Good morning! Let's wrap up this week in style!
Geek Gossip
#Grok - Grok AI had a field day or should we say month. Users discovered that they could generate NSFW images of other people, even children. While Elon Musk claims that they have fixed the problem, new evidence suggests that that is not the case and users can still generate them.
Latest Updates
Vellore Institute Of Technology Alumni Is New CTO Of Former OpenAI CTO’s company - Thinking Machines
Thinking Machines Lab, the company co-founded and led by OpenAI’s former CTO Mira Murati, has announced a leadership change and departure. Replacing Zoph as the CTO is Soumith Chintala, who was previously a member of technical staff at Thinking Machines and also the co-creator of the renowned Meta framework, PyTorch.
Microsoft Partners With Indian Startup Varaha To Remove Carbon Dioxide
Microsoft has signed a deal with Varaha, an Indian startup, to buy over 100,000 tons of carbon removal credits to offset its growing emissions from AI and cloud operations. Varaha will convert cotton waste into biochar, a charcoal-like material that stores carbon and reduces air pollution. This deal is part of Microsoft's goal to become carbon-negative by 2030.
India's Top Court Rules Against Tiger Global In Flipkart Tax Case
Tiger Global is a US-based hedge fund that invested in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, which was later acquired by Walmart in 2018. The Indian Supreme Court has ruled against Tiger Global in a tax case related to its exit from Flipkart, potentially strengthening India's ability to challenge offshore tax structures and raising uncertainty for global funds.
Wikipedia Turns 25: A Quarter Century Of Human-powered Knowledge
Wikipedia, the world's largest online information resource, celebrates 25 years of making trustworthy, human-powered knowledge accessible worldwide. They released a “docu-series” as part of the celebrations that includes a doctor from India who combated misinformation related to COVID-19
Meta Faces Multi-crore Penalty Over Whatsapp's Data Sharing Practices
WhatsApp and Meta Platforms have approached the Supreme Court to appeal a penalty. The controversy traces back to WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy update. The update required users to accept expanded sharing of personal data. They were fined over 200 crores for violating India’s competition laws.
Google India Unveils Market Access Program for AI Startups
Google India’s new initiative helps AI-first startups scale via enterprise networking and global immersion. It bridges the gap between building products and finding customers by connecting founders with key leaders. Applications are open until January 20, 2026.
Changelog
Microsoft Copilot - VSCode extension is now available for general use.
Vercel - Upgrades Node.js runtime to the latest version (Node.js 24) by default.
Claude Code - MCP Tool Search now available for Claude Code which allows Claude to dynamically load tools into context when MCP tools would otherwise take up a lot of context.
Ola Electric - Opens up their 4680 Bharat Cell platform to all startups.
Vercel Sandbox - Upgrades Node.js runtime to the latest version (Node.js 24) by default.
Trending Projects / Code Repositories
Worktrunk | Worktrunk is a CLI for Git worktree management, designed for parallel AI agent workflows
Design OS | The missing design process between your product idea and your codebase.
Ultimate Linux | The Ultimate Linux micro distribution written in JavaScript! A very functional minimal userspace for Linux written in... pure JavaScript!
In Case You Missed It
🎁 We now have a dedicated page to list all events. We will be updating this page EVERY WEEK. We will of course be publishing new (and coming-soon) events in this section but for a comprehensive list of events, check the link(s) below:
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Miscellaneous
Vercel - We Removed 80% Of Our Agent Tools
Vercel improved its data agent, d0, by removing 80% of its specialized tools in favor of a simple "file system agent." By giving the model direct access to documentation via bash commands, the team achieved a 100% success rate and 3.5x faster speeds. This shift demonstrates that minimalist architectures can outperform over-engineered systems by better leveraging modern LLM reasoning.
This Solo Indian Developer Built A Cricket Game That Crossed 1.5 Million Visits Without Ads, Money Or Fantasy Bets
Indian developer Dhiva Logu creates Play Auction and Cricket Director, a browser-based cricket simulation game that allows fans to think like team owners and selectors without real-world stakes, reaching 1.5 million visits in a month.
YAML's Norway Problem
YAML is a well-known data serialization language designed for human readability. It’s a popular choice for configuration files and metadata. In practice this behavior proved problematic, becoming the notorious Norway problem in yaml. Why? Because Norway’s country code NO would be taken my YAML as a boolean value! An interesting read.
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We believe in sharing great resources, and these newsletters are some good ones. They offer sharp, focused insights - especially around tech topics we might only touch on briefly.
If you're into cryptocurrency and blockchain, we recommend Cryptogram - it dives deep into the space, which we don’t often cover in detail.
For startup enthusiasts, Rustic Flute is a must-read, especially since we’ve noticed many of you love staying on top of the latest in the startup world.
