Posts by Mark Darwin
Agentic Commerce: 5 Ways to Get Picked by AI Agents
Shopping agents stopped being a demo this year, and Google now completes checkout on merchant sites for shoppers through Search, AI Mode and Gemini. A buyer sets size, color and a price ceiling, then confirms once, and Google fills the cart and pays. Agentic commerce changes who you are selling to. Your next customer may…
Read MoreCEO Succession Planning: What Apple’s Handoff Shows
John Ternus becomes chief executive of Apple today, completing a transition the company announced back on April 20. Tim Cook moves to executive chair, and Art Levinson, previously chair of the board, becomes lead independent director on the same date. Most founders will never hand off a company this size, yet the choreography here is…
Read MoreEmployee Background Check Startup Yardstik Raises $30M
A Minneapolis company that screens workers has raised fresh growth capital, and Yardstik closed a $30 million round led by Harbert Growth Partners on August 27. The financing lifts the total capital to $65 million and funds a push beyond the traditional employee background check into ongoing monitoring. For founders, the relevant detail is not…
Read MoreSmall Business Grants 2026: Emigrant Bank Names Winners
Finding money to grow a small business is stressful, and it rarely feels fair. So it is worth pausing on some good news. Emigrant Bank has named the recipients of its 2026 Small Business Grants, backing local New York-area businesses and nonprofits. You may not bank with Emigrant, and that is fine. The real story…
Read MoreAutomated Penetration Testing Scales as Horizon3 Raises $250M
Automated penetration testing just had a breakout moment, and it doubles as a growth story. Cybersecurity company Horizon3 raised a $250 million Series E on August 3 at a valuation above $2 billion. Its platform continuously hunts for weaknesses in a company’s systems, the way a real attacker would. Here is why this matters beyond…
Read MoreAutomated Penetration Testing Scales as Horizon3 Raises $250M
Automated penetration testing just had a breakout moment, and it doubles as a growth story. Cybersecurity company Horizon3 raised a $250 million Series E on August 3 at a valuation above $2 billion. Its platform continuously hunts for weaknesses in a company’s systems, the way a real attacker would. Here is why this matters beyond…
Read MoreThe AI Gold Rush for Small Businesses: Why Founders Have a Short Window to Beat Enterprise Brands
AI platforms are quickly becoming the search tools of choice for many consumers. As their popularity increases, businesses will inevitably shift more of their marketing dollars to focus on AI visibility through AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). The shift is predictably slow, though. Big businesses that dominate the digital market have sluggish reactions to change. That…
Read MoreInsider Selling in Focus as Bezos Files to Sell $4B
Jeff Bezos has filed to sell about $4 billion in Amazon stock, disclosing plans to offload roughly 15 million shares just after the company topped a $3 trillion valuation for the first time. The filing landed on August 4, and Amazon shares slipped about 2% the next morning. Insider selling by a famous founder always…
Read MoreData Center Energy: A Teen Dropout’s $1B Nuclear Bet
A nuclear startup founded by a teenager just raised one of the year’s boldest rounds, and it lands squarely on the data center energy crisis. Valar Atomics closed a $1 billion Series B on August 3, led by Sequoia Capital, at a $6 billion valuation. The company wants to mass-produce small reactors that power the…
Read MorePeloton Earnings: First-Ever Profit Holds a Founder Lesson
Peloton closed its 2026 fiscal year with something it had never reported before: a full year of net income. The company shared the milestone in its fiscal 2026 results on August 6, posting $63.2 million in profit for the year that ended June 30. A year earlier, the same business lost $118.9 million, so the…
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