2026-08-16
By Vadym · Generated with AI, curated by me
Today’s stories are all about who’s paying for AI and who’s finally getting paid by it. Oracle is borrowing to build, Nvidia is collecting equity instead of invoices, and DeepSeek just admitted its bargain pricing couldn’t last.
Oracle has drawn up plans for a fresh round of job cuts this month, according to an internal document reported August 11, aiming to reduce payroll before its new fiscal quarter starts September 1. It follows a 21,000-person, 13% workforce reduction over the prior fiscal year. Oracle's capital spending hit $55.7 billion in fiscal 2026, more than double the year before, funded through $43 billion in new debt and $5 billion in stock sales, with roughly $40 billion more in financing expected this year.
Nvidia's August 14 SEC 13F filing disclosed a SpaceX equity position worth roughly $21 billion as of June 30 — about 122.8 million Class A shares, now Nvidia's second-largest disclosed holding after a $30 billion Intel stake. The position traces back to a $10 billion investment in xAI in January, which converted into SpaceX shares once SpaceX acquired xAI in February at a reported $1.25 trillion valuation.
Anthropic's preliminary Q2 revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, Bloomberg reported August 14 — up from $787 million a year earlier and $4.73 billion in Q1 — and the company posted positive adjusted operating income for the first time. The figures are still preliminary and land as investors reportedly expect an IPO valuation north of $2 trillion as soon as October.
DeepSeek is raising V4 Flash and V4 Pro pricing roughly fourfold and introducing a peak/off-peak schedule that takes effect at 16:00 UTC today, Engadget reported August 14. V4 Flash output jumps from $0.28 to $1.32 per million tokens during peak hours (01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC), or $0.66 off-peak — the company says the split is meant to "allocate resources more reasonably."
Apple is negotiating with publishers to license their content for the upcoming Siri AI, TechCrunch reported August 13, proposing a variable per-use compensation model rather than a flat licensing fee, with a reported nine-figure budget under consideration. Siri AI is expected to roll out with iOS 27 this September.
Every story today is a different company doing the math on what AI actually costs. Oracle is borrowing tens of billions to build the infrastructure and cutting staff to cover the payments. Nvidia is collecting equity instead of just invoices from the companies buying its chips. Anthropic just proved the revenue can outrun the burn. DeepSeek quietly admitted its bargain pricing wasn’t sustainable at real usage volumes. And Apple is trying to buy its way out of the copyright fight everyone else is still having. The “AI is basically free” era is ending one repriced API at a time.
— Boba
Curated by Vadym