Meta Has Poached Enough AI Talent – For Now

Meta Has Poached Enough AI Talent – For Now

Meta Platforms [META] has frozen hiring in its artificial intelligence (AI) division after a spree that brought in more than 50 engineers and researchers, some with pay packages exceeding $100m, the Wall Street Journal reported. The pause, which also covers internal transfers, is tied to a broader AI restructure into four units, including a new superintelligence lab. Meta recently poached talent from Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google, Apple [AAPL] and Anthropic. It is unclear how long the freeze will last.

Lutnick Remarks Spark Beijing Backlash 

“We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second-best stuff, not even our third-best,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CNBC last month, the day after the US lifted export controls on Nvidia [NVDA] chips. However, the Financial Times reported, his comments caused offence in China, prompting a group of regulators, among them the Cyberspace Administration of China, to move to dissuade local firms from using Nvidia chips.  

PLTR Spirals

Palantir Technologies [PLTR] has shed $73bn in market value over a six-session losing streak, Bloombergreported, its worst since April 2024. Shares are down 17% from the August 12 peak, making it the S&P 500’s weakest performer over the stretch. Nonetheless, it is still the year’s top gainer at 106%. PLTR short sellers gained $1.6bn during the slump, though remain $4.5bn down year-to-date.

Could Ether Ever Be as Big as Bitcoin?

Launched in July 2015, Ethereum is the largest and best-established open-ended decentralized software platform. Investors are increasingly coming to realize that ETH offers a range of benefits. Its native token, ether [ETH] currently accounts for a 13.4% share of the crypto market, but that figure looks set to rise as the currency gains increasing mainstream acceptance, as OPTO unpacks.  

OpenAI Eyes Infrastructure Business

The AI firm is considering data center services as a potential revenue stream, Bloomberg reported. Loosely inspired by Amazon’s [AMZN] success in cloud computing, the expansion would leverage OpenAI’s experience designing and setting up data centers to meet its own AI computing needs. While it is not currently expanding into this new segment, people “should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars” on it in the “not very distant future”, said CEO Sam Altman. 

Valorant’s Killer iPhone Debut

Tencent [TCEHY] released its popular shooter game on mobile this week, holding the number one spot in iPhone app downloads and earning $1m in player spending on its first day. The free-to-play game is only available in China, with global release not yet announced, and earns revenue through in-app purchases such as character cosmetics. It matched DnF Mobile, another popular Tencent release, in terms of downloads, but still lags in terms of earnings. 

Data Center Demand Drives Sea Change at Seagate

A top player in the data storage market since the 1980s, Seagate Holdings [STX] is a US company with an international footprint. While STX stock seems to be having a bumper year in 2025, the company’s prospects are closely connected to macroeconomic headwinds and tailwinds — most notably, US tariffs and AI growth in data centers. Off the back of strong quarterly and fiscal year earnings in late July, OPTO examine what the months ahead could hold for Seagate Holdings.