Iain Martin
@iainmartin.bsky.social
2.5K followers 2.4K following 490 posts
Forbes Senior Editor writing about AI, tech and venture capital
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iainmartin.bsky.social
Marketing copy likely churned out by AI keeps tricking people into showing up to events that don't exist.

This week, thousands of people gathered in the centre of Birmingham, England, for the city's NYE firework display. But there hasn't been one since 2016...

This is likely only to get worse...
iainmartin.bsky.social
Altman “has the power to crash the global economy for a decade or take us all to the promised land,” Stacy Rasgon, an analyst with Bernstein Research, wrote in an investor note this week. “Right now we don’t know which is in the cards.”
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
OpenAI, Nvidia Fuel $1 Trillion AI Market With Web of Circular Deals
A wave of deals and partnerships are escalating concerns that the trillion-dollar AI boom is being propped up by interconnected business transactions.
www.bloomberg.com
iainmartin.bsky.social
Fermi, founded in January, hasn’t made a dime—in fact, it lost $6.4 million over its first six months of existence. That’s not surprising given that it doesn’t have any customers yet. It just went public at $15bn, minting three new billionaires
www.forbes.com/sites/kylemu...
IPO Backed By Former Texas Governor, Energy Secretary Mints Three Billionaires
Fermi America’s IPO on Wednesday catapulted the fortunes of multiple investors—including Rick Perry’s son and the son of a former GOP congressman—into the ten figures.
www.forbes.com
Reposted by Iain Martin
ebakerwhite.bsky.social
My TikTok book is out in stores today!

Why should you read it? Because 1 in 5 Americans now get their news from this thing. We should all understand how it works.

It was inevitable that strongmen would seek to control a tool this powerful. The book is the story of what happened when they did.
wwnorton.com
The rise of the most effective attention-algorithm ever invented, and the superpower struggle to control it.

EVERY SCREEN ON THE PLANET: THE WAR OVER TIKTOK by Emily Baker-White.

In Stores 9.30.25.
wwnorton.com/books/every-...
iainmartin.bsky.social
"The figures Tether cites are not subject to the same reporting standards as those disclosed by publicly traded companies."

This is a silly description for that the fact that Tether has never been audited and only discloses assets via an "attestation"
iainmartin.bsky.social
"OpenAI only informed Microsoft, its principal shareholder and primary cloud provider, a day before the deal was signed, the people familiar with the matter said. Earlier this year, Microsoft lost its status as OpenAI’s exclusive provider of computing capacity" www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/a...
Altman, Huang and the last-minute negotiations that sealed the $100 billion OpenAI-Nvidia deal
The $100 billion deal between Nvidia and OpenAI was struck under the pressure of a looming deadline during President Trump's U.K. trip.
www.cnbc.com
iainmartin.bsky.social
"President Trump added $3 billion to his wealth over the last year, leveraging the presidency for profit"
www.forbes.com/sites/danale...
iainmartin.bsky.social
Tim Dillon, one of the comedians scheduled to perform at Riyadh's standup festival, claimed on his podcast that he's being paid $315,000 for a single show, and that some of his more famous colleagues would receive around $1.6 million for their appearances.
www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-a...
Major U.S. comedians set to perform in Saudi Arabia urged not to help cover up "abuses of a repressive regime"
A rights group is urging some top-level Western comedians not to be "complicit in covering up the abuses of a repressive regime" in Saudi Arabia.
www.cbsnews.com
iainmartin.bsky.social
The ubiquitous presence of “music lounges” along the streets of big Saudi cities has also turned them into a source of unease for those uncomfortable with the rapid top-down modernisation and sparked a crackdown
www.ft.com/content/2714...
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Show is over for many nightlife venues as some Saudis recoil at what they see as seedy side of kingdom’s liberalisation
www.ft.com
iainmartin.bsky.social
Charlie Javice, the entrepreneur convicted for defrauding JPMorgan Chase 
 into buying her college financial aid startup Frank for $175 million, should spend 12 years in prison for her crimes, U.S. prosecutors said
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
www.reuters.com
iainmartin.bsky.social
Rowan's letter to the judge