Binance Hacked $6.3B Stolen, DoorDash Buys Instacart For $17B, Jake Newfield from Hermetiq, + More!

Binance, described by the hosts as the world’s largest crypto exchange, suffered an attack estimated to affect $6.3 billion. The company said it had set aside more than $6.3 billion to cover losses and paused deposits and withdrawals while it conducted security checks. A compromised engineer’s laptop was raised as an early theory, but the cause remained unconfirmed. Tether, Circle, Ripple, and World Liberty Financial helped freeze affected assets, with about $3 billion frozen on-chain. Jason praised CZ for backstopping the losses, arguing that doing so could prevent a potentially fatal blow to Binance; the hosts said CZ owned 90% of the exchange and cited his net worth at $110 billion.

The breach prompted Jason to warn founders and investors against holding a large share of their net worth at a single bank or exchange, recommending multiple banking relationships. He also proposed an annual “No App November,” during which companies would stop releasing new features and focus on patching and security. He argued that companies should roughly double cybersecurity spending, which he described as typically in the low single digits.

DoorDash agreed to acquire Instacart in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $17 billion, offering $65 per share, roughly 25% above Instacart’s October 22 closing price. The companies said DoorDash’s delivery network and Instacart’s grocery and fulfillment technology could enable a shared membership and save about $100 million annually. An anti-monopoly group urged regulators to block the deal, arguing that the combined company would control nearly 60% of U.S. third-party grocery delivery. A speaker noted that this estimate excludes Amazon, Walmart, and retailers’ own delivery services, and predicted approval would come more quickly under President Donald Trump than under Lina Khan’s approach to antitrust.

One speaker argued DoorDash was better positioned than Uber to buy Instacart because DoorDash’s higher stock valuation made its shares more efficient deal currency, while Uber’s shares might be better used for buybacks or investment in automation. The speaker cited trailing price-to-earnings multiples of 88 times for DoorDash and 25 times for Instacart. Instacart was characterized as slow-growing, with earnings roughly flat over three years, although quarterly revenue rose from $803 million about three years ago to $1.095 billion in Q3. Its advertising business was described as an underrecognized profit source: quarterly ad revenue grew from $243 million about three years ago to $331 million in the latest quarter cited. The speaker put advertising at roughly $1.2 billion, or about 30% of revenue, and expected more slow-growing companies to become acquisition targets.

Jake Newfield said Hermetiq is building at the RBE protocol level, implemented by Bazel, to provide build data that AI agents can use to automate builds. He said tools including Claude, Cursor, and Codex have shifted software development’s bottleneck from writing code to compiling, verification, and testing. Hermetiq aims to serve as a data layer between builds and agents, analogous to Databricks’ role with Apache Spark. Newfield said a top AI lab pays Hermetiq $240,000 to analyze more than 2 million builds per day, representing 4 billion build events. He cited a $25 billion market opportunity and $2.2 million raised to date, and said customers pay because the problem sits on a critical path they cannot afford to build around themselves.

Newfield said Hermetiq receives monthly payments from AI labs, providing validation of the product and its value. He said a lighthouse customer improved investor reception by demonstrating that the problem and solution were real, especially as investors assess whether OpenAI or Anthropic could replicate a startup’s product. The company is working to add its second and third customers. Jason advised founders to lead investor pitches with customer traction rather than presentation polish: $250,000 in revenue and a lighthouse customer can earn a meeting with an investor who backs that stage and category, though investors may seek two or three more customers, including additional five- or six-figure annual customers. Jason also argued that customer focus and brand trust can form a moat through attentive service, anticipating needs, and fair pricing; Newfield said he did not yet have a customer testimonial but expected to get one.

The Annotated competition drew 83 submissions, with five finalists demoed; Jason awarded each finalist $1,000 because no idea stood out as clearly superior. The proposed browser extension or sidebar lets users save media and share it with commentary. Demos showed users highlighting article text or selecting YouTube segments to annotate, including a demo with an automatic Gemini fact-check note. The hosts stressed clearly distinguishing a commenter’s words from source material and including the source link; suggested clip and commentary limits were not confirmed product rules.