Earlybird

Joint Statement: Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year. After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards.

2026 could be an incredible year for IPOs:

JUST IN: OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon $AMZN, as well as use Amazon AI chips for its production uses, per the Information

A $4.8B revenue company with positive cash flow just raised its 12th private round. Databricks can IPO tomorrow. They’re choosing not to. Databricks has now raised $19B total in private capital. Snowflake raised $1.4B before going public in 2020. Databricks has raised 13x more than Snowflake did as a private company, and their revenues are now identical at $4.8B run rate. Here’s what the headline misses: Databricks has spent $4.1B on acquisitions in the past three years alone. MosaicML for $1.3B, Tabular for $1.8B, Neon for $1B. They’re not raising to fund operations. They’re raising to fund a land grab. CEO Ali Ghodsi said it himself in December 2024: “It’s dumb to IPO.” Not because they can’t. Because going public costs more than staying private when you’re one of 15 companies in the world that can raise unlimited capital without scrutiny. The private markets have fundamentally broken. US publicly traded companies have dropped from 7,500 in 1997 to under 4,000 today. The companies capturing the most value never list. SpaceX at $350B, OpenAI at $157B, Stripe at $91B, Databricks at $134B. Together they represent over $700B in value locked away from retail investors’ 401(k)s. Databricks just showed you what Series L capital is actually for: employee liquidity without an IPO, acquisition warfare without dilution, and AI infrastructure consolidation without answering to quarterly earnings calls. The “Series L” isn’t the headline. We’ve created a two-tier capital market where the best companies never go public, and the public market gets the leftovers. Databricks is just the latest company to realize that IPO has become a tax, not an opportunity.

BREAKING: Databricks is raising over $4 billion in Series L funding at a $134 billion valuation.

*SPACEX SAID TO PURSUE 2026 IPO RAISING FAR ABOVE $30 BILLION *SPACEX SEES VALUATION OF ABOUT $1.5 TRILLION IN PUBLIC OFFERING

[ ZOOMER ] POLYMARKET LOOKING TO RAISE ADDITIONAL FUNDS AT A $12B VALUATION, UP FROM PREVIOUS $10B ROUND: BBG

Today, Ramp raised another $300M at a $32B valuation. In the past year our revenue has doubled to over $1B, growing 10x faster than the median public SaaS. We all know money talks — we're teaching it to think. Getting big no longer means getting slow.

Looks like it's going to be a very busy day. Before we get started, Cursor has raised $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation. This would be over ten times the value they had at the start of the year.

This is another part of the broken social contract. Boomers got to buy: AAPL IPO at $1.8b mcap MCD IPO at $33m mcap MSFT IPO at $780m mcap INTC IPO at $58m mcap HD IPO at $60m mcap NIKE IPO at $220 mcap AMZN IPO at $438m mcap EBAY IPO at $700m mcap Average return 4175x Looking at the "good" IPOs millennials had access to (CART, BIRK, ARM, KYVO).... Average mcap was $20.6 B Average return to date to 1.68% That average is being largely lifted by ARM which did a 10x A more median view did the other three is 1.00x (flat) And these are the GOOD IPOs, most are down horrendously Couple outliers FB & TSLA META IPO at $.104b lol (2012) Average return 17.7x TSLA IPO $4b mcap (2010) Average return 422x These few good IPO's launched in the middle of the great recession, millennials were broke and unable to find work in their field. They did not have money to invest in them, boomers were again the main beneficiaries of these opportunities. Boomers had three decades of good IPO opportunities. Millennials had 3 good IPO opportunities over the span of 20 years. Now the IPOs are milk, dry and inflated by giant Series G rounds before you ever get a chance to invest.