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Top stories today:
- Block to cut 4K+ (40%+) jobs citing AI shift, shares +24%
- Anthropicās Amodei says firm wonāt remove safeguards for DoD
- Google rolls out Nano Banana 2 with faster image generation
- Netflix walks from WBD deal after Paramountās higher bid
- PayPal said to reject Stripe talks, prepares for activist push
- CoreWeave Q4 revenue +110% YoY to $1.6B, adjusted loss $284M
0. Data and calendar
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Block to cut 4K+ (40%+) jobs citing AI shift, shares +24%
AI tools have changed āwhat it means to build and run a company,ā CEO Jack Dorsey said.
Other companies may follow suit after seeing the +24% stock jump.
Block had 10,205 employees worldwide as of Dec. 31, 2025, per its annual filing.
+24% YoY in Q4 gross profit to $2.9B.
+4% in Q4 revenue to $6.3B.
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3. Anthropicās Amodei says firm wonāt remove safeguards for DoD
CEO Dario Amodeiās statement came <24 hours before the Pentagon deadline.
Anthropic has ānever raised objections to particular military operations,ā but in a ānarrow set of casesā AI could undermine democratic values, Amodei wrote.
Proposed DoD contract language made āvirtually no progressā on blocking mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, Anthropic said.
The Pentagon said it offered compromises, including written assurances existing laws bar mass surveillance of Americans.
DoD has reportedly discussed AI tools to automate reconnaissance of Chinaās power grids and sensitive networks.
Relatedly, 100+ Google DeepMind and other AI employees urged Jeff Dean in a letter to block Gemini military use.
4. Google rolls out Nano Banana 2 with faster image generation, world knowledge upgrades
Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview) has topped Artificial Analysisā text-to-image leaderboard:
