Sep 17, 2025 5 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ GEO Express Service

Plus: Google’s Hidden Victory, Fiverr Fires Freelancers

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

Power is shifting fast across courts, code and low Earth orbit as everyone scrambles to deliver before the next frontier closes.

SPACE

👀 What’s the move: Tom Mueller, the man who gave SpaceX its Merlin and Raptor engines, walked out in 2020 and built Impulse to chase the piece Elon never bothered with: orbital last-mile delivery. Helios, his methane-oxygen stage, promises to drag satellites from LEO to GEO in hours, cutting months off deployment. It’s the sliver of the chain SpaceX doesn’t touch, but the one that decides when payloads actually start making money.

💡 Why it’s not boring: If Impulse scales, the knock-on effect is brutal with manufacturers redesigning lighter, cheaper satellites, launch providers losing the fat margins on direct-to-GEO, and a servicing economy in GEO finally penciling out. It’s not just speed, it’s a wedge that reshapes incentives across the entire stack. In other words: the guy who built SpaceX’s core tech is now dismantling its blind spot.

⛵ Key takeaway: Own the last mile in space, and you don’t just move satellites — you rewrite the business model of orbit.

TOGETHER WITH WARMY

An Al-Powered Warmup Solution

Are you fed up with your emails getting lost in spam filters? It’s time to welcome Warmy into the mix. Our solution is designed to enhance your open rates by an impressive 2.3 times and increase click rates by 3 times, all while slashing your bounce rates by an astounding 35%.

Introducing Warmy: our AI-driven algorithms tirelessly work to fine-tune your email deliverability and reputation, guaranteeing your messages receive the VIP treatment they merit—right in the primary inbox!

Try now👉

GIANT

Google Lawfights Like a Platform, Not a Startup and It Just Worked

👀 What’s the move: The DOJ wanted Chrome and Android split off to weaken Google’s search monopoly. Google’s defense leaned on two points: first, divestiture would break products consumers rely on daily; second, its ecosystem scale is what lets it compete globally with Apple. The company then offered “data remedies” — opening limited ad data access to rivals — which gave the court a softer middle ground than tearing the company apart.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This wasn’t a clean courtroom drama, it was trench warfare. Google brought in economic studies showing that splitting Chrome and Android would create chaos for developers and billions in user harm. They also leaned heavily on the narrative of “U.S. tech vs China,” framing breakup as a national competitiveness risk. The court bought it. Instead of rewriting the map, regulators got paperwork concessions, and Google walked away with its empire intact.

⛵ Key takeaway: Google turned an antitrust trial into a choice between user chaos and data transparency — and regulators always pick the lighter hammer.

FREELANCER

Fiverr Fires Freelancers to Chase the Bots

👀 What’s the move: The 15-year-old marketplace for gig workers just cut 30% of its own staff, claiming it needs to “go back to startup mode” with an AI-first rebuild. CEO Micha Kaufman is pushing a vision where Fiverr isn’t a broker of human hustle, but a platform layered with AI infrastructure that automates away the drudge work and maybe the humans with it.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This is the canonical pivot of every middleman in the AI era, a choice between becoming the algorithm or being crushed by it. Fiverr’s play isn’t about keeping freelancers happy, it’s about staying relevant now that “AI does my job cheaper” has moved from meme to business model. If the shift works, Fiverr morphs from a labor marketplace into an AI productivity grid; if not, it’s just another relic of Web2 arbitrage.

⛵ Key takeaway: The gig economy just got automated and even the middlemen are gig workers now.

STARTUP SPOT

🪐 Impulse
“SpaceX alum builds orbital tugs.”
Orbital transfer vehicles + high-energy kick stages to deliver satellites across GEO, MEO, LEO.
→ Founded 2021 by Tom Mueller (ex-SpaceX propulsion chief); $525M raised incl. $300M Series C (2025); 30+ contracts, $200M backlog; Helios launch set 2026.

🧠 CodeRabbit
“AI reviews, code faster.”
LLM-powered code review across PRs, IDE, CLI—catches bugs, style, security issues.
→ Founded 2023 by Harjot Gill; $60M Series B Sept 2025 at $550M val; $88M raised total; >8,000 companies, $15M+ ARR.

🧾 Alt Capital
“Founders-first early VC.”
Generalist venture firm backing inception-to-Series A with $1–25M checks, sector-agnostic.
→ Founded ~2023, San Francisco HQ; concentrated portfolio approach; positioning as founder-centric capital partner.

BAY AREA MEMOS

AI code review startup CodeRabbit raised $60M at a $550M valuation, with ARR topping $15M and 20% monthly growth.
Jack Altman raised a $275M early-stage fund for Alt Capital in just one week, cementing the Altman family’s growing VC influence.
Tesla is recalling 2020–2022 Powerwall 2 units over faulty cells posing fire risks, starting in Australia but potentially global.
Google launched the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard for AI-driven purchases backed by major merchants, financial institutions, and crypto partners.
Workday acquires Sana Labs for $1.1B and launches new AI agents and developer tools to transform HR and finance work experiences.

TOGETHER WITH US

AI Secret Media Group is the world’s #1 AI & Tech Newsletter Group, boasting over 1 million readers from leading companies such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Our Newsletter Brands: