A former Rockstar designer who worked on both Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 6 says layoffs aren’t the biggest threat facing the studio. Jérémy Hartvick, who left Rockstar in 2020, says the company has enough money to support its massive projects, the real pressure is whether devs can actually meet Rockstar’s extremely high expectations. “Rockstar can afford it.” But he adds: “The question is whether you can meet the expectations, and if you don’t, then you might not last.” He said the amount of work made it harder to be present with his family while working at Rockstar North in Edinburgh.

A Steam pricing analyst says she was actually thinking: “Oh god, please price it higher” when Hollow Knight: Silksong launched at just $19.99. Pricing specialist Cassia Curran argues that the game offers so much content and quality for $20 that it could make things harder for other indie developers trying to charge $25–$30. “I was a bit like, ‘Oh god, please price it higher.’” She believes $24.99 could have been a better price point for the wider indie market. Silksong might accidentally make gamers expect huge, high-quality indie games to stay cheap.

A little-known South Korean shipowner dominated oil transits through the Strait of Hormuz in September, data from intelligence firms suggest, with the group’s vessels moving more barrels than the next three owners combined.

A startup aiming to supply genetically enhanced working dogs to the US military and law enforcement has raised $200 million to deliver on plans conceived by Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril, and biotech entrepreneur Ben Lamm

A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here's a full recap: 1. The Nasdaq $QQQ was down 2.60% on today, its worst session since June 5, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 2.90%, erasing nearly $1.2T in market value. The selloff was fueled by concerns over AI spending and profitability, with Meta $META dropping 7% despite beating revenue expectations, as investors questioned its massive AI investments and negative free cash flow. Semiconductors were hit hardest, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling 6.7%, led by AMD $AMD (-8%), Micron $MU (-6%), and NVIDIA $NVDA (-4%). AI and chip stocks accounted for roughly 90% of the Nasdaq 100's losses. However, broader market participation remained positive, with the Dow and Russell 2000 gaining. Meanwhile, Brent crude surged 4% toward $113 amid Middle East tensions. Despite the decline, the Nasdaq remains up 11.9% YTD, sitting 5.8% below its October 6 record high. 2. NVIDIA $NVDA CEO Jensen Huang pushed back against concerns surrounding neocloud financing, arguing that demand for AI computing infrastructure remains “off the charts” and that strong customer demand will ultimately help companies secure the capital needed to expand. Huang emphasized that “you can't solve the absence of demand,” but when demand is high, financing challenges can be addressed. He noted that neocloud providers already have excellent customers and significant demand, with their primary challenge being access to working capital to fund additional compute capacity. Huang expressed confidence that financing solutions will emerge, reinforcing his view that the industry's biggest challenge is not finding customers, but securing the capital and infrastructure needed to meet accelerating AI demand. 3. Bloom Energy $BE delivered a massive Q3 2026 earnings beat, with revenue surging 138% YoY to $1.24B, well above the $1.05B estimate, while adjusted EPS of $0.94 exceeded expectations of $0.68. Adjusted operating income reached $285.7M, beating the $214M estimate, while adjusted gross margins expanded 412 basis points to 34.5%, reflecting significant improvements in profitability. The company also raised its FY2026 revenue guidance to $4.4B–$4.6B, above the $4.1B consensus, and increased its adjusted EPS outlook to $3.10–$3.40, compared with $2.73 expected. Despite the strong results, operating cash flow was negative $27.1M during the quarter. 4. OpenAI is reportedly nearing a $30B funding round at a $1.25T valuation, with UAE investors and Coatue Management leading the financing, according to CNBC. The round is being positioned as a bridge ahead of a potential 2027 IPO, with OpenAI targeting investor signatures by the end of next week, although the final fundraising amount remains subject to change. Separately, OpenAI is negotiating an additional agreement to secure AI computing capacity from the UAE, highlighting the company's continued need for massive infrastructure investment as it scales its frontier AI models and expands its commercial operations. If completed at the proposed valuation, the financing would further cement OpenAI's position among the world's most valuable private technology companies. 5. SK Hynix has reportedly scrapped plans for a U.S. IPO of its Solidigm subsidiary and halted a related pre-IPO investment round following regulatory concerns and shareholder opposition, according to Bloomberg. South Korean regulators argued that separately listing the company's flash-memory business could constitute a “duplicate listing,” potentially diluting the economic interests of existing SK Hynix shareholders. The proposed IPO, which had Goldman Sachs $GS and Morgan Stanley $MS lined up as lead underwriters, was previously targeted for 2027. The decision represents a significant development in South Korea's efforts to strengthen minority shareholder protections and address the longstanding “Korea discount,” as regulators increasingly scrutinize corporate structures that could disadvantage existing public shareholders. 6. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVDA with 3.5M contracts, $TSLA with 2.6M contracts, $SPCX with 1.7M contracts, $AAPL with 1.4M contracts, $MU with 1.2M contracts, $META with 1.2M contracts, $INTC with 1.2M contracts, $AMZN with 1.0M contracts, $NFLX with 967K contracts, and $CRWV with 941K contracts. 7. SpaceX $SPCX is reportedly seeking access to at least 80,000 cell tower sites across the United States as it accelerates plans to turn Starlink into a fourth nationwide wireless carrier, according to Bloomberg. The company is in discussions with major tower operators, including Crown Castle $CCI, over potential agreements that could be worth billions of dollars. The push follows SpaceX's recent acquisition agreement for nationwide low-band spectrum and FCC approval for a constellation of 15,000 direct-to-device satellites, giving Starlink the foundation to combine satellite connectivity with terrestrial cellular infrastructure. If successful, the expansion would position SpaceX to compete more directly with AT&T $T, Verizon $VZ, and T-Mobile $TMUS, potentially reshaping the U.S. wireless market. 8. China is continuing to accumulate significant amounts of gold, with Goldman Sachs estimating that Chinese purchases through the London OTC market reached 25 tonnes in August, approximately 25% above the 20 tonnes officially reported by China's central bank. The bank estimates China purchased 35 tonnes in July, 40 tonnes in June, and 48 tonnes in May, with estimated OTC purchases exceeding officially reported central bank purchases by 83 tonnes, or 128%, over the four-month period. Meanwhile, global central banks are estimated to have purchased 79 tonnes of gold in August, roughly 365% above the pre-2022 monthly average of 17 tonnes. The figures highlight exceptionally strong demand for gold amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, reserve diversification, and efforts by central banks to reduce reliance on traditional reserve assets, although estimated OTC purchases are not necessarily all central bank acquisitions. 9. NVIDIA $NVDA CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC that he believes a surplus of memory supply is unlikely by 2029, signaling continued confidence in long-term demand for DRAM, HBM, and other advanced memory technologies as AI infrastructure expands. Huang emphasized that “one of the things that’s really great about memory is that you can always use more of it,” highlighting how increasingly sophisticated AI models, larger context windows, and more demanding inference workloads continue to drive memory requirements higher. 10. SpaceX $SPCX is reportedly finalizing a $40B debt financing package at significantly higher borrowing costs than its previous financing, according to Semafor. The deal, led by Apollo and Goldman Sachs, is expected to include a lower-rated tranche carrying an interest rate of approximately 8.3%, while a more secure portion backed by AI chips could price around 7.75%. Even the chip-backed debt is expected to carry a yield more than 100 basis points above SpaceX's existing bonds, highlighting the rising cost of financing large-scale AI infrastructure. The transaction is expected to close next week and underscores the growing financial burden associated with SpaceX's aggressive expansion into AI computing and data centers. 11. Nebius $NBIS secured a $3.5B senior secured credit facility from Citi to finance its accelerating global AI data center expansion and GPU purchases. The facility carries a 364-day maturity, with borrowing costs starting at SOFR + 2.75% and potentially increasing to SOFR + 3.50%, giving Nebius additional access to capital as it scales its infrastructure. The company also highlighted more than $40B in long-term contracts with investment-grade customers, which could support further asset-backed financing as it expands AI computing capacity throughout 2027 and beyond. The agreement underscores how neocloud providers are increasingly leveraging contracted AI demand to secure billions in financing for next-generation data centers and GPU infrastructure. 12. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell below 5.00% for the first time since September 23, as the selloff in technology and AI-related stocks intensified. The decline in yields suggests investors are rotating capital toward the relative safety of U.S. government bonds, pushing Treasury prices higher as risk appetite weakens. The move highlights a growing divergence between the bond and equity markets, with falling yields reflecting demand for defensive assets even as concerns over AI valuations, capital spending, and broader market volatility continue to pressure technology stocks. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

A useful but little-known Claude API feature 🔒 Tool arguments occasionally not matching the schema? Fix it structurally, not with more validation code. Claude's Strict Tool Use guarantees that tool calls always exactly match the defined schema when you add strict: true. No more missing required fields, type mismatches, or unexpected extras. 📌 Title: Strict Tool Use 🔗 URL: 🧩 Overview When models call tools, arguments occasionally deviate from the schema: missing required fields, wrong types, extra properties. Enabling Strict Tool Use constrains the model's output to strictly conform to the tool's JSON schema. Invalid arguments become structurally impossible, letting you dramatically simplify your validation code. 🛠 How to use it Add strict: true at the top level of your tool definition. Your schema does have to stay within the supported JSON Schema subset, and objects must set `additionalProperties: false` (constraints like `minimum` and `maxLength` aren't supported and return a 400). Once enabled, the model generates only schema-compliant arguments. You can drop or reduce type and required field validation code, simplifying error handling on the tool execution side. 🏗 Building it into production ・Agent tool infrastructure: add strict: true to all tools and eliminate runtime errors from bad arguments. Debugging time drops significantly. ・External API integrations: when tool arguments are used directly as external API request bodies, schema compliance guarantees safe passthrough. ・Multi-step pipelines: ensure type-safe data flow when using tools for data handoffs between steps. ・Validation cost reduction: remove or simplify argument validation logic, lowering code maintenance burden. 💡 Use cases 🤖 Tool argument quality assurance for agents 🔌 Safe argument passthrough to external APIs 🔗 Type-safe data handoffs between pipeline steps 🧹 Elimination of validation boilerplate ⚠️ Watch out Strict mode constrains output with a grammar compiled from your schema, so the first request using a given schema pays extra compilation latency (compiled grammars are cached for 24 hours after last use). There are explicit complexity limits: 20 strict tools, 24 optional parameters, and 16 union-typed parameters in total per request, and exceeding them returns a 400. It works best with straightforward schemas. ✨ Stop writing "hope the arguments are valid" code. One line, strict: true, and your tool calls become reliably correct. #Claude# #LLM#