AI companies are beginning to entertain the possibility that they could cease to exist. This notion was, until recently, more theoretical: A couple of years ago, an ex-OpenAI employee named Leopold Aschenbrenner wrote a lengthy memo speculating that the U.S. government might soon take control of the industry. By 2026 or 2027, Aschenbrenner wrote, an 'obvious question' will be circling through the Pentagon and Congress: Do we need a government-led program for artificial general intelligence'an AGI Manhattan Project' He predicted that Washington would decide to go all in on such an effort. Aschenbrenner may have been prescient. Earlier this year, at the height of the Pentagon's ugly contract dispute with Anthropic, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned that he could invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA), a Cold War'era law that he reportedly suggested would allow him to force the AI company to hand over its technology on whatever terms the Pentagon desired. The act is one of numerous levers the Trump administration can pull to direct, or even commandeer, AI companies. And the companies have been giving the administration plenty of reason to consider doing so....

The San Francisco Standard reports that Duncan described this as a 'diversification play,' as he's 'under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and over-concentrated in real estate,' while a young Anthropic employee might be 'in the exact opposite scenario.' Duncan is asking potential buyers to email him to discuss deal specifics, but he said it would be a private transaction that doesn't require the buyer to sell their stock outright. On LinkedIn, he also said the homebuyer would 'continue to retain 20% of the upside value of the shares exchanged for the duration of the lockup period.' Duncan, who described himself as a longtime Bay Area resident who moved to Miami during the pandemic, bought the property in 2019 for $4.75 million. It's currently occupied by 'a high profile VC,' he said, but he declined to identify the VC. StrictlyVC kicks off the year in SF. Register now for unfiltered fireside chats and VC insights with leaders from Uber, Replit, Eclipse, and more. Plus, high-value connections that actually move the needle. Tickets are limited....

Lister, a former vice president who led operations at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory, has been with Redwood since late 2023. He started as the company's chief supply chain officer and was quickly promoted to the COO role in 2024. The promotion put him closer in the org chart to Redwood founder and CEO JB Straubel, who was Tesla's longtime chief technology officer and currently sits on the automaker's board. Redwood Materials recently informed employees that Lister was retiring, according to an employee who was granted anonymity to speak about the announcement. The company confirmed Lister's departure to TechCrunch on Thursday. 'We wish him the best in his retirement,' a spokesperson said via email. Those cuts were part of a restructuring that Straubel told employees about in an email viewed by TechCrunch earlier this week. He said the shuffle will help support the company's growing energy storage business. Redwood has recently signed deals with automaker Rivian and artificial intelligence company Crusoe to provide refurbished batteries that can be used as grid storage....

App and website hosting giant Vercel on Thursday said hackers had accessed some of its customers' data before the company discovered its recent data breach, suggesting that this incident may have broader security implications than initially known. 'We have uncovered a small number of customer accounts with evidence of prior compromise that is independent of and predates this incident, potentially as a result of social engineering, malware, or other methods,' the update reads. The San Francisco-based app and website hosting company initially said its internal systems were breached after an employee downloaded an app made by software startup Context AI, which hackers abused to gain access to the employee's work account and, subsequently, Vercel's systems. In a post on X, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch confirmed that the hackers who compromised Vercel have been active 'beyond that startup's compromise,' referring to Context AI, which confirmed an earlier breach of its systems in a post this week....