Scripture accompanies each story for the reader's reflection. It is not presented as God's judgment on the people or events reported.

Lead story

Demis Hassabis steps down as Google DeepMind CEO in a sweeping Alphabet AI leadership change

The lab that built Gemini changes hands, and Google's chief scientist of 27 years walks out the door on the same day.

Demis Hassabis is leaving the chief executive role at Google DeepMind, the lab he cofounded, and will stay on as its chairman and as chief scientist of Alphabet. Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind's chief technology officer and Alphabet's chief AI architect, takes over day-to-day leadership of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to Sundar Pichai and holding charge of Gemini model development. Separately, Jeff Dean, Google's chief scientist and a 27-year veteran of the company, is leaving to cofound Discovery Loop, a public benefit corporation aimed at automating machine learning, science, and engineering research, with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le. Alphabet is a founding investor in the new venture and will supply cloud compute; Hassabis wrote that he believes AGI is close at hand and will give more time to Isomorphic Labs.

Scripture for Reflection

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 · BSB

When leadership shifts around us, we can steady ourselves and ask what this season is asking of us.

✎

Tech & AI →

Musk says SpaceX will build its AI systems exclusively on Nvidia

Exclusive to Nvidia On SpaceX's first earnings call, Elon Musk said the company will build its ground and orbital AI infrastructure on Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale systems, including the Starmind compute satellites, and is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by the end of 2026.

Scripture for Reflection

“Commit your works to the LORD and your plans will be achieved.”

Proverbs 16:3 · BSB

Large commitments deserve unhurried thought, and we can bring our own before God before we lock them in.

✎

Samsung unveils a 400-layer flash chip and a faster memory design for AI accelerators

Four hundred layers At the Future of Memory and Storage conference in Santa Clara, Samsung introduced V10 BV-NAND, a wafer-bonded design it calls the first V-NAND stacked more than 400 layers high and says carries about 58% more memory density than V9, alongside a zHBM concept it expects to deliver up to eight times the performance of HBM5.

Scripture for Reflection

“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will be stationed in the presence of kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”

Proverbs 22:29 · BSB

Careful, skilled work is worth honoring wherever we find it, including in our own trade.

✎

Business & Markets →

SpaceX's first public quarter: revenue up 92%, capital spending up sharply

Revenue beat, spending shock SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 92% and nearly $1 billion above Wall Street's estimate, with the net loss narrowing to $541 million, but $18.4 billion of capital spending, $15.8 billion of it on AI, sent the shares down more than 7% after hours.

Scripture for Reflection

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will do it.”

Psalm 37:5 · BSB

When the numbers around us swing hard, we can commit our own way to God and keep a steady heart.

✎

Uber posts $58 billion in quarterly bookings and 3.9 billion trips

Bookings up 24% Uber said second-quarter gross bookings rose 24% to $58.0 billion on 3.9 billion trips and 208 million monthly active platform consumers, with revenue up 12% to $14.2 billion, as chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi described building the world's largest platform for autonomous vehicles.

Scripture for Reflection

“The end of a matter is better than the beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud one.”

Ecclesiastes 7:8 · BSB

Long projects test our patience, and we can let ours grow while we wait for results we cannot rush.

✎

Science →

A spent Falcon 9 upper stage hit the Moon near Einstein crater

Impact at dawn The roughly four-tonne stage cataloged as 2025-010D struck the lunar surface at about 2:35 a.m. Eastern on August 5 at some 5,400 mph, releasing energy equivalent to about three tonnes of TNT, and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri are now imaging the new crater and its dust plume.

Scripture for Reflection

“Lift up your eyes on high: Who created all these? He leads forth the starry host by number; He calls each one by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

Isaiah 40:26 · BSB

The same sky we measure so precisely can still draw us up into wonder tonight.

✎

Severe COVID reactivates dormant viruses, and one virus family tracks with long COVID

Sleeping viruses wake In a Nature study of 1,154 hospitalized patients across 20 U.S. research hospitals, researchers detected 11 reactivated viruses within 40 days of admission, most often Epstein-Barr and cytomegalovirus, and found that reactivated anelloviruses tracked with the physical disability reported by long COVID patients.

Scripture for Reflection

“Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise.”

Jeremiah 17:14 · BSB

We can pray for the people still carrying fatigue and weakness long after an illness was declared over.

✎

Letters to the King

We can reach almost anyone at any hour of the night, and a great many of us are still lonely. What is company, really?

From the Baker's own shelf

Friend, I kept sheep on a hillside once, and not one of them ever asked how I was. I was surrounded, and I was alone. So I know the ache you name. Company is not nearness; it is being known and still wanted. A runner could cross my whole kingdom before morning and carry nothing of my heart in his satchel, and your bright little tablet is no different: it moves words at the speed of light and leaves the weight of them behind. Remember Jonathan. He did not send word. He came, he stayed, and he loved me when the loving cost him a crown. That is the whole recipe, and it has never been improved. So keep your glowing glass if you like, but let it be a road and not a room. Call one person by name this week. Sit with them long enough that the talking runs out and the quiet is still comfortable. That is company. The rest is only noise wearing a friend's coat.

– David, son of Jesse

Letters answered in the voice of the biblical King David.

Page notes

✎