Jul 18, 2025 5 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ Microsoft’s Eco-Magic Trick

More Stories: Future of Coding, Twitch Tilts Finally

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

Innovation takes many forms — some ship code, some bury carbon. From vibes to verticals, the future is getting easier to build, and maybe even cleaner to carry.

CARBON

Microsoft Bets on Buried Waste to Balance its Carbon Books

👀 What’s the move: Microsoft just bought 4.9 million metric tons of carbon removal from Vaulted Deep, a startup that literally injects industrial sludge and manure into deep rock formations. It’s a 12-year deal, because apparently carbon neutrality now comes with a geological timescale. Still, cheaper than building zero-emission chips.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t philanthropy — it’s emissions triage. Microsoft’s carbon footprint keeps ballooning thanks to AI-hungry data centers, and it's betting on exotic offsets to bail it out. Vaulted’s reverse-fracking waste burial play is niche today, but if the big boys keep missing their decarbonization homework, it could become core infra.

⛵ Key takeaway: When you can't cut emissions, just pay someone to inject your trash into the Earth — and call it progress.

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$200M Says Your Next Dev Hire Is a Vibe

🚀 How Lovable Scaled from 0 to $30M in 4 Months

👀 What’s the move: Swedish startup Lovable just locked in $200M at a $1.8B valuation by convincing VCs that “vibe coding” — AI-assisted, natural language-driven app building — isn’t just real, it’s the future. With 180,000 paying users and $75M ARR in under a year, they’re selling speed, accessibility, and a low-key revolution in software development.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t just another no-code clone — it’s an agentic AI that can read your files, debug your logs, search the web, and edit images on command. Developer as DJ, AI as band. If GitHub Copilot is your co-pilot, Lovable wants to be your full stack intern and product manager. And the kicker? Non-technical users are the real growth vector.

⛵ Key takeaway: Software is eating the world, but now it’s doing it with vibes and autocomplete.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitch Turns Vertical — Finally Notices Phones Are Tall

👀 What’s the move: Twitch just flicked the switch on vertical video tests with a few streamers, years after TikTok turned Gen Z’s attention spans into monetizable scrolls. It’s not public yet—just some buried UI in the app and polite "this is a test" popups. Amazon’s purple stepchild finally clocked that horizontal-only is a death wish in 2025.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t just a layout change—it’s Twitch admitting TikTok’s the format king now. If they can pull off real-time vertical livestreams without frying quality or culture, they could revive growth. If not? Expect a Reels-style purgatory. Also: dual-format 2K hints they want to outshine Shorts on quality, not just keep up.

⛵ Key takeaway: Twitch is late to vertical video—but at least it showed up with pants on.

STARTUP SPOT

🪨 Vaulted Deep
“Poop-powered, 10k‑yr carbon vault.”
Injects biosolids/manure slurry deep underground for permanent CO₂ removal—60k+ tons already sequestered; uses proven oil‑&‑gas well tech repurposed for climate.
→ Founded 2023 by ex‑Advantek engineers Julia Reichelstein (Stanford VC/fintech alum) & Omar Abou‑Sayed; spun out with existing injection infrastructure across TX, CA & KS. $32 M Series A led by Prelude, grants/XPRIZE wins; Frontier pre‑buy $58 M for 152k t; Microsoft offtake ≥ 4.9 M t over 12 yrs at ~$350/t; removed ~18k t to date.

🧾 Ami Colé
“No‑make‑up makeup for melanin skin.”
Clean, shade-tailored cosmetics (tint, lip oil, highlighter) with baobab oil, crafted for deep tones → community‑driven R&D, launched May 2021 with rapid Sephora rollout (270→600 stores).
→ Founded by Diarrha N’Diaye‑Mbaye (ex‑L’Oréal/Glossier); named after her Senegalese mother; raised ~$3 M VC + L’Oréal BOLD backing; bagged 80+ beauty awards & celeb fans (Kelly Rowland, Mindy Kaling). Closing Sept 2025.

🧠 Substack
“Writer-first creator economy engine.”
Email + podcast + video platform enabling subscription monetization—10% cut, added legal support, ads, and app tools → 5M + paid subs in 2025 (up from 2M in ’23), ~200M total funding, now valued at $1.1B post‑Series C this July. → Founded 2017 by Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie & Jairaj Sethi (two are Canadian alums Wiarton?? Waterloo); lures top journalists like Jim Acosta, Joy‑Ann Reid, Mehdi Hasan. New round led by BOND & Chernin; $100M to expand tools, app, creator support.

BAY AREA MEMOS

OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Agent, a new AI that can learn and automate complex tasks on your computer.
Popular beauty brand Ami Colé is shutting down after raising over $3 million, citing intense competition and investor pressures.
Uber is partnering with Lucid and Nuro to deploy over 20,000 autonomous taxis starting in 2026.
Substack secures $100 million in a Series C funding round, reaching a $1.1 billion valuation.
Perplexity AI is reported to have raised $100 million at an $1.8 billion valuation.

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