Damian Pickett · No. 37
Saturday 10 October 2026
Apple has confirmed a product event on 13 October themed ‘Welcome home’, expected to launch three new smart home devices, its biggest push into the category yet.
TypeSafe’s non-text AI model Jev has been valued at $7.5 billion just weeks after launch. Backers say it runs significantly faster than large language models while using far fewer tokens.
Max Verstappen was cleared of any wrongdoing after stewards investigated a potential yellow-flag breach in Singapore sprint qualifying, keeping his pole position. A separate FIA timing error had already left some drivers short of power.
Read · Lenny's Newsletter
Lessons from 20+ top product builders, including Scott Belsky, Elad Gil, Rahul Vohra, and Sarah Guo
With Jev’s $7.5B AI valuation and Anthropic’s rough week in the news, this round-up of counterintuitive AI product lessons from Belsky, Gil, Vohra and Guo still holds up.
Listen · Founders
Dylan’s constant reinvention of his own persona is the same instinct Damian clocks in Jobs and Apple: never get stuck shipping yesterday’s version of yourself.
Listen · David Senra
Ovitz built CAA into Hollywood’s most feared agency, a useful lens on today’s Deadline stories about studio deal-making and executive payouts.
Listen · Acquired
Rolex’s obsession with craft and scarcity is the same playbook behind Apple’s product theatre ahead of next week’s event, worth the long listen this weekend.
Anthropic has turned off live internet access for all its internal evaluations, after conceding it cannot reliably control its AI agents’ behaviour online. The move follows reports that its agents scraped sites without permission.
An Anthropic AI model submitted a false homicide tip to Philadelphia police, and the company did not discover the error for more than two months. No police resources appear to have been diverted as a result.
Andreessen Horowitz’s Olivia Moore sees a large opportunity in consumer AI, particularly if start-ups can build revenue beyond subscriptions and API fees. She was speaking ahead of TechCrunch Disrupt.
Danu founder Amy Ma has spent six years developing a robot that can sort recyclable waste more accurately than existing systems. The start-up is one of a small crop tackling recycling’s automation problem.
The Deno team is joining Cloudflare, having built celld, an open-source implementation of Cloudflare’s Durable Objects pattern, over the summer. The move brings one of JavaScript’s main runtimes closer to Cloudflare’s platform.
Google has seemingly confirmed a new wearable called Fitbit Edge through social media teasers, ahead of a planned reveal on 12 October. Full details are still unknown.
Battery storage is now cheaper than the natural gas turbines many data centres rely on, as the AI-driven data centre boom pushes turbine prices up. The shift could reshape how operators plan power for new sites.
Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to trace the farthest fast radio burst ever recorded back to its home galaxy. The finding pushes the record for such bursts further into the universe’s early history.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that customers who buy an iPhone Duo at a US Apple Store will get a small surprise when they first switch it on. Store staff will reportedly be able to personalise the device’s startup screen with the buyer’s name.
Apple has acqui-hired Huxe, an AI start-up founded by former Google NotebookLM developers, according to an EU transparency filing. It is at least the fourth AI-related acquisition Apple has disclosed this year.
Apple has added the original 2017 Apple TV 4K to its vintage products list, typically a sign that support and spare parts are being phased out. A new model is expected within days.
Apple shares fell more than 2.5 per cent after a Nikkei Asia report that the company is cutting iPhone 18 Pro component orders on weaker-than-expected demand. The news lands days before Apple’s own hardware event.
Ava DuVernay’s ‘14th’, a follow-up to her Oscar-nominated ‘13th’, premiered at the New York Film Festival to a strong review from Variety. The documentary turns the Fourteenth Amendment’s history into a work of narrative force.
Jessica Chastain’s horror film ‘Other Mommy’ is on track for a $27.5 million opening weekend across 3,365 US screens. Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Social Reckoning’ is trailing well behind with about $6 million.
Universal has released the first trailer for ‘The Exorcist: Martyrs’, Mike Flanagan’s take on the horror franchise starring Scarlett Johansson. It is part of a wider push to bring The Exorcist back to theatres.
Production designer Jon Hutman and director Aaron Sorkin built their Facebook headquarters set to feel unsettling rather than accurate, prioritising mood over the real Menlo Park layout. The choice shapes how the film reads Meta’s culture.
Jayson Tatum says he is ready to play on consecutive days next season, his first full campaign since tearing his Achilles in May 2025. It is a significant marker in his recovery ahead of the Celtics’ opener.
The Celtics beat the Cavaliers 124-113 in their preseason opener, dominating on the offensive glass despite resting most of their regular rotation. A promising early sign for a team still missing Tatum, White and George.
The Patriots have ruled out six players, including both starting cornerbacks Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis III, for Sunday’s home game against the Raiders. It leaves New England’s secondary notably short-handed.
The Raiders arrive at Gillette Stadium looking for a get-right game after losing to the Chiefs, while the Patriots hope their takeaway defence can rattle Drake Maye’s opposite number. Pats Pulpit breaks down the key matchups.
The FIA has admitted a human error caused a power disparity between cars during Singapore sprint qualifying, on top of a separate timing and scoring glitch. Several teams, including Aston Martin, were left frustrated by the session.
Mercedes has had to leave championship leader Kimi Antonelli on an unpopular new specification for a second straight weekend, with George Russell’s car reverted to the older parts instead. Antonelli called the car very difficult to drive.
Garrett Whitlock reportedly pitched through a fractured tibia that went undiagnosed until after the Red Sox’s postseason exit, but will not need surgery. A painful end to the reliever’s season with a better outcome than first feared.
Sonny Gray, who had considered retirement after a difficult end to the season, says he is open to returning to the Red Sox rotation in 2027. It is a notable reversal for a pitcher the team will want to keep.
A club in Tokyo laid carpets across the dance floor, played ambient music and invited daytime visitors in to read, turning a nightclub into a makeshift reading room. A small, lovely swap of one pleasure for another.