Planet Labs is not selling satellite images. It is selling a subscription to watch the entire planet change in real time.
Planet Labs is not selling satellite images. It is selling a subscription to watch the entire planet change in real time.

At 2:59 a.m. Eastern Time on 3 May, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying 45 satellites, three of which belonged to Planet Labs. Pelicans 7, 8, and 9 are the latest additions to Planet’s next-generation constellati…

DJI invented the consumer drone. Now it cannot sell one in Washington or Beijing.
DJI invented the consumer drone. Now it cannot sell one in Washington or Beijing.

On the morning of 1 May, staff at DJI’s flagship retail store in Beijing’s Guomao business district began clearing drones from the shelves. The Neo, the Mavic, the Mini, every model that had made DJI the most dominant consumer electronics brand in its …

Skio never hired a sales team, never ran an ad, and just sold for $105 million cash to the company it was built to replace
Skio never hired a sales team, never ran an ad, and just sold for $105 million cash to the company it was built to replace

Kennan Frost dropped out of college, worked as an engineer at Pinterest, had a panic attack, quit, applied to Y Combinator in 2020, and by his own account failed his way through the programme until a pivot to subscription payments changed everything. F…

Amazon’s best quarter in years was half-built on a $16.8 billion paper gain from Anthropic
Amazon’s best quarter in years was half-built on a $16.8 billion paper gain from Anthropic

Amazon reported first-quarter 2026 net sales of $181.5 billion, a 17 per cent increase year on year that exceeded analyst estimates by more than $4 billion. Net income reached $30.3 billion, nearly doubling from $17.1 billion in the same period last ye…

Tim Cook returned $1 trillion to shareholders. John Ternus is being given permission to keep it.
Tim Cook returned $1 trillion to shareholders. John Ternus is being given permission to keep it.

  For nearly 15 years, Apple’s financial strategy has been defined by a single number: more than $1 trillion returned to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends. Tim Cook inherited a company sitting on a cash mountain that Steve Jobs had accu…

The factory that built your iPhone is now building the robot that will assemble the next one
The factory that built your iPhone is now building the robot that will assemble the next one

In April, a humanoid robot called the Honor D1 completed the Beijing half-marathon in 48 minutes and 19 seconds under remote control and 50 minutes and 26 seconds in fully autonomous mode, beating every other robot in the 112-team field. The machine th…

Foreign automakers are not staging a comeback in China. They are learning to be the junior partner.
Foreign automakers are not staging a comeback in China. They are learning to be the junior partner.

In January and February 2026, Volkswagen reclaimed the top position in China’s passenger vehicle market with a 13.9 per cent share, narrowly ahead of Geely at 13.8 per cent. Toyota’s joint ventures held 7.8 per cent. BYD, which dominated 2024 and much …

Nvidia built the AI engine. Alphabet is building the car, the road, and the toll booth. The market is pricing accordingly.
Nvidia built the AI engine. Alphabet is building the car, the road, and the toll booth. The market is pricing accordingly.

On Thursday, Alphabet’s share price rose nearly 10 per cent after the company reported first-quarter revenue of $109.9 billion, a 22 per cent increase year over year that beat analyst estimates by almost $3 billion. Google Cloud crossed $20 billion in …

China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same.
China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same.

A quality assurance supervisor identified only as Zhou joined a technology company in Hangzhou in November 2022. His job was to work with AI large language models, optimising their outputs and filtering sensitive content. He earned 25,000 yuan per mont…

Y Combinator built its empire on software. Its latest investment thesis says the garage is no longer enough.
Y Combinator built its empire on software. Its latest investment thesis says the garage is no longer enough.

Y Combinator published its Summer 2026 Request for Startups in late April, just days before the application deadline. The document lists 15 categories of companies that YC’s partners want to fund. Eight of them require capital, hardware, or both. The l…