WSJ : Blizzard Causes Mass Flight Cancellations on East Coast

Blizzard Causes Mass Flight Cancellations on East Coast
New York City bans road travel after 9 p.m. Sunday

  • A massive winter storm caused airlines to cancel almost 8,000 flights for Sunday and Monday, primarily in Boston and New York.
  • Governors declared states of emergency, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a travel ban for Sunday night.
  • The storm is forecast to bring up to 28 inches of snow to New York City and two feet to Boston with high winds.

A massive winter storm bearing down on the Northeast and mid-Atlantic put states on emergency measures Sunday and upended air travel, with airlines canceling thousands of flights ahead of the arrival of blizzard conditions.

More than 8,000 flights scheduled for Sunday and Monday had been canceled nationally as of Sunday afternoon, mostly on routes into or out of Boston and the New York area, according to flight-data provider FlightAware. Travelers on Sunday also faced some 20,000 flight delays.

Even some gold-medal winners are affected: Following the U.S.-Canada Olympic gold-medal hockey game Sunday in Italy, many of the players were supposed to fly back to New York Sunday night ahead of the rest of the National Hockey League season. Instead, they are flying to Miami, an NBC broadcast said.

Impacts were especially severe at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and JFK International Airport, where nearly half of Sunday’s flights were canceled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

While the snow was still in early stages, already the vast majority of Monday flights have been canceled out of LaGuardia and JFK, with Philadelphia International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport also largely shut, according to FlightAware.

The storm’s forecast had changed rapidly in recent days. Governors across the region declared states of emergency and public officials were taking steps to warn residents to stay home and off roads. New York City banned road travel after 9 p.m. Sunday, and some highways and interstates in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have vehicle restrictions in place. Rhode Island told people to stay off the roads starting at 7 p.m.

Nearly 54 million people are in the path of the storm from the Central Appalachians to coastal Maine, facing either winter storm or blizzard warnings, according to the National Weather Service.

The I-95 corridor from north of Baltimore to Boston is expected to see “impossible travel” conditions, the weather service warned. Light to moderate snowfall early on Sunday was expected to increase, with snowfall rates greater than 2 to 3 inches an hour at times, combining with strong wind gusts in the 40- to 70-mile-per-hour range.

Forecasters warned there is potential for downed trees and power outages with the wind and the heavy wet snow. This could be a problem especially for southeastern New England, eastern Long Island and southern New Jersey, according to AccuWeather.

The storm is expected to reach peak intensity on Monday morning. Heavy blowing snow is likely to extend from Philadelphia to Boston and, by Monday evening, a foot or two of snow could be dumped from coastal New Jersey through Boston.

City officials in New York said it was expected to be the worst storm in years, on top of what’s been a hefty winter of storms. There hasn’t been a blizzard warning in New York since March 2017, according to Owen Shieh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. Boston is also under a blizzard warning—its first since 2022.

And residents in Philadelphia haven’t experienced a blizzard since March 1993, according to AccuWeather.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a travel ban, barring vehicles from roads, highways and bridges starting Sunday at 9 p.m. through Monday at noon. City schools will be closed, their first “old-school snow day” since 2019, Mamdani said.

Most subway lines will still operate local service, the city said, and public buses are exempt from the ban, though routes could be altered depending on road conditions.

“New York City has not faced a storm of this scale in the last decade,” Mamdani said. “We are asking New Yorkers to avoid all nonessential travel.”

The city is expecting as much as 28 inches of snow, with high winds and coastal flooding. Two feet of snow is forecast in Boston and other parts of eastern Massachusetts, with wind gusts of 75 miles an hour.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned it could be the worst storm the state has seen in decades.

NJ Transit suspended bus, light rail and door-to-door service for people with disabilities on Sunday evening and said that rail service would be suspended by 9 p.m.

It has already been a wild winter in the eastern U.S., with record snowfall and frigid temperatures that have kept piles of snow from melting since the last major winter storm in late January. That storm affected more states, but didn’t qualify as a blizzard. This time around, the addition of strong winds will create blizzard conditions—blinding, blowing snow.

WSJ : Investor Ed Garden Builds Stake in Fortune Brands, Seeking New CEO

Investor Ed Garden Builds Stake in Fortune Brands, Seeking New CEO
Garden believes the company behind Moen faucets and Master Lock could grow much larger over the next decade

  • Investor Ed Garden built a stake in Fortune Brands Innovations and seeks to replace incoming CEO Amit Banati, citing concerns about leadership.
  • Garden Investments, now among Fortune Brands’ top shareholders, has nominated a slate of director candidates for the annual meeting.
  • Fortune Brands’ shares fell nearly 30% over five years, and the company reported weak quarterly results, sending shares down 18%.

Investor Ed Garden has built a stake in building-products supplier Fortune Brands FBIN 0.89%increase; green up pointing triangle Innovations, the maker of Moen faucets and Master Lock padlocks, and is seeking to replace the incoming chief executive along with other changes, according to people familiar with the matter.

The details
Garden Investments is now among the top shareholders in Fortune Brands and aims to become the company’s largest shareholder over time, the people said. The exact size of the firm’s stake couldn’t be learned.

Garden has privately nominated a slate of director candidates ahead of Fortune Brands’ next annual shareholder meeting, a representative for Garden Investments confirmed. The company has a staggered board, meaning only a certain number of directors come up for election each year, in this case three.

Fortune Brands is best known for its home- and building-products brands including Moen, House of Rohl kitchen and bath fixtures, SentrySafe waterproof safes and others.

The company has a market value of around $6.5 billion, after its shares fell nearly 30% over the past five years. Its biggest rival Masco, which makes Delta faucets, is up close to 40% over that time period.

Fortune Brands earlier this month announced that CEO Nicholas Fink was departing to pursue another leadership opportunity. That same day, it reported weak quarterly results, sending shares down 18%.

It said it would be replacing Fink with Amit Banati, an existing board member with a background in consumer products, effective in May. Banati has most recently been the chief financial officer of Kenvue, the Tylenol and Listerine maker being sold to Kimberly-Clark.

Garden is concerned Fortune Brands is rushing into a mistake with its leadership after announcing Banati just one day after Fink informed the company that he was leaving. Garden saw Fink—who was tapped as CEO about six years ago—as lacking leadership and industry experience, according to the people familiar with the matter. He views tapping Banati as making the same mistake, the people said.

Garden sees an opportunity to build Fortune Brands over the next decade both organically and through mergers and acquisitions, once better corporate governance is in place, the people said. The firm isn’t pushing for any separation of the business, but wants to run a fresh CEO succession process, they added.

A spokesperson for Fortune Brands confirmed it had receievd Garden’s nominees and said the company’s board was engaging constructively with Garden.

“Fortune Brands remains focused on taking proactive actions in response to a challenging market environment, including enhancing profitability and continuing to invest in the innovations and capabilities that support sustainable, long-term shareholder value,” the spokesperson said.

The context
Garden Investments was started by Garden as a family office roughly two years ago, after he departed Trian Fund Management, another activist firm he helped start alongside Nelson Peltz.

Last year, Garden took a stake in kitchen-equipment maker Middleby and pushed for changes before he joined the board. Billionaire investor Josh Harris’s firm, 26North Partners, struck a deal late last year to take a controlling stake in Middleby’s kitchen-products division, which owns brands like Viking and Rangemaster.

While he was at Trian, Garden took a board seat at the once sprawling conglomerate General Electric and helped recruit new leadership. After the company broke into three, Garden maintains a board seat at GE Aerospace.

The building products industry in the U.S. has been under pressure with existing home sales at multidecade lows. The Trump administration has been pushing for new-home construction, in an attempt to increase supply and lower home prices.

Companies like Home Depot, Lowe’s and QXO have looked to take advantage of an industry that has fallen out of favor by striking a series of big building-products deals in recent months. Garden Investments sees a chance for Fortune Brands to be able to seize on a similar opportunity, the people familiar with the matter said.

WSJ : The Fundraising Tactic AI Startups Are Using to Juice Valuations

The Fundraising Tactic AI Startups Are Using to Juice Valuations
The race to get into hot AI startups has led to unequal deals for investors, raising questions about how much companies are really worth

  • AI startup Serval achieved a $1 billion valuation in December through a fundraising round, days after a private deal valued it under $400 million.
  • This fundraising tactic involves selling a stake to a leading investor at one valuation, then offering shares to other backers at a much higher valuation.
  • The practice, which increased in the fourth quarter of last year, can inflate valuations and raises questions about true startup worth, according to industry professionals.

AI startup Serval closed a private deal with venture-capital giant Sequoia in December that valued it at less than $400 million. Days later, Serval announced a new milestone from another funding round.

This time, its valuation had topped $1 billion, giving it Silicon Valley’s coveted “unicorn” status.

Serval’s $600 million valuation surge in less than a week is an example of a fundraising tactic that has grown increasingly popular for sought-after startups and top-tier venture-capital firms in recent months.

A startup sells a stake of its company to a leading investor at one valuation and, either soon after or at the same time, offers additional shares to other backers at a much higher valuation.

The result: The leading investor books a massive gain, at least on paper, and the startup can announce and publicize a much higher value.

Startups have long commanded lofty valuations that have generally been less rooted in the strict dollars-and-cents metrics investors use to evaluate publicly traded companies. In some ways, a company is worth whatever an investor is willing to pay for it.

But several VC investors and outside accounting professionals said the back-to-back or multitiered deals are novel and raise questions about how much startups are really worth in an age of frenzied artificial-intelligence investing.

The practice “absolutely does inflate valuations,” said Chris Douvos, founder of AHOY Capital, a fund of funds that invests in venture-capital firms. “Founders and investors have the ability to weaponize a startup’s balance sheet and make these huge investments at huge valuations to try to anoint a winner and suck all the air out of the room.”

The frequency of such funding deals increased in the fourth quarter of last year, and roughly 20 of them occurred in the last six to 12 months, according to Carta, a financial-software provider that works with tens of thousands of startups. More are on the way, according to investors, founders and accounting professionals that work with startups.

The rising trend of these deals points to a shift in market sentiment. A year ago, founders could dictate most of the terms for investing as venture capitalists scrambled to spread their bets across a landscape of emerging AI companies. The fact that investors in some cases are able to structure deals like this for themselves indicates that the market has cooled slightly for some companies, some investors and startup evaluators said.

“Here’s a way to still make it look like you have a high valuation” while a lead investor gets a cheaper price, said Peter Wendell, founder of venture firm Sierra Ventures, who now co-teaches a course at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business on venture capital with Eric Schmidt, Google’s ex-CEO. “The founder or the CEO are trying to create the highest possible appearance of value.”

Serval and Sequoia celebrated the $1 billion fundraising milestone in a slickly produced, podcast-style video. They extolled the company’s business, which uses AI to help customers automate help-desk requests and other tasks.

“The answer is easy,” Sequoia partner Anas Biad says in the video. “The answer is Serval.”

Serval was valued at about $220 million in October, PitchBook data show. During that same month, the startup had $1 million in annual recurring revenue, according to people familiar with the matter. After the back-to-back rounds in December, employees sold shares at a valuation of $1.2 billion, the people said.

Aaru is another startup, founded in March 2024, that got a $1 billion headline valuation through a deal involving multiple investment tiers. Half of the investors in the recent round bought shares that priced the company at $450 million, and the other half purchased equity priced at $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Attorneys specializing in startup financing said the fundraising method is legal and can offer incentives for venture-capital players to back new companies. However, some investors said they would decline to participate in such deals.

“Most of the VCs I interface with, they would not do a deal nor would they participate in a deal where some investors would get dramatically better terms at the same time,” said John Chambers, former chief executive of Cisco Systems who is now a venture capitalist.

Fundraising rounds can affect employee compensation packages, said Previn Waas, a partner focused on software companies and initial public offerings at Deloitte. Typically, startup employees are given stock options as part of their compensation packages. The options give recipients a right to buy company stock at a set price, which is called the exercise price or strike price.

A higher headline valuation can raise the strike price for employees. And the higher that price is, the less money the recipient can potentially make someday by exercising those options.

However, soaring valuations can also lift the wealth of company employees substantially.

The publicity surrounding a successful fundraising round, especially one in which a startup reaches a $1 billion valuation, can help provide momentum. Startups locked in ferocious competition with rivals can gain recognition quickly as the biggest company within a certain arena.

Potential customers and prospective employees might look to a startup’s “headline valuation” as a positive signal for the company’s future. It is also likely to help recruit top-tier employees.

“Recruiting is easier if you can flash to potential employees that my company is of a billion unicorn status,” said Ernestine Fu, an investor at Brave Capital who has worked on a number of these deals for early stage startups in recent months.

FT : Mexico hit by wave of violence after security forces kill cartel leader

Mexico hit by wave of violence after security forces kill cartel leader
Death of Jalisco New Generation Cartel boss ‘El Mencho’ follows US calls for action against traffickers

Mexican authorities killed the leader of one of the country’s biggest cartels, answering US calls for tougher action against organised crime and setting off a wave of retaliatory violence.

Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho”, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, died on Sunday in an operation by Mexican security forces in co-ordination with US authorities in Tapalpa, Jalisco state, Mexico’s defence ministry said.

Oseguera, 59, turned the CJNG into one of Mexico’s two most powerful crime groups, alongside the Sinaloa Cartel, expanding its reach across most of the country and taking a lead role in trafficking drugs including fentanyl to the US.

Cartel members responded by unleashing a wave of violence, including roadblocks, car burnings and attacks on businesses across Jalisco state following news of Oseguera’s death.

Residents in Guadalajara, Jalisco’s state capital and a host city for the 2026 World Cup, reported at least 30 incidents of shoot-outs and roadblocks on Sunday, according to Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

Jalisco and six other states cancelled school classes for Monday as the violence spread.

President Claudia Sheinbaum called for calm on Sunday, saying there was “total co-ordination between the governments of all states” and that the “majority of the national territory” was unaffected by the unrest.

Oseguera’s death comes amid intense pressure from US President Donald Trump for Mexico to crack down on cartel leaders. Trump has used the countries’ crucial trade links as leverage and even floated possible US intervention on Mexican soil.


Sheinbaum has dramatically increased operations against the cartels, ending the “hugs not bullets” policy adopted by her predecessor, which experts blame for allowing the expansion of crime groups.

“This is one of the biggest achievements in the government’s fight against organised crime in the last 20 years,” said Armando Vargas, leader of the security programme at think-tank Mexico Evalua.

“The timing is strategic, sending a powerful message to the US about the government’s commitment to weakening organised crime,” he added, ahead of a review of the USMCA trade deal between the US, Mexico and Canada.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US provided intelligence support to Mexico on the operation, adding that Oseguera had been a top target for both countries.

“President Trump has been very clear — the United States will ensure narco-terrorists sending deadly drugs to our homeland are forced to face the wrath of justice they have long deserved,” Leavitt said.

Mexico’s defence ministry said Oseguera died from wounds sustained “during air transport to Mexico City”. Six other CJNG members were killed, they added, while weapons including rocket launchers capable of downing aircraft were seized.

The US embassy issued a “shelter in place” alert for its citizens in Jalisco and several other parts of Mexico after reports of violence in the western state.

Video published by local media showed fires at a Costco store in Puerto Vallarta, a resort town on Jalisco’s coast. Air Canada and United Airlines temporarily suspended flights to the city.

Mexican security experts compared the current unrest to violence that followed the 2024 capture of Sinaloa cartel boss Ismael “el Mayo” Zambada, which later evolved into an ongoing all-out turf war in Sinaloa state between factions of the group.

The US Drugs Enforcement Administration had offered $15mn for Oseguera’s capture. His killing is the most important act against a cartel leader since the arrest of Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán in 2014, analysts said.

The CJNG also plays a major role in fuel theft, arms trafficking and extortion.

Whether the violence in Jalisco expands will depend on “what kind of succession lines are in place and how much they’re honoured or disregarded”, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of Brookings’ initiative on non-state armed actors.

“We could see violence really spreading across Mexico, and potentially even beyond,” she added.

“Or if it’s pretty quickly announced who is the new leader and everyone kisses the ring, then the extent of the violence and the impact on the criminal landscape can be more limited.”

Christopher Landau, the US deputy secretary of state, described Oseguera’s death as “a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world”.

“The good guys are stronger than the bad guys,” he posted on X.

FT : Japan mines Pacific Ocean mud for rare earths to counter China’s chokehold

Japan mines Pacific Ocean mud for rare earths to counter China’s chokehold
Ocean floor resources could help protect supply chains from Beijing’s export bans

Japan is embarking on an ambitious effort to retrieve rare earth elements from the ocean floor as it seeks to loosen China’s grip over the metals vital to missiles, radar systems and drones.

A Japanese state-backed expedition announced this month that it had successfully retrieved rare-earth rich mud from a remote Pacific seabed 6,000m deep — deeper than Mount Fuji is tall.

Japan in 2011 discovered resources near Minamitorishima, an atoll 1,900km south-east of Tokyo that is part of the country’s exclusive economic zone. But efforts to extract the elements have gained newfound urgency after China last month announced tighter curbs on exports to Japan, including rare earths.

Japan is the biggest consumer of rare earths after China. Beijing dominates the supply chain for the strategic minerals, controlling 60 per cent of mining and more than 90 per cent of refining and magnet manufacturing.

China’s trading partners, including the US and EU, have accused Beijing of weaponising that position in trade disputes, and have ramped up efforts to secure their own supplies.

Japan has in the past been forced to diversify its supplies. Facing an unofficial Chinese embargo on rare earths in 2010 following a territorial dispute, Tokyo began providing financing for Australia’s Lynas and building stockpiles.


Such economic security efforts are likely to accelerate under Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a national security hawk who has hailed the deep sea extraction test as the “first step towards the industrialisation of domestically produced rare earths”.

Following her landslide election victory this month, Takaichi told local radio that she intends to ask the US to join the Minamitorishima project when she meets President Donald Trump in March. “We want the US to participate and speed things up,” she said.

The Trump administration has also proposed a co-operative trade zone for critical minerals with partners including Japan and the EU.

Japan’s latest spat with Beijing was triggered by Takaichi’s remarks last year about a potential military response to a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan. China responded by banning exports of dual-use items destined for Japan’s military, raising fears that rare earth supplies could be cut off again.

Global interest has surged in the potential of seabed mining to help countries secure critical minerals used in electric vehicle batteries as well as defence industries.

Some experts have questioned the costs of commercial deep sea mining, however, while environmental activists have raised concerns about the impact on marine ecology.

Japanese government officials and academics say deep sea locations could compete with land-based mining projects because of the high concentration of rare earths — especially heavy elements such as dysprosium, yttrium and terbium, where China’s dominance is stronger.

Ocean deposits also lack the radioactive material almost always found with volcanic land-based rare earths, which accumulate due to their similar chemical composition.


Thomas Kruemmer, author of the Rare Earth Observer, said that Minamitorishima was “seriously in play”, as few other locations could provide Japan with the range of rare earths that it needs as quickly.

“This is the resource of last resort,” he said. “They have to do something very swiftly with a short timeline. It’s no longer about price and cost. It’s about ‘do you have it or not?’”

Suppliers and traders estimate that Japan’s auto companies hold enough rare earths and associated products to see them to the end of the year, although some estimates are more pessimistic.

Any large-scale extraction at Minamitorishima is unlikely to come on line quickly enough to avert a short-term supply crunch, however.

Shoichi Ishii, the cabinet office official who has led the Minamitorishima programme for seven years, said that a large-scale trial — excavating 350 tonnes of mud per day — would begin early next year. This would allow experts to assess the economics of lifting the mud, dewatering it on the island and hauling the mudcake back to mainland Japan for refining and separation.

“Minamitorishima rare earths is one option for future supply,” he said. “After March 2028, it could become one procurement source and contribute to the supply chain.”

Others have questioned the viability of extracting rare earths under huge pressure and from almost twice the depth of the deepest offshore oil project — as well as the ¥40bn ($255mn) already spent on exploration.

David Merriman, research director at specialist consultancy Project Blue, said that “the technical challenges and cost of this type of extraction are likely to outweigh any advantages from lower radioactivity or the heavy rare earth elements assemblage in the deposit”.

Even if deep sea mining extraction is feasible, Japan would need to create a new process to separate and refine the raw minerals, and strengthen manufacturing of rare earths magnets.

“It looks good as a diplomatic communication. The Japanese government tries to present Minamitorishima to the Chinese government as a big supply possibility,” said one industry executive involved in government plans.

“But in reality, it’s 6,000m deep and has a high exploration cost — it’s still more like an academic thing.”

Electrek : Chinese car brand Nio performs 165,898 battery swaps — IN A SINGLE DA

Chinese car brand Nio performs 165,898 battery swaps — IN A SINGLE DAY

While DC fast charging infrastructure and range anxiety dominate Western EV headlines, Nio’s battery-swap system in China reached a new milestone that proves battery swap tech can rival traditional refueling models at scale: Nio customers performed more than 165,000 battery swaps in single day.

The Chinese car brand broke its single-day battery swap record yesterday, 19FEB, the third day of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations and marking the third such record for Nio in nearly as many days.

If you’re doing the math, 165,898 battery swaps in a single 24 hour period works out to about two (2) swaps every second across Nio’s China-wide network. The surge came as millions of EV drivers hit the road for the Lunar New Year return trip — traditionally the busiest travel day of the year and a demanding annual stress test for the country’s transportation infrastructure.

And, from everything we can see, Nio’s swap stations handled the day with exactly the sort of high-tech precision we’ve come to expect from the brand that claims battery swapping, not increasingly faster charging, is the right solution for road tripping travelers.

Why it works

Despite a number of early EV adopters with an overdeveloped concept of ownership, battery swap technology has proven to be both extremely effective and extremely positive to the overall EV ownership experience. For drivers, the process is simple: the driver pulls into a swap station, and in three to five minutes leaves with a fully charged battery. No getting out in the rain or snow, no worries about being stuck in an immobilized vehicle if someone’s harassing you outside, no worries about elderly or disabled drivers tripping over charging cables.

Multiply that sort of convenience by 165,000 takers in a single day, and what you’re seeing isn’t just a PR-friendly marketing record — it’s proof that battery swaps work. And, when you see how simple it is to add hundreds of miles of driving in just 100 seconds (quicker, in many cases, than pumping a tank of liquid fuel into an ICE-powered car), you might come around.

As for American drivers who would be willing to give battery-swapping a try, here’s hoping we get the option in the US somewhat sooner than later.

The Information : Why Reddit’s Stock Plunged 42% In Past Five Weeks

Why Reddit’s Stock Plunged 42% In Past Five Weeks

The Takeaway
  • Reddit stock plunged 42% in five weeks amid flat U.S. logged-in user growth.
  • U.S. logged-in daily users flatlined at 23 million in 2025.
  • Reddit has significant room to boost ad revenue per user.

Reddit’s explosive revenue growth of the past two years turbocharged the company’s stock after its 2024 initial public offering, lifting it nearly 700% to its highs of around $270 last fall. That rally was markedly different from the tepid performance that similarly sized social media companies such as Snap and Pinterest endured after their public debuts in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

In hindsight, that’s not surprising. Reddit’s IPO turned out to be underpriced relative to its growth potential, giving it much more room to rise. The stock went public at around six times forward sales, well below where either Snap or Pinterest went public, according to Koyfin data. And while Snap, in particular, showed signs of weakening user growth within a few months of its public debut, Reddit’s advertising business unexpectedly took off. Total revenue rose 62% in 2024, much more than expected at the time of the IPO, and another 69% in 2025. But lately one set of metrics—growth in the most engaged U.S. users in 2025—has painted a more sobering picture. And it likely helps explain why Reddit stock has fallen 42% in the past five weeks.

The number of Reddit daily users in the U.S. who are “logged in” to the service—meaning they’ve signed up for accounts, so Reddit recognizes them and knows their preferences—flatlined in 2025 at 23 million, after rising from 15.2 million at the start of 2023. Meanwhile, the number of people who arrived at Reddit from a web search, a group known as “logged-out” users, grew 8.9% in 2025. (See below chart).

Advertisers prefer logged-in users, who tend to spend more time on a service than people who arrive at Reddit from a web search. And the U.S. is the biggest ad market, so U.S. users are the most important. As user growth is a leading indicator of revenue growth, investors have good reason to worry about the slowdown.

Reddit, however, has argued lately that the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users is becoming less important. Its executives say they are using AI to make Reddit feel “more personalized and useful” for logged-out users, aiming to get them to return and spend more time on the service. Reddit recently said it would stop reporting the two categories of users.

By the way, while much was made at the time of Reddit’s IPO of its potential to make money licensing content to AI firms, that hasn’t proved a big business. In 2024, Reddit’s advertising revenues rose 50% to $1.2 billion, while other revenue—including AI-related licensing—was just $114.7 million. Last year, advertising rose 74% to $2.1 billion while other revenue expanded just 22% to $140 million.

In a statement, Reddit’s chief communications officer Adam Collins said Reddit was “the fourth most visited site in the U.S. and the sixth globally, with daily user growth accelerating faster than many of our peers in 2025.” He added that “most of our continued growth will come from product evolution, as has been the case in the past.”

Healthier Overseas

Internationally, things have remained healthier, although even there a slowdown is evident. The number of logged-in users outside the U.S. rose 6.6% to 25.8 million in the first quarter of 2025 from the fourth quarter, but only another 7.4% in the next three quarters.


Even with slowing user growth, Reddit still has room to boost ad revenue by lifting the amount of ad dollars it sells on a per-user basis to the same level as for other social media firms. In a report last week, Andrew Boone, an analyst at Citizens bank, estimated Reddit generated $86 for each U.S. logged-in user, compared with $303 for Facebook in the U.S. and Canada.

After adjusting for differences between the two services, such as the amount of time people spend on Facebook versus Reddit, Citizens estimated Facebook generated 72% more in ad revenue per North American user than Reddit did in the U.S.

But squeezing more ad dollars out of an audience that isn’t expanding won’t provide growth forever. Take Snap, whose North American daily active user count has declined in the past year and finished 2025 at the same level it was at in 2021. Snap’s ad revenue growth slowed to 5.8% last year. Snap said earlier this month that the decline in daily users reflected partly its decision to reduce marketing “to focus on more profitable growth.”

Introduction of several subscription tiers, where users pay to gain extra features or to see fewer ads, has supplemented Snap’s ad business and allowed the company to post 11% growth in 2025. Investors, however, don’t appear convinced: Snap stock has lately been trading at its lowest point ever, below $5.

To be sure, Reddit still has potential to break out in user growth. Boone, from Citizens, said in his report last week he was expecting user growth to accelerate this year. Reddit’s user discussion forums cover a broad range of interests, so its potential audience could be a lot bigger than those of either Pinterest or Snap, which have a narrower focus. One thing is for sure: If user growth slows further, Reddit stock will likely fall a lot more.

TechCrunch : China’s brain-computer interface industry is racing ahead

China’s brain-computer interface industry is racing ahead

While Elon Musk’s Neuralink likes to say it’s “pioneering” brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), China’s BCI industry is already quietly moving from research to scale.

A new wave of startups is racing to commercialize both implantable and noninvasive BCIs, backed by stronger policy support, expanding clinical trials, and growing investor interest. So says Phoenix Peng, who has founded not one, but two BCI startups. He’s a co-founder of NeuroXess, maker of BCI implants, as well as founder and CEO of noninvasive ultrasound BCI startup Gestala.

His belief in the potential of this market is founded on concrete action: Provinces such as Sichuan, Hubei, and Zhejiang have already set medical service pricing for BCI, speeding its inclusion in the national medical insurance system.

Over time, he foresees the technology extending beyond medicine “treating disease” to “human augmentation,” he said.

“I have always maintained that neuroscience and AI are two sides of the same coin. They are destined for deep integration, realizing direct high-bandwidth connections between the human brain and AI. BCI will serve as the ultimate bridge between carbon-based and silicon-based intelligence. While this may sound distant, it represents an unimaginably vast market in the future,” Peng said.

Four factors driving BCI in China
But over the next three to five years, BCI use is likely to stay concentrated in healthcare, with the market reaching multibillion-dollar scale as insurance coverage expands, Peng told TechCrunch.

In August 2025, China’s industry ministry and six other agencies released a national roadmap to further speed development of BCIs. The plan targets major technical milestones by 2027, common industry standards, and a full supply chain by 2030, with the goal of building globally competitive BCI companies and supporting smaller specialized firms.

Asked what’s driving China’s rapid progress in BCI, Peng told TechCrunch it comes down to four factors. The first one is strong policy support, with cross-department collaboration that aligns technical standards and medical reimbursement. In December, at the 2025 Shenzhen BCI & Human-Computer Interaction Expo, China announced an 11.6 billion yuan ($165 million) brain science fund to support BCI companies from research through commercialization.

The second factor is vast clinical resources, including large patient pools and lower research costs that accelerate trials. China’s national health insurance means quicker commercialization once the state approves a device. This compares to the U.S. where even after the FDA approves a device, private insurers, as the main payers, must each individually do so. Europe is known for applying the strictest approval standards in healthcare tech, with an emphasis on regulation of data privacy.

Researchers have completed the country’s first fully implanted, wireless BCI trial — only the second globally — allowing a paralyzed patient to control devices without external hardware, per CGTN. Neuralink is the startup that completed the first such trial.

“In traditional electrical BCIs, Chinese firms have achieved clinical progress in motor and language decoding, spinal cord reconstruction, and stroke rehabilitation, with over 50 flexible implantable BCI clinical trials completed by mid-2025,” Peng said, adding that next-generation efforts are now moving toward whole-brain neural decoding and encoding, including ultrasound-based approaches such as Gestala’s.

The third factor is China’s mature industrial manufacturing, Peng points out, spanning semiconductors, AI, and medical hardware, which supports fast R&D and prototyping. Finally, there is strategic investment in the market, with both state-led funds and private capital surging under national initiatives.

Some recent key deals include Shanghai-based BCI startup StairMed Technology raising $48 million (350 million yuan) in Series B funding in February 2025. BrainCo, a neurotech company developing its noninvasive BCIs and bionic limbs, has also quietly filed for a Hong Kong IPO, according to reports, after raising $287 million (2 billion yuan) earlier this year. Peng’s company Gestala, which launched in January, is in talks with investors to close an angel round soon, he tells us.

All told, China’s BCI startups are ramping up to challenge U.S. leaders like Neuralink, Synchron, and Paradromics. Among the most active players in China are NeuroXess, Neuracle, NeuralMatrix, BrainCo, Bo Rui Kang Tech, Aoyi Tech, Brainland Tech, and Zhiran Medical. They span approaches from implantable flexible interfaces to noninvasive brain-computer technologies.

This means that China’s BCI market was expected to grow to more than $530 million (3.8 billion yuan) in 2025, up from 3.2 billion yuan in 2024, according to media reports, with projections putting the market at over 120 billion yuan by 2040.

BCI types
BCIs are taking two paths. The first is invasive electrophysiological BCIs like NeuroXess and Neuralink that implant electrodes in people’s brains for precise neuron-level signals. But this type comes with surgery risks. The second type is noninvasive systems like NeuroSky and BrainCo that trade some precision for safety and ease of use.

The field is now broadening further, with emerging approaches — including ultrasound, magnetoencephalography imaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation, optical methods, and hybrid BCIs — giving researchers new tools to read and influence brain activity.

Startup founders also hope that noninvasive technology could help overcome adoption barriers. Not everyone is willing to undergo brain surgery to have a device implanted in their heads.

Ultrasound BCIs from companies like OpenAI-backed Merge Labs and Gestala are targeting high-prevalence conditions such as chronic pain, stroke, and depression. As noninvasive solutions, these technologies are more readily accepted by patients and offer significantly greater commercial scalability.

Gestala, for instance, expects to roll out its first-generation product by Q3, its founder said. Early clinical trials have shown promising results: A single session reduced pain scores by 50%, with effects lasting one to two weeks, Peng noted.

HongShan Capital, formerly Sequoia China, has invested in Zhiran Medical, a startup founded in 2022 focused on improving long-term implant performance. The company uses flexible, high-throughput electrodes to reduce inflammation and signal loss associated with rigid implants.

“Some technologies may look cutting-edge but far from practical application,” Yang Yunxia, a partner at HongShan Capital, wrote in a blog post. While others appear commercially viable, they face “high costs” or significant technical barriers, Yunxia contends. Ultimately, investment decisions come down to whether the investor believes a product can be developed into a sustainable business, the partner noted.

The years ahead
Over the next five years, industry insiders expect China’s BCI regulations to align more closely with international standards, with a particular focus on regulatory approval and data sovereignty. Global frameworks developed by organizations such as the IEC and ISO, along with guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are expected to serve as key reference points.

Chinese regulators are also expected to tighten oversight of invasive devices, as well as the data that all BCI devices generate, while easing approval for noninvasive technologies.

As for the ethics that confront brain-implanted or manipulating devices, China plans to strengthen informed-consent requirements, broaden ethics review beyond medicine, and move toward unified technical standards for clinical evaluation.

WSJ : The ‘Godfather of Data Centers’ Making Offers Big Tech Can’t Refuse

The ‘Godfather of Data Centers’ Making Offers Big Tech Can’t Refuse
Virginia’s Loudoun County is a giant data-center market thanks in part to a radio DJ-turned county executive director for economic development

  • The AI race is driving a data-center construction boom, with annual spending recently exceeding $42 billion, creating challenges for local governments and power markets.
  • Data centers contribute about 45% of Loudoun County’s revenue, but concerns about noise led officials to tighten oversight, requiring a board vote for new projects.

ASHBURN, Va.—Loudoun County’s growth into a mecca for one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in American history kicked into gear when Buddy Rizer taped a list of companies to his office door.

The housing crash was hammering local government finances in 2008. Rizer, a radio DJ-turned county executive director for economic development, bet big on a rebound in the form of a seemingly arcane tech-industry need: data centers.

Rizer jetted to the West Coast with the list as his guide, pitching Loudoun County to the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook with a simple but compelling idea. “The first rule is to make it easy for people to spend money,” he said recently.

The door-knocking helped set off the suburban Washington, D.C., community’s growth into the world’s largest data-center market over the nearly two decades since, attracting hyperscalers like Alphabet and smaller developers such as DataBank. As Silicon Valley now funnels untold riches into server farms around the country, Rizer said, “I wait for those guys to call me.”

The race to dominate artificial intelligence has created a financial superstructure of eye-watering corporate valuations, massive capital-expenditure plans, risky Wall Street trades and convoluted debt deals. Much of it hinges on something decidedly low tech: the ability to build data centers as fast as humanly possible—and all the dealmaking, zoning and permitting that it entails.

That has turned the relationships between thinly staffed local governments and the world’s richest corporations into a high-stakes dance. Tax breaks and local revenues are on the line. Data centers’ voracious energy needs hold the potential to upend power markets spanning entire regions and push up residents’ bills. Public opinion in some areas is turning sharply against developers, who create few permanent jobs.

Annual spending on data centers zoomed past $42 billion in recent months, according to the Census Bureau, making it one of the few types of construction set to increase in 2026. In communities striving for investment, the flood of money is adding to local governments’ sense of urgency to decide if the increasingly controversial industry should set up shop.

“It’s the gold rush right now,” said Chris Pumphrey, former president of the Elevate Douglas Economic Partnership, a public-private organization west of Atlanta.


After Pumphrey in recent years helped turn the warehousing hub of Douglas County into a magnet for data centers, he saw a surge in pleas for advice from local officials elsewhere. “Every community is different,” said Pumphrey, who has started informally consulting counterparts on the development. “At the end of the day, you have to have your economic priorities and also know those priorities shift.”

East of Columbus, Ohio, where New Albany has become another data-center hot spot, community development director Jennifer Chrysler last year gave so many presentations to out-of-town peers that it strained her small staff.

Negotiating financial incentives with deep-pocketed developers is a key part of the job. So is ensuring deals align with New Albany’s broader planning standards and goals, she said, adding: “It’s either take it or leave it.”

‘The Godfather of Data Centers’
In Virginia, Rizer has become the poster child of these unlikely power brokers by virtue of Loudoun County’s growth.

A data-center publication in 2024 sold an event as an “unforgettable evening” with Rizer, whom it labeled “The Godfather of Data Centers.” A conference that year advertised a cocktail reception in which the former radio DJ, “for one night only, is trading spreadsheets for beats,” with music “guaranteed to be booming like the Northern Virginia economy!”

There was even an episode of “Law & Order: Organized Crime” about a murder near a Loudoun County data center. A character named “Danny Lizer” made an appearance. So did a face-eating octopus. The money lines: “Whoever is giving out those permits is a VIP…Unless they’re dead.”

“Data-center celebrities are a little different than meeting Steven Tyler or Gwen Stefani or something,” Rizer said. He would know: His team’s 2025 report featured a photo of the Aerosmith frontman mugging alongside Rizer in his past life.


Not everyone is star-struck. As Wall Street and Washington bet big on the AI boom, national Democrats have increasingly viewed the infrastructure build-out with caution. Many communities are considering restrictions on the type of development that fueled Loudoun County’s ascendance.

“Buddy saw an opportunity and took it,” said Virginia Delegate John McAuliff, whose district partially overlaps with Loudoun County.

Elected last year as a data-center skeptic, the Democrat doesn’t fault Rizer for all of the subsequent concerns around data centers, including their potential to boost power costs. Surging demand from server farms has pushed the surrounding region’s electric-grid operator to the brink of a supply crisis.

Newly elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger staked her agenda in part on arresting a climb in energy costs. At the same time, McAuliff hopes to increase statewide oversight of deals struck between companies and local officials.

“It’s not their job to think about the state impact of their decisions,” McAuliff said. “That is the way we’ve set up our world, and I don’t necessarily know if it’s the right way.”

‘We are a department of yes’
“Data Center Alley” didn’t sprout from nothing. Loudoun County was already home to extensive underground cable and an internet exchange point, even drawing AOL’s headquarters in the 1990s. That infrastructure gave data centers the ability to transmit information at high speeds.

The AOL campus has largely been razed, in part to make way for the new digital economy. Nearby streets are lined with about 200 data-center buildings, their roughly 49 million square feet the equivalent of approximately 850 football fields. While the structures have few windows or signs of human life, they are chock-full of computers running AI applications, processing credit-card transactions and churning through other business data around the clock.

Corporate America’s shift to cloud computing and AI has increasingly fueled a construction spree that officials say hasn’t skipped a day in 15 years. So did a Virginia state sales-and-use tax exemption that ballooned to about $1.6 billion statewide last year, according to advocacy group Good Jobs First.

Rizer played down the need for additional incentives in Loudoun County, instead pointing to policies that made it an easy place to build.

A nuance in local laws helped developers construct data centers in areas zoned as office parks without input from the elected board of supervisors. Officials also approved a fast-track process that centralized many permitting powers within Rizer’s office.

“I wanted to control it. I wanted to make sure it was done right,” Rizer said. “We are a department of yes. We’re not a regulator.”

The benefits of the boom are clear. About 45% of county revenue comes from data centers, while Rizer estimates real property taxes are down 48 cents on the dollar.

Even so, as data centers elbowed into residential areas, complaints about noise and more pushed officials to tighten oversight. Projects now face a vote by the county board in an expanded review.

“Standard time, from start to finish, is probably in the neighborhood of two years, which is not a big deal because we’re not going to get power for seven years,” said Board of Supervisors Vice-Chair Mike Turner. The traditional power grid “is never going to catch up,” Turner added, a view Rizer doesn’t share.

Rizer doesn’t believe that data centers’ energy needs are currently pushing up Virginians’ bills, though he allows that they could in the future if not managed correctly. How to meet that demand is one of the key questions for officials elsewhere weighing whether to follow his lead.

While the 64-year-old believes Loudoun County will max out its land available for data centers in the coming years, he isn’t getting out of the game. Last year, he joined developer Avaio Digital Partners as an adviser. Rizer said he would leave the company if it ever had a project in northern Virginia to avoid conflicts of interest.

“I’m an evangelist for smart economic development,” he said. “I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a data-center evangelist in all instances. There are plenty of communities that come and talk to me and I tell them, ‘It’s probably not for you.”