Jul 4, 2025 4 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ Pay to Breathe

Perplexity as Luxury, Musk’s Magic Fog, Nvidia Grid Yoga

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

AI took a deep breath—your grid, your lungs, and your budget paid for it. But hey, at least we’re learning what progress really costs.

Perplexity Slaps $200 Price Tag on Curiosity

👀 What’s the move: Perplexity just launched “Perplexity Max,” a $200-a-month tier promising unlimited Labs spreadsheets, early dibs on its Comet AI browser, and VIP access to frontier models like o3-pro and Claude Opus 4—10× the regular Pro plan and a straight echo of OpenAI’s power-user tax.

💡 Why it’s not boring: Hyper-premium tiers are the new cloud credits: reel in whales before rivals do. The $20 crowd keeps the GPUs spinning; the $200 club bankrolls that rumored $18 B valuation and walls out indie LLM wrappers.

⛵ Key takeaway: Freemium’s dead—AI meters now start at two Benjamins.

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ENERGY

xAI Scores Smog Permit for Memphis Supercomputer

👀 What’s the move: Shelby County just green-lit 15 natural-gas turbines for Elon Musk’s xAI data center, keeping its “Colossus” supercomputer humming. Activists say the outfit has already run up to 35 generators without approval and promise a Clean Air Act lawsuit. Even the new permit lets xAI spew 87 tons of NOₓ and nearly 10 tons of formaldehyde a year.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This is the playbook for fossil-powered AI at industrial scale: drop a hyperscale data bunker in a historically Black neighborhood, dare regulators to blink, then label it “temporary.” ESG funds squirm; rival clouds quietly take notes.

⛵ Key takeaway: AI’s magic smoke now includes exhaust fumes—Memphis just got the beta release.

DATA

Nvidia Teaches AI Factories to Dim for the Grid

👀 What’s the move: Nvidia-backed Emerald AI just showed a Phoenix data center can throttle GPU workloads 25 % for three hours during peak demand, trimming 500-MW “AI factories” into flexible 375-MW blips. The demo—plus a fresh $24.5 M seed round—turns power-hungry clusters into grid shock absorbers.

💡 Why it’s not boring: If hyperscalers can flex power on demand, interconnection queues shrink, rolling blackouts ease, and Nvidia ships more GPUs without waiting for new substations. Utilities get a free stabilizer; rival chip vendors lose another spec-sheet brag.

⛵ Key takeaway: AI’s next killer app is grid yoga—bend or stay offline.

STARTUP SPOT

🖥️ Nerdio
“Making cloud management simple & cost-effective.” Automates deploying, managing & optimizing Microsoft cloud environments like Azure Virtual Desktop & Windows 365, slashing complexity & costs.
→ Co-founded by Vadim Vladimirskiy & Joseph Landes. Hit $1B+ unicorn valuation after a $500M Series C led by General Atlantic in March 2025.

🏝️ Island
“The Enterprise Browser.”
A secure, Chromium-based browser built for business. Gives IT full control over data, access, and productivity while feeling native to the user.
→ Founded by Mike Fey & Dan Amiga. Hit a ~$5B valuation after a $250M Series E in early 2025. Major player in securing the hybrid workplace.

💆 Aescape
“An experience made to move you.”
AI-powered robotic massage table that uses sensors to map your body and deliver a hyper-personalized, on-demand massage.
→ Founded by Eric Litman. Raised $83M from investors like Valor Equity Partners & Kevin Love. Launched in Equinox gyms.

BAY AREA MEMOS

YC alum launches $34M Phosphor fund to back fellow YC startups.
Ambiq Micro files for US IPO after 16% sales boost driven by AI demand.
Bilt eyes $10 billion valuation in new funding round led by General Catalyst.
Apple’s director of data center engineering Spas Lazarov joins OpenAI to spearhead AI infrastructure development.
Soham Parekh’s serial moonlighting sparks hiring frenzy and caution in Silicon Valley.

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