Gusto’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How Listening to Customers Built a $9.6B Company
Gusto, founded by Tomer London, Josh Reeves, and Edward Kim, grew from a YC‑backed payroll tool for California SMBs into a $9.5 billion people‑platform serving over 400,000 businesses. The founders relied on relentless cold‑calling and early customer discovery to validate demand, focusing on salaried firms to achieve an NPS above 85. A disciplined monthly release cadence and high‑touch onboarding turned early users into advocates, enabling state‑by‑state expansion and the addition of benefits, HR, and compliance tools. In 2025 Gusto announced the acquisition of Guideline, bringing 401(k) services in‑house and cementing its platform vision.
Explainable AI Achieves 83.5% Accuracy with Quantized Active Ingredients and Boltzmann Machines
Researchers introduced a hybrid quantum‑classical framework that uses Quantized Boltzmann Machines (QBMs) to improve both performance and transparency in AI decision‑making. Tested on a binarized, PCA‑reduced MNIST subset, QBMs reached 83.5% classification accuracy, far surpassing the 54% of classical Boltzmann...
Aspect Biosystems and Novo Nordisk – Enter New Phase of Partnership to Develop Curative Medicines for Diabetes
Novo Nordisk and Aspect Biosystems have entered a new partnership phase to develop curative cellular medicines for diabetes. Aspect will acquire Novo Nordisk's stem‑cell‑derived islet and hypoimmune technologies and lead development, manufacturing, and commercialization, while Novo Nordisk retains rights to...
AI Is Rewriting the CEO Job Description: Are You Ready?
The rise of generative AI is reshaping the CEO’s core responsibilities. Unlike past technologies, AI acts as a decision‑maker, embedding its own values into business processes. Executives must now serve as chief AI orchestrators, setting vision, defining boundaries, and driving...
Robust Quantum Machine Learning Achieves Increased Accuracy on MNIST and FMNIST Datasets
Researchers at the University of Melbourne introduced a Matrix Product State (MPS) based encoding scheme that dramatically reduces quantum circuit depth while preserving classification performance. By iteratively applying singular value decomposition, the method creates low‑depth, approximate encodings that require fewer...
Data Science Success Requires Six Integrated Dimensions
📊 The 6 Dimensions of Data Science — a practical lens, not a buzzword map This framework is useful because it answers all the real questions leaders should ask: 1️⃣ Goals — Why Data Science? Insights, prediction, automation, optimization, and...
Longtime Neiman Marcus Merchant Heads to Bloomingdale’s
Longtime Neiman Marcus merchant Russ Patrick has been hired as Bloomingdale’s general merchandising manager of home. Patrick brings more than three decades of luxury retail experience, most recently overseeing men’s, gifts, home and children’s categories at Neiman Marcus and Horchow. He said Bloomingdale’s...
Rigetti Computing Receives $8.4 Million Order for 108-Qubit Quantum Computer From India’s C-DAC
Rigetti Computing India has received an $8.4 million purchase order from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C‑DAC) to deliver a 108‑qubit superconducting quantum computer. The modular chiplet‑based system, built with Rigetti’s in‑house control electronics and fabricated at its Fab‑1...
How to Build a Complete Marketing Strategy That Drives Results: The Duct Tape Marketing Engine Framework
Duct Tape Marketing introduces the Engine Framework, a three‑part system—Brand, Growth, and Customer Experience—that turns a fragmented marketing plan into a cohesive operating system. The Strategy Pyramid aligns each engine with the full customer journey, from awareness to advocacy, and...
Harness Launches a ‘Human-Aware’ Site Reliability Engineering Agent
Harness Inc. unveiled AI Scribe, a “human‑aware” site reliability engineering agent that taps into team conversations on Slack, email and other channels to surface incident clues. The tool builds an explainable change graph linking feature flags, configuration updates and infrastructure changes,...
AI Agents or Skills? Why the Answer Is ‘Both’
Anthropic’s new Agent Skills introduce modular, declarative bundles of expertise that agents can load on demand, addressing prompt bloat and context‑window limits. By separating decision‑making logic (agents) from reusable procedural knowledge (skills), developers can extend capabilities without rewriting core agents....
Earth Was Just Hit by the Strongest Solar Radiation Storm in over 20 Years — Here's What It Means
Earth was struck by an S4‑level solar radiation storm on Jan. 19, the most severe event since the October 2003 Halloween storms. The storm, driven by a fast coronal mass ejection, sent high‑energy protons toward the planet, but the particles lacked the...
Empower Teams with AI Fluency for Future Success
We're teaching everyone on the team to build AI workflows. Not to replace them. To unleash them. Most companies pick one of two paths: automate people out of jobs, or ignore AI and fall behind. We're doing neither. Customer experience....
SpaceX Didn’t Properly Inspect Crane Before Collapse at Starbase, OSHA Says
OSHA says SpaceX failed to properly inspect a recently repaired hydraulic crane before it collapsed at the Starbase facility in June 2025. The agency issued seven serious violations and levied the maximum fines on six of them, totaling $115,850. The...
Clinician Groups Ask Court to Overturn CDC's Childhood Vaccine Overhaul
Leading physician organizations have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the CDC’s recent overhaul of the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule. The groups contend the new recommendations are reckless and lack adequate safety evidence. The legal challenge targets the addition...
Two Firms Whacked for Illegal Marketing Bombardment
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has imposed £225,000 in fines on two firms for massive unsolicited marketing campaigns. Allay Claims was fined £120,000 after sending more than 4 million text messages without valid consent, while Bristol‑based ZMLUK received a £105,000...
Asda Putting More than 1000 Jobs at Risk by Outsourcing George Clothing, Says GMB
Asda plans to outsource the fulfilment of its George clothing line to a DHL‑run depot in Derby, consolidating operations from three existing sites. The move could put up to 1,200 jobs at risk, prompting the GMB union to warn of...
New LSEG Data Reveals Ownership Behind One-Third of Sanctions Exposure
London Stock Exchange Group’s Risk Intelligence unit has launched the Sanctioned Securities Data File, an instrument‑level dataset that links sanctions designations to specific securities. Initial analysis shows about one‑third of sanctions exposure stems from ownership or control relationships, even when...
OpenAI Says Its Mystery AI Wearable Is on Track for 2026 as AI Earbuds Rumors Spread
OpenAI confirmed its long‑rumored AI wearable will be announced by the end of 2026, though details remain vague. Leaked reports from Chinese sources and a leaker named Smart Pikachu claim the device could be AI‑powered earbuds built by Foxconn under the...
Pinterest Announces Two New C-Suite Leaders
Pinterest announced two senior‑level hires to accelerate its global advertising business. Lee Brown, former DoorDash CRO and Spotify ad chief, becomes the company’s first Chief Business Officer, overseeing sales, content, ad product marketing and customer operations. Claudine Cheever, who led...
Visible, Honest CEOs Accelerate Startup Growth
What I see CEOs at struggling start-ups do: - Go dark - Hide - Lash out - Tweet about lots of things non-work - Invest time on tiny expenses - Argue internally What should do: - Be Present - Be Honest - Be the Rock - Be Realistic/Optimistic You just plain grow...
Semarchy Closes 2025 with Global Growth and Momentum
Semarchy reported a year of global expansion, highlighted by the launch of the Semarchy Data Platform (SDP) and the first native MDM application on Snowflake Marketplace. The company deepened strategic ties with Snowflake and Microsoft while adding marquee customers such...
A Geometric Twist Boosts the Power of Robotic Textiles
EPFL researchers have introduced an X‑Crossing textile architecture that interlaces shape‑memory‑alloy (SMA) fibers in a periodic X pattern, enabling a 4.5‑gram fabric to lift 1 kg when contracted 50 %. The design aligns each fiber crossing with the desired motion, turning individual...
Karavel Raises £1.25m Pre-Seed to Modernise AI-Driven Compliance
Karavel announced a £1.25 million pre‑seed round led by Fuel Ventures to accelerate its AI‑driven compliance platform across the UK and Europe. The solution bundles marketing ad reviews, real‑time horizon scanning, regulatory gap analysis and actionable guidance in one interface. By...
Ellipsis Health Expands Access to Sage via Salesforce AppExchange
Ellipsis Health has launched its AI care manager Sage on the Salesforce AppExchange, enabling Agentforce Health customers to embed autonomous, empathetic voice assessments into existing workflows. Sage, a HIPAA‑compliant conversational AI, can conduct post‑discharge, risk and complex care assessments around...
RiseLink Convenes the Physical AI Ecosystem at CES 2026
RiseLink Technologies staged an invitation‑only "Physical AI" mixer at CES 2026, gathering AI model creators, hardware firms, and product innovators to align the full AI stack from silicon to shipped devices. The event showcased the company’s connective platform that bridges...
Sephora Partners with Korean Retailer Olive Young to Showcase K-Beauty Brands
Sephora is teaming with South Korean retailer CJ Olive Young to create dedicated K‑beauty zones in its stores, beginning in the second half of 2026. The rollout will debut in the United States, Canada and key Asian markets such as...
Densify Announced Its Rebranding to Kubex
Densify has rebranded to Kubex, turning its product name into the company identity to reflect a strategic focus on AI‑first, end‑to‑end resource optimization. The Kubex platform now unifies optimization for Kubernetes nodes, pods, containers, GPU and AI workloads across cloud...
Unframe Launches Unframe Unlimited to Accelerate Enterprise ROI on AI
Unframe announced Unframe Unlimited, a partner program that equips channel partners to sell, deploy, and scale enterprise‑ready AI solutions on its managed delivery platform. The initiative provides sales enablement, marketing support, outcome‑based pricing and co‑selling opportunities, enabling partners to deliver...
Longevity Biotech Shifts Focus to Root Causes
Longevity biotech now targets root causes rather than single diseases. This is a paradigm shift in medicine
Reentrant Topological Phases Achieves Universal Class Invariance in Moire-Modulated SSH Model
Researchers have demonstrated that a moiré‑modulated Su‑Schrieffer‑Heeger (SSH) chain exhibits reentrant topological phases with universal class invariance. By systematically varying the moiré pattern, they uncovered a direct, predictable relationship between the internal lattice configuration and the emergent edge‑state properties. The...
Evernote Releases V11, Marking a New Chapter in AI-Powered Productivity
Evernote unveiled version 11, its first major update in five years, introducing three AI‑driven features: AI Assistant, Semantic Search, and AI Meeting Notes. The AI Assistant, built with OpenAI, offers a conversational chat interface for notes, tasks, and calendar actions....
Signaloid Successfully Achieves SOC 2 Type II Attestation
Signaloid announced that it has earned a SOC 2 Type II attestation, concluding a three‑month audit of its cloud infrastructure, data‑processing pipelines, and operational controls. The audit, performed by compliance specialist A‑LIGN, covered the period from July 1 to September 30, 2025,...
Sprocket Security Appoints Eric Sheridan as Chief Technology Officer
Sprocket Security announced the appointment of Eric Sheridan as its new Chief Technology Officer. Sheridan brings decades of cybersecurity and software engineering experience, along with multiple patents, to guide the firm’s technology vision. In his role, he will oversee engineering...
Tariff Timeline: White House Actions, Declarations, Reversals
Since Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, the White House has issued a cascade of tariff announcements, pauses, and reversals affecting North America, China, the EU, and dozens of other partners. Tariffs have ranged from 10 % to over 150 %, prompting...
Dockerhub for Skill.md
The Official SKILLS.md Hub launches on Dockerhub as a centralized registry for SKILLS.md files that extend AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT. Users can search and install skills via the simple "sr" CLI, accessing tools ranging from Slack automation...
Pagaya Launches $350m Revolving Personal Loan ABS Deal
Pagaya Technologies closed a $350 million revolving asset‑backed securitisation, PAID 2025‑REV1, backed by consumer loans originated on its AI‑driven network. The deal features a 24‑month revolving period that can double funding capacity to $700 million as loans are repaid. Structured with 26North Partners,...
AI Becomes Marketing Infrastructure; Power and Ethics Prevail
2025 will be remembered as the year AI stopped feeling “emerging” and started feeling like infrastructure. It quietly seeped into every layer of marketing—creative, media, analytics, and even how leaders frame strategy and risk. At the same time, the social...
Reset SaaS Conversion Benchmarks: Contribute Real Data
AI is messing with SaaS Conversion Benchmarks across the board. It’s time to reset expectations. We’re teaming up with Kyle Poyar @ Growth Unhinged and ChartMogul to build the 2026 SaaS Conversion Benchmarks. There’s too much anecdotal advice, and not...
New Quantum Boundary Discovered: Spin Size Determines How the Kondo Effect Behaves
Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have experimentally realized a Kondo‑necklace model using an organic‑inorganic hybrid crystal, allowing direct comparison of spin‑½ and spin‑1 lattices. Thermodynamic measurements show that spin‑½ moments form non‑magnetic singlets, while spin‑1 moments develop long‑range magnetic order....
Data Ownership Walls Threaten AI Startup Survival
A wave of AI startups is about to die - and most of them don't see it coming. not because their product is bad. because they built on someone else's data, and the landlords are changing the locks. For a...
Dicke-Ising Chain Analysis Achieves Improved Accuracy in Magnetically Ordered Phases with NLCE+DMRG
Researchers combined numerical linked‑cluster expansions (NLCE) with density‑matrix renormalization‑group (DMRG) to map the Dicke‑Ising chain onto a self‑consistent effective matter Hamiltonian, eliminating photon‑spin correlation calculations. This hybrid method achieved phase‑diagram precision of 10⁻⁴ for ferromagnetic couplings and confirmed a narrow...
Small Moments Define Trust, Performance, and Culture
The moments that change everything at work are rarely the big ones. They’re the passing comments, the tone in a reply, even the way a leader shows up in the in-between. These “insignificant” moments quietly shape trust, performance, and culture...
New Spaceport Proposed in India Independent of Its Space Agency ISRO
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu announced preliminary talks with Greenko Group to develop a commercial spaceport on Hope Island near Kakinada. The site offers a more efficient launch trajectory for polar orbits, reducing fuel compared with ISRO's Sriharikota facility....
Make Identity Threat Detection Your Security Strategy for 2026
Identity Threat Detection & Response (ITDR) is positioned as the core security strategy for 2026, shifting focus from perimeter defenses to monitoring compromised accounts. The article highlights that identity‑based attacks are the most common threat, and traditional controls like MFA...
How To Build Production-Ready AI Agents With RAG and FastAPI
The New Stack tutorial outlines a production‑ready stack for building agentic AI using Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) and FastAPI. It combines a LangChain‑style reasoning loop, FAISS vector search, schema‑based guardrails, and token‑metered cost controls. The guide adds async execution, retries, semantic...
Limited Choices Boost Response; Three Is the Sweet Spot
The most overlooked way to increase response? Give someone a choice. When you have a choice, you’re in control. And all humans crave control. We want to feel some agency. We don’t like to feel forced… Or backed into a...
Canada Rocket Secures $6.2M Seed to Build Indigenous Launchers
Canada Rocket Company emerged from stealth last week with the announcement of a $6.2M CDN ($4.5M) seed funding round—and with plans to create sovereign light- and medium-lift launch capabilities for the Great White North. https://t.co/jNyfibjct6
RFK Jr. Seeks Overhaul of Vaccine Compensation Panel
RFK Jr. is moving to remake a panel involved in that compensating people who are injured by vaccines. It could have big consequences. By @ChelseaCirruzzo. https://t.co/S98hMN6Vd0
Mapping Tumor‑Immune Spatial Interactions in Solid Cancers
Decoding the spatial dynamics of tumor and immune cell interactions in solid cancers https://t.co/AHgt77Ee2t https://t.co/1Xxkt45JlD
