Morning Scan

Big Tech earnings season is doing that thing where the numbers are great and the stock reaction is terrible. Meta, Apple, and the CapEx skeptics are all wrestling with the same question: does the AI spending ever pay off, or is this the world's most expensive faith exercise? Hardware supply chains are creaking, and a hedge fund named after the very thing it ignored just got a lesson in it.

$638M — Eric Trump-backed defense startup Space-Eyes is going public via SPAC, the latest sign the SPAC market is back and politically flavored. (SiliconANGLE)

Connected World

Meta Earnings, Meta's Timing Problems, The Financial Tail

Ben Thompson argues that Apple's AI promises matter more than its solid quarterly numbers. (Stratechery)

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta Q2 earnings: The AI CapEx ROIC is bad thesis is DEAD

A full swing against the bears — the spend-and-pray strategy is apparently starting to show receipts. (Uncoveralpha)

Sunday Reboot: Tons of money, but way more grief

Best Q3 ever, worst investor mood ever — the market wants a growth story, not just a good balance sheet. (AppleInsider)

Your AI bet can be right and still run out of money

Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness fund dumped its stock portfolio to Citadel after steep losses — being right about AI and staying solvent are different skills. (Nate's Substack)

Machines & Minds

MacBook Air Experiencing 'Major' Shortage Despite $200 Price Increase

Higher prices didn't cool demand — or Apple badly misjudged supply, take your pick. (MacRumors)

Thoughts on Apple Upgrade; MacBook Air shortages; Apple wants glasses to be fitness devices (paywall)

Gurman connects the dots: subscriptions, supply crunches, and Apple's slow pivot toward wearables-as-health-platforms. (Bloomberg)

Xbox prices are increasing by up to €200 or £170

Console economics outside the US just got uglier — tariffs and component costs don't stay contained. (The Verge)

Inside Tencent's Failed Attempt to Take on Grand Theft Auto (paywall)

Six years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, still no GTA-killer — a case study in how not to chase a genre. (Bloomberg)

Machines & Minds

Kimi K3, The Manos, The Mythos, The Legendos

The open-weight model just topped leaderboards, and SemiAnalysis thinks the open frontier is more competitive than the labs want to admit. (Semianalysis)

Sam Altman and AI's decel debate

Altman's calling for the industry to "pace" development — notable from the person who spent three years stepping on the gas. (TechCrunch)

A profile of Nanit, a maker of AI-equipped baby cameras

1M daily users, $100M+ in revenue — turns out watching your baby breathe is a very sticky subscription business. (NYT)