WSJ : Can Evan Spiegel Sell the World on $2,195 Smart Glasses? As company strugg

Can Evan Spiegel Sell the World on $2,195 Smart Glasses?
As company struggles with profitability, Snap CEO is doubling down on a hardware play that has made some investors wary


  • Snap CEO Evan Spiegel views smartglasses as a long-term bet on future devices.
  • Some Snap leaders have raised concerns with Spiegel about the time he spends on the glasses relative to the company’s core moneymaking app.
  • Snap has never had a profitable year, and its shares are down more than 30% this year.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel bet big on developing new smartglasses and was ready to show them to the world.

But as Spiegel prepared for a CNBC interview in June ahead of the fall product launch, at least one person internally advised him not to wear the glasses for the entire segment and instead focus on talking about them, according to people familiar with the matter. Spiegel wore them anyway.

Commenters on social media described the glasses as “laughably ugly,” and “3D glasses at an IMAX theater.” “Are we being punked?” one poster asked.

It amounted to a rebuke of a project that Spiegel has been focused on for years, at times to the frustration of employees and investors as the company’s share price struggled, according to people familiar with the matter. Spiegel sees the glasses as a long-term bet on future devices as artificial intelligence changes how people interact with technology.

Some leaders at the company have raised concerns with Spiegel about the amount of time he spends on the new glasses relative to the company’s core moneymaker, the Snapchat SNAP -3.60%decrease; down pointing triangle platform, according to people close to the discussions.

The September launch of Snap’s $2,195 glasses represents a test of the CEO’s vision. Once a social-media darling, Snap has struggled with profitability and fierce competition from rivals including TikTok and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which is in the throes of its own push to sell glasses with AI-powered features.

Snap shares are down more than 30% this year, and the 15-year-old company has never had a profitable year. It lost nine million daily users of its core social-media app in North America over the last three years, and an activist investor earlier this year challenged its strategy.

In the past 18 months, Snap has seen the departures of its general counsel, chief financial officer, chief creative officer, chief communications officer and the senior executive in charge of the augmented reality function of the smartglasses.

A spokesman for Snap said the company’s revenue grew 19% year-over-year in the most recent quarter, and was approaching one billion monthly active users. The CNBC interview helped raise Specs’ profile and Spiegel’s followers on X have quadrupled, the spokesman said.

“We have invested thoughtfully in making computing more human with Specs augmented reality glasses and we are looking forward to sharing more at our September 16th launch event.”

Some analysts say glasses offer a chance to diversify beyond Snap’s core app long-term, though they are unlikely to be a meaningful driver of growth in the near term.

Ramon Llamas, research director with IDC’s devices and displays team, said Snap had made a number of acquisitions to be able to own the tech behind the glasses.

“It’s a very well calculated bet and it is a bet that Snap is prepared for,” he said of Snap’s glasses launch. “Now it’s a bet to get users to shell out $2,200 a piece.”

Snapchat’s success
Spiegel emerged as a household name a decade ago when the success of his disappearing-messaging app propelled his startup to a public offering and made him a new wunderkind of entrepreneurship. He and co-founder Bobby Murphy hold near total control of the company.

Young people across the country downloaded Snapchat as a way to send each other pictures that quickly disappeared. The company released its first spectacles shortly before its 2017 IPO.

Its core ad business has remained the moneymaker but faced increased competition from TikTok and Instagram’s Reels.

By 2023, employees on Snap’s product team responsible for the look and feel of the core app hoped to capture more of the short-form vertical-video success that TikTok had found and explored app redesigns with test names such as Simple Snapchat, Broccoli and Tab Swap. Results were mixed, however, and potential changes jeopardized the success of a lucrative ad slot on the app, according to people familiar with the redesigns.

Spiegel was already envisioning a future in which smartglasses, rather than phones with apps, were the future of computing.

Last year, he sought a new path to distinguish his hardware efforts, asking Snap’s marketing team to rebrand the smartglasses unit of the company as “Specs.” Spiegel had been spending more and more time on the glasses and told the team he wanted the brand to feel more adult and high-end, people familiar with the conversations said.

Yellow, the company’s signature color, wasn’t sophisticated enough, he said, and he told employees to adopt a sleek and sophisticated look, some of the people said. They landed on a silvery, black-and-white color palette.

Spiegel has said he thinks smartglasses are better than phones, because they allow users to interact with the physical world and remain present rather than disappearing into personal screens. He has described watching his children donning Specs to run around playing laser tag, learn about dinosaurs and build with virtual Legos.

Preparing for launch
Spiegel assigned about 500 employees to the new subsidiary made for Specs earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company had 5,261 full-time employees at the end of 2025.

It planned to raise outside funding for Specs, but the funding never came, according to some of the people. The company has said it doesn’t need outside funding for Specs.

In March, activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which at the time said it had about a 2.5% stake, wrote a letter to Spiegel suggesting he cut costs and shut down Specs if the effort couldn’t sustain itself.

The company laid off about 1,000 employees, representing about 16% of its full-time staff, a few weeks later. Specs remained a priority.

Snap rolled out a splashy ad campaign with photos of celebrities such as NBA player Jimmy Butler, rapper Jack Harlow, model Kaia Gerber, and others wearing the new Specs. A billboard advertisement featuring Butler sporting Specs towers above Union Square in San Francisco, home to Butler’s Golden State Warriors.

In June, Snap rival Meta unveiled its new smartglasses with prices starting at $299. At a launch event in New York, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth referenced benefiting from criticism Snap had faced. “When somebody takes different choices than we take in terms of weight and comfort, we get to learn from that and see how people respond to it,” Bosworth said. “I’ve said too much.”

Meta announced a smartglasses collaboration with the celebrity Kylie Jenner, whose posts on Snapchat had previously helped drive its cultural relevance.

When Spiegel spoke to investors after reporting in August that Snap’s quarterly loss narrowed and revenue rose, he said he doesn’t expect Specs to take off among consumers until the end of the decade, and that the weight and cost of the glasses need to come down. Still, he reiterated his excitement to show the world what Specs can do.

The company is holding its launch event in Beverly Hills to showcase the results of Spiegel’s wager thus far.

“Evan Spiegel invites you to the launch of Specs,” the nontransferable invitation reads. “See for yourself.”

>>> US After Hours Summary: GTLB +16.5%, DELL +7.4% higher on earnings; MDB -14.

After Hours Summary: GTLB +16.5%, DELL +7.4% higher on earnings; MDB -14.4%, CRDO -8.7%, PANW -1.1% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: GTLB +16.5%, DELL +7.4%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: WALD +6.5% (Director/10% owner buys 335,000 shares worth ~$506K), HPE +4.4% (in sympathy with Dell beat-and-raise), CSWC +3.1% (shareholders approve increase in shares), AIN +2.2% (completes strategic review of Amelia Earhart Drive facility; new contract agreements with BA and LMT; Also provides Q3-Q4 guidance), SMCI +1.6% (in sympathy with Dell beat-and-raise), GOOGL +0.8% (New Google Gemini model said to deliver significantly improved coding capabilities, according to WSJ), ANET +0.7% (in sympathy with Dell beat-and-raise), ASTS +0.4% (Director bought 10,822 shares worth ~$619K), RBRK +0.2% (Rubrik, CrowdStrike expand partnership), RMD +0.2% (enters $450 mln accelerated share repurchase agreement), PLTR +0.1% (awarded U.S. Army agreement to produce and deliver eight TITAN systems), PAGS +0.1% (authorizes $150 mln share repurchase program, sets 2027-2028 dividend target)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: MDB -14.4%, CRDO -8.7%, PANW -1.1% (also acquires AI-native platform Console)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: RARE -1.8% (publishes Phase 3 GENGLYCOS data), SFM -1.1% (names Nick Konat CEO; Jack Sinclair to become exec chairman), CRWD -0.7% (Rubrik, CrowdStrike expand partnership), CVNA -0.5% (ROOT extends exclusive embedded insurance agreement with CVNA), AIIO -0.5% (stock offering by selling shareholders), ROOT -0.2% (ROOT extends exclusive embedded insurance agreement with CVNA), BTDR -0.1% (buys 200 acres in Texas for AI/HPC buildout)

FT : IMF agrees $2.2bn bailout for Senegal West African nation will seek to rest

IMF agrees $2.2bn bailout for Senegal
West African nation will seek to restructure its external debts after last year’s revelations of extensive misreported borrowing

The IMF has agreed a $2.2bn bailout plan for Senegal, in which the west African nation will seek to restructure its external debts after revelations of hidden borrowing left it as one of the world’s most indebted countries.

Senegal’s finance ministry said on Tuesday it had launched a “debt treatment plan” in a “sovereign initiative”, as the IMF said it would resume lending for the first time since billions of dollars in misreported debt were revealed last year.

The country’s euro-denominated bonds due in 2028 plunged by about 7 cents to 49 cents on the euro after the restructuring plan was announced, while US dollar bonds fell about 2.5 cents to 49 cents on the dollar.

Bondholders have been bracing for losses since Senegal’s debt officially swelled to more than 130 per cent of GDP in 2024, after a state audit revealed extensive misreporting of loans. Even after public spending cuts, some tax rises and a rebasing of GDP, the country’s debts are about 100 per cent of GDP, with interest payments consuming nearly a quarter of government revenues, Moody’s said last week.

A deal with the IMF and a reckoning over the debt were delayed because of tensions between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and former prime minister Ousmane Sonko, before Sonko was sacked this year.

“Further decisive action will be critical to resolving the misreporting issues and strengthening safeguards to prevent similar occurrences in the future,” the IMF said on Tuesday.

Sonko, who said as prime minister that a debt restructuring would bring “shame” on the country, became the speaker of Senegal’s parliament this year, where he could yet clash with Faye’s government on fiscal reforms.

The finance ministry said it was seeking a debt treatment under an “enhanced” version of the Common Framework, a G20-backed process to corral private and official creditors into agreeing to restructure debts.

The base framework became a byword for friction and delay in recent defaults, such as in Zambia and Ethiopia, leaving countries reluctant to turn to it.

Senegal’s plan would exclude debts that it had issued under the currency of its regional monetary union, the west African CFA franc, the ministry said.

These debts “will remain outside the scope of this plan, given the significant role of the regional market in financing the state and the economy”, it said.

Senegal increased its reliance on the regional debt market after it was locked out of international bond issuance, but its CFA franc borrowing costs have also become difficult to bear.

Moody’s cut Senegal’s credit rating deeper into junk last week as it warned that the “prolonged absence of an IMF programme has increased reliance on regional market funding to meet financing needs of about 25 per cent of GDP”.

Last year Senegal used domestic bonds as collateral to borrow at least €650mn from banks through derivatives known as total return swaps, the FT revealed this year. 

Terms of the swaps were not shared with the IMF at the time. Bondholders have feared that Senegal will try to exclude the swaps and their collateral from any restructuring because of their links to the country’s domestic debt, held largely by local banks and other institutions.

Last month Senegal’s parliament authorised an investigation by lawmakers into the total return swap borrowing.

WSJ : David Ellison Is Promising at Least 30 Movies a Year. Hollywood Is Skeptic

David Ellison Is Promising at Least 30 Movies a Year. Hollywood Is Skeptical.
Paramount CEO’s pledge would defy economic pressures but has helped win support for proposed acquisition of Warner Bros.

  • Paramount CEO David Ellison promised to release at least 30 movies annually in theaters after the planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
  • Skeptics and opponents of the deal note that the 30-movie pledge would defy a decadeslong trend of shrinking studio film slates.
  • A coalition of 12 states has sued to block the merger on antitrust grounds, and California’s attorney general said the pledge isn’t an adequate remedy.

A cornerstone of Paramount PSKY -4.21%decrease; red down pointing triangle Chief Executive David Ellison’s argument that his planned Warner Bros. Discovery WBD -0.70%decrease; red down pointing triangle acquisition will benefit Hollywood is his promise to release at least 30 movies annually in theaters postmerger.

Many in the movie business are skeptical.

Opponents of the deal, which a coalition of 12 states have sued to block on antitrust grounds, and even some supporters note that Ellison’s plan would defy a decadeslong trend of shrinking studio film slates.

The last time an entertainment company released 30 movies nationwide in theaters in one year was Warner Bros. parent Time Warner in 2007, according to data from Rentrak. Since the turn of the century, the average for major studios this century has been about 15 wide releases annually.

“In my opinion, this is a cynical effort to appease theater owners,” said Jason Squire, host of “The Movie Business Podcast” and professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. “In these days of bloated budgets and competition with streaming, it’s dicey.”

Ellison, who took over Paramount last summer and quickly launched a bid for Warner, has been vehement about his intention.

“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word once we combine with Warner Bros., we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios,” he told theater owners at the CinemaCon convention in April. The CEO said theatrical releases are the best way to launch and grow long-lasting franchises.

Paramount and Warner will release a combined 28 films nationwide this year, if current plans hold, including June’s “Scary Movie” and “Dune: Part Three,” slated for later this year. They have 36 scheduled for 2027 including sequels to “A Quiet Place” and “Superman.” The question many in Hollywood are asking is if they will continue that level of output when Ellison has to pay down nearly $80 billion of debt following the merger.

Despite plans to find $6 billion in savings, Paramount has said it won’t cut content spending.

A spokeswoman said the studio has written agreements with theater operators promising to release at least 30 films annually. The agreements last three years, a person familiar with the matter said.

A quarter-century ago, the 30 movie pledge wouldn’t have raised eyebrows. Bountiful DVD sales meant most films were profitable, even if they weren’t box office blockbusters. More releases equaled more money. Today the DVD market is nearly dead and streaming profits are significantly smaller.

In addition, average movie budgets have ballooned as studios try to differentiate them from high-quality streaming shows and appeal to large foreign markets where audiences love spectacle. Production budgets of $200 million and even $300 million have become common, along with $100 million-plus marketing budgets, so Hollywood can’t afford to make as many films.


Disney, which regularly released 30-plus films in the 1990s, released 16 last year.

“At the height of the insanity we were putting out a big number of movies, but there was less fatigue internally because they were all so different,” said producer Todd Garner, who was a Disney executive in the 1990s. “Then the movies got more expensive and the home-video market collapsed.”

Historically, when one studio is acquired by another, output shrinks. Twentieth Century Fox released 11 theatrical movies nationwide in 2018, the year before the studio was acquired by Disney. Now a Disney label called 20th Century Studios, it released five last year.

The Writers Guild of America, which has also sued in federal court to stop the merger, said in a statement earlier this year that entertainment companies always make promises including increased production when they want to merge. “And every time those promises are broken,” the union said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the states’ antitrust litigation, said Tuesday that Paramount’s 30-movie pledge wouldn’t be an adequate remedy for what he sees as the merger’s harms. Bonta called off planned settlement talks with Paramount that were scheduled for Aug. 24.

The three biggest theater chains in the U.S.—AMC, Regal and Cinemark—have all endorsed the Paramount-Warner combination. But Cinema United, an industry trade group whose membership also includes smaller theaters, has opposed it in part because studio consolidation typically results in fewer movies being made. The organization has also encouraged a settlement between Paramount and the plaintiff states, with guardrails to protect its members.

Some theater operators say they would prefer 20 films with high production values backed by robust marketing campaigns to 10 additional films just for the sake of it.

WSJ : House Passes Measure Funding Government Past the Midterms Republicans and

House Passes Measure Funding Government Past the Midterms
Republicans and Democrats are eager to avoid another shutdown drama as they focus on re-election

  • The House passed a bipartisan resolution in a 370-48 vote to fund the government through Dec. 11, sending the bill to President Trump.
  • The stopgap spending measure puts off further fights over government spending until after the midterm election.
  • Many House Democrats backed the measure after Republicans agreed to increase funding for disaster relief, federal housing and nutrition programs.

WASHINGTON—The House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution to fund the government past a Sept. 30 deadline, with both Democrats and Republicans eager to avoid a shutdown and leave Washington as soon as possible to campaign ahead of the midterms.

The resolution, which passed 370-48, extends current funding levels through Dec. 11. The Senate passed the stopgap spending bill last month, and it now goes to President Trump’s desk.

The measure, which came to the floor under a fast-track method that requires two-thirds support, was backed by the White House.

“We want to get a longer-term deal, but at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said Tuesday.

Passage of the measure put off further fights over spending until after the midterm election. Earlier this year, funding lapsed for more than two months for the Department of Homeland Security, because of Democratic officeholders’ anger over the killings of two American citizens by immigration officers. Last year, funding for the entire government lapsed for 43 days in a fight over healthcare funding.

On Tuesday, many House Democrats who previously opposed the measure backed it after Republicans agreed to increase funding for programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, disaster relief and federal housing initiatives.

The resolution also temporarily blocks political appointees at the Office of Management and Budget from interfering in grant decisions and cuts off any new money from going to immigration enforcement—including funds transferred between agencies. The provision didn’t go over well among some Republicans.

Some GOP members also expressed concerns that the bill included a Senate provision that delays restrictions on intoxicating hemp products.

Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), who voted against the resolution, said it failed to “deliver on common-sense policies,” citing the lack of more funding for border enforcement and the delay on the hemp product ban.

Roy, who lost his primary in May, said his GOP colleagues just want to go home and campaign. “But if everybody thinks that just making nice and playing ‘prevent defense’ is going to win in November, I disagree.”

WSJ : The Thai Town Hosting the USS Abraham Lincoln After a Grueling Deployment

The Thai Town Hosting the USS Abraham Lincoln After a Grueling Deployment
About 5,000 sailors flush with cash and looking for R&R will pour into the seaside resort

  • About 5,000 American sailors from the USS Abraham Lincoln and two other Navy ships will make a five-day port call in Pattaya, Thailand.
  • The port call marks the first sustained time on land since December for the carrier’s crew, following a long and grueling deployment.
  • Pattaya’s mayor estimates the visiting sailors will spend about $3 million, boosting the local economy amid depressed foreign tourism.

PATTAYA, Thailand—At the Hottuna Bar in this seaside town, owner Suchet Teewiang will open a second counter to serve up ice-cold beers. Other venues on Walking Street, the city’s main drag, are staging DJ nights or bringing in extra hands to welcome the expected crowds.

Some 5,000 American sailors will pour into Pattaya starting Wednesday, when the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and two other Navy ships make a five-day port call in eastern Thailand.

For the sailors aboard the Lincoln, the port call can’t come too soon. It will be their first sustained time on land since they made port in Guam in December. Other than a brief stop in Oman in July, the Lincoln has been at sea for more than 260 days.

For much of their extraordinarily long deployment, the sailors were supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East. Reports of fresh-food shortages, poor conditions on board and mental-health challenges, including one sailor going overboard, have prompted questions from Navy families and Democratic lawmakers about the sustainability of increasingly long naval deployments.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao last month acknowledged the grueling nature of extended combat operations, but said that there was always adequate food on the Lincoln and that “a small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life.”

In Pattaya, the sailors from the Lincoln continue a long tradition of U.S. servicemen seeking respite at the city’s wide sandy beach, restaurants and bars.

“They like to walk up to the bar, American-style,” Suchet, 53, said of the U.S. sailors that have come to Hottuna to listen to rock music, drink and play pool since it opened in the 1990s.

A video playing on loop on a screen above the counter encourages the sailors to forgo table service. “Attention soldiers. The cold brew you deserve,” it declares, an American flag as the backdrop. “Order at the bar now.”

Pattaya was little more than a fishing village surrounded by jungle when young GIs deployed in Thailand visited the sleepy bay sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The nearby U-Tapao airfield became a major base of operations during the Vietnam War.

Early on, some U.S. troops camped out on the beach during leave. Soon, businesses cropped up around the bay to serve young Americans flush with cash and a need for distraction.

Sombat Visetsuwan, 64, who lives near Pattaya’s traditional fish market, said he used to collect garbage from Navy ships with his boat in the 1980s and 1990s and often received gifts from visiting sailors. Back then, carriers would anchor in the bay, and locals ferried sailors ashore, often swapping beers for T-shirts or belt buckles.

“When I first saw the aircraft carrier, I was amazed. Thailand didn’t have anything like it,” he said. “It was the first time in my life I’d seen such a huge ship.”

Over the years, the greater Pattaya area—which sits near a port that is now deep enough for carriers to dock—has seen its population explode to more than 350,000 people.

The city’s nightlife, including go-go bars and clubs on Walking Street and a strip of restaurants on Beach Road, draws tourists from around the world, including Europe and Russia. There’s an elephant sanctuary and a temple that bills itself as the world’s largest all-wood structure. Hotels from major international chains and condominium buildings loom over the city.

Even as foreign tourists have descended on the resort, Pattaya remains a popular R&R stop for U.S. Navy ships and an affordable place for American veterans to retire. The local Veterans of Foreign Wars post has about 420 members who swap tips on visas and local health insurance.

Shameer Ali, who served 29 years in the Marines, including in both Gulf wars and Afghanistan, said that as an officer he oversaw troop visits to Pattaya.

“It’s like New York back in 42nd Street days, back in the 70s,” says Ali, 58, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and now lives outside Pattaya.

Before going on liberty during a port call, sailors receive extensive safety briefings, including how to avoid getting drawn in by foreign intelligence services. They are required to buddy up and given curfews according to rank. U.S. military typically police work with local authorities to keep them out of trouble, including conducting joint patrols.

Ali said sailors would also be warned against engaging with sex workers, who are common in Pattaya even though prostitution is illegal in Thailand. Pattaya’s police chief said his men have in recent days rounded up some suspected sex workers who were new to the area.

Pattaya’s mayor, Poramet Ngampichet, said that the American sailors have been told not to participate in dangerous activities, such as jet-skiing or parasailing, and to stay away from the cannabis dispensaries, which are legal in Thailand.

Buses will run continuously from the port to the center of Pattaya from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m., said Poramet. He and local business owners hope the sailors will boost the economy at a time when the war in Iran has pushed up the cost of air travel and depressed foreign tourism.

“They have saved up their full allowances and salaries since they had nowhere to spend them,” he said in a video posted on his Facebook page, estimating they would spend about $3 million during the visit.

A U.S. Seventh Fleet spokesman declined to discuss details of the port visit.

Eric Baker, a retired Air Force linguist who volunteers at the Pattaya VFW office, said he had been following news coverage of the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment.

“They’ve been out for 250 days, so that’s going to put a strain on them,” said Baker, 60. “I’m really glad they get to do some R&R here.”

WSJ : James Dyson Sold Us on a $400 Hair Dryer. Now He’s Trying a $499 Toothbrus

James Dyson Sold Us on a $400 Hair Dryer. Now He’s Trying a $499 Toothbrush.
The inventor known for household appliances is turning to oral care; ‘We don’t really structure things on a business plan.’

  • James Dyson’s company unveiled the Dyson CameraJet, an AI-powered toothbrush that marks the firm’s first foray into oral care.
  • The $499 toothbrush features a tiny camera that analyzes live images to trigger a burst of mouthrinse that flosses between teeth.
  • Dyson said he has no idea of the market size or how many units will sell, noting that the company does not structure things on a business plan.


The inventor James Dyson has a winery, a knighthood, an English country pile, and an estimated net worth of more than $15 billion. He also has a sense of dread when it comes to trips to the dentist office.

“Although I’m quite a religious flosser, she always gets out the pickax and starts hacking away bits of hardened plaque,” he said on a video call from his superyacht, Nahlin. “I’ve had to undergo the pickax every time I go to the hygienist, and get ticked off.”

The common man just grins and bears the metal scaler scraping his teeth. But Dyson, 79 years old, spent six years inventing an AI-powered toothbrush that promises to floss teeth at the same time as brushing them.

The Dyson CameraJet toothbrush, unveiled Tuesday, is the first foray into oral care for Dyson’s company that is known for harnessing the power of air, be it in a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer or a purifier.

Dyson and his team of engineers this time had to manipulate liquid. They developed a pump mechanism and gravity-free tank that works no matter the angle the brush is held at to control the flow. The brush head features a tiny camera that analyzes 28 live images a second to identify gaps in the teeth, triggering a conical burst of mouthrinse that flosses in between.

Dyson hadn’t worked with water since he codesigned a high-speed landing craft, the Rotork Sea Truck, as a student at London’s Royal College of Art. “This is something completely new. But why not?” he said.

Arriving in pink and blue colors, the toothbrush will be available in Sephora and BestBuy and on Amazon.com in September, and in Costco later in the fall. Dyson aims to convince consumers to swap out their analog toothbrushes and dental floss for a $499 machine—as well as a special nonfoaming Dyson toothpaste. The overall market for oral care is large, saturated, dominated by a handful of companies, and expected to grow at a moderate rate.

“I had no idea of the market size, and I’ve got no idea how many we’ll sell,” he said. “We don’t really structure things on a business plan.”

Dyson’s laissez-faire attitude to revenue projections is rooted in his independence. His father died before his 10th birthday, and his mother struggled financially to raise the family. He left his home of Norfolk, England, to study furniture and interior design at the Royal College of Art, and began his career designing products for other companies. One early hit was the Ballbarrow: a wheelbarrow that featured a ball instead of a wheel.

By the time Dyson married, had children, and became obsessed with improving the suction of vacuum cleaners in his early 30s, he had tired of having a boss. He obtained a bank loan and went into debt cycling through more than 5,000 prototypes in his quest to perfect his signature bagless cyclonic system. His mentor, the designer Jeremy Fry, initially invested in the business. Dyson later bought out Fry’s 49% stake for £45,000 and has held 100% control ever since.

Last year, the company generated around $8.3 billion in revenue.

Dyson built a sprawling steel-and-glass campus nestled in the shoulder of Malmesbury, about two hours’ drive west of London. He banned suits and ties in the workplace as far back as the 1990s. In 2019, less than three years after the Brexit vote he supported had passed, Dyson announced he was moving headquarters to Singapore. Critics labeled him a hypocrite; Dyson said that the company had outgrown the Malmesbury campus, and maintained his belief that Asia was the future of manufacturing.

He shunned the shiny sales techniques of the big advertising agencies. Over the years he instead appeared in Dyson commercials as the company’s sole spokesman, taking the tone of a lecturing physics professor. He became known, also, for admitting publicly to his failures. Among them: An electric car, announced in 2017 and abandoned due to a lack of commercial viability in 2019; and a washing machine, which hit the market in the early 2000s but ultimately was too expensive to make, repair and sell.

“Sometimes circumstances change, and sometimes we make mistakes,” he said. “You call time when it’s hopeless.”

The Dyson CameraJet will be advertised on billboards, in streaming TV commercials and in posts and videos across social media. The selling point is that it’s simply a toothbrush that also flosses your teeth.

“If it turns out not to be a good commercial idea like the car, we’ll stop it,” Dyson said. “But the board doesn’t all get sacked because we did something silly.”

FT : Action camera maker GoPro to be acquired after decade-long decline Shares j

Action camera maker GoPro to be acquired after decade-long decline
Shares jump as much as 80% after announcement of $285mn cash deal with AI hardware group

GoPro is set to be acquired by a self-described AI hardware company, sending shares in the struggling action camera maker surging as much as 80 per cent a day after a YouTube influencer emerged as a major investor.

GoPro on Tuesday said it had entered into a merger agreement with Starman Optical, a privately held manufacturer of optical transceivers, components that convert electrical signals into light pulses and back again.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, GoPro shareholders will receive an aggregate cash payment of $285mn, or $1.14 a share, a roughly 30 per cent premium to their closing price on Monday. The company’s outstanding debt of $92mn “will be repaid in full at closing”, GoPro said in a statement.

“We expect this merger to enable GoPro to grow across consumer, commercial and defence markets as a leading American imaging and optical solutions company, addressing important areas of national security related to cameras, optics and AI infrastructure,” Nicholas Woodman, GoPro’s founder and chief executive, said on Tuesday.

GoPro’s stock has suffered since the company’s IPO in 2014 as smartphone cameras have improved. Its share price peaked at $93 in October 2014, valuing the company at almost $12bn. The shares shed about 99 per cent of their value over the next decade and were trading as low as $0.60 before this week’s jump.

Shares in GoPro jumped 43 per cent on Monday as reports emerged that Mark Fischbach, a popular YouTuber known as Markiplier, had built an 8.5 per cent stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder. The shares climbed a further 80 per cent in pre-market trading on Tuesday, ahead of the merger announcement.


The boards of both companies have approved the deal, which is set to close by the end of the year, subject to approval from regulators and GoPro’s stockholders. GoPro said it would remain a publicly listed company.

“Advanced optics and imaging are essential to AI, national security and the broader economy, yet much of the critical hardware supporting these technologies continues to be manufactured overseas,” said Charles Tebele, Starman’s CEO. “Together, we intend to bring production of these critical components back to the United States.”

Starman Optical is part of New York-based Starman Holdings, a family-run “global portfolio of leading companies” spanning tech, consumer brands and real estate development, according to its website.

Results published last month showed GoPro’s second-quarter revenue fell 31 per cent year on year to $105mn. Its net losses climbed 210 per cent to $51mn over the same period. In May, GoPro said its board of directors was exploring “a range of strategic alternatives” including a potential sale to a company in the defence sector.

The Information : SpaceX Shakes Up Data Center Leadership After Aggressive Build

SpaceX Shakes Up Data Center Leadership After Aggressive Build-Out

The Takeaway
  • SpaceX replaced data center leaders amid reliability concerns.
  • The AI unit has touted its construction speed as a major advantage.
  • AI revenue surged to $2.6 billion in Q2 2026 from compute rentals.

Elon Musk has shaken up the SpaceX team building the company’s data centers in recent weeks, replacing several leaders with executives from SpaceX’s rocket and satellite internet businesses, people familiar with the matter said.

The data center reshuffle follows some civil engineering concerns and consistent reliability issues at SpaceXAI’s existing data center facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi, two people said. During its early AI infrastructure build-out, SpaceXAI had raced to put those data centers together quickly, leaving facilities running for months without backup cooling and power systems in place, four people said. That’s increased the risk of outages, the people said.

The latest shakeups add to the uncertainty around the timing of SpaceX’s data center expansion. Over the past few months, SpaceXAI has repeatedly pushed back its timeline to start building new data centers in areas besides its Memphis, Tenn., hub, including Texas, two people said.

SpaceX leaders who have joined the AI infrastructure team include SpaceX’s former vice president of production for the Falcon and Dragon rockets, Wesley Salandro, and the director of product support operations from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site, Logan McConnell, one person said. SpaceXAI also recently brought on an engineer from Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant company, to help with civil engineering. SpaceX has been hiring for several civil engineering roles, according to job postings.

Jake Palmer, who led physical infrastructure for SpaceXAI, left the company in late July, along with several other leaders from the data center team, including Zach Wells and Pablo Mendoza, according to the people and LinkedIn data. Palmer had joined the AI unit in September 2025 from data center operator Hut 8, and Wells managed SpaceX’s data center build-out.

Mendoza served as the company’s head of finance early on, reporting to Musk’s righthand man, Jared Birchall, and then took on a director role on the infrastructure team, according to LinkedIn and an organizational chart from 2025.

SpaceXAI has lost several other leaders from its data center team over the past year. The exits include Brent Mayo, who was the manager of site builds at SpaceXAI and coordinated much of the company’s work with the city of Memphis before leaving for OpenAI. Meanwhile Liz Balke, who joined SpaceXAI from Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer project, now works on the data center infrastructure team at Anthropic, LinkedIn shows.

SpaceX has touted its ability to quickly build data centers as a key competitive advantage ahead of its blockbuster initial public offering in June, and the company plans to continue spending heavily on AI infrastructure. It said it had around 1.4 gigawatts of compute capacity online as of June and expects to end the year with more than 2 GW. CEO Elon Musk has said capacity will significantly increase from there by the end of 2027.

In recent months, SpaceX has announced a series of major compute rental deals with outside companies including Anthropic and Google. Compute rental payments fueled a jump in SpaceX’s AI revenue to $2.6 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up from $737 million in the year-ago period.

Though the compute deals make up a sizable portion of SpaceX’s overall AI revenue, Musk has said they are flexible and SpaceX can take back capacity down the line if necessary. SpaceX in August completed its $60 billion all-stock purchase of coding startup Cursor, a deal meant to boost SpaceX’s efforts in selling its own AI products.

FT : Swiss finance minister hits out at move to water down UBS capital plans Kar

Swiss finance minister hits out at move to water down UBS capital plans
Karin Keller-Sutter criticises lawmakers for compromise proposal ‘in favour of the bank and against taxpayers’

Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter has hit out at lawmakers’ efforts to water down plans to force a $20bn capital increase on UBS, escalating the political battle over the future regulation of the country’s biggest bank.

Keller-Sutter said on Tuesday that a compromise plan proposed by an influential parliamentary committee was an undue concession to UBS, and raised the prospect of the final proposals being put to a public referendum.

“This is a solution in favour of the bank and against taxpayers,” she said.

Her comments came after lawmakers on Switzerland’s economic affairs and taxation committee on Monday proposed easing one of the central elements of the government’s planned bank capital reforms.

The government in April proposed forcing UBS to fully capitalise its foreign subsidiaries with common equity tier one (CET1) capital — the most expensive form of bank capital — resulting in a $20bn capital hit.

However, the committee said UBS should be allowed to use cheaper AT1 debt to cover half of the capitalisation of its foreign units, significantly reducing the overall burden.

While the committee’s intervention has been seen as a partial win for UBS, it still needs to be accepted by a majority of lawmakers in the Swiss parliament, which is due to start debating the reforms later this month.

UBS said on Tuesday that it “acknowledged the efforts” of the committee to “consider alternatives to the Federal Council’s extreme proposals on banking regulation”. It added that it had “taken important facts and context into account to inform its recommendations”, but said the recommendations “would lead to a significant increase in costs for UBS”.

The bank estimated that the committee’s proposal would require it to have about $13bn in additional “tier one capital”, which could be met entirely with cheaper AT1 debt, compared with about $20bn in additional CET1 under the government’s plan.

Keller-Sutter, who spearheaded the government’s reforms in the wake of Credit Suisse’s 2023 demise, said on Tuesday she was confident that the committee’s compromise proposal would not survive the parliamentary process.

She said she was “not surprised” by the committee’s proposal, adding that “lobbying in parliament is so strong”.

While the government has said the reforms are necessary to stave off another Credit Suisse-style collapse — which UBS acquired in a state-orchestrated takeover — UBS has called the measures excessive and said they would damage its ability to compete internationally.

UBS executives have privately warned that failure to ease the proposals could push the bank to move its headquarters out of Switzerland to a more favourable jurisdiction.

Anke Reingen, co-head of global financials research at RBC Capital Markets, said the lawmakers’ compromise proposal was “important as it should set the parliamentary process on a certain path”.

Shares in UBS were trading 1.8 per cent lower by mid-afternoon in Zurich.