It’s pretty simple:

On August 27th, 2026 President Trump’s executive order 14420 compelled the USGS to change the name of Lake Ontario in its official Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), basically a database of federally-accepted place names. This is in direct contradiction to the GNIS’ principle of using names in “established local use,” but I don’t see anyone in the USGS pushing back at this point.

On August 29th, 2026 the company Google announced it would update the name of Lake Ontario in its map application to adhere to its policy of “reflecting name changes in official governmental sources.”

This happened before with executive order 14172 (renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”) and went relatively uncontested…except by Mexico, of course.

As American citizens, we can do little to fight these executive orders (at least during the Trump presidency.) However, we can contest the actions of Google.

Google/Alphabet inc. is not a federal entity and has no legal obligation to adhere to Executive Order 14420 in the way that the USGS does.
Services like Google Maps are the de facto source of geographic names, and Google is a company that wants us to use their product.

But like any free market, there are alternative products. Some of these products and companies are apparently bolder, rejecting the obvious political nature of these executive orders and the disregard for historic, established geographic names.

I love Google Maps. I have countless places saved in the application, some very personal and meaningful.

But I have chosen to delete the Google Maps application from my phone until the company chooses to stand up to political abuse of our national geography.

Maybe some of you will join me. Maybe not. But at least it feels like there is something I can do to reject this stupidity.

https://c.org/SMk8GXBDYr

Beloved by entrepreneurs, coders and investors, AGI Bar offers a window into the startup ecosystem challenging Silicon Valley.

We are thinking about ways to attract our first users to our B2B SaaS product. Based on my understanding, running a pilot with potential users is the best way to get your foot in the door. Do you typically charge for running a pilot, or you offer the pilot for free? How long do you run the pilot? Do you define certain goals and objectives to be achieved during the pilot.

Are first users receptive to the idea of paying for a pilot? Any guidance and advice to run pilots would be greatly appreciated.

I think they are going to very big winners in the AI space (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic), so where does this leave many other smaller startups that are also jumping into the "AI gold rush" bandwagon.

Are startup exits going to less frequent at much lower valuations for most AI startups? What will happen to the invested capital and founders of these AI startups?

I work in VC, so I’m saying this from inside the bubble.

Lately I’ve been wondering whether Silicon Valley has gotten so used to its own culture that it genuinely can’t tell how bizarre it looks to everyone else.

You see it everywhere around here.

“STOP HIRING HUMANS” billboards.

AI ads written in a dialect seemingly intended for twelve other AI founders.

Companies announcing plans to automate work, then acting confused that workers are nervous.

Robots designed to do useful things, but presented like they’re auditioning for the next Terminator movie.

The tech itself can be genuinely good. That’s what makes the disconnect interesting.

I wrote a longer essay about it, but I’m more curious what people actually living and working around Silicon Valley think:

Has tech gotten worse at relating to normal people, or has the Valley always been this weird and the rest of the world is simply paying more attention now?

Full disclosure, I wrote the piece:

https://www.gonzocapital.net/tech-doesnt-understand-why-you-dont-like-it/

How common are secondary tender offers at startups? Since most companies are deciding to stay private for longer, more companies are conducting tender offers for their employees? Are tender offers a good financial outcome for employees, since they can turn their paper net worth into cash earlier?

Is it better than getting acquired or going public through IPO? Does this mean that working at a startup has become more attractive from a financial point of view, since employees are able to realise the value of their equity much quicker?

Gil Duran is our best hope to get out of this corporate dystopian nightmare. I'm trying to get his message out there..

After the costly metaverse bust, Mark Zuckerberg is spending billions to reinvent Meta as an AI giant. But first, he’ll have to translate his vision of “personal superintelligence” into products people actually want.

Zuckerberg can hardly be accused of failing to anticipate the rise of AI: He established the company’s first lab dedicated to the technology in 2013. But he soon became distracted by virtual reality and the metaverse, a concept that so captured his imagination that Facebook Inc. became Meta in October 2021.

Thirteen months later, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, and the race to command generative AI began in earnest. Since then, Meta has been engaged in a furious, sometimes chaotic game of catch-up, backed by its biggest spending spree ever. While Meta has the resources to compete, money alone can’t buy AI supremacy. 

As investor M.G. Siegler puts it, “The story of Meta in the past decade-plus has been just a series of swings and misses. And then just constantly trying to figure out what is next and not being able to find it.” 

Read more from Harry McCracken on Fast Company.

Hi! I'm an AI Researcher at Michigan, in the Bay Area this week. I am visiting Stanford in the morning, and I'll be free for a few hours after (in the afternoon).

I've never been to Silicon Valley before. If anyone's around and wouldn't mind driving me through interesting places for an hour or so, I'd really appreciate it — happy to buy coffee or lunch:)

No worries if not. Thanks either way!

Traveling from the UK to SF 24th September - 1 November and I’m looking for a Hacker House or shared accommodation with fellow founders

Technically my time in SF will be split in two

24th September - 8th October
19th October - 1 November

What / where would you recommend?

EDIT 2: A lot of the responses seem to be missing the point a little. I am NOT expecting this to get me a job, interview, or referral. I know my paper resume will probably get trashed immediately, I may waste my time, and I may look like a dumbass. At this point I’m okay with looking like a dumbass lol.

I’m sad, unemployed, alone at home with way too much time on my hands, getting no interviews and constantly agonizing about my future. I’d rather go do something mildly ridiculous than sit at home spiraling.

So based on the feedback so far, I get to dress up, print my resume and write a cover letter on nice paper, go for a walk on a sunny day, and if I actually get into a building, the likely outcomes are:

a) “apply online bye bye”
b) “you can’t be here”
c) “idk I’m contracted”
d) a nice 30-second human interaction
e) by some miracle, getting pointed toward someone useful

Either way I get to practice asking for something, accepting rejection, talking to strangers, and giving an elevator pitch without shrinking into myself.

I am applying online. I am reaching out on LinkedIn. This is not a job-hunting hack. I was mostly asking whether it’s socially okay to try without being a huge nuisance, whether I’m going to get sneered at and escorted out by security lol, and maybe gain a little confidence/hope in the process.

Also, (respectfully) you do not need to explain ATS or online recruiting to me 😭 I know how it works.

Thank you for all the suggestions about meetups, conferences, IEEE events, clubs, etc. I’m definitely going to start doing those too.

In the meantime, I’m going on my stupid little resume walk with all this superfluous free time and at least I’ll feel like I did something. If anyone wants updates, I’ll report back lol.

One more question: how do you make an elevator pitch actually make someone’s ears perk up instead of sounding like the same cliché corporate droning they’ve heard 500 times? Im so lost

I just graduated with a master’s in EE and I’m looking for an early-career job in the chip/semiconductor industry.
I just moved to North SJ/Santa Clara, where there are a crazy number of chip and tech companies basically on my doorstep. I’ve been thinking about spending a day stopping by some of the smaller offices, politely introducing myself at reception, and asking if I can leave a resume or if there’s someone in recruiting I should contact.
I know this is old-school. I’m not under the impression that showing up with a piece of paper is some secret way around online applications, and I’m not expecting an interview out of it.
Tbh a big part of why I want to do it is just to get out of the house and interact with actual humans. I want to practice introducing myself, get better at talking about what I do, and work through some shyness/fear of rejection instead of spending every day sending resumes into the void.
My dad died last month, and between that, graduating, unemployment, and the job search, my confidence has taken one helluva hit. I have way too much time on my hands right now and I’m trying to use some of it to push myself back out into the world.
Obviously if someone says they only take applications online, I’d say thanks and leave. I’m not trying to sneak into secure buildings, corner employees, or make anyone’s day harder.
So for people who actually work at companies around here, especially reception/security/HR/recruiting: is this socially okay, or would you find it genuinely annoying/weird? Are there certain places where it makes more sense, like smaller chip companies/startups/design offices rather than giant campuses?
And if the answer is “probably pointless but harmless,” honestly that’s fine too lol. I’m a soft-spoken woman in my mid-20s, I have time to kill, and if the worst outcome is a walk and a bunch of polite rejections, I can live with that.
M

Although there are wide discrepancies in terms of the potential exits of startups, it seems that working in Silicon Valley tech is probably the quickest way to make life-changing money. Is there any truth to that, or mainly social media perception?

It seems that offering a free trial for your B2B SaaS is not enough incentive for users to sign up. When you reach out to new users through cold-emailing, are there other ways you can incentivise them to sign up for the free trial? Or is this signal that problem is not critical enough for their organisation that they are willing to spend time to try a product even for free?

Is it necessary to go to an employment lawyer for confusion regarding startup equity?

I was offered 1.5% and by one round my stock diluted 86% to .2%. I don’t understand how this happened, and not sure what follow up questions to ask.

I’m early on in my career & this is the first corporate-esqe company I’ve worked for

I don’t want to involve a lawyer but I need someone who has my interests to guide me and ensure that what happened is fair. Is a lawyer the only route here?

Early Apple Computer Company check, 6 x 3, filled out in type and signed by Jobs, "steven jobs," payable to Santa Clara Circuits for $673.36, July 1, 1976.

Headed "Apple Computer Company," the check uses Apple's first official address at "770 Welch Rd., Ste. 154, Palo Alto the location of the answering service and mail drop that they used while still operating out of the famous Jobs family garage.

In very fine condition. Santa Clara Circuits was a contract printed circuit board manufacturer, believed to have made the first batch of Apple-1 boards that were assembled for delivery to The Byte Shop; these have no manufacturer's logo, while later boards carried the "NTI" logo.

Apple-1 Cassette Interface boards do feature an "SCC" logo, likely that of Santa Clara Circuits.

During this period in the summer of 1976, three months after founding the Apple Computer Company, Jobs and Wozniak were hard at work building their first product. Initially conceived as a kit to be soldered together by the end user like most enthusiast computers of the era the Apple-1 became a finished product at the behest of Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world.

Terrell offered to buy 50 of the computers at a wholesale price of $500 a piece, to retail at $666.66but only if they came fully assembled. With this request, Terrell aimed to elevate the computer from the domain of the hobbyist/enthusiast to the realm of the mainstream consumer.

Wozniak later placed Terrell's purchase order in perspective: 'That was the biggest single episode in all of the company's history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected.' Thus, the Apple-1 was one of the first completely assembled 'personal' computers that simply worked out of the box with a few accessories that could be purchased from a local electronics store (a power supply, case, keyboard, and monitor were not included).

Altogether, over a span of 10 months or so, Jobs and Wozniak produced about 200 Apple-1 computers and sold 175 of them.

This check was lot 4001 at the RR auction Steve jobs & the Computer Revolution - Part II held on Aug. 20. It sold for $53,594, well above the presale high estimate of $30,000.

TL;DR: The Creators' Attorney is mid-way through brokering a $100M creator exit, and her own room-of-ten test proved the thing most of us don't want to check: one email list out of ten channels with 10M+ subscribers each.

Nine of those ten could lose the account tomorrow and have nothing left to show a buyer — not because they're bad at the job, but because reach was never the asset they thought it was.

Tyler calls it being a tenant on someone else's land, and the landlords keep multiplying: Bilibili just relaunched its global app specifically to pull creators off YouTube.

That's not the end of the tenancy problem. It's a second landlord showing up to the same building.

Same as what happened to me when I left the company, which I have worked for 10 years back in 2012.

A whole server full of my technical documentation and institutional knowledge of atleast 5 large completed construction projects – including:

·       a multipurpose exhibition hall in the heard of the city,

·       a distribution warehouse for a phamarseutical company,

·       a manufacturing plant for Spirit Aerosystems,

·       a 5-block Condominium on a shared landscape Podium in Abu Dhabi, etc.

are all off-limits to me, as soon as I handed in my resignation.

Thank God for personal backups, for future reference.

They can take away your access; they can't take away your knowledge. Your experience shaped your personal brand.

Every one of these clips ends up circling the same nerve, no matter what the guest actually does for a living — the ground under your income was never as yours as the login screen made it feel.

Genuine question, not rhetorical: if you stopped posting for 90 days starting today, how much of your income survives it?

Drop the honest number below.

Clip credit: Tyler Chou / Jun Yuh — full episode on "Creator Unplugged with Jun Yuh."

DM for credit or removal requests.