TG-AI-F: Five AI stories from this week I'm still thinking about
From Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund to Big Tech's AI spending, open weights, frontier AI security and the enterprise talent wars.
I’m on a plane to Los Angeles on the way to visit an old friend in Venice Beach, but the AI headlines, of course, have followed me onto the flight. And this week, they all seemed to point in the same direction: AI is colliding with the real world. Of course, that's been the central idea behind Ground Level AI since day one!
The bottom line: Whether it’s related to capital markets, corporate budgets, or cybersecurity, AI is becoming part of the infrastructure people depend on. And this week's headlines showed just how consequential that shift has become.
These are the five AI stories I’m still thinking about from this week:
1. Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund comes back to earth
One of the week’s biggest stories was the stunning reversal at Situational Awareness, the AI-focused hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. After spectacular gains earlier this year, it was reported yesterday that the fund suffered steep losses that forced it to sell the bulk of its public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel.
I’ve followed Aschenbrenner’s rise closely. Last year, I wrote a deep dive for Fortune on how his Situational Awareness essay transformed him from an AI researcher in his early twenties into one of Silicon Valley’s most influential voices—and eventually the manager of one of the industry’s most closely watched AI hedge funds.
One interesting follow-up from yesterday’s news: I’m told the fund attracted significant participation from people across the frontier AI ecosystem, including a number of Anthropic employees, often through SPVs. Some are now trying to determine their exposure. One source with direct knowledge told me they were offered an allocation but declined because they had concerns about Aschenbrenner.
It’s a reminder that the frontier AI community isn’t just building together. The closely connected ecosystem invests together, too. And when a high-profile AI bet unravels, the ripple effects can extend far beyond Wall Street.
2. Big Tech isn’t blinking
If Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund suggested the AI trade might be cooling off, Big Tech’s earnings suggested exactly the opposite.
Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta all made essentially the same argument this week: demand for AI infrastructure remains strong enough to justify extraordinary spending on chips, data centers and cloud capacity. Despite growing questions about returns, none of them signaled a pullback. If anything, they suggested the race is accelerating. Amazon, in fact, raised its 2026 capital spending plan from $200 billion to $220 billion after AWS revenue jumped 37% year over year, its fastest growth in more than four years. Alphabet recently boosted its own capital spending forecast to $195–205 billion for the year.
It’s a useful reminder that the stock market and corporate investment aren’t always on the same page.
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If you have questions for me or want to discuss one of this week’s stories, jump into the chat. You can also start your own discussion threads, and I do my best to be there regularly to answer questions and keep the conversation going.
I’d love to see you there.
