Nov 28, 2025 5 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ DOGE Just Died

Plus: Alibaba Joins the AI Glasses Race, Robotaxi Goes Global

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

Technology is sprinting through commercial markets at machine speed, yet every time it touches public governance, it seems to trip over human systems that refuse to move as fast.

DOGE

DOGE Just Died

👀 What’s the move: Trump just pulled the plug on DOGE, the “Department of Government Efficiency” he created in January and handed to Elon Musk to fix Washington like it was a broken factory. The team—packed with ex-SpaceX and Tesla engineers—was supposed to slash waste and bureaucracy. Instead, it gutted USAID, sparked data-security scandals, and left behind a trail of lawsuits and internal panic.

💡 Why it’s not boring: Musk built rockets faster than the Washionton builds PowerPoints, but government isn’t a startup. DOGE showed that code and cost-cutting can’t rewrite legacy power structures the way a new launch company can rewrite physics. Firing bureaucrats is easy; rewriting a 200-year bureaucracy’s operating system is not. The same first-principles logic that birthed SpaceX met the one system that doesn’t orbit reason—Washington.

⛵ Key takeaway: Musk learned the hard way that reinventing space is easier than reprogramming the state.

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ROBOTAXI

Uber x WeRide Go Full Robot in Abu Dhabi

👀 What’s the move: Uber and China’s WeRide flipped the switch on the first fully driverless robotaxi service outside the U.S. and China. The fleet, now running without human safety drivers on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, lets Uber riders opt for the “Autonomous” category to specifically request a driverless ride.. The launch follows WeRide’s UAE federal permit and signals the pair’s plan to blanket the Middle East and Europe with thousands of autonomous cars by 2026.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t just a milestone; it’s market realignment. Uber, once burned by its failed in-house AV bet, is now franchising autonomy through global partnerships, turning itself into the world’s on-demand network for whoever can deliver reliable autonomy. For WeRide, it’s a geopolitical jackpot: a Chinese AV firm gaining regulatory trust in the Gulf before its U.S. rivals. Abu Dhabi gets the PR of a “driverless capital,” while Uber quietly builds an autonomy supply chain that spans continents without owning a single car.

⛵ Key takeaway: Uber outsourced the future, and WeRide sold China’s driving brain to the Middle East. A "perfect" win-win.

AI GLASSES

Alibaba Joins the AI Glasses Race

👀 What’s the move: Alibaba just followed Meta into the AI glasses rush, launching its Quark headset at around $268. The device, powered by Alibaba’s Qwen model, looks like normal eyewear but connects directly to Taobao and Alipay for instant translation, price checks, and on-the-go shopping. It’s a practical play, positioning AI not as a gimmick but as an invisible layer in daily life.

💡 Why it’s not boring: The AI glasses market is heating up fast. Meta sells the dream of social AI, Apple sells immersion, and now Alibaba sells convenience, a frictionless bridge between seeing and spending. No one knows if AI glasses will become the next iPhone or the next Google Glass, but Big Tech has already decided to bet that they will.

⛵ Key takeaway: Nobody knows if people will wear AI; but every giant’s betting they can’t afford to be the one who doesn’t.

STARTUP SPOT

🛡️ Veza
“Identity security that starts with authorization.”
Maps every user, service, and permission across cloud apps so companies can see and control who can actually access what.
→ Founded 2020 by Tarun Thakur, Maohua Lu, and Rob Whitcher; raised a $108M Series D in 2025 at an ~$808M valuation.

💸 Paxos
“Regulated rails for on-chain finance.”
Stablecoin issuance, tokenization, and institutional custody built on a New York trust charter and used by partners like PayPal and Nubank.
→ Founded 2012; raised $540M+ to date; in 2025 acquired MPC-wallet startup Fordefi for $100M+ to deepen its institutional infrastructure stack.

📊 Mixpanel
“Product analytics that shows what users actually do.”
Event-based dashboards, funnels, cohorts, and retention analytics built for fast, self-serve insight across web and mobile.
→ Founded 2009 by Suhail Doshi and Tim Trefren; YC S09; hundreds of millions in ARR scale; long-time staple for teams from early-stage startups to Fortune 500.

BAY AREA MEMOS

Canva is seriously considering porting Affinity to Linux, a move that could introduce the platform’s first true Adobe-class creative suite.
Regulated blockchain company Paxos acquired Fordefi for over $100 million to reinforce its institutional digital asset and stablecoin stack.
Chinese tech giants are reportedly shifting their AI model training overseas to keep using Nvidia’s advanced chips and circumvent U.S. export restrictions.
OpenAI now lets Enterprise, Edu, and API customers choose from 10 data-residency regions to meet global data-sovereignty needs.
ServiceNow is in talks to buy Veza for over $1B to add crucial identity and permission security for its growing fleet of enterprise AI agents.

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