MTech Morning, Friday, 8:15. And overnight, the AI developer crowd got spooked about security.
MPieter Levels — the guy who builds apps at a frankly alarming speed — went on a bit of a tear.
CWhen Levels posts about security, I listen. The man runs more servers than some small countries.
MHe's telling everyone with a VPS: get it off the public internet. Now.
CAnd he's right. If you have a server sitting there with an SSH key, you are one exploit away from a very bad morning.
MSo the answer is... route everything through Cloudflare Tunnel and Tailscale?
CThat's the thing people don't get about these tools. They're free because the enterprise plans subsidize the hobbyists.
MBut you're putting your server behind a company's infrastructure. Isn't that a new dependency?
CIt's a trade-off, but it's a smart one. A company with a security team versus you, alone, at 2 AM, watching logs.
MFair. But someone replied to Levels: why trust Tailscale, another company?
CAnd he pointed out Tailscale runs on WireGuard, which is open source. You could technically run it yourself.
MSo the takeaway for anyone running a server: move it behind a tunnel, or learn WireGuard.
COr watch your server get turned into a spam factory. Your call.
MNow, a startup funding note that smells a bit off.
CWhich one?
MA New York startup raising sixty million in Series B. Tech NYC posted it, but the link is basically a black box.
CI saw that. And another account claiming some company called TypeSafe AI just raised eight hundred seventy million.
MThat's a Series A. Eight hundred seventy million. For a dev tools startup. That would be one of the biggest A rounds ever.
CI'd want to see the paperwork. Eight hundred seventy million is not "we believe in you" money. That's "we are the round."
MIf true, it resets the whole market. If false, someone's inflating numbers to attract fractional CMOs.
CYeah, that post was literally aimed at marketers: "reach startups right after they raise."
MWhich is exactly why you shouldn't trust a list of companies that just raised from a guy whose business is getting in before you do.
CYou're saying the funding rounds are bait.
MI'm saying until a major outlet confirms them, they're Twitter numbers. And Twitter numbers have a long and dishonorable history.
CThe Greptile round, fifty million at a seven fifty valuation, that one also hasn't been confirmed.
MThe code review market's hot, but that number needs a second source before I'd repeat it on air.
CY'know, it's funny. Everyone's chasing AI agents, but the real money right now is in making AI code not be terrible.
MThat's a better pitch than "the B in Series B stands for BIG," which is what Tech NYC went with.
CThe B stands for big. I don't make the rules.
MLet's do one more, because this one made me stop.
CWhat've you got?
MOver on Bluesky, Carl Quintanilla quoted Semafor: the lowest-rated SpaceX bond tranche is expected to carry an eight-point-three percent interest rate.
CEight point three? That's not a tech startup, that's a utility. And the kicker?
MAccording to the post, Donald Trump personally bought five million dollars of SpaceX bonds in August.
CWell, nothing says "free market" like the president buying your bonds while his administration's space policy's being written.
MWait, you think that's a conflict?
CIt's not about conflict. It's about the signal. SpaceX is winning contracts, and the money circle is tiny.
MBut he's a private citizen when he buys a bond. If a president holds an S&P index fund, is that also a conflict?
CNo, no, wait— those aren't the same. An index fund doesn't have one company getting billions in federal awards.
MYou want him to disclose it, which he did, or to not invest at all?
CI want a president to not hold a direct stake in a company whose biggest customer is the government he runs. That's not radical.
MThe counterargument is that SpaceX has won those contracts because it's the only credible option. Starship isn't doing laps for the paying customers; it's expensive to be this good.
CI'm not saying the contracts are wrong. I'm saying the headline "president buys five million in SpaceX debt" is a bad look, and it will get worse.
MIt's already a bad look. The recusal argument only works if there's someone else to recuse to.
CFine. We disagree on the ethics. But eight point three percent tells you something about how lenders view SpaceX risk.
MIt says: high growth, high burn, rockets explode sometimes, but the phone keeps ringing.
CThat's why it's a real asset. Just one with a president-sized asterisk.
MWe'll keep an eye on that Semafor report. That's your Tech Morning hit for now. More after this.