TLDR 2026-05-01

MARK ZUCKERBERG BLAMES SLOWER SALES ON WAR, LAYOFFS ON AI COSTS IN MEETING

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the market's negative reaction to the company's first-quarter results in a companywide meeting on Thursday. He said the 8% drop in Meta's shares was due to investor concern over an upward revision in expected capital expenditures and predictions of slower growth in the second quarter. He blamed the drop in Meta's ad business on the US war in Iran, as customers are spending less on discretionary things like advertising. Zuckerberg attributes the company's planned layoffs to a need to spend more on AI, and to reflect the greater speed and efficiency AI brings to workflows.

NETFLIX'S TIKTOK-LIKE VERTICAL FEED IS FINALLY HERE

Netflix's vertical feed, Clips, is rolling out to the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa. Clips shows short clips from series, films, and specials tailored to users' tastes. It is designed to help people decide what to watch or play next. Netflix plans to expand Clips to include podcasts, live programming, and collections based on genres.

US' FIRST INTEGRATED HUMANOID FACTORY TO BUILD 100,000 NEO ROBOTS BY 2027

1X has started full-scale production of its NEO humanoid robot at a new manufacturing facility in Hayward, California. The facility, which spans 58,000 square feet, marks a key step toward commercializing general-purpose humanoid robots designed for home use. NEO robots are built to safely operate alongside humans and assist with everyday tasks. The factory can produce up to 10,000 robots every year. 1X plans to increase output beyond 100,000 units by 2027.

ZUCKERBERG-BACKED BIOHUB BETS $500M ON AI BIOLOGY

COPY FAIL: 732 BYTES TO ROOT ON EVERY MAJOR LINUX DISTRIBUTION

Copy Fail is a logic bug in the Linux kernel's authencesn cryptographic template that lets unprivileged users trigger a deterministic, controlled 4-byte write into the page cache of any readable file on the system. It can be exploited using a single 732-byte Python script to obtain root on essentially all Linux distributions shipped since 2017. Its discovery was AI-assisted. A patch for the bug is available.

FIREFOX MAKER TORCHES GOOGLE FOR BUILDING PROMPT API INTO BROWSER

Mozilla is against Google's decision to build AI plumbing into Chrome. The Prompt API gives web pages the ability to directly prompt a browser-provided language model. Mozilla says implementing the API results in severe negative consequences to interoperability, updateability, and neutrality of the web platform. The API is already being tested in Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

SILICON VALLEY IS BRACING FOR A PERMANENT UNDERCLASS

Many people in Silicon Valley believe that AI will soon surpass human capabilities. While this should produce tremendous growth and scientific achievement, it will displace millions of jobs, depress economic mobility, and exacerbate inequality. The technology will ferry power and wealth to the AI companies and existing owners of capital while ordinary people lose their economic leverage. It could create a permanent underclass as people are rendered useless and unemployable.

MICROSOFT ROLLS OUT XBOX MODE, BRINGING A CONSOLE-LIKE EXPERIENCE TO ANY PC

Microsoft is rolling out Xbox Mode to all Windows 11 PCs and devices. The full-screen experience offers a simple UI and frees up system resources to allow games to run smoothly. The current version still has some glitches and crashes occasionally. It is widely believed that Microsoft's next console will essentially be a Windows 11 PC running Xbox Mode.

end-to-end. San Francisco, May 7. Register today

ELON MUSK TESTIFIES THAT XAI TRAINED GROK ON OPENAI MODELS

Tech workers have widely assumed that labs in the US use distillation techniques on each other to avoid falling behind competitors - Musk's testimony confirms at least one case.

MATT MULLENWEG THINKS WORDPRESS IS IN DECLINE. HE MAY BE RIGHT

Mullenweg says WordPress is killing itself by blindly following rules and ideals.

SEQUOIA ASCENT 2026 SUMMARY

This post contains an AI-generated summary of a fireside chat at Sequoia Ascent 2026.

APPROACHING ZERO BUGS?

One way to measure if organizations are getting closer to zero bugs is to check the age of reported and fixed bugs - once AI tools are good enough, there should only be recently introduced bugs.

IF I COULD MAKE MY OWN GITHUB

Git is great at what it is designed to do, but what it is designed to do isn't the way most people are using it.

YOU CAN BEAT THE BINARY SEARCH

The SIMD Quad algorithm is an efficient search algorithm for sorted arrays of 16-bit unsigned integers that leverages the strengths of both algorithmic optimization and hardware acceleration to achieve faster speeds than binary search.