, the disabled, and the elderly became less likely to be cared for by relatives at home.

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Apple's call-screening feature, introduced in iOS 26 last year, was designed to combat the more than 2 billion robocalls placed to Americans every month, but as WSJ is reporting, it is now creating friction for the rich and powerful who find themselves subjected to automated interrogation when dialing from unrecognized numbers. The feature uses an automated voice to ask unknown callers for their names and reasons for calling, transcribes the responses, and lets recipients decide whether to answer -- essentially giving everyone a pocket-sized executive assistant. Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk said his first reaction when encountering call screening is irritation, though he understands the necessity given the spam problem. Ben Schaechter, who runs cloud-cost management company Vantage, said the feature "dramatically changed my life" after his personal number ended up in founding paperwork and attracted endless sales calls.

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The private equity industry is experiencing a quiet reckoning as hundreds of midsize firms find themselves trapped between investors who have lost patience and portfolios of companies they cannot sell at acceptable prices. "There is existential risk for a number [of funds] because of the fundraising environment," said Sunaina Sinha Haldea, global head of private capital advisory at Raymond James. "If existing investors don't come and support them, new investors are highly unlikely to." According to data from Preqin, the average buyout fund that closed in 2025 spent 23 months fundraising, up from 16 months in 2021, and the total number of funds raised fell to 1,191 from 2,679 over the same period. New York's Vestar Capital scrapped plans for its eighth fund in late 2024 and has not invested in a new portfolio company since 2023. The firm's assets under management dropped from $7 billion fifteen years ago to $3.3 billion in 2024. Three-year annualized returns through June 2025 for the Cambridge Associates U.S. Private Equity Index stand at 7.4%, trailing the MSCI World stock index by 11 percentage points annually. The average holding period for buyout deals has stretched to 6.3 years from 5.1 years in 2020. Blue-chip megafunds continue raising capital normally, but smaller firms face existential pressure.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Investors are souring on the bonds of software companies that service industries ranging from automotive to finance as fast-paced artificial intelligence innovations threaten to upend their business models. [...] Bond prices tumbled as advances in artificial intelligence rack up. Google announced plans to launch an AI assistant to browse for internet surfers Wednesday while a customer support startup, Decagon AI Inc., raised a new round of funding. Such developments are further stoking the angst about AI displacing enterprise software companies, driving a selloff in the sector's stocks and bonds across the globe. [...] Some say the AI fears weighing on software companies are overdone. "While point-solution software faces disruption risk, large company platforms with complex workflows and proprietary data are better positioned to benefit from AI-driven automation," wrote Union Bancaire Prive in its investment outlook for 2026 released this week. But a recent report by EY-Parthenon flagged that in the UK last year, software and computer services firms issued the highest number of warnings on earnings among listed firms. "Software multiples have compressed amid uncertainty around whether incumbents can defend pricing power and sustain growth in an AI-first work-flow environment," wrote Bruce Richards, chief executive officer and chairman of Marathon Asset Management, in a LinkedIn post last week.

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The housing shortages plaguing Western cities today stem partly from the abandonment of a 19th century urban governance model that enabled cities like Berlin, New York and Chicago to expand rapidly while keeping real house prices flat and homes increasingly affordable. A new analysis by Works in Progress argues that Victorian-era urban management wasn't laissez-faire but rather a system carefully designed to align private profit with public benefit. Infrastructure monopolies -- whether privately franchised, operated as concessions or municipally owned -- funded themselves entirely through user fees rather than public subsidies, and were structured so that building more capacity was the path to greater returns. Landowners enjoyed a fundamental right to build when profitable, and height limits applied uniformly across entire cities rather than varying by neighborhood, meaning dense development remained legal everywhere. The system began collapsing after 1914, however. Inflation proved fatal to self-funding transport because governments found it politically impossible to raise controlled prices year after year. By the 1960s, trams had vanished from Britain, France and the U.S. Meanwhile, differential zoning gradually banned densification in established neighborhoods, and rent controls decimated private homebuilding in many countries. In Britain, average house prices fell from twelve times earnings in 1850 to four times by 1914. They have since climbed back to nine times earnings. The article argues roughly 80% of postwar price increases trace directly to restrictions on building.

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When asked directly whether people actually like Experian, Alex Lintner, the credit bureau's CEO of Software and Technology, offered an unusual defense in an interview: "First of all, we're not Palantir, so we don't do reputation scores." Speaking on The Verge's podcast, Lintner conceded that consumers who have poor credit scores through "life's circumstances" sometimes direct their frustration at Experian, though he argued the company enables vital access to credit for 247 million Americans. The 10-year company veteran said Experian has built its own large language model and about 200 AI agents for internal use, but consumer data remains entirely walled off from public AI systems. On security, Lintner said Experian hasn't experienced a data breach in a decade -- the last occurred two weeks into his tenure. When competitor Equifax suffered its massive breach, Equifax actually paid Experian to help protect affected consumers' identities.

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UPS said today it plans to eliminate an additional 30,000 operational jobs this year as the shipping giant continues to wind down its partnership with Amazon -- previously its largest customer -- and push forward a broader turnaround strategy under CEO Carol Tome. CFO Brian Dykes said on an earnings call that the cuts will be accomplished through attrition and a voluntary separation program for full-time drivers. The company also plans to further deploy automation across its network. UPS has identified 24 buildings for closure in the first half of 2026 and expects to reduce operational hours by approximately 25 million as the Amazon relationship unwinds. Last year, UPS eliminated 48,000 jobs -- 34,000 operational and 14,000 management -- and closed 93 buildings. The company expects $3 billion in total savings from the Amazon unwind.

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Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is eliminating approximately 16,000 roles across the company as part of organizational changes that began in October 2025 and are only now being finalized by certain teams. Senior Vice President Beth Galetti shared the news in a memo to employees, framing the reductions as an effort to reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy. The memo follows another memo that the company accidentally sent to employees.

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Amazon appears to have prematurely acknowledged layoffs inside AWS after an internal email referencing "organizational changes" and "impacted colleagues" was mistakenly sent to cloud employees. CNBC reports: "Changes like this are hard on everyone," Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at Amazon Web Services, wrote in an email viewed by CNBC. "These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success." The note also references a post from Amazon's HR boss Beth Galetti and said the company notified "impacted colleagues in our organization." The subject of the email mentions "Project Dawn," and the email says it was "canceled," possibly indicating it was recalled by the sender after the fact. It's unclear what Project Dawn refers to. The job cuts come after Amazon announced in October that it would lay off 14,000 corporate employees. At the time, the company indicated the cuts would continue in 2026 as it found "additional places we can remove layers." Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the layoffs were meant to reduce management layers and bureaucracy inside the company. He also predicted last June that efficiency gains from AI would shrink Amazon's corporate staff in the coming years.

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Amazon is closing all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores in a shift to focus on its online same-day delivery service and new big-box retail stores. From a report: The e-commerce giant said Tuesday that some of its shuttered Amazon-branded brick-and-mortar stores would be converted into Whole Foods Market locations. Amazon said its branded stores failed to deliver the right economic model and distinctive customer experience necessary for large-scale expansion. Amazon's same-day delivery service for groceries is currently available in more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns. The company said it plans to expand the service to more communities in 2026 but didn't specify where. Amazon said it planned to open over 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years.

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Samsung said today that its Galaxy Z TriFold, the first tri-fold smartphone to ship in the U.S., will be available starting January 30 at a price point of $2,899 -- substantially more expensive than any other phone on the U.S. market, including Samsung's own $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7 and a fully loaded 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max. The company will only sell the device through its website and Samsung Experience Stores; mobile carrier partners including Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T won't be offering it directly. The TriFold unfolds into a 10-inch tablet, measures 3.9mm at its thinnest point, and is rated for 200,000 folds over its lifetime. Samsung launched the TriFold in South Korea on December 12 at 3.59 million won, about $2,450 at the time. Early reviews have praised the expansive inner screen for video but noted the 309-gram weight, thick folded dimensions, and half-baked software as significant drawbacks.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Video game developer and distributor Valve must face a 656 million-pound ($897.7 million) lawsuit in Britain, which alleges it charged publishers excessive commissions for its Steam online store, after a tribunal ruled on Monday the case could continue. Valve was sued in 2024 on behalf of up to 14 million people in the United Kingdom who bought games or additional content through Steam or other platforms since 2018. Lawyers representing children's welfare advocate Vicki Shotbolt, who is bringing the case, allege Valve prevents publishers selling products more cheaply or earlier on rival platforms to Steam by imposing conditions on them. They say Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam if they've bought that game through the platform, effectively "locking in" users to make purchases on its platform. This allows Valve to charge "unfair and excessive" commissions of up to 30%, Shotbolt's lawyers said at a hearing in October.

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The independent coffee shops and quirky boutiques that make neighborhoods like Hayes Valley in San Francisco or Williamsburg in Brooklyn desirable are caught in a frustrating economic trap: they create value that ends up in the pockets of nearby homeowners rather than their own cash registers. An essay in Works in Progress magazine argues that when an interesting new store or restaurant opens, commercial and residential property values rise in the surrounding area, but the retailer itself captures only a fraction of that value through its actual sales. Almost half of stores in one San Francisco shopping district shuttered within four years even as the neighborhood thrived and rents climbed. The authors propose several fixes drawn from historical and international practice. Shopping malls and mixed-use developments solve this through unified ownership, allowing a single entity to cross-subsidize interesting tenants. Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway buys land around new stations before building begins, making it one of the few profitable transit systems in the world. Business Improvement Districts let businesses tax themselves for shared amenities, though they currently don't capture value that spills over to nearby residents. The essay suggests creating hybrid institutions -- something between homeowners' associations and business improvement districts -- that could levy hyperlocal taxes to keep valued retail alive.

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