Although often tossed together into a singular ‘retro game’ aesthetic, the first game consoles that focused on 3D graphics like the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation featured very distinct visuals that make these different systems easy to distinguish. Yet whereas the N64 mostly suffered from a small texture buffer, the PS’s weak graphics hardware necessitated compromises that led to the highly defining jittery and wobbly PlayStation graphics.
These weaknesses of the PlayStation and their results are explored by [LorD of Nerds] in a recent video. Make sure to toggle on subtitles if you do not speak German.
It could be argued that the PlayStation didn’t have a 3D graphics chip at all, just a video chip that could blit primitives and sprites to the framebuffer. This forced PS developers to draw 3D graphics without such niceties like a Z-buffer, putting a lot of extra work on the CPU.
This problem extends also to texture mapping, by doing affine texture mapping, as it’s called on the PS. This mapping of textures is rather flawed and leads to the constant shifting of textures as the camera’s perspective is not taken into account. Although this texture mapping can be improved, the developers of the game have to add more polygons for this, which of course reduces performance. This is the main cause of the shifting and wobbling of textures.
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Another issue on the PS was a lack of mipmapping support, which means a sequence of the same texture, each with each a different resolution. This allows for high-resolution textures to be used when the camera is close, and low-resolution textures when far away. On the PS this lack of mipmapping led to many texture pixels being rendered to the same point on the display, with camera movement leading to interesting flickering effects.
When it came to rendering to the output format, the Nintendo 64 created smooth gradients between the texture pixels (texels) to make them fit on the output resolution, whereas the PS used the much more primitive nearest neighbor interpolation that made especially edges of objects look like they both shimmered and changed shape and color.
The PS also lacked a dedicated floating point unit to handle graphics calculations, forcing a special Geometry Transformation Engine (GTE) in the CPU to handle transformation calculations, but all in integer calculations instead of with floating point values. This made e.g. fixed camera angles as in Resident Evil games very attractive for developers as movement would inevitably lead to visible artefacts.
Finally, the cartridge-based games of the N64 could load data from the mask ROMs about 100x faster than from the PS’s CDs, and with much lower latency. All of these differences would lead to entirely different games for both game consoles, with the N64 being clearly superior for 3D games, yet the PS being released long before the N64 for a competitive price along with the backing of Sony would make sure that it became a commercial success.
Without logs, it would be almost impossible to keep modern applications, cloud platforms, or customer-facing services running efficiently. Some might argue that logs are one of the most critical but least celebrated sources of truth in the digital era.
At its core, log management is about turning raw system logs — unprocessed, detailed records of a system’s activities, including server actions, user interactions, and error messages — into actionable insights.
As digital systems grow in scale and complexity, logs have evolved from a backroom tool into a critical driver of reliability, performance, and security across an entire business.
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Mala Pillutla
Vice President of Sales for Log Management at Dynatrace.
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From a website crashing or pages loading too slowly, to customers encountering errors or even early signs of a cyberattack, logs provide teams with a clear view of what’s happening inside their digital systems.
Within an observability platform, they present the detailed “story” behind these events, helping teams move from simply knowing something is wrong to understanding why it’s happening and how to fix it before it impacts users.
Research has found that 87% of organizations claim to use logs as part of their observability solutions. That number shows how universal log usage has become. The question now is whether businesses are unlocking their full value. Collecting logs is one thing but interpreting them is another.
For too long, logs have been treated as clutter, something to store, sift, and forget. The reality is that they’re one of the clearest signals of how a business is running. Modern log management makes those signals impossible to ignore.
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The limits of traditional log management
As business digital estates grow more complex, the volume of logs generated across applications, infrastructure and business services has exploded. However, more logs do not automatically mean more insight. In fact, many teams are overwhelmed by sheer volume, struggling to separate meaningful signals from background noise.
This overload creates noise that makes it difficult to identify urgent issues, leaving IT and Security teams on the back foot during critical incidents and proactive response.
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The problem is as much about cost as complexity. Storing and managing log telemetry without a clear purpose often leads to escalating expenses that outpace the value delivered.
Traditional licensing and infrastructure models add to the problem. They often make log management feel like a financial liability than a strategic advantage.
Another common constraint is fragmentation. Logs often live across multiple tools, with different interfaces and storage models, slowing root cause analysis and complicating cross-team collaboration. In a cloud-native world where speed and scale are vital, this siloed approach is out of step with modern business needs.
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Together, these shortcomings point to the need for a smarter approach—one that focuses on clarity, efficiency, and value.
Turning logs into actionable intelligence
Taking a smarter approach to log management starts with a shift in perspective. Rather than treating logs as an endless stream of technical data, leading organizations use them as a lens to understand how their digital ecosystems truly perform.
The real value lies in not collecting everything but in knowing what matters and identifying which logs drive resilience, security, customer experience, or compliance, and filtering out the rest.
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AI is becoming an essential part of this process. Modern techniques can detect anomalies, trace issues back to their root cause, and even trigger automated fixes. This reduces manual investigation and accelerates recovery, allowing teams to move from firefighting to foresight.
Equally important is being selective. Forward-thinking organizations decide which logs to capture, which to discard, and how to route them most effectively. This helps control costs and ensures that attention is focused on the telemetry that delivers the greatest value.
When organizations find this balance, log management evolves from a tactical task to a strategic capability that strengthens both performance and resilience.
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Observability and the bigger picture
Log intelligence on its own is valuable, but it is only part of the story. The next frontier is AI powered observability, uniting logs with metrics that track performance, traces that map interactions, and events that reveal key system changes.
Combined in a single platform, these data types give teams a complete picture – connecting technical performance with genuine business impact and moving from a view of what happened to an understanding of why it happened and how to respond quickly.
Consider a global telecommunications provider that recently re-evaluated its log strategy. Managing more than 15TB of logs every day, stored for long periods and spread across thousands of dashboards, the team was buried in dashboards and redundant data.
By consolidating logs within a broader observability framework and replacing static alerts with intelligent detection, they cut through the noise across its systems. Able to focus on the signals that mattered most, the organization improved uptime, speed, and overall resilience.
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This example shows that observability delivers its greatest value when it helps teams cut through complexity. With logs feeding into a single platform, data becomes easier to interpret and act on, transforming technical insight into business intelligence.
Unlocking the true value of modern log management
Modern log management gives organizations the context they need to turn massive volumes of data into meaningful insight. Organizations that harness AI, automation, and broader observability, gain a clearer view of how their technology is supporting their goals.
Enterprises can analyze faster, automate smarter, and innovate with confidence.
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True modernization comes from changing how teams think about data. Now is the time to review current strategies, identify gaps, and adopt modern platforms that integrate AI, context, correlation, and smarter telemetry management practices because organizations can no longer afford to treat log management as a background IT task.
The companies that thrive will be those that treat logs not as exhaust from their systems, but as evidence of how their business thinks and performs. By bringing intelligence to the data they already have, they will turn observability into a source of continuous advantage and understand their business like never before.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
The 2026 Loki Prevost H3-45, a 45-foot diesel coach, arrives on the scene and completely upends all we thought we understood about what a motorhome should be. Built on the Prevost H3-45 VIP chassis, this beast boasts a 550 horsepower Volvo D13 engine mated with a huge 1,850 pound-feet of torque, resulting in a seriously smooth and confident drive that doesn’t go all dramatic. That chassis, of course, includes all of the bells and whistles, such as self-leveling suspension, electronic stability systems, and driving aids that make long trips a breeze rather than a grind.
Loki Coach approaches the conversion with a perfectly rational perspective, which is more than a bit refreshing. The lines are sleek and minimalist, all black with a hint of a glow from the continuous LED lighting that runs up the edge of the device; no flash, no bother. The quad slides significantly increase the living area, but you’d never know it by looking at it, as it still appears sleek and purposeful, with none of the bulbous overhang seen on some other rigs.
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Stepping inside, the area unfolds with great care and attention to detail. You’ve got hardwood cabinetry with nice soft-close hinges, all dovetail joinery, and stone surfaces everywhere, on the counters, the farmhouse sink, the dining table, as all the kitchen stuff is top-shelf GE Cafe appliances, such as a convection microwave, double-door fridge, drawer dishwasher, and it all just fits right into this super simple layout. You have two pantries and plenty of storage to keep everything organized, but it still feels wide and open.
Living areas, on the other hand, are all about getting it just right; a pull-out sofa anchors the lounge, and the bar setup near the driver’s seat is exactly what you need, and then there’s the workstation, which includes a 27″ monitor on a hydraulic lift, allowing you to simply start working without disrupting the entire flow. The chairs are really comfortable, and the Sonos audio system fills the space with sound, which even reaches outdoors under the power awnings. Of course, you have keyless access, a Ring doorbell camera, and a Garmin command center with all of the settings right at your fingertips.
Bedrooms are all about the king bed, which is flanked by dual wardrobes and a rising elevator TV, with padded ceilings throughout to help with acoustics. The back ensuite bathroom features a large tiled shower, a stone vanity, a cosmetics station, and even its own toilet with drawer. You also have a separate half bath up front with a porcelain macerating toilet and mirrored cupboards, a washing and dryer hidden behind retractable doors, a coffee station, and a second pantry.
This thing is all about energy independence, with 400 watts of solar on the roof, giant lithium batteries, a commercial onan generator, and hydronic heating that warms up the entire area. The water capacities of 172 gallons fresh, 115 gray, and 60 black are adequate for some extended off-grid living. It all works effortlessly, with the screens rising and falling without your notice, the lighting adjusting without any obvious switches, and everything humming silently in the background.
All of this refinement costs around $2.2 million, which is a reasonable sum for all of the artistry and attention to detail that has gone into this project. [Source]
Amid a push toward AI agents, with both Anthropic and OpenAI shipping multi-agent tools this week, Anthropic is more than ready to show off some of its more daring AI coding experiments. But as usual with claims of AI-related achievement, you’ll find some key caveats ahead.
On Thursday, Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini published a blog post describing how he set 16 instances of the company’s Claude Opus 4.6 AI model loose on a shared codebase with minimal supervision, tasking them with building a C compiler from scratch.
Over two weeks and nearly 2,000 Claude Code sessions costing about $20,000 in API fees, the AI model agents reportedly produced a 100,000-line Rust-based compiler capable of building a bootable Linux 6.9 kernel on x86, ARM, and RISC-V architectures.
Carlini, a research scientist on Anthropic’s Safeguards team who previously spent seven years at Google Brain and DeepMind, used a new feature launched with Claude Opus 4.6 called “agent teams.” In practice, each Claude instance ran inside its own Docker container, cloning a shared Git repository, claiming tasks by writing lock files, then pushing completed code back upstream. No orchestration agent directed traffic. Each instance independently identified whatever problem seemed most obvious to work on next and started solving it. When merge conflicts arose, the AI model instances resolved them on their own.
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The resulting compiler, which Anthropic has released on GitHub, can compile a range of major open source projects, including PostgreSQL, SQLite, Redis, FFmpeg, and QEMU. It achieved a 99 percent pass rate on the GCC torture test suite and, in what Carlini called “the developer’s ultimate litmus test,” compiled and ran Doom.
It’s worth noting that a C compiler is a near-ideal task for semi-autonomous AI model coding: The specification is decades old and well-defined, comprehensive test suites already exist, and there’s a known-good reference compiler to check against. Most real-world software projects have none of these advantages. The hard part of most development isn’t writing code that passes tests; it’s figuring out what the tests should be in the first place.
Alpine skiing live streams at the 2026 Winter Olympics will see Austria attempt to continue their historic dominance of this event, with challenges expected from Switzerland and France.
Austria have claimed 40 golds and 128 medals in total since alpine skiing was introduced to the winter games back in 1936. Switzerland came out on top in 2022, though, and they are expected to be strong again when the action gets under way on Saturday, February 7 (full schedule below).
Austria’s squad includes Marco Schwarz, Manu Feller and Julia Scheib, all of whom will be targeting a podium finish in their respective events. Marco Odermatt of Switzerland will be aiming to do his country proud after the recent tragic resort fire back home, while the USA are still waiting on the fitness of Lindsey Vonn. Other skiers worth watching are the veteran Italian Christof Innerhofer, and Italy’s Clement Noel, who won gold in the slalom in 2022.
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Here’s where to stream alpine skiing live and watch Winter Olympics 2026 online from anywhere and potentially for FREE.
Watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing 2026 for FREE
Alpine Skiing at the 2026 Winter Olympics will be available to stream for free in a number of countries, including the UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada.
How to watch any Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing stream using a VPN
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How to watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing live streams in the US
In the US, Winter Olympics coverage is available through Peacock, NBC, USA Network and CNBC and that is no different for the alpine skiing event.
The Peacock streaming service should be your first port of call, as it’s showing every single event live. You need at least a Peacock Premium subscription for access, with the Peacock price starting at $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year.
Alternatively, NBC, USA Network and CNBC will carry select coverage of alping skiing and you can access them through cord-cutters like Sling TV or YouTube TV.
Outside the US during the Winter Olympics? Use Norton VPN to access your alpine skiing coverage.
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How to watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing live streams in the UK
In the UK, alpine skiing coverage is shared between the BBC and TNT Sports via Discovery+.
One feed will run on BBC One or BBC Two, with live streaming available via BBC iPlayer, while a separate, digital-only feed will be available on iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.
Just bear in mind that the BBC’s free-to-air coverage won’t be all-encompassing and so may not cover every minute of the alpine skiing.
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TNT Sports is providing comprehensive coverage. You can add the channels to your Sky, Virgin Media or EE TV package, or pay from £3.99 per month for Discovery+ which will be showing all the Winter Olympics action.
How to watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing live streams in Canada
In Canada, CBC has the rights to broadcast alpine skiing at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
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You can watch select events on TV via free-to-air CBC Sports or, for much more extensive live and on-demand coverage of Milano Cortina 2026, head to its online CBC Gem streaming platform. More than 2,000 hours of action will be shown over the course of the Games, including every minute of the alpine skiing events.
If you aren’t in Canada for Milano Cortina, simply use a VPN to tune in from overseas.
How to watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing live streams in Australia
In Australia, the Winter Olympics are being shown on 9Now and Stan Sport.
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9Now is home to select free-to-air Milano Cortina coverage, but not necessarily all of the alpine skiing.
For comprehensive coverage, you’ll need to subscribe to Stan Sport. It costs AU$20 a month on top of a regular Stan subscription, which itself starts at AU$12 a month.
How to watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing live streams in New Zealand
In New Zealand, Sky Sport NZ is showing the alpine skiing.
You can access Sky Sport through satellite TV or get a live stream with the Sky Sport Now subscription service, starting at $29.99 per day or $54.99 per month.
Missing the alpine skiing due to commitments overseas?Norton VPN will give you access to your home streaming service.
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Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing FAQs
What is the Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing schedule 2026?
(All times CET)
Saturday, February 7 11.30am – Men’s downhill
Sunday, February 8 11.30am – Women’s downhill
Monday, February 9 10.30am, 2pm – Men’s team combined
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Tuesday, February 10 10.30am, 2pm – Women’s team combined
Wednesday, February 11 11.30m – Men’s super-G
Thursday, February 12 11.30m – Women’s super-G
Saturday, February 14 10am, 1.30pm – Men’s giant slalom
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Sunday, February 15 10am, 1.30pm – Women’s giant slalom
Monday, February 16 10am, 1.30pm – Men’s slalom
Wednesday, February 18 10am, 1.30pm – Women’s slalom
Can I watch Winter Olympics Alpine Skiing on my mobile?
Of course, most broadcasters have streaming services that you can access through mobile apps or via your phone’s browser – for example, Peacock, BBC iPlayer and CBC Gem all have mobile apps.
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You can also stay up-to-date with all things Autumn Nations on the official social media channels on X (@MilanoCortina2026), YouTube (@Olympics) and Instagram (@milanocortina2026).
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
Ski jumping at the Winter Olympics should deliver plenty of drama and entertainment at Milano Cortina 2026.
Ski jumping has been part of the Winter Olympics since the inaugural edition of the event in 1924. Norway lead the way for golds (12) and total medals (36), but the likes of Finland, Austria, Germany and Japan have enjoyed success over the years. Meanwhile, Slovenia topped the medal charts in 2022 and will hope to be contenders again this year.
The action gets under way on Saturday, February 7 (full schedule below) with the women’s normal hill individual, before the men take centre stage two days later. The ski jumping concludes on Monday, February 16.
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Domen Prevc will be leading the charge for Slovenia in the men’s section, while his sister Nika Prevc will be targeting glory for the women. Austria’s squad includes Daniel Tschofenig, Jan Hoerl and Stefan Kraft, while Japan duo Nozomi Maruyama and Ryoyu Kobayashi are in good form too. Other skiers to watch include Abigail Strate (Canada), Lisa Eder (Austria) and Philipp Raimund (Germany).
Here’s where to watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping live streams online from anywhere, potentially for FREE.
Watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping 2026 for FREE
Ski Jumping at the 2026 Winter Olympics will be live streamed free in multiple locations across the globe including the UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland.
How to watch any Winter Olympics Ski Jumping stream using a VPN
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How to watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping live streams in the US
In the US, Winter Olympics ski jumping coverage is available through Peacock, NBC, USA Network and CNBC.
The Peacock streaming service should be your first port of call, as it’s showing every moment live. You need at least a Peacock Premium subscription for access, with the Peacock price starting at $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year.
How to watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping live streams in Canada
(Image credit: Other)
In Canada, CBC has the rights to broadcast ski jumping at Milano Cortina.
The free-to-air CBC Sports will show plenty of this premier event or, for much more comprehensive live and on-demand coverage of Milano Cortina 2026, head to its online CBC Gem streaming platform.
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If you aren’t in Canada for the ski jumping, simply use a VPN to tune in from overseas.
How to watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping live streams in Australia
In Australia, the Winter Olympics, including the ski jumping, are being shown on 9Now and Stan Sport.
9Now is home to select free-to-air coverage of Milano Cortina 2026 coverage, but that won’t include every jump and landing.
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For comprehensive, you’ll need to subscribe to Stan Sport. It costs $20 a month on top of a regular Stan subscription, which itself costs from $12 a month.
How to watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping live streams in New Zealand
In New Zealand, Sky Sport NZ is showing ski jumping at the Winter Olympics.
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You can access Sky Sport through satellite TV or get a live stream with the Sky Sport Now subscription service, starting at $29.99 per day or $54.99 per month.
Missing the ski jumping due to work commitments abroad?Norton VPN will give you access to your home streaming service.
Winter Olympics Ski Jumping FAQs
What is the Winter Olympics Ski Jumping schedule?
(All times CET, -6hrs for ET / – 1hr for GMT)
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Saturday, February 7 7.45pm – Women’s normal hill individual
Monday, February 9 7pm – Men’s normal hill individual
Tuesday, February 10 6.45pm – Mixed team normal hill
Saturday, February 14 6.45pm – Men’s large hill individual
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Sunday, February 15 6.45pm – Women’s large hill individual
Monday, February 16 7pm – Men’s super team large hill
Can I watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping free of charge?
Yes! As we’ve outlined above, free coverage is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK, CBC Gem in Canada, 9Now in Australia and RTÉ Player in Ireland.
In the US, NBC, USA Network and CNBC coverage is available via a free trial for YouTube TV.
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Other, non-English language Olympics free streams can be found on ORF (Austria), RTBF (Belgium), VRT (Belgium), DR (Denmark), France TV (France), RAI (Italy), Yle (Finland), ZDF (Germany), RUV (Iceland), NOS (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), TVP (Poland), RTVE (Spain), Canal Nu9ve (Mexico) and the SRF RTS channels (Switzerland).
Can I watch Winter Olympics Ski Jumping on my mobile?
Of course, most broadcasters have streaming services that you can access through mobile apps or via your phone’s browser.
You can also stay up-to-date with all things Autumn Nations on the official social media channels on X (@MilanoCortina2026), YouTube (@Olympics) and Instagram (@milanocortina2026).
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We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
Nour Gajial (left), CEO of MathGPT, and Avi Agola, co-founder of Talunt, recently left the Seattle region for San Francisco. (Photos courtesy of Gajial and Agola)
Seattle’s startup ecosystem has its strengths, and the city is a global AI hub. But for some tech entrepreneurs, the gravity of San Francisco is hard to resist — especially in the middle of an AI boom.
This time, founders say the pull is about being inside the “world’s AI capital” as a way to supercharge their startups.
“I knew that moving to SF — where the largest concentration of startups are — would be the best move for maximizing our success,” said Avi Agola, co-founder of recruiting platform Talunt.
Before he arrived at the University of Washington this past fall, Agola immersed himself in Seattle’s startup scene as a teenager. He worked out of Seattle founder hub Foundations, launched his own company, and sold it last year to a fellow Seattle startup.
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Agola credits Seattle’s startup community with helping him develop credibility and understand what it takes to run a company.
But as he got Talunt off the ground, Agola packed his bags for San Francisco. Part of the decision was practical: Investors encouraged the move, and many of Talunt’s early customers are in the Bay Area.
Aviel Ginzburg, a Seattle venture capitalist who runs Foundations, said he understands the strategy.
“I think that anyone in their 20s who wants to build in startups should be living down there right now, simply for building a network to get lucky,” he said.
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That was part of the reason Nour Gajial, CEO of MathGPT, also moved from Seattle to San Francisco.
After dropping out of Cornell to pursue her AI education startup full time, Gajial returned home to the Seattle area. She found a supportive, tight-knit tech community and a comfortable place to build.
But as MathGPT gained traction, Gajial and her co-founder started making trips to San Francisco. They noticed more startup events, younger founders, and more frequent in-person interactions with people building and funding AI companies.
“There’s always some new AI research that’s going on, or some event that will open your eyes about something,” Gajial said. “I don’t see that energy as much in Seattle.”
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Gajial said she’s grateful to have met “some really cool founders” in Seattle. MathGPT co-founder Yanni Kouloumbis lauded the region’s talent pool. But they felt that being in Silicon Valley gives them better odds at making it big.
“We just want to put ourselves in the best possible situation for these spontaneously good things to happen to us,” Kouloumbis said.
Nistha Mitra. (Photo courtesy of Mitra)
Nistha Mitraspent three years in Seattle, where she worked at Oracle. She later launched Neuramill, an early stage company developing software for manufacturing, and noticed a clear divide between Seattle’s corporate tech culture and startup life.
“I don’t think my community in the Big Tech world had any awareness of startups and how startups work,” Mitra said.
Mitra moved to San Francisco six months ago. “In SF, everyone knows what’s going on, no matter who they are,” she said.
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She described a hard-charging atmosphere where it’s normal behavior to work 15-hour days on your startup. Being in that environment “really changes how you perform,” Mitra said.
When she worked long days in Seattle, friends worried about her. “I feel like in SF, it’s kind of normalized, that kind of lifestyle,” she said.
The same calculus is playing outfor more experienced techies.
Vik Korrapati, a Seattle-based founder who spent nearly a decade at AWS, recently announced that his AI startup Moondream is moving from Seattle to San Francisco. He framed the decision around the scale and urgency of the current AI moment.
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Artificial intelligence, Korrapati wrote in an online post, is “the biggest platform shift we’re going to see in our working lives,” and relocating was about being “in the right place, with the right people” as his company builds high-performance vision models.
Korrapati said the move wasn’t driven by a lack of talent in Seattle, but by differences in risk tolerance and default behavior. “The issue isn’t ability. It’s default settings,” he wrote, describing a culture where many engineers optimize for stability and incremental progress rather than the uncertainty of early-stage startup work.
Ethan Byrd. (LinkedIn Photo)
In San Francisco, he said, he found more people who had already left Big Tech roles and were willing to make the startup leap. “Seattle has been good to me,” Korrapati said. “I learned how large systems work here. I got the space to spin up Moondream here. I’m not leaving angry.”
Ethan Byrd, a former engineer at AWS, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, helped launch Seattle software startup Actual AI in 2024. Now he’s working on a new startup called MyMX — and is strongly considering a move.
Seattle isn’t a bad place to build a startup, Byrd said, and he loves the city. But San Francisco is just on a different level when it comes to entrepreneurship.
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“Everything is easier: hiring, talking to customers, raising money, hosting events,” he said. At the end of the day, as he tries to grow his new startup, Byrd said moving to Silicon Valley “just seems unavoidable.”
But not all Seattle founders are headed south.
“There’s a really good pool of talent right now, especially with the layoffs unfortunately happening,” said Ankit Dhawan, CEO of Seattle-based marketing startup BluePill. “We don’t feel any need to move out of here.”
Silicon Valley is great for fundraising and making connections. “But there comes a moment when it’s too much noise,” said Alejandro Castellano, CEO of Seattle AI startup Caddi. “You just need a place to actually focus on work.”
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And when a trip to the Bay Area is needed — some of Caddi’s investors are based there — it’s a short flight away. “You can come back the same day,” Castellano said.
Sunil Nagaraj (left), founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Ubiquity Ventures, interviews Auth0 co-founder Eugenio Pace at an event at AI House last week. Nagaraj traveled to Seattle to host the event and visit with Seattle-area startups in Ubiquity’s portfolio. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Many Silicon Valley investors also make trips up to Seattle. Earlier this week, Sunil Nagaraj, managing partner of Palo Alto-based Ubiquity Ventures, hosted a startup event at Seattle’s AI House. During his fireside chat with Auth0 co-founder Eugenio Pace, he called out the various Seattle-based founders in the crowd that he’s backed. “Ubiquity Ventures ❤️ Seattle!!” Nagaraj wrote on LinkedIn.
Yifan Zhang, founder of AI House and managing director at the AI2 Incubator, said she wants to get more out-of-town investors connected to the Seattle region.
Zhang built her first startup in San Francisco. For certain types of founders, she said, Silicon Valley is a better place to create serendipitous relationships that can lead to a funding round or a large customer.
Yifan Zhang. (LinkedIn Photo)
“But it’s also easy to get lost in the mix, or get distracted by the hype,” Zhang noted. “It really depends on who you are, but no matter where you’re based, founders still need to do the hard work of selling and building an incredible product and scaling it.”
Seattle is still drawing in many founders from out of town. Real estate startup RentSpree moved here from Los Angeles last year, attracted to the tech talent base and concentration of other real estate and proptech companies.
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“Seattle is really great for talent that balances both an aggressive growth perspective, but also building sustainable companies over time,” RentSpree CEO and co-founder Michael Lucarelli told GeekWire in December.
Vijaye Raji, founder and CEO of Seattle-area startup Statsig (acquired by OpenAI last year for $1.1 billion), has called it a “quiet talent” that may be under-appreciated.
Drone startup Brinc is another transplant that landed from Las Vegas. The company, now ranked No. 7 on the GeekWire 200, raised $75 million last year and employs more than 100 people. CEO Blake Resnick has cited the engineering and tech talent pool in Seattle for his decision to relocate.
The city’s technology anchors — including Microsoft, Amazon, the University of Washington, and Silicon Valley engineering centers — also help import workers who go on to launch companies. Overland AI CEO Byron Boots came to the UW’s computer science school in 2019 as an associate professor, and later helped launch the Seattle-based autonomous driving startup that just raised $100 million.
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Caleb John, an investor and engineer at Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs, previously worked in San Francisco. He noted that founders in Seattle “are not as deep in the rat race” relative to entrepreneurs elsewhere.
“Your thinking is not as clouded by the hype train,” he said in an interview with Foundations. He also cited a “really strong community of younger people who work in startups” across the Seattle region. “People just don’t know there are startup people here,” John said, noting that the startup scene has grown since he arrived in 2021.
Ginzburg said even as some founders move to San Francisco, it’s important to keep building community in Seattle. He noted that Agola, for example, still remains tethered to Seattle through the Foundations network.
Agola said he’d consider returning to Seattle at some point as his new startup grows.
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“I don’t think the Bay is the best for long-term startup growth when it comes to post-series B,” he said. “Moving to Seattle would be the best play to keep the best talent flow while minimizing overhead costs.”
Big Tech capital expenditure for this year is predicted to rise 60pc from $410bn in 2025.
Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are signalling a collective 2026 capital expenditure package of around $650bn, with AI, cloud and data centres as unsurprising high-ticket items. Wary investors, however, seem unhappy, and the Financial Times reported that Amazon, Google and Microsoft are set to lose $900bn in market cap altogether.
Big Tech capital expenditure predictions would mark a rise of 60pc from the $410bn spent in 2025 and 165pc from the $245bn spent the year before.
The four competitors see the race to provide AI compute as “the next winner-take-all or winner-takes-most market”, Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson told Bloomberg. None of the companies are “willing to lose”, he added.
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Amazon shares fell by 11pc after the company’s earnings call yesterday (5 February) in which company president and CEO Andy Jassy announced a $200bn capital expenditure (capex) plan for the year, growing more than 50pc since last year.
He reasoned that a 24pc revenue growth in Amazon’s cloud offerings and a 22pc growth in advertising is evidence that the heavy spending is paying off. This year’s spending will be focused on AI, chips, robotics and low-Earth orbit satellites, Jassy said.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced a $37.5bn quarterly capital expenditure bill on 28 January, just slightly more than analyst estimates. But the company was the worst hit among the four for a while, dropping 18pc since the announcement.
The company had also, for the first time, disclosed the true nature of its close economic relationship with OpenAI. It reported that roughly 45pc of its $625bn expected in future cloud contracts was from the start-up, leading to investor wariness on its over-reliance on one customer.
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Google parent Alphabet initially dropped 4pc in share price after it reported its earnings on Wednesday (4 February), but climbed back up to being just below 0.5pc since yesterday. Sales and earnings per share grew by 18pc and 31pc respectively during Q4, beating analyst expectations, while Alphabet’s cloud backlog grew by 55pc quarter-over-quarter to $240bn.
The company announced capex for the year between $175bn and $185bn, doubling expenses to meet customer demand and capitalise on the growth of the company’s AI offerings. Though despite fears of heavy spending, Gemini Enterprise is selling 8m seats and the Gemini App now has more than 750m monthly active users, which, Motley Fool reported, is keeping investors relatively content.
Lastly, Meta has announced its total expenses for 2026 to be in the range $115bn to $135bn. The growth, it said, is driven by an increased investment to support its Meta Superintelligence Labs efforts as well as its core business.
While the stocks rose 10pc after the earnings announcement, the Financial Times reports that it lost those gains after overall investor fear has pushed the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 4pc over the week.
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I’ve been teaching long enough to recognize when something fundamental is shifting in the classroom. Lately, that shift sounds like a single word echoing through my courses: why.
Why are we doing this? Why does it matter? Why should I care?
At first, it can sound like pushback, the kind of challenge that might once have been mistaken for defiance. But I don’t see it that way. When Gen Z students ask “why,” they’re not questioning authority; they’re questioning meaning. They’re trying to understand whether what they’re being asked to learn aligns with a world that already feels crowded with information, competition and contradiction.
And they’re right to ask.
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Jeff LeBlanc
Gen Z has grown up surrounded by constant messaging — some genuine, some hollow. They’ve seen companies preach purpose while chasing profit, influencers claim authenticity while filtering reality, and institutions talk about mental health while rewarding burnout. So when they step into a classroom, they’re not looking for performance. They’re looking for proof.
In many ways, “why” has replaced the old-fashioned raise of the hand. It’s the new signal for engagement, not disengagement. These students aren’t rebellious for sport; they’re searching for relevance. When they ask “why,” they’re asking us to show them the thread between knowledge and purpose.
For educators, that’s both thrilling and challenging. The old classroom contract may no longer be enough. Gen Z expects transparency in exchange for trust. They want to know not only what they’re learning but how it connects to who they’re becoming. That expectation is reshaping how many of us teach.
I’ve noticed that when I take the time to explain why we’re doing something — even briefly — engagement rises. It doesn’t need to be a speech or a slide titled “Why It Matters.” It can be a few sentences woven into the moment: “You’ll use this when you’re leading a team someday,” or “This will help you understand how strategy actually plays out in a business setting.” Framing purpose in passing often lands more effectively than any formal statement could. It tells students that there’s intention behind what they’re being asked to do.
And when the connection isn’t obvious, I try to make the learning process itself transparent. I’ll tell them why I’ve designed a particular project or changed an assignment from last semester. I explain my reasoning the way I’d want a mentor to explain theirs — not to justify, but to include. Once they see the care that goes into the design, their tone shifts from skeptical to curious.
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New Perspective
That shift has changed my own mindset as an instructor. I’ve started to see my role less as delivering content and more as modeling thoughtfulness — the same kind I’m asking of them. I don’t have to declare that an assignment matters; I can show that it does by connecting it to a broader purpose, by caring about it visibly.
When things don’t go perfectly, I’ve learned to acknowledge that too. I used to think admitting uncertainty would weaken credibility. It turns out it does the opposite. When I tell students, “I’m still experimenting with how to teach this,” they don’t lose confidence — they lean in. They respect honesty because it mirrors their own experience of figuring things out.
That’s the real undercurrent here: authenticity has replaced authority as the key driver of credibility. Gen Z doesn’t automatically trust titles or experience; they trust consistency between what we say and what we do. They’ve been burned too many times by institutions that preached one set of values and practiced another. In the classroom, they want something simpler — teachers who mean what they say.
This doesn’t mean lowering standards or catering to comfort. If anything, it’s raised expectations. When students believe something has meaning, they work harder. I’ve seen it when my students analyze real company challenges instead of hypothetical ones, or when they present their findings to local business leaders rather than just to me. They’re sharper, more invested, and more willing to push themselves when the stakes feel real.
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Even small acts of transparency build trust. Explaining why feedback is framed a certain way, or why participation matters, helps students see that the structure exists for a reason. They might not always agree, but they rarely tune out.
Overcoming Defensiveness
Of course, this approach can be draining. There are days when the “whys” feel relentless — when every question seems to demand another explanation, and you wonder if they’ll ever just take your word for it. But over time, I’ve come to see their skepticism not as defiance but as discernment. They’re not trying to tear down the system; they’re trying to make it make sense.
When a student asks, “Why are we doing this?” they’re really saying, “Help me to see the point.” That’s not cynicism. You might call it curiosity with higher benchmarks. And if we can meet that question with openness instead of defensiveness, the classroom becomes a space of shared inquiry rather than guarded authority.
There’s an irony in all this. The very generation accused of being distracted is, in many ways, the most focused — just not on what older models of education assumed mattered. They’re focused on meaning. They want clarity, fairness and consistency, but they also want a sense of humanity behind it all. They crave professors who teach like people, not policies.
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Maybe that’s the lesson for us, too. If Gen Z is asking “why,” perhaps we should start asking it of ourselves — not as a challenge, but as reflection. Why do we teach the way we do? Why do we grade like this? Why do we define learning in these terms?
Teaching a generation that questions everything isn’t easy. But it’s not resistance, it’s renewal. Their “why” invites us to rediscover our own.
It is just the beginning of 2026, and things are happening even faster than last year. Not only in technology, but also in regulations, laws, and in how we deal with all the information around us. As a person born in the 90s, social media was once an unknown land for me, a place that felt genuine in the beginning. It still had dangers, but it seemed less risky, or maybe our parents’ rules were stricter. I don’t want to go down the psychological path here, but I want to look at where we are headed with so much risk,… This story continues at The Next Web
UiPath, the Romanian unicorn, has agreed to buy WorkFusion, bringing a specialist in AI agents for financial-crime compliance into its fold as part of a broader push into agentic automation for the banking sector. The deal closed in UiPath’s first quarter of fiscal 2027; financial terms were not disclosed. WorkFusion’s software focuses on repetitive and resource-intensive parts of compliance work, from customer screening and anti-money-laundering (AML) checks to know-your-customer (KYC) investigations. “Financial institutions need intelligent solutions to combat sophisticated financial crimes and navigate evolving compliance requirements,” said Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath. Those capabilities now sit alongside UiPath’s existing automation… This story continues at The Next Web