Charles Rollet

Tech reporter at @BusinessInsider. Past bylines for @TechCrunch, @WSJ, @Wired.
Contact me securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or 628-282-2811

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Scoop! Meta staff are outraged over a new program that trains AI off their keystrokes and mouse movements.

"This makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out?" was the top-rated comment in response.

"There is no option to opt out," Boz wrote to a slew of angry-face emojis.

[Robert Scammell @RobertScammell]

Scoop: Anthropic tells San Francisco staff to work from home due to possible security team strike

Read the full story from @HughLangley & @stephencouncil on @BusinessInsider 👇

https://t.co/onK6xNz1O1

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

@BusinessInsider Thomson-1 is powered by Snowdon, a new model from TR and Imperial College in the UK.

Snowdon was built by realigning Qwen3.5-397B to ensure it's "ethically and politically de-biased."

@schwarzjn_

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

NEW: Thomson Reuters wanted to rely less on Claude. So it built its own AI model off Alibaba's Qwen.

TR's CTO says using frontier labs for intelligence, instead of building on open source, is like renting a house.

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Read more on @BusinessInsider: https://t.co/mwTlGJTgI8

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

@jyoti_mann1 @theinformation welcome to SF!!

[Katie Roof @Katie_Roof]

Scoop: HuggingFace has M&A interest and they could get bought for $13B…or higher! https://t.co/WsfP0kPiZo

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Google won the auction but a judge has yet to clear it.

Legal experts say redo-ing an auction because of a late bid is unlikely, but not impossible.

Read more on @BusinessInsider: https://t.co/tjUcoggPof

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

BREAKING: @micro1_ai just launched a rival offer for Spirit Airlines' data.

micro1 is offering $12.5 million - that's $2.5 million higher than Google's successful bid from Monday.

Real-world data is more valuable than ever for training AI agents, micro1 CEO @aliansarinik says.

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

One of Waymo's creators is working on a stealth robotics startup. Big @ryajetha scoop!

[Rya Jetha @ryajetha]

🍦— Sebastian Thrun, one of the pioneers of the self-driving industry, is working on a new robotics startup. More in @BusinessInsider

[Katie Roof @Katie_Roof]

Scoop: @kevinweil former chief product officer at OpenAi and product exec at Meta, Twitter has a new science meets AI startup that he’s aiming to value at $750m right off the bat. https://t.co/b76msfoiDo w/ @thebenbergman

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

OpenAI's Dean Ball is "no longer trusted by the administration," a White House official tells @stephencouncil.

From this excellent profile for @BusinessInsider
https://t.co/I891WmtMqY

[Katie Roof @Katie_Roof]

And we have a dedicated robotics reporter! Send @ryajetha your tips

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

More on @BusinessInsider: https://t.co/kkecxVZH7w

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Scoop!

Meta's CTO, Boz, recently told employees that any extra time freed up by AI should NOT be used for vacation.

Instead, it should go towards building "cooler stuff" at Meta.

Requesting more time off from your boss is not a "good career strategy," he added.

[Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_]

This is the first time Anthropic has officially confirmed that they are building their own team to design custom chips for Claude. There are job listings posted to join their 'custom silicon team'.

[Techmeme @Techmeme]

Sources: Google is in talks with AI coding agent startup Mechanize on a possible deal, potentially worth $1.5B+, to hire some of its talent and license its tech (Business Insider)

(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Google really needs to get better at AI coding, so this deal would make a lot of sense.

Mechanize trains and tests AI agents on frontier coding tasks.

More from @Katie_Roof, @thebenbergman, myself, and @HughLangley!

https://t.co/JoUxF9WxkX

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

SCOOP: Google is in talks for a $1.5 billion-plus talent deal with Mechanize, an AI coding startup in SF.

Mechanize is only about 1 year old and has a bare-bones website that promises to automate all valuable work.

What a contrast to the Airtable acquistion!

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

"Wall Street has a long record of punishing investors who were fundamentally right, and believed in their vision intensely, but couldn't survive long enough to prove it."

Must-read take from @alistairmbarr's on Leopold's epic unwinding. https://t.co/SOYsx4wFGP

[Charles Rollet @CharlesRollet1]

Wall Street is getting impatient about Meta's AI investments.

One analyst I quoted said the company is "throwing spaghetti at the wall instead of rallying around a sustainable way forward."

$META is down 11% since earnings.

https://t.co/0tNxeTA6R7

Good WSJ article:

[Meghan Bobrowsky @MeghanBobrowsky]

New analysis from me on Meta's stock selloff

“It’s like, well we’re not really going to give you a lot of details about the compute business. We’re not going to tell you the ROI. We just need more compute, and you know, just trust us," one analyst said
https://t.co/DDAEdwD6VY