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Apple has a plan for its memory problem. The only problem is that it goes through a company on the US blacklist, according to FT

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The perfect storm hits the memory market and shakes consumer electronics like we have rarely seen. This stretch of the year has become a bad time to update your computerbuy a console or even expand the RAM of a gaming desktop with a new module. The effects They also reach storage units and other components that until not so long ago seemed more or less predictable. Looking back, that problem with graphics cards during the rise of cryptocurrency mining It begins to seem, for many users, almost small next to what we are seeing now. For months, some large manufacturers have tried to buy time with a tool that the user does not see: inventory. Lenovo is a good example. According to statements by its financial director, Winston Cheng, collected by Bloomberg TV and later cited by various mediathe company even had stocks of memory and other critical components around 50% higher than usual to cushion the blow of shortages and price increases. This type of mattress helps to resist better than others, but it also has a limit when the market continues to tighten. Memory has become a problem for Apple, prices and geopolitics And that’s where Apple comes in. We are not talking about a small company trapped by a specific increase in costsbut one of the companies with the most negotiating power in the entire technology industry. Its supply chain has been operating with extraordinary precision for years, supported by huge agreements, global suppliers and a purchasing power that few can match. Precisely for this reason it is so significant that, according to Financial TimesApple would also be looking new ways to relieve memory pressure. The path that has come to light is especially delicate. According to the British business newspaper, Apple is pressuring the Trump Administration to obtain authorization, or at least a favorable signal, that allows it to buy memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese manufacturer singled out by the Pentagon for his alleged links with the People’s Liberation Army. The media adds that the company approached the Department of Commerce more than a month ago and has also sought support in other parts of Washington. The goal would be to alleviate the financial pressure caused by the rising cost of memory. If you’ve been following Apple for a while, you probably already know: these types of moves are almost never made public. The company does not usually explain its internal purchasing operations, much less its conversations with suppliers or administrations. Financial Times attributes the information to six people familiar with the mattera relevant basis to take it seriously, but we are not facing official confirmation from Apple, the White House or the Department of Commerce. To understand the dimension of the movement, CXMT must be well located. We are not talking about a brand of consumer RAM that the user chooses in a store, but about ChangXin Memory Technologiesa Chinese DRAM manufacturer founded in 2016. The company presents itself as a supplier of chips for mobile phones, PCs, tablets, servers and other equipment, memory that can then end up integrated into finished products. In the case of Apple, therefore, the debate is not about a visible brand, but about who supplies a particularly sensitive internal part. The search for alternatives does not come out of nowhere. It’s no secret that the memory industry is highly concentrated on Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, the DRAM suppliers that Apple relies on for its devices. When the market is balanced, that dependence can be managed with contracts, volume and planning. When prices rise sharply, however, each additional supplier counts. CXMT appears there as a possible way to add capacity. The memory industry is highly concentrated in Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix. As we have seen, what is behind it is not just an isolated increase in prices, but a change of priorities. The AI ​​craze has put advanced memory at the center of the data center business, especially HBM, needed to power high-performance servers and accelerators. That demand has contributed to a prolonged shortage of traditional memory for consumer electronics. That is why the problem is felt in very different products: not because they all use the same memory, but because they compete, directly or indirectly, for a limited industrial capacity. At Apple, that pressure has ended up reaching the showcase. The company raised the prices of MacBooks and iPads by around 20% and attributed the movement to some “unsustainable” memory prices. The same medium maintains that the decision had an immediate stock market impact: $263 billion less in capitalization, Apple’s second largest daily drop. It is advisable to read these figures together, because they tell something broader than a specific increase: when memory triggers, even a company used to protecting its margins begins to transfer tension to the final product. The expression “blacklist” helps to understand the seriousness of the matter, but it can lead to a conclusion that is too quick. CXMT is on the Pentagon’s 1260H list for its alleged links with the People’s Liberation Army, a very sensitive label in the midst of the technological rivalry between the US and China. However, according to the Financial Times, that designation does not automatically prevent Apple from purchasing chips from CXMT or YMTC. The issue is what would happen if the US hardens its position later. The British economic newspaper says that the Department of Commerce had already included CXMT in a package of Chinese companies candidates to enter the Entity List, a much more restrictive trade listbut that the White House asked to wait for negotiations with Beijing. That background explains why the company would want a political signal before moving. It is not enough for a door to be open today if tomorrow it can be closed with Apple inside. John Moolenaar, Republican chairman of the House China committee, told the same newspaper that partnering with a Chinese military company would be “a serious mistake.” He also argued that helping the “Chinese … Read more

A cement company stopped sending its personnel to inspect dangerous areas. Your new inspector is a robot dog

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Even though the conversation revolves around humanoid robotics Lately, this sector has had much more traction in the industry for decades, driving a good part of the current processes and assembly lines. In this regard, a Swiss cement plant has wanted to take advantage of robotics in a somewhat peculiar way: it has been using a quadruped robot to monitor your facilities every night. Below these lines we tell you all the details. The problem that had to be solved. Vigier Ciment has been producing cement in the hills of the Swiss Jura, south of Biel, for a century and a half, generating approximately a fifth of all cement in the country. Its plant houses more than 1,000 machines spread across several buildings and floors, connected by metal stairs of up to 16 sections, areas with temperatures that reach 50 degrees, constant dust and the occasional presence of ammonia near the unloading docks. The maintenance of all this fell to operators who toured the facilities on foot filling out paper records. Over time, continued exposure to these conditions generates what the plant workers themselves call “operational blindness.” You stop seeing what is in front of you because you have already seen it too many times, according to collect Techeblog. The guard dog. Just like account The medium, in November 2024 the Swiss robotics company ANYbotics began talks with Vigier Ciment to deploy its ANYmal quadruped robot at the plant. The robot arrived on January 6, 2025 and before the end of the first month it was already carrying out night patrols completely autonomously. ANYmal is similar in size to a large dog and weighs more than 50 kilos. It does not need human supervision, and its managers say it climbs stairs, avoids obstacles, navigates narrow hallways and accesses areas that previously required considerable effort on the part of staff. What exactly does it do in every round. Every night, even on weekends, ANYmal goes through more than 450 inspection points predefined elements distributed in three mills and six levels. To do this, it has several detection systems, including a visual camera that identifies cracks, oil leaks or corrosion; a thermal camera that measures the temperature of critical components such as bearings, motors and gears; a gas sensor that monitors ammonia levels; and an acoustic camera capable of locating compressed air leaks or filter failures at distances of up to 50 meters. According to point In the middle, all that information is automatically dumped into a software platform called Data Navigator, which analyzes the data collected overnight, compares it to the facility’s history, and generates a daily report for the maintenance team. What he has found along the way. In sixteen months of operation, ANYmal has already completed more than 33,000 inspections without recording any technical failures. According to ANYbotics, the most relevant findings have had a direct impact on plant operations. The middle share In addition, the robot detected a crack in the base of a shredder the size of a large kitchen table. The oil had been leaking for some time and no one had reported it on the usual rounds. The repair was completed the next day. Had it collapsed, the plant would have lost more than a week of production, with estimated losses of more than $630,000, according to the company’s own figures. In another case, thermal monitoring detected a bearing reaching 140 degrees Celsius, allowing a $30,000 eight-hour repair to be scheduled rather than facing a much more costly emergency failure. The robot also detected levels of ammonia exposure at unloading docks that had not been measured until then, and located air leaks in filtration systems installed 50 meters high. Industrial maintenance. The plant’s traditional fixed sensors only covered about 200 elements, mainly on the clinker side (the main component of cement). The robot expands that coverage substantially and accesses areas that static sensors cannot reach. At the same time, it removes operators from the most dangerous environments without reducing the frequency or quality of inspections. Images | ANYbotics In Xataka | One of the big problems with AI is that it always proves you right: this is the most effective way to avoid it

“Now there is money everywhere and if you have a quality company, you will have a lot of funds waiting”

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Like scouts for football or basketball clubs, investment funds and large companies use a figure with the same purpose. They are the ‘scouts’ or startup scouts. Their mission: to find promising companies when they have not yet been discovered, to be the first or among the first to invest or collaborate with them. In silver, arrive before anyone else. “These ‘scout’ programs become popular during approximately 2021-2022, in the midst of valuation hysteria for technology companies. It is a time of prosperity for the funds, which begin to see that the companies’ income multiples begin to grow very quickly,” says Kintxo Cortés, referring to the fact that the investment enthusiasm resulted in the companies’ income having to be multiplied each time by a higher number (x4, then x6, then x11…) to arrive at your assessment. For reference, the current 5 trillion dollars of capitalization of Nvidia are equivalent to multiplying its annual income by 20. In the case of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, the figure would come from multiplying turnover by 11 and in that of Apple, by 10. “In venture capital what is happening is that money is a commodity. There are very good funds, so it is not only a race to see who finds the company that grows the best but also who enters a promising company the earliest,” explains Cortés, who has been a scout for four years. He currently collaborates with the Accel and Samaipata funds, in addition to working at the connectivity company Gigs. “Now there is money everywhere and if you are an entrepreneur and have a quality company, you will have a lot of funds that will want to put money into you.” In an environment like the one Cortés draws, investment funds can only be differentiated in two ways. One of them is with its team of professionals, capable of adequately supporting the startup. The other is with speed. Whoever gets to the entrepreneur first has an advantage when it comes to investing. So the funds have diversified their search for projects with potential. The objective is to enter capital very soon, even with a small position. And this is where the scouting activity unfolds. They are specialists and know the entrepreneurship ecosystem inside out in certain areas or niches. They allow the funds to gain capillarity that they do not have with their staff alone. This way they have access to a greater number of companies and can glimpse promising teams operating in interesting sectors as soon as possible. Although this scout profile is not the only one that scans the landscape in search of attractive startups. Gema García González, director of Open Innovation and Coporte Venturing at Repsol, is in charge of a team of ten people dedicated to reinforcing the company’s technological development with external resources. “We try to be flexible, we work with other research centers, with other corporations and, of course, with startups. The entrepreneurial ecosystem has many pieces, it has grown a lot in recent years and can contribute a lot to us in developments that we want to accelerate,” he explains. In this case the scouts are on staff. Thus, the company has invested in more than 35 startups and today works with 21 companies, detected by its analyst service. “We do not invest in what any investment fund can invest in, we invest in something that can be strategic for the company, in startups with which we want to collaborate,” says García González. Repsol scouts, working within the framework of its R&D center, Tech Lab, comb the entrepreneurial ecosystem in search of circular economy, energy optimization or renewable hydrogen projects. “My team has to dedicate part of its time to being very connected to the ecosystem. It needs to have a good network of contacts with other corporations, with other investment funds, go to conferences and startup events and see which platforms are the best to launch technological challenges,” explains García González. He clarifies that one of the formulas for finding interesting projects is the launch of contests and challenges that reward the best solutions to a given problem. Don’t let the next ‘PayPal Mafia’ escape The connection with the entrepreneurial world is essential. In the technology sector, a trend that has been seen for a few years has been accentuated. “There are companies that are doing very well in technology and have many employees who begin to set up other companies because they have access to liquidity, either because the company goes public or they can move shares in the secondary market,” says Cortés. “They find themselves with a lot of money and the desire to continue building things.” The phenomenon is not new and is reminiscent of the success of ‘PayPal Mafia’a symbol of that diaspora that sometimes occurs in technology companies. Many talented employees and deep pockets who decide to undertake can emerge from them. From the early days of PayPal came Elon Musk, the founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman and the investor Peter Thiel. And other employees started projects such as YouTube, Yelp or the social application Slide, acquired by Google. More recently, the brain drain at OpenAI also illustrates how talent within one startup ends up spawning other startups. That’s where the Amodei brothers came from.which they founded Anthropicformer chief scientist Ilya Sutskever (Safe Superintelligence) or former CTO Mira Murati (Thinking Machines Lab). The great value of Kintxo Cortés for the funds with which he collaborates is his network of contacts with employees and former employees of the companies where he has worked, especially Airbnb, Shopify and Trade Republic. That connection is key for investing entities, which do not have the structure on their own to delve into the ins and outs of the projects formed by former employees of the technology companies. Even fewer are able to discern which employees they should pay attention to, whether because they are the sharpest, most talented, or best positioned. A corporation like Repsol must also be clear about which … Read more

the company has been chosen to modernize the Washington DC metro

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Among all the projects it is in charge of, the Spanish technology company has also won the contract to renew the ticket terminals in the 98 Washington DC metro stations, in an agreement that could reach 75 million dollars. Below these lines we tell you all the details. Contract. Just like account The company in its official press release, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the body that manages the Washington DC metro, has selected Indra to replace all the ticket sales machines in its network. The starting amount is 38.9 million dollars (about 33 million euros), but the contract includes additional options that could raise it to 75 million dollars (about 65 million euros). At stake are 450 new terminals spread across the five lines and 98 stations of a network that moves more than 500,000 travelers every day. What’s included exactly the order. In addition to manufacturing and delivering the equipment, Indra will also have to be responsible for the design, installation and maintenance for the next 15 years. The new machines will replace the current Fare Vending Machines, the terminals that have been in service on the network for years. According to affirms company, the new devices will have high-resolution touch screens with an interface very similar to that of mobile phones, will support payments by card, mobile phone and digital wallets (EMV and ABT technology), and will be available in up to 15 languages. The design must also comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including assisted audio and tactile elements for people with reduced mobility or vision. According to the company, part of the assembly will be carried out in the new plant that Indra has just inaugurated in Olathe, within the Kansas City metropolitan area. Indra puts its foot in North America. In recent months, Indra has been accumulating positions in the North American market. At the beginning of this year it was awarded a contract of nearly 300 million dollars to modernize FAA air traffic control, and more recently signed another agreement with Nav Canada to integrate drones and commercial aviation into Canadian airspace. It also has previous experience in railway ticketing in the US, since it was the company that installed the last two generations of self-sales machines in the St. Louis (Missouri) metro. Winning a contract in Washington DC is at another level in terms of visibility, since WMATA is one of the largest public transportation agencies in the country, and consolidates Indra as a reference in a highly contested market. What each part says. Raúl Ripio, general director of Mobility & Technology at Indra Group, assures that the company has been betting decisively on the United States for some time, where in addition to this project it develops traffic, connected vehicle and communications initiatives. For his part, Randy Clarke, CEO of Washington Metro, said in a statement that the investment “modernizes a critical part” of the system and that the new terminals incorporate payment technologies that users increasingly demand. International expansion. This move comes months after Indra won the contract to modernize access to public transport in Londonvalued at around 1,000 million euros, one of the largest in its recent history. The one in Washington is more modest in numbers, but strategically it is just as relevant, since the company is fully integrated into the mobility infrastructure of the US capital, a country that is increasingly taking center stage among its expansion plans. Cover image | Matthew Bornhorst In Xataka | Seville has had serious traffic problems on the SE-30 for decades: a 3.5 kilometer megabridge aims to solve them

90 years ago a Basque company decided to manufacture the “Rolls-Royce of staplers”. It hasn’t gone particularly well

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What do they have in common the MoMA, Vladimir Putinthe former Colombian president Andres Pastrana and the veteran reporter Gillian de Bonowho for decades dedicated himself to advising wealthy readers of Financial Times How to spend your money in style? The answer is only two characters long: M5the Basque brand stapler The Helmet. His name may not ring a bell, but it sure does. your imageneat, efficient, sophisticated. So much so that it has elevated the stapler to the category of art worthy of the desks of leaders and museums. Despite all that and its centuries-old history, El Casco has not managed to avoid bankruptcy. After declare bankruptcynow his legacy is sold to the highest bidder. The art of putting together pages. Life offers us many kinds of pleasures, but there is one that we did not know about until the Basque company El Casco got to work: collecting papers. This was recognized a few years ago, Gillian de Bonothe veteran reporter of the How I spend it (‘How I spend it’) from the diary Financial Times. In 2017, after testing the M5 stapler from the Guipuzcoan company, recognized to his readers that he had never enjoyed stapling papers so much. It hasn’t been the only one. The design, efficiency and above all the elegance of El Casco staplers (the M5 is perhaps the most famous and exclusive, but in the catalog of the company there are many more models) has led them to such unexpected places such as the collection of the MoMA museum in New York or the desks of Vladimir Putin and Andrés Pastrana, as well as the offices of executives from around the world. After all, stapling report sheets may be a mundane task, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done glamorously. “The Roll-Royce of staplers”. Perhaps the best definition of the M5 was given years ago by designer Juli Capella. For him, remember The Countrythe Basque creation is something like “the Rolls-Royce of staplers.” It may sound like an exaggeration, but the phrase is better understood if several factors are taken into account. First, the design of the article, which has allowed it to be passed from parents to children in many cases and continue to fulfill its function. just like decades ago. Second, its history: the company behind it traces its origins to before the Civil War. Third, its exclusivity (and prices): in its online catalog You can find different models ranging from 150 to almost 400 euros. And yet… All of the above guarantees El Casco staplers a privileged place in the history of national design, but that does not mean that at a business level they have to do well. On the contrary. The passing of the decades, the change of habits, digitalization and competition of articles low cost Asia is over taking its toll to the company, unable to balance its accounts. At the beginning of the year, Tuncalya, the Eibar-based company behind the El Casco brand, declared bankruptcy and months later, in May, was auctioned most of the machinery and facilities that allowed it to manufacture its staplers. Brands, domains and know-how. Now comes the second (and final) chapter of its corporate epilogue. As I remembered a few days ago The Mailthis week the other part of his business legacy is auctioned: around twenty trademark registrations in different countries, the know-how accumulated after decades of activity, its commercial fund and a series of web domains that will remain valid at least until October 2026 or 2030. The bid is organized by Pacelma Auctions, it comes out in a single Lope with a starting price of 50,000 euros and is part of the bankruptcy procedure supervised by a court in San Sebastián. More than just design. Although what probably made Putin, Pastrana and Bono fall in love with it is the design of the staplers, El Casco stands out for another reason: its history. The roots of the company must be found in the Basque Country of the 20when Juan Olave and Juan Solozabal (former Orbea employees) founded a business in Éibar that was initially dedicated to weapons. After a few years marked by the Great Depression and the Civil War, the company decided to focus on office supplies. What didn’t change was his mentality. “A staple should move through the stapler with the same precision as a bullet through the barrel of a revolver,” explains Joan Solozábal, grandson of the founder. Against all odds. Throughout its extensive history, the firm has encountered the occasional crisis. In 1937, just a few years after it began manufacturing stationery, the business suffered the blow of the Civil War: the town suffered bombings that left the company damaged. Over time, it was able to resume its activity, it was equipped with a larger factory and, already in the 60s, it gathered around 200 employees. The crises of the following decades, digitalization and competition from low cost However, they undermined his business. In 2014 the company was forced to bankruptcya delicate situation that was saved thanks to the Turkish investor (and former client of the firm) Bayrak Vedak. Their disembarkation gave a boost of oxygen to the Gipuzkoan company, but it has not allowed them to fully weather the storm. Twelve years after that critical episode and despite attempts to refocus the business, the firm declared bankruptcy at the beginning of 2026. Now its future remains in the air. Images | The Helmet and Wikipedia In Xataka | What happened to Barreiros, the Spanish automotive company that manufactured Dodges “made in Spain” in the second half of the 20th century

Isar is the European aerospace company that has the money, the partners and even the rockets. The only thing missing is to launch them

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With its Spectrum rocket, the Isar Aerospace company apparently has everything to succeed. Money, public and private support, several available launch sites… However, it basically lacks being able to launch said rocket. He achieved it in March 2025, but it exploded just a minute later. He has tried again up to 4 times in 2026, but in any case the countdown has been paused due to some technical setback. The last of these attempts was this week, on Monday, June 15. The launch window will remain open until the 21st, but so far it has not been announced if there will be another attempt soon. The company has stated that every mistake is a lesson and that it is learning a lot from them, but the point is that it needs to take flight completely so that all those investors see a return benefit. Time passes and it is important to detect what technical problems are making takeoff so difficult. Five attempts. The explosion of 2025 It was due to the opening of a ventilation valve in mid-flight, which later caused the loss of attitude control of the rocket. Later, on January 21, it was a failure in a pressurization valve that prevented the launch. Then, on March 25, a dangerous increase in the temperature of liquid propane fuel was detected. To top it off, an unauthorized vessel entered the danger zone around the launch site. Logically, that was bad luck, but the problems continued. For example, in the April 9 attempt a possible leak was also located in a pressurized tank. Finally, this last attempt, that of June 15, it was not completed due to a failure in the fluid system. The problems have been of various kinds and it is important to solve them in time. ESA investment. Isar Aerospace is supported by ESAwhich has invested 205 million euros in it through the European Launcher Challenge program. In fact, in this last attempt the Spectrum rocket was loaded with 5 cubesats and an experiment from the European agency itself. Other investors. The company also has received 270 million euros of private investmentcoming from investors such as Island Green Capital, Molten Ventures, HV Capital or Lakestar. With all this, it is expected to reach a production level of more than 30 launchers a year. But of course, for that you have to take off with the first one. More launch locations. Currently, Isar Aerospace launches its rockets from the Andøya spaceport in northern Norway. However, it plans to build a new facility in Canada and has already signed a letter of intent with Maritime Launch Services to incorporate the Nova Scotia spaceport as a second operational site. He has even reached agreements to use the ramp of the old Diamant rocketin it French Guiana Spaceport. The fishermen do not support it. The German company has a lot of support, although it lacks that of the Norwegian fishermenthat they complain of the launch attempts that disrupt their work in Andøya. In fact, this place is also used as a military testing ground, so many complaints have also been issued about it. The money is already there, now the technology is missing. In short, this company has the money and, yes, the technology too, but it clearly fails. There is something that must be solved, because the fishermen’s problem is solved by changing the launch site, but the problem of not taking flight can end up with the loss of investors. Isar Aerospace engineers have a lot of work ahead of them. Image | Isar Aerospace In Xataka | An unknown company from Barcelona has become indispensable for ESA: its software controls the Ariane 6 rocket

“The existence of the company is in danger”

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The Volkswagen Group is at risk of collapse. That, at least, is what six out of nine managers think behind closed doors, according to the German newspaper Manager Magazine. The media assures that the company has conducted an internal survey of its top managers and two out of three agree with its diagnosis. “The company is in danger”. This is what six out of nine managers have answered, according to this German media, to the question of an internal survey that has been circulated among the company’s top leaders. The other three, always according to information from Manager Magazinedescribed the company’s situation as “tense.” The survey has moved among the board of directors through a management consulting company that is analyzing the internal way of working. And the result has been overwhelming: the Volkswagen model is sold out. Some discrepancies. In the German environment Elektroauto They expand the information ensuring that the company that carried out the survey is Boston Consulting Group and that the eight boards of directors of the group and Michael Leiters, head of Porsche, have participated in it. But, without a doubt, the most problematic thing is that, according to this medium specialized in the electricity market, there was no internal consensus on the functioning of the board of directors. Four members of the board of directors assure that the management is united but four others denied it. A position, the latter, that was repeated among eleven of the 14 people who make up the Company Supervisory Board. Same old problems. Among those surveyed, the German media agree, the problems that Volkswagen has on the table seem clear: A perfect storm. Volkswagen’s financial situation is not a coincidence, it is the result of multiple factors in which the coin has come out tails (they have more or less responsibility as a company). In China, the market has turned to local manufacturers. Companies are managing to sell more striking and advanced products than traditional manufacturers but, above all, they are doing so at a much more competitive price. They have entered into a price war that threatens to take manufacturers ahead and is fueled by a public that feels pride in buying Chinese products to the detriment of what comes from abroad. In the United States, tariffs imposed by the Government are severely punishing factories located in Mexico but they have also made the product manufactured within the country itself more expensive because there are pieces that continue to cross the border even if they are assembled on American soil. And brands like Porsche, which have the United States as their big market, They do not manufacture a single car within the country. The result. Volkswagen’s accounts are compromised because investments in the electric car and some concepts that revolve around it have not yielded good results. For example, Cariad, the company dedicated exclusively to producing the software for its future vehicles, it has turned out to be a disaster and has forced important cars to be delayed for Audi or Porsche. This, added to the fact that the electric embrace of the public has not arrived when expected, has sunk the profit of Volkswagen, Seat/Cupra or Porsche, they point out in the German newspaper Welt. For its part, Bentley is also showing red numbers and Audi has entered a lethargy from which it wants to escape with ambitious new proposals to recover brand image. In doubt. In the internal survey that has been carried out within the company, some managers have indicated that they find it impossible to comply with the monetary adjustments announced by Oliver Blume, its CEO, years ago. They consider that to carry out these adjustments it is even necessary to cancel the development of new platforms for future vehicles, according to Elektroauto. In 2025, The Volkswagen Group recorded its worst data in the income statement since 2016when they came marked by the Dieselgate. All of this has led to the unanimity of the board of directors, the nine people that comprise it, thinking that it is necessary for the company to redefine its strategy and its business model, according to the German media. Photo | Volkswagen In Xataka | Volkswagen was late to the transition to the electric car. The price to pay now is 50,000 layoffs

There is a company proving that AI can be the perfect interviewer for companies. His name is Orbio and he is from Madrid

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AIs have started doing job interviews, and the interviewees are leaving them horrified. It is a palpable reality in a segment that is experiencing its particular revolution, and that is where it comes in. Orbiuma Madrid startup that has jumped on that wave. And he has done it in a big way. How it all started. In 2025 three entrepreneurs (in the image, from left to right, Nacho Travesí (CRO), Sergi Bastardas (CEO) and Antonio Melé (CTO)) decided to solve a clear problem that they detected in the industry: the “human infrastructure” to manage the companies’ workers was not efficient enough. To solve this, they created Orbio, a startup that precisely helps manage workforces thanks to the use of AI agents. 18 million euros. This Monday, the company announced that it has closed a Series A financing round of 21 million dollars (almost 18.2 million euros). The financing was led by Dawn Capital, but other investment companies such as Visionaries VC, Plus Partners and Enzo Ventures have also participated. This round adds to the one that was made in September of last year, and in which they raised 6.5 million euros. Assault on the US. This injection of capital will allow this technology company to triple its team of engineers in Madrid, but the intention is to also open an office in New York to compete head to head with other native platforms created in Silicon Valley. Robotic interviewers. The fundamental pillar of the platform created by Orbio are the language models that, according to the company, have been polished to maintain fluid and technically rigorous conversations with job candidates. Those “robotic interviews” with AI agents They can be done through both voice and text channels. There is another differential detail in these processes: Orbio’s AI questions, for example, about the candidate’s experience, evaluates their skills and resolves doubts about the position in real time. The promise: eliminate biases from human interviewers and screen thousands of applicants in record time. A platform for those “frontline” workers. Orbio’s technological solution it is not thought to interview professionals who want to occupy traditional office positions (known as white collar), but is aimed at that mass market of frontline workers. Sectors such as delivery, logistics distribution centers or restaurant chains often suffer from very high staff turnover rates that exhaust the resources of HR departments. Orbio not only automates the interview process: it is capable of collecting documents, verifying backgrounds, and facilitating the onboarding process. The idea: cover job demand in hours or a few days instead of weeks. But. Of course, the automation of these processes It dehumanizes them and generates a clear ethical and social debate about the current situation of the labor market. That a machine ends up “scoring” you after these interviews is disturbing, and above all it means that you give up things like intuition and empathy in the personnel selection process. At Orbio they argue that this filtering precisely allows Human Resources managers to dedicate their time exclusively to the final phases of the process, treating the preselected candidates individually with much greater attention. If AI solves a problem, reward. The investment round is the validation of an idea that is beginning to gain strength: there are companies that are taking advantage of AI to propose solutions to real problems. In this, as in other cases, due to the efficiency of its use, something that is crucial in massive processes such as choosing candidates for a job, but also in the field of customer service, where AI is also infiltrating in leaps and bounds. The Madrid startup has been able to identify a bottleneck, and of course its technological solution has already attracted several business clients. In Xataka | Chargebacks are the silent hemorrhage of e-commerce. A Catalan startup is making money by covering it

Jeff Bezos says AI won’t destroy jobs. He then launched a company to create artificial engineers

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Jeff Bezos is one of the representative figures of current technological optimism regarding artificial intelligence. While in the United States we are seeing the university students who boo to those who claim that AI is the new industrial revolution due to pessimism when it comes to finding a job, Bezos point that this pessimism around AI is “the opposite of reality.” Come on, young people are wrong because what AI is going to do is create jobs. At the same time, Bezos has returned to talk of Prometheusa startup that will open the door to fewer workers being needed… while increasing productivity. It’s a bit of a mess, but it makes sense to Bezos. Prometheus. It is not a model or a technology, but a startup. Founded by Bezos in 2024, it has about 150 employees spread across headquarters in San Francisco, London and Zurich and already has a valuation of $41 billion. The central purpose of Prometheus is to develop AI systems capable of assisting in the entire engineering process from start to finish (end to end, as they call it). This means that the system will cover from the initial design of physical products to their manufacturing and launch, passing through all the simulation and testing phases. It is like a kind of artificial general engineer and does not seek to be just something that supports the engineers, who will then create the physical products. His goal is… that, to be a physical engineer. Accelerate inventions. Beszos’ goal is to empower engineers to be able to invent things more quickly and easily. An example is that this AI product is capable of carrying out all the aforementioned steps to build, for example, a jet engine. And here is the twist, since a jet engine is something extremely complex, but what Bezos is looking for is that what the startup develops allows smaller teams to do much bigger things in much shorter cycle times. Landing it: if before 100 people made you a new generation jet engine, now 10 can make it for you. I don’t know, Rick.… We suppose that in his head it is a good way to reassure those young people worried about the future of work, but in case it is not clear, Bezos commented that the fear of AI and the future of work is “the opposite of reality”, pointing out that what Prometheus does will be a catalyst for work. The curious thing is that he has presented it in a slightly strange way. If AI makes work cheaper, faster and easier, employment will increase because, “even though the number of people needed is being reduced by 10, technology will create opportunities to multiply those jobs by 10.” They are a bit strange accounts, but the boss of Amazon gives as an example a two-person household in which only one will have to work because productivity thanks to AI will be much greater. It does not say what that other person will do or if, thanks to AI, that member of the household who continues to work will earn more to replace one who stays at home. What it suggests is that there will be such a massive increase in productivity that not everyone will have to work, a somewhat questionable message because bills are not paid with productivity, but with money. colossal background. But well, beyond Bezos’ curious message, Prometheus is valued at $41 billion and has raised $12 billion from investors such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, apart from Bezos himself. And, currently, it is in deals to raise a fund of 100,000 million. But Bezos isn’t the only one moving to build AI startups. We have the founders of Uber, Coinbase or Robinhood (curious name) building new companies around this technology boom due to something that these profiles are very clear about: It is a new golden era and the best way to start a company. Young Americans are not so clear. In Xataka | Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, on the possibility that we are facing a work apocalypse: “It’s nonsense”

Two friends sold their company for 1.5 billion dollars and bought it back for 450 million: today it is worth 150 billion

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Buying low and selling high is one of the maxims of any financial operation if you want do well in life. It’s the advice likely followed by two immigrant friends from Asia who met playing basketball in Los Angeles. The story of these two friends is one of the most bizarre and fortunate in the technological business field, since they managed to sell their company for 1.5 billion, and then buy it back for 450 million and turn it into an empire of 150,000 million dollars. Its history is that of one of the best-known RAM and storage device companies since the late 80s: Kingston Technology. Two immigrants and the worst Monday in history John Tu came to Los Angeles from China in the 1970s. David Sun took the same route, but from Taiwan. They were both engineers and were looking for their big break in California. By the whims of fate, they both ended up playing basketball on the same basketball court in Los Angeles in the 80s. Everything else arose from that friendship. His first business was Camintonn, a memory-related components company used by personal computers that were beginning to make the leap from laboratories and electronics hobby clubs to offices and homes, driven by promising young people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. After a few years of success and growth, Tu and Sun sold Camintonn in 1986 to AST Research for six million dollars. With that money in their pockets, the future seemed like a bed of roses for the two friends, but their joy was short-lived. The feared Black Monday The October 1987 crash on Wall Street caused a good part of his savings to disappear in one fell swoop. They were left with almost nothing. However, instead of looking for work in a company in the flourishing technology market of the time, they began their adventure as entrepreneurs again. “I told him: ‘You make something and I’ll sell it, like last time,’” Tu said. in an interview for Fortune. John Tu and David Sun, co-founders of Kingston Technology That same year they founded Kensington, a company with a name that seemed elegant and sophisticated, but another company had beaten them to it and registered it. So as they were fans of the folk group The Kingston Triothey chose to rename their company Kingston Technology and launched it in a garage in Fountain Valley, California. How much does current technology owe to California garages! From being born in a garage to being worth 1.5 billion To the contrary to Samsung or other brands, Kingston did not manufacture its own memory chips, but rather bought components from large manufacturers and turned them into products that people use: memory modules for computers, pen drives, flash cards, SSD disks. It was a model without great aspirations, but it worked with a precision that few could match. In fact, it is the same business model that it maintains today. By August 1996, the company was already valued at more than $1.8 billion, and SoftBank acquired 80% of Kingston for $1.5 billion. Masayoshi Son’s Japanese giant was then in the midst of a technological buying spree and Kingston was exactly the type of company it was looking for: profitable, well-positioned and growing. That is, with the acquisition of Softbank, Tu and Sun continued to be a decisive part of the company’s operations thanks to the 10% of the company that each one retained, and they also pocketed 700 million dollars each. Yes, I was not wrong: 700 million for each one, because the founders distributed 100 million dollars in extraordinary bonuses for your employees as a sample of thanks for your work. The deal was perfect because both employees and founders had put a lot of money in their pockets, but they continued working in the same position and with the same conditions as up to that date. What a bargain! …but there was still room for further improvement. Sell ​​high, buy low Three years later, in 1999, SoftBank came knocking on Kingston’s door again. The dotcom bubble was at its highest moment and Masayoshi Son wanted to recover liquidity to invest in the effervescent internet companies. Kingston was still a good business, but it was not the type of hypervolatile asset that Softbank was looking for at that time, so it offered them to recover the same 80% that it had bought from them for 1.5 billion. However, the new price was very different: $450 million. We guess holding back their laughter, Sun and Tu said yes. Obviously. In fact, they were even generous to Softbank. Just like you counted to Fortunein 1996 SoftBank had paid part of the purchase with a promissory note of 300 million that it had to pay in two years, but the investment bank did not fulfill its part and was late in that payment. Faced with such a breach, the founders could have recovered the company by contract in 1998. But they did not do so. They forgave their debt. “SoftBank was shocked,” Tu said. When Masayoshi Son wanted to sell Kingston, his first option was to sell it to them because it was his way of returning the favor they had done a year before. Thus, starting in 1999, Sun and Tu once again owned 100% of Kingston: 50% for each one. According to ForbesKingston Technology had a turnover of about $14.4 billion a year and ranked 28th on the list of the largest private companies in the United States. Its value is estimated at 150,000 million thanks to the memory shortage. A peculiarity of the company is that, despite being one of the most consolidated technology companies, it is still not listed on the stock market. No funds. Without external investors. Just the two friends who met on a court in Los Angeles almost fifty years ago and had two strokes of luck in their career that allowed them to become millionaires without losing control of the company they founded. … Read more

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