BUSINESS NEWS
- The Gulf wants to break free from the world’s data chokepoints
by Melissa Hancock on August 12, 2026 at 9:51 amIn this week’s Fortune Gulf Brief.
- From Edison to the AI age: inside GE Vernova’s reinvention and 600% stock spike
by Diane Brady on August 12, 2026 at 9:21 amAlso: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
- Iran wants a mafia-style ‘protection’ toll on the Strait of Hormuz, but the eye-popping $20 billion per year haul is a pipe dream
by Jordan Blum on August 12, 2026 at 7:08 amDetails of any tolling or voluntary fee system are unlikely to be finalized in any potential interim deal, further delaying a permanent peace solution.
- Forget the gala, these Silicon Valley schools run their own venture capital funds
by Amanda Gerut on August 12, 2026 at 7:02 amA handful of elite Bay Area schools have enlisted parent-donors from Sequoia, Lightspeed, and Battery to steer small pools of donated capital into early-stage startups. With massive IPOs back en vogue, schools are lining up for what could come next.
- Meet ChatTJB, the “AI” chatbot with no AI, no algorithm and no LLM. It’s just one guy and 10,000 volunteers typing back
by Tatiana Sataua on August 12, 2026 at 7:00 amThere's no AI behind ChatTJB, just a former Google employee and soon, more than 10,000 volunteers answering strangers' questions in his place.
- Universities are buying and selling property for data centers, prompting concerns about an AI brain drain
by Joshua Hong on August 12, 2026 at 7:00 amThe George Washington University recently sold its Virginia campus to Amazon, and The University of Michigan proposed a new $1.2 billion data center development.
- CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator cites ‘sold out’ capacity as revenue more than doubles and backlog swells to $104 billion
by Amanda Gerut on August 12, 2026 at 3:33 amThe neocloud provider said revenue more than doubled in the second quarter, while backlog rose 246% year-over-year to $104.2 billion.
- When OpenAI employees have a problem, they email this special address to see if Sam Altman will solve it immediately
by Emily Forlini on August 11, 2026 at 11:19 pmFrom office parking issues to technical roadblocks, the friction@openai.com inbox is a way for senior leadership to get direct visibility into on-the-ground issues and eliminate 'big company bulls**t'
- The best time to start a business is in your 20s—not 30s—says cofounder of $2 billion toy giant Spin Master: ’No one sees you as competition’
by Emma Burleigh on August 11, 2026 at 3:28 pmWhile the average founder is 42 years old, Spin Master cofounder Ronnen Harary says your 20s is actually the best time to start a business.
- How stalled models, missed deadlines, and staff burnout led to the unraveling of Google’s DeepMind
by Beatrice Nolan on August 10, 2026 at 9:05 amWithin DeepMind, current and former employees say tensions have been simmering for months.