Good morning. And RIP to Margaret “Maggie” Boden, 88, the British philosopher turned cognitive scientist who gave us a framework for creativity in an age of artificial intelligence.
Boden was reportedly not very good at using computers, but she was fabulous at evaluating their impact on humanity.
As she wrote in Aeon magazine in 2018: “Even the most ‘friendly’ AI is, intrinsically, value-less. When AI teams talk of aligning their program’s ‘values’ with ours, they should not be taken as speaking literally. That’s good news, given the increasingly common fear that ‘The robots will take over!’ The truth is that they certainly won’t want to.”
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Fortune’s upcoming Most Powerful Women Summit, Oct 13-15 in Washington, D.C. It will feature tech leaders Corie Barry of Best Buy, Shannon Clark of Palantir, Ellie Mertz of Airbnb, Toni Townes-Whitney of SAIC, and more.
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.
Coming soon: Meta’s ‘Hypernova’ smart glasses
Being called “four eyes” never seemed so cool.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is reportedly preparing for the imminent release of a pair of upmarket smart glasses with a display.
Coming in September, per Bloomberg, the product called “Hypernova” internally is expected to include a display on the bottom portion of the right lens that projects information into the wearer’s field of view.
The added display makes it possible for the wearer to view notifications, photos, or even simple apps and helps Meta take another step toward augmented reality.
It also comes at a cost: $800 and up, according to the Bloomberg report.
That’s quite a bit more than the $200 to $500 sticker price for a set of smart Ray-Bans or Oakleys but quite a bit less than the rumored $1,400 that preceded the latest news.
The report adds that the Hypernova specs will include a wristband, à la Meta’s Orion AR glasses, to control the product.
That wristband uses electromyography, or EMG, to translate wrist muscle movement to commands without the need for the wearer’s hands to be visible to the glasses.
The global smart glasses market, driven by North America, was worth almost $2 billion last year, according to Grand View Research. It’s projected to top $8 billion by 2030.
According to Counterpoint Research, Meta dominates the category with more than three quarters’ share. —AN
Shein's U.K. sales jump to $2.8 billion
The British business of the Chinese fast-fashion retailer Shein surged more than 32% last year as the company expanded in its third-largest market after the U.S. and Germany.
Its 2024 sales in the U.K. jumped to £2.05 billion, or about $2.77 billion, according to a Friday filing.
That’s good news for Shein, which has been chasing an IPO for some time.
The Chinese-founded, Singapore-headquartered company first tried to go public in New York and then London; given continued trade tensions between China and the U.S., it’s now looking to list in Hong Kong.
Along the way, the company’s valuation fell from $100 billion to a reported $30 billion—surely a tough pill to swallow for investors HongShan, Tiger Global, General Atlantic, and others.
In Europe, Shein’s surging sales have come at the expense of stalwarts H&M of Sweden and the U.K.’s own ASOS, which is particularly notable since economic turmoil has led to a broader pullback in consumer spending.
The reasons driving Shein’s growth are varied. The company has expanded its product offerings in the region well beyond cheap fashion, including toys, games, and home goods.
Shein also continues to enjoy low-cost import duty exemptions in the U.K.—unlike in the U.S.—though perhaps not for long. Across the channel, the EU has imposed a flat fee of €2 per parcel. —AN
Startup down rounds are at a 10-year high
The soaring valuations of the early 2020s are finally coming back to earth.
PitchBook data published last week reveal that 15.9% of venture-backed deals in 2025 so far have been down rounds, marking a decade high.
Additionally, almost every major IPO listing in Q2 hit the public markets below its peak valuation.
Some examples include MNTN (at IPO, valuation was down from $2 billion to $1.1 billion), Circle (dropping from $7.7 billion to $5.8 billion), Hinge (valuation at IPO was $6.2 billion, down from the $23 billion high), and Chime (going public at $9.1 billion from a $25 billion peak valuation).
AI continues to be a bright spot in many ways, but isn’t entirely exempt either, as 29.3% of down rounds were in PitchBook’s broad AI and machine learning vertical.
Of course, the biggest names in AI—like OpenAI and Anthropic—continue to hit eye-popping valuation levels.
And lower on the food chain, AI is still consistently valued at a premium, with PitchBook reporting that median Series B step-up for AI startups is 2.1x, well above the median of 1.4x that all other categories fetch.
The IPO market is back. In Q2, venture-backed startups in the U.S. generated $67 billion in exit value, PitchBook said—the highest since the last quarter of 2021.
But there are still lots of unicorns out there. Those that have made their public debut this year comprise a mere 1% of all U.S. unicorns. —Allie Garfinkle
More tech
—The Palantir Mafia is today’s PayPal Mafia. With at least one member in common.
—Tech jobs are vanishing. Job openings for new grads have halved; AI is one driver.
—Acquihires are ‘hollowing out’ Silicon Valley. It’s killing the culture, man.
—Ex-Intel employee sentenced for sharing pricing secrets with Microsoft.
—Hackers are increasingly using AI. In other news, water is wet, sky is blue.
—College grads should feel lucky to graduate in an age of AI, says Stanford-dropout-turned-OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
—The “largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia's history” was for an obscure composer.
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