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🚀 Foxconn hit record revenue on AI demand, Databricks raised $4B at $134B valuation, Warren Buffett stepped down as Berkshire CEO, and authorities across three countries are investigating Grok for sexualized deepfakes. Meanwhile, Tesla's deliveries dropped 16%.
Industry moves
Foxconn's Q4 revenue jumps 22% to record high on AI demand
Taiwan's Foxconn reported record fourth-quarter revenue on Monday, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence products.
What this signals: Foxconn manufactures chips, servers, and components for AI infrastructure. When they hit record revenue, it confirms that AI spending is translating into physical manufacturing demand.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Foxconn's record revenue validates that AI infrastructure spending is real and accelerating. Every AI model requires physical chips, servers, and cooling systems. When manufacturers see record demand, it signals that AI adoption is scaling beyond pilots into production deployments. For product teams, this means AI infrastructure capacity will keep expanding, lowering costs and increasing accessibility."
Anthropic's 'do more with less' bet has kept it at the AI frontier
Anthropic is taking a disciplined approach to spending and algorithmic efficiency while rival OpenAI makes $1.4 trillion in headline compute commitments. Daniela Amodei argues the next phase won't be won by the biggest pre-training runs alone, but by who can deliver the most capability per dollar of compute.
The strategy: Heading into 2026, with both labs running as if they could go public while still raising fresh capital, it's a question of brute-force scale versus efficiency.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Anthropic's efficiency-first approach is smarter long-term strategy than OpenAI's scale-first approach. When you optimize for capability per dollar of compute, you build sustainable competitive advantage. For product teams, this means partnering with efficient AI providers like Anthropic could deliver better economics than chasing the biggest models. Design thinking applies here — sometimes constraints drive better solutions than unlimited resources."
Tesla reports 418,227 deliveries for the fourth quarter, down 16%
Tesla reported 418,227 vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter, down 16% from the previous quarter. The electric vehicle maker faces steep competition across the globe from companies including BYD, Kia, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. In the U.S., a $7,500 federal government incentive for EVs ended on September 30.
What's happening: Tesla's losing market share to competitors offering cheaper EVs with comparable features. Removing the federal incentive made Tesla's premium pricing harder to justify.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Tesla's delivery decline shows that first-mover advantage erodes when competitors catch up on product quality and undercut on price. For product teams, this is a reminder that innovation alone doesn't sustain growth — you need continuous improvement, competitive pricing, and customer retention. Tesla's UX and brand were differentiators when EVs were new. Now that every automaker has a decent EV, Tesla needs to compete on fundamentals."
Warren Buffett hands over CEO reins at Berkshire Hathaway
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett officially left his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. In six decades building a flailing textile mill into a $1 trillion behemoth, Buffett's Berkshire delivered a cumulative return of more than 5.5 million percent to shareholders.
What's next: Buffett said Berkshire "has a better chance of being here 100 years from now than any company I can think of." He's being succeeded by Greg Abel and will stay on as chair of the conglomerate. But his departure as CEO leaves the question of who will run Berkshire's $300 billion equity portfolio. Some investors aren't sold on Abel making investing decisions given his lack of a public track record as a stock picker.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Buffett's departure is the end of an era. Berkshire's success was cultural discipline around long-term value and avoiding hype. Greg Abel inherits a machine, but machines break when culture shifts. The companies that outlive their founders are the ones that codify principles into systems."
French and Malaysian authorities are investigating Grok for generating sexualized deepfakes
Over the past few days, France and Malaysia joined India in condemning Grok for creating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors. The chatbot, built by Elon Musk's AI startup xAI and featured on X, posted an apology earlier this week, writing, "I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt."
What's happening: Grok's content filters failed catastrophically, generating and sharing sexualized images of minors. Multiple countries are now investigating, and regulatory consequences are likely.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Grok's deepfake incident exposes the gap between AI capability and AI safety. You need layered safeguards — prompt filters, output validation, user reporting, and human review. When any layer fails, the system should default to blocking. This is why AI UX includes safety design"
This week biggest funding rounds
Databricks secured $4 billion in Series L funding at a $134 billion valuation, led by Insight Partners, Fidelity, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The 12-year-old San Francisco company also crossed the $4.8 billion revenue run-rate in Q3, growing over 55% year-over-year.
- Databricks — $4B, data and AI ($134B valuation, $4.8B revenue run-rate, 55% YoY growth)
- Cyera — $400M, cybersecurity (New York, $9B valuation, $1.7B raised to date)
- Radiant — $300M, nuclear power (El Segundo, CA, Series D, building portable microreactors)
- Tebra — $250M, healthcare software (Corona del Mar, CA, equity + debt for AI/automation)
- Imprint — $150M, fintech (New York, $1.2B valuation, brand-affiliated credit cards)
- HawkEye 360 — $150M, satellite intelligence (Herndon, VA, Series E equity + debt)
- Chai Discovery — $130M, biotech and AI (San Francisco, $1.3B valuation, predicting biochemical interactions)
- Ambros Therapeutics — $125M, biotech (Irvine, CA, Series A for neridronate licensing)
- Mythic — $125M, microprocessors (Austin, energy-efficient AI computing architecture)
- Atavistik Bio — $120M, biotech (Cambridge, MA, Series B for allosteric therapeutics, $220M raised to date)
Databricks raising $4B at $134B valuation with $4.8B revenue shows that data infrastructure is the foundation of AI. Every AI application needs clean, accessible data. Databricks owns that layer. For product teams, this means investing in data infrastructure before AI features. If your data layer is messy, AI can't save you. Clean data infrastructure is the prerequisite for successful AI products.
Product reality check
Plaud launches a new AI pin and a desktop meeting notetaker
Hardware maker Plaud launched a new AI notetaker called Plaud NotePin S, along with a desktop app that helps you take notes for digital meetings, ahead of CES in Las Vegas. The new pin brings a physical button that lets you start and stop recording. Plus, during recording, you can tap the button to highlight a certain point.
Why this matters: AI notetakers are proliferating because transcription and summarization actually work. Plaud's adding a physical button for control, which addresses a common UX issue — users want tactile confirmation that recording started/stopped.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Physical buttons on AI devices solve a trust problem. When recording is software-only, users worry if it's actually working. A physical button provides tangible confirmation. That's UX psychology — sometimes analog controls increase confidence in digital systems."
Subtle releases earbuds with its noise isolation models
Voice AI startup Subtle, which creates voice isolation models to help computers understand you better in loud environments, launched wireless earbuds that help users sound clear on calls and provide accurate transcriptions for voice notes. The earbuds cost $199 and come with a year-long subscription to the iOS and Mac app.
What's new: The app lets users take voice notes or chat with AI without pressing any keys. The company is using a custom chip that allows it to wake the iPhone while it's locked.
Why this matters: Voice AI only works if it's always listening, which raises privacy concerns. Subtle's solving this with a custom chip that wakes the iPhone without draining battery or compromising security.
Clicks debuts its own take on the BlackBerry smartphone, plus a $79 snap-on mobile keyboard
Clicks Technology is launching two new devices ahead of CES: a $79 slide-out keyboard for smart devices, and the Communicator, a $499 smartphone with a physical keyboard designed as a second device.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Physical keyboards are a niche play for people who never adapted to touchscreens. Clicks is betting on a small, loyal market that values tactile feedback over screen real estate. For product teams, this is a reminder that serving a passionate niche can be profitable, even if it's not scalable."
FuriosaAI is challenging Nvidia with a renegade chip
June Paik spurned a takeover offer from Meta Platforms last year. Now his South Korean company, FuriosaAI, has an AI chip entering mass production.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Challenging Nvidia requires ecosystem support. Developers need tooling, documentation, and libraries. FuriosaAI's chip might be technically superior, but if switching costs are high, adoption stalls. This is a product strategy lesson — technology alone doesn't win markets. Ecosystem, support, and integration matter more than specs."
Design wins
Lazarev.agency redefined trust in property rentals for Rentcredit
In property rentals, trust between landlords and tenants has long been fragile. Security deposits exist to protect landlords, but in practice they create friction: unclear rules, manual processes, disputes over property conditions, and financial stress for tenants. Managing deposits became an operational burden for both sides instead of a safeguard.
Approach: When Rentcredit approached Lazarev.agency, they had a concept, but no clear product vision. The functionality, user roles, and core flows were still undefined. We started with product discovery:
- Clarified the business logic behind security deposits
- Defined tenant and landlord use cases
- Structured the platform around real-world rental scenarios
From there, we designed the user experience around a single goal: make deposit management transparent, simple, and fair. We envisioned Rentcredit as a PropTech platform that:
- Allows tenants to submit security deposits quickly and securely
- Enables landlords to collect, manage, and track deposits without friction
- Introduces clear property condition evaluation to reduce disputes
Result: A streamlined deposit management experience that removes uncertainty from the rental process and replaces it with clarity, structure, and trust.
Mrs&Mr draws on the legacy of WeightWatchers in new identity
WeightWatchers partnered with NYC-based creative agency Mrs&Mr to develop a new identity inspired by its past, present, and future. Looking to create a cohesive experience across a platform that combines nutrition guidance, coaching, community, and medical support, Mrs&Mr devised a new branding system that feels at once elevated and deeply rooted in the real stories of its customers.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Rebranding legacy companies is tricky — erase too much history and you alienate loyal customers. Keep too much and you feel dated. WeightWatchers' rebrand walks that line by honoring real customer stories. When rebrand design is rooted in authenticity instead of trends, it resonates across generations."
Koto redefines financial progress as something to be shaped
Koto partnered with The Huntington National Bank, a $210B regional bank founded in 1866, to launch a comprehensive brand transformation. As Huntington scales from Midwest mainstay to national presence, the identity marks a defining shift: rooted in heritage, built for ambition.
The positioning: Driven by the brand idea "Abundance is a Craft," the brand refreshes the bank as a middle ground in a polarizing financial landscape. Where fintechs chase ease and traditional banks tout stability, Huntington stakes out a more human space: care, craftsmanship, and the belief that financial progress is something to be shaped.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Huntington's 'Abundance is a Craft' positioning is smart differentiation. Most banks compete on speed or stability. Huntington's competing on care and craftsmanship. That's emotional positioning in a category that usually defaults to functional benefits."
This week's reality check
23 AI MVP design companies to help you get funded
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the world saw a finished miracle. What most people missed is the part investors obsess over: the early minimum viable product (MVP) that proved intelligence could power an entirely new interface paradigm. That scrappy first version reshaped an industry, sparked a trillion-dollar AI race, and showed the world that an AI MVP, designed well, can redefine a company's trajectory overnight.
- AI-native MVPs win funding faster. Investors bet on products that look like the future.
- Designing the AI layer early prevents expensive rewrites later. Bolting intelligence onto a finished product is how teams burn budgets — smart founders bake it into the MVP from day one.
- Top AI MVP design companies, like Lazarev.agency, blend UX, data, and intelligence to build products that investors instantly understand.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "AI MVPs fail when teams treat AI as a feature instead of the foundation. ChatGPT succeeded because the entire interface was designed around AI. When you design AI-native products from day one, the architecture, UX, and data flows all align. Retrofitting AI onto existing products creates frankenstein experiences that users reject."
IDEO review: what the world's most influential design firm delivers today
IDEO is one of the most recognized names in design and innovation. For many leaders, it represents the birthplace of design thinking, the method that reshaped how organizations explore ideas, understand users, and approach problem-solving. But what IDEO is today and where it fits best is often misunderstood.
Overview: IDEO describes itself as a "global design and innovation company" committed to helping organizations grow through human-centered design. Founded in 1991 through the merger of David Kelley Design, ID Two, and Matrix Product Design, IDEO played a central role in the early Apple product design ecosystem and became globally known after promoting "design thinking" in the 2000s.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "IDEO pioneered design thinking, but their model was built for enterprise transformation. When you need to build an AI product in months, you need designers who live in rapid iteration cycles and understand AI constraints. IDEO's process is powerful for organizational change but too slow for product teams racing to market."
What's coming next week
More record revenue from AI infrastructure, more funding rounds at absurd valuations, and probably another AI safety incident. We'll separate sustainable growth from hype-driven spending.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design agency.
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