🍽️ TikTok Is Coming for Yelp and Google

Plus, OpenAI Drops $30B Target to $20B

October 31, 2026

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Welcome back, AI Admirers!

Breaking News: OpenAI reportedly cut its latest fundraising target from $30 billion to $20 billion after struggling to attract major investors. So far, it has secured $11 billion, as growing concerns over AI spending make investors more cautious.

Get ready to dive into the latest happenings in AI.

📢 Today's Headline:

  • OpenAI Wanted $30B. It’s Getting Less.

  • Anthropic Can Walk Away From Nscale

  • TikTok Is Expanding Beyond Social Media

  • Dying Professor Is Building His AI Twin

  • Latest AI Tools & Resources

  • Today’s Poll and Results

Read time: 4.0 minutes!

Hand-picked News

Even a $1.25 trillion price tag has a limit on how many buyers it can find.

  • OpenAI has dropped its funding target from $30B to $20B, per the Financial Times, after first pitching a $1.4T valuation and then trimming it to $1.25T.

  • The WSJ says only $11B is secured so far. Some large investors were lukewarm, and Wall Street is already jumpy about AI infrastructure spending after a heavy tech sell-off.

  • UAE investors are leading the round, and a retail offering for wealthy individuals is meant to close the gap before the planned IPO.

If OpenAI needs wealthy individuals to fill its round, who exactly is buying the IPO?

This week, check which of your tools and workflows depend on a single model provider, and set up a fallback you can switch to in an afternoon.

Anthropic’s $45B compute deal rests on a building nobody has financed yet.

  • Nvidia is in talks to guarantee billions in debt for Nscale’s 460MW West Virginia site, per The Information and Bloomberg. If Nscale misses construction payments, Nvidia would take over the site and hunt for a new tenant. Nothing is signed.

  • Nscale’s IPO filings admit the money for the first building isn’t secured, and Anthropic can walk if financing misses a deadline. That one deal is over 40% of Nscale’s $103B backlog.

  • Lenders demanded stricter terms once markets turned, which pushed the IPO toward December. Bankers now doubt it reaches the $30B to $35B valuation Nscale wanted.

Nscale lost $1B on $141M of revenue in the first half of 2026.

This week, test what your product does when your main model provider hits capacity limits, and wire up a fallback.

TikTok already owns your scroll. Now it wants your wallet and your weekend plans.

  • TikTok launched “Must Eat,” a restaurant guide built from 40 million posts and comments. You can browse by city and filter by cuisine or price, which puts it in direct range of Yelp and Google Maps.

  • It follows TikTok Shop, which grew U.S. sales 108% in 2025 to $15.82B per eMarketer, and TikTok GO, which lets U.S. users book hotels without leaving the app.

  • Payments are next. Bloomberg reports TikTok is building money transfers inside DMs, and Reuters says it applied for a Brazilian fintech license to offer lending.

Every tab you don’t open is revenue TikTok keeps.

This week, post one piece of local or product content with a place tag or Shop link, and track bookings or sales instead of views.

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Quick Poll

Today’s Poll:

OpenAI wanted to raise $30B but is now aiming for $20B. How does that feel?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Vote today, see the results tomorrow!

Previous Poll:

Some people say freezing stolen money is the right call. Others say nobody should be able to freeze your money. Where do you land?

  • A) Freeze it, stop the thieves – 50%

  • B) Nobody touches my money - 50% 🏆

Dead even, which means half of you are one drained wallet away from switching sides. The fight was never really about whether stolen money gets frozen, it’s about who holds the button and what stops them from pressing it on you next.

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