Is your data held hostage?

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Trying to stop data brokers from selling your info? Good luck. George, your AI host, exposes how over 30 sketchy companies are hiding their opt-out pages from Google on purpose. Plus: Musk sues Apple over AI, job hunting goes retro, and Microsoft gives Excel a crystal ball it probably shouldn’t have.

Denial as a service: Medicare’s new WISeR program will pay AI firms a share of money saved by denying “wasteful” care. That’s right, AI companies are turning into health care mercenaries. Just 12 procedures targeted at first, but it’s a slippery slope. Six states (NJ, OH, OK, TX, AZ, WA) start the experiment in January.

$46.7 billion

Nvidia’s Q2 revenue hit a record high, and nearly half of it came from six companies. The AI gold rush is paying off big-time, but that kind of customer concentration is the corporate equivalent of putting all your GPUs in one basket. Two customers are nearly 40%! Let’s just hope “Customer A” doesn’t speak Chinese.

💭 What if the fastest, most powerful cloud also cost way less? Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) packs the speed, muscle and big-league savings the smartest companies swear by, minus the usual cloud drama. See what the buzz is about, and try it free today.

💼 Making AI dough: The AI gold rush is minting baby millionaires. Fresh grads are landing $200K+ starting salaries, some under 25 raking in $500K to $1M a year. Yes, you read that right. Companies like Databricks and Scale AI want “AI-natives” so badly they’re poaching PhD students before they even graduate. 

Check your doctor’s ties: Wondering if your doctor’s advice is really unbiased? They might be getting paid by Big Pharma. Search your health care provider in the U.S. government’s Open Payments database. You’ll see exactly which drug or medical device companies have paid them, and how much.

Denied? Not so fast: I’ve talked about insurance companies using AI to deny your coverage in literal seconds. If that happens to you, fight back using AI of your own. A free service called Counterforce Health writes appeal letters faster than you can say, “That’s not covered.” Here’s good proof that tech doesn’t have to mean soulless. You know, my puns are like health insurance. Some just can’t get it.

👾 Vibe-hacking in the wild: An anonymous hacker used Anthropic’s Claude chatbot to run a fully AI-powered extortion spree, hitting 17 companies. Claude picked targets, coded the malware, analyzed stolen files and even drafted ransom notes. The crazy part? This isn’t some shadowy hacker group, it’s just one person with one AI. The scams are just going to get worse. Please, keep your guard up always.

Find forgotten 401(k) money: There’s $2 trillion sitting in old retirement accounts. When companies close, merge or lose touch with former employees, those funds go unclaimed. The good news? The Department of Labor runs a “Lost & Found” where you can check if any of it is yours. Worth a peek.

Bundles are making a comeback

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The cord-cutting revolution gave us freedom from bloated cable bundles. Now streaming companies are quietly putting the pieces back together. Are we heading right back to where we started?

Focus pocus: Have any Axis security cameras? A security researcher hacked the cameras (professional-grade systems used by governments, hospitals and Fortune 500 companies) plus their servers, giving him control of live feeds across thousands of organizations. Axis fixed it, but only if you get the firmware update. Otherwise? Someone else could be watching you watch them.

📧 Big Tech are email snoops: Gmail, Yahoo and all those other Big Tech companies track your email activity. You don’t need to put up with it. StartMail puts privacy first! No ads, no tracking, includes encrypted emails and disposable addresses. Get 60% off your first year, and try it free for seven days. Such a great service and deal!

You’re not family, you just work here

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AT&T CEO John Stankey says not to expect long-term job security. Companies will treat you the way you treat them. Plus, why AI needs nuclear power, GPT-5 updates and why Gen Z is ditching cars. Then, I take a call from Steven about starting his own AI podcast.

💭 What if the fastest, most powerful cloud also cost way less? Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) packs the speed, muscle and big-league savings the smartest companies swear by, minus the usual cloud drama. See what the buzz is about, and try it free today.

🚨 Docusign warning: Scammers are sending fake Docusign emails claiming you’ve been charged by companies like Apple or Netflix. They tell you to call a number if you didn’t make a purchase, but it’s actually fake customer support trying to steal your info. Don’t click anything. When in doubt, log in directly to check your purchase history.

She ran a spy ring for North Korea

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An Arizona woman helped North Korean IT agents land fake remote jobs at 309 U.S. companies. Plus: you can now pay down national debt with Venmo, Microsoft reveals jobs AI is coming for, and why Mark Cuban reads 700 emails a day.

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The number of autonomous vehicle companies Uber now has deals with. It currently counts companies like Waymo, Motional, Baidu, even delivery bots like Nuro, in its Infinity Gauntlet. Uber’s building the whole arena. Baidu alone ran 1.4 million robotaxi rides last quarter in China. 

This is nuts: Two new AI tools, DAILA and DeepDi, let anyone upload an app file and then it will spit out the source code. Translation: An app will reverse engineer another app in seconds. Companies who thought their proprietary code and tech secrets were safe are screwed.

🙊 Catfishing finance: Scammers are using deepfake Zoom calls (paywall link) and cloned exec voices to steal millions. Companies keep falling for it. One Hong Kong firm wired $25M to a video call of “CFOs” who turned out to be AI sock puppets. Congrats to the bots, you now officially have LinkedIn clout.

Life’s too short for great service — July 12th, Hour 3

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Customer support calls are awful, right? Not an accident. Companies make them like that on purpose. Steve from Kansas finds $22,000 in lost money (thanks to a tip from the show). Plus, Freevee shuts down and how to get expensive software for free.