Iain Martin

Bhutan has confirmed it has quietly been running a bitcoin mining operation after @SarahNEmerson and I began digging into its secret investments in cryptocurrency earlier this month. Here's what we have learned 🧵 forbes.com/sites/iainmart…

@armoredmeatbal @Techmeme Someone did…forbes.com/sites/rashishr…

@Techmeme Someone should publish which companies Sequoia has invested in at lower valuations

Sources: AI inference chip startup Etched is raising funds at a ~$20B valuation and is raising capital at a $10B valuation in a separate round led by Sequoia (Wall Street Journal) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

Malaysia’s semiconductor sector attracted about $22 billion (USD) in approved investments between January 2024 and March 2026... theedgemalaysia.com/node/810926

People can't get @OpenAI or @AnthropicAI shares. Instead, they're buying used OpenAI employee sweatshirts on eBay for $250. Or used Anthropic t-shirts for $120. Inside the secondary market for AI swag. It's a bubble inside of a bubble. forbes.com/sites/annatong…

"LAPD announced it will let its surveillance contract with automated license plate reader Flock after in a two-month period, the LAPD had improperly "investigated" 161 people whose cars were flagged as stolen" 404media.co/lapd-regularly…

"As part of the new checks, Nvidia staff visit customers’ data centres, verify contracts and interview end users to establish that the businesses are genuine, the people said" ft.com/content/7c146c…

Malaysian authorities have launched an immigration probe into a school for technology startups, just months after investor Balaji Srinivasan pitched the educational facility to officials bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Shein had been under pressure from shareholders to cut its valuation to about $30 billion, having in the past been valued at more than three times that amount, people familiar with the matter said last year. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

AI Data Labeler Mercor In Talks To Raise $500 Million At $20 Billion Valuation forbes.com/sites/richardn…

"Fistikan logged onto Truth Social last fall to voice his frustrations. “I’m like, ‘Hey, this is a scam,’” he says. “And a lot of people were like, ‘No, you’re just a Trump hater.’ I’m like, ‘No. I was on board since day one. … I’m now broke.” forbes.com/sites/danalexa…

“Nscale were pretty much told to back the Stargate project, and it caught them completely unaware,” said a source. “It was never really a thing. It was effectively just a government PR stunt," theguardian.com/technology/202…

Officials familiar with Jho Low's pardon effort have told us in recent months that he is willing to pay more than a billion dollars — possibly closer to two billion — to make his U.S. criminal case disappear. whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/jho-lows-last-…

"JPMorgan is still on the hook for Charlie Javice’s legal fees ($144.2 million and counting), which have covered high-profile attorneys as well as expenses for hundreds of dollars of gummy bears and a seafood tower, a Delaware court ruled." wsj.com/finance/bankin…

londoncentric.media/p/who-wants-to… @DanNeidle

"Accountants and shop operators have clocked they usually won’t suffer any substantial punishment if they opt out of paying taxes. He said this realisation that paying taxes is optional is contributing to the state of British high streets"

A Cambodian princeling tied to a $1.5B cyber-scam network just filed a secret lawsuit in Washington. He’s using Harvey Weinstein’s former crisis fixer to exploit a U.S. law, aiming to unmask journalists and protect his empire. 🧵👇

@gkamstra Good note but the only paid $199.7 million no? Page F-45 in the F1 forbes.com/sites/iainmart…

Bending spoons paid ~$340m for Evernote in 2023. It was doing ~$100m of revenue (3.4x). They have turned around new users, which is great. But revenue in 2025 fell despite 20% user growth. They cut costs a lot, but won't tell you what profit is ($30m?) Seems terrible, actually.

Canceled Evernote. They DOUBLED their prices. 3 clicks with Claude and full export to Apple Notes. People are getting SaaS wrong. It's not that Software is dying, it's that subscriptions or charging for things have to be worth it.

Buying busted apps made Bending Spoons’s four cofounders billionaires. Now their stakes have collectively jumped to $8.9 billion after the Milan-based startup scrap yard listed on Nasdaq at an $18.4 billion valuation. forbes.com/sites/iainmart…

This is a crazy number. There are something like 5.6 million small and medium sized businesses in the UK?

Normally they are slightly more subtle about the agenda here... newrepublic.com/article/156788…