Tech Brew Ride Home - Algorithmic Pricing?

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Instagram is giving you some control over your algorithm. Is Instacart using algorithmic pricing? SpaceX thinks it will be worth $1.5 trillion. Has DeepSeek been smuggling chips? And what if your startup’s side-hustle can plug into the AI CAPEX bonanza? Instagram Will Start Letting You Pick What Shows Up in Your Reels (Wired) Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ (NYTimes) SpaceX to Pursue 2026 IPO Raising Far Above $30 Billion (Bloomberg) DeepSeek is Using Banned Nvidia Chips in Race to Build Next Model (The Information) Boom Supersonic raises $300M to build natural gas turbines for Crusoe data centers (TechCrunch) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the TechBrew Right Home for Wednesday, December 10th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. Instagram is giving you some control over your algorithm. Is Instacart using algorithmic pricing? SpaceX thinks it'll be worth $1.5 trillion. Has Deep Seek been smuggling chips? And what if your startup's side hustle can plug into the AI CapEx Bonanza? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

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Create, edit, collaborate, and publish all in one place. Head to wistia.com slash brew to learn more. That's W-I-S-T-I-A dot com slash brew. With Wistia, you can expect less work and more plays. Instagram this morning launched your algorithm, which shows users an AI analysis of their activity to let them customize the topics shaping their reels recommendations. Quoting Wired,

Meta is giving Instagram users a rare glimpse into why certain posts are showing up on their reels, the platform's feed of algorithmically curated videos. Starting today, users will now see a list of what Instagram considers to be your top recent interests. This kind of peek behind the algorithmic curtain is already uncommon in social media apps, but meta is taking it a step further by allowing Instagram users to influence their algorithm directly by picking topics they want to see more or less often in reels. This feature called Your Algorithm, drops as Instagram and TikTok continue to battle for prominence with younger users. It's these users who potentially want more control over what they're consuming as they scroll through video feeds as well as other personalization options.

The new feature is landing on Instagram first for those in the U.S. with a global rollout for English users in the works. Instagram currently has the lead and overall app adoption among young users, but TikTok isn't that far off. According to a 2025 study by the Pew Research Center, 80% of U.S. adults under 30 used Instagram, whereas 63% used TikTok. When a user opens the new Your Algorithm tab on Instagram, they'll see a brief summary of what they've been into while scrolling through reels. The topics displayed are based on recent user activity, and the summaries are made using generative AI. Met as examples of topics that users could add with the new feature include horror movies, chess, and college football. For The Bold, Instagram is including a way to post the summary of what you've been

watching and topics you've adjusted because what's the fun of having your data tracked and personalized if you can't share it with the world. No need to wait for me to post mine on some close friends story. My top interests on Reels right now are a stand-up set. Gianmarco So Marcos Sorece did at a furry convention and decadent grilled cheese sandwiches. So damn gooey, end quote. Speaking of algorithms, how do you feel about algorithmic pricing? A new study has found that Instacart users across four U.S. cities saw different prices for the same items from the same store at the same time. Quoting the Times. The shoppers were volunteers participating in a study published on Tuesday and organized by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy group, and

Consumer Reports, a non-profit consumer publication. In tests in four cities across the country, nearly 200 volunteers checked prices on 20 grocery items on Instacart. On item after item, they found significant differences. In a target in North Canton, Ohio, some shoppers were charged 359 for a jar of skippy peanut butter that others could get for 299. At a Safeway in Seattle, some people paid $3.99 for a box of wheat thins, while others paid $4.89. And at a target in St. Paul, Minnesota, some people were charged $4.59 for a box of Cheerios that others could get for $3.99. Two shoppers who are buying the exact same item from the exact same store at the exact same time are getting different prices, said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. The data really backs up

how extraordinarily pervasive this is. An Instacart spokeswoman said that stores on its platform set their own prices and that some of them engaged in pricing tests to, quote, learn what matters most to consumers and how to keep essential items affordable. The pricing tests are short-term, randomized, and designed so that people may see slightly lower prices, and some, may see slightly higher prices with the goal of helping retail partners understand consumer preferences and identify categories where they should invest in lower prices, the spokeswoman said. Meredith Koppett Levian, president and chief executive of the New York Times Company, is a member of Instacart's board of directors.

A target spokesman said the company, quote, is not affiliated with Instacart and is not responsible for prices on the Instacart platform. Instacart said that during the period covered by the groundwork study, it was, quote, evaluating different approaches to covering its costs. but has since ended pricing tests on target orders. Groundworks findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price offered to all customers for a predictable period is breaking down in the digital age. Companies are using sophisticated algorithms to adjust prices quickly

in response to competitors' offers and consumer behavior. Dynamic pricing strategies in which companies raise prices during periods of intense demand have spread beyond sectors where they have become familiar, such as air travel and ride-hailing services to other parts of the economy, including restaurants and retailers. Prices are definitely more flexible across categories than they were 10 to 15 years ago, and that has to do with the rise of e-commerce and these technologies that have allowed firms over time to react more quickly, said Alberto Cavallo, a Harvard economist who has documented

the rise of algorithm-based pricing strategies. High inflation after the pandemic accelerated the trend, Mr. Cavallo said, by encouraging companies to adjust prices more quickly. These strategies are making prices more volatile and less predictable for consumers. Research suggests, and there is some evidence they are pushing up prices, at least in certain categories at a time when the rising cost of living has emerged as a political point of contention. Grocery prices are up more than 25% over the past five years and continue to rise faster than before the pandemic. In surveys, voters consistently rank food prices among their top affordability concerns, end quote. We're starting to get a ground swell of rumblings about this now, so it looks like it's going to happen.

Sources are telling Bloomberg that SpaceX plans an IPO in mid to late, 26, seeking to raise far above $30 billion and targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation, which would make it potentially the largest IPO in history. Quoting Bloomberg, the Elon Musk-led company is targeting a valuation of about $1.5 trillion for the entire company, which would leave SpaceX near the market value that Saudi Aramco established during its record 2019 listing. The oil major raised $29 billion at the time. SpaceX is exploring a possible IPO as soon as mid to late next year. People familiar with the matter said last week, Musk and the company's board of directors advanced plans for the listing

and fundraising, including hiring for key roles and how it would spend the capital in recent days, as SpaceX firmed up its latest insider share sale, one of the people said. SpaceX's faster path to public markets is in part fueled by the strength of its fast-growing Starlink satellite internet service, including the promise of a direct-to-mobile business, as well as the development of its starship, moon, and Mars rockets. The company is expected to produce about $15 billion in revenue in 2025, increasing to between $22 and $24 billion in 2020, one of the people said, with the majority of sales coming from Starlink. SpaceX expects to use some of the funds raised in an IPO to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips required to run them.

Two of the people said, an idea that Musk expressed interest in during a recent event with Barron Capital, end quote. Yeah, by the way, data centers in space are all the rage all of the sudden. Sundar Pichai talks about them every chance he gets lately. This quote from Gavin Baker on the Invest Like the Best podcast explains why people are interested in this, Quote, in every way data centers in space from a first principles perspective are superior to data centers on Earth. In space, you can keep a satellite in the sun 24 hours a day. The sun is 30% more intense, which results in six times more irradiance than on Earth, so you don't need a battery. The cooling in these data centers is incredibly complicated.

Space cooling is free. You just put a radiator on the dark side of the satellite. The only thing faster than a laser going through a fiber optic cable is a laser going through absolute vacuum. Link satellites with lasers and you have a faster and more coherent network than any data center on Earth, end quote. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play

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For Citizens Bank. Sources have told the information that Deep Seek is developing its new AI model using several thousand Nvidia Blackwell chips, which were smuggled into China via third-party countries. Quote, Deep Seek's ability to access the chip via one or more Chinese data center companies underscores the difficulties the U.S. faces in enforcing export controls in the

intricate, globalized semiconductor industry. Most Nvidia chips are manufactured in Taiwan and sold through a complicated network of distributors and resellers around the world. With access to Nvidia's latest chips, DeepSeek is better able to stay competitive in the AI race, both in China and globally. Despite Beijing's push for, for local companies to use homegrown alternatives, Chinese AI chips are still not good enough for training AI models, a process in which models ingest copious amounts of data to learn

connections between them, according to executives and employees of Chinese AI companies. Since it burst onto the scene roughly a year ago, DeepSeek hasn't launched a completely new model and has only released incremental upgrades to existing ones. One factor that likely complicated DeepSeek's model development is that it has been using a method called Sparse Attention, which only uses certain parts of a model to answer questions rather than the entire model according to one person with direct knowledge of the process. The technique could significantly reduce the costs of inference when AI models generate answers or perform tasks, therefore lowering the financial barrier for AI adoption. Blackwell chips are particularly

useful for this approach because the chips include specialized hardware designed to accelerate sparse computing, running such calculations up to twice as fast as traditional methods. Deepseek's focus on the sparse attention technique has made its model. development more challenging and time-consuming, according to the person. The company in September released the V3.2 EXP, which it described as an experimental model serving as an intermediate step toward its next-generation model. But applying sparse attention to bigger models is proving to be more complicated, the person said. Some Deep Seek employees are hoping to roll out the next generation model by the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, according to the person. However, Deep Seek

founder Liang Wen Feng, who prioritizes performance over the timeline, hasn't set a hard deadline for the new model the person said, end quote. Boom Aerospace, which is building a supersonic plane, has done a little side hustle by announcing superpower, a 42 megawatt natural gas turbine using Boom's existing supersonic engine to power AI data centers, quoting TechCrunch. Aircraft startup Boom Supersonic said Tuesday it will start selling a version of its turbine engine as a stationary power plant and that its first customer will be the data center startup Caruso. Caruso will buy 29 of Booms' 42 megawatt turbines for $1.25 billion to generate 1.21 gigawatts for its data centers. Boom said it will

announce more details about a turbine factory next year, with first deliveries occurring in 2027. To commercialize its superpower stationary turbine, Boom raised $300 million in a round led by Darsana Capital Partners with participation from Altimeter Capital, Arc Invest, Bessemer Venture Partners, Robin Hood Ventures, and Y Combinator. Profits from the sale of superpower units will go toward funding continued development of the company's overture supersonic aircraft, boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl told TechCrunch. It's an arrangement that Scholl likens to SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation. The satellite internet service is reportedly profitable, helping the company to bankroll the development of its rockets. I've kind of been keeping

my eyes open for 10 years for what could be our Starlink, he said. I said no to a thousand things because I concluded they were distractions. This one were saying yes to because it's so clearly on path. Boom said superpower and its airborne engine called Symphony share 80% of their parts. Earlier this year, Booms XB1 demonstrator was the first civil aircraft developed by a private company to break the sound barrier. Crusoe is paying $1,33 per kilowatt of generating capacity. For that, boom will deliver the turbines, generators, control systems, and preventative maintenance. Crusoe will have to provide everything else, including pollution controls, electrical connections, and so on. That's on the higher side for that type of power plant.

A typical airplane-derived or aeroderivative turbine costs around $1,600 per kilowatt, a price that also includes pollution controls, engineering, construction, land acquisition, permitting pipelines, and more. In a typical project, the turbine and pollution controls contribute about 46% of a price. project's total cost. Applying that percentage to Booms figures would likely push the total cost over $2,000 per kilowatt. That's pricey for a simple cycle gas turbine and more in line with costs for combined cycle gas turbines slated to come online in the early 2030s. Boom's superpower is targeting 39% efficiency similar to competitors. Combined cycle turbines can recover heat from the

exhaust to boost efficiency above 60%. Scholl said the power plants should be no louder than existing aerodervative turbines, though that's not exactly quiet. Residents near XAI's Colossus Data Center report hearing similarly sized turbines from at least half a mile away. The first few stationary turbines will be made at Boone's existing facilities, while the company builds a larger factory. The goal is to produce one gigawatts worth in 2008, two gigawatts worth in 2029, and four gigawatts worth in 2030. If Boom can hit those numbers, it would represent a significant expansion in the turbines available to be deployed, end quote. So it turns out that this is actually not that uncommon, apparently. This is quoting from the Oddlots newsletter. I'm quoting, I believe,

Joe here. It's worth noting how this is yet another example of how some key industrial input, which was originally envisioned for something else, is plugging itself into the AI supply chain. I don't have any view on whether AI is a bubble or not. I don't have any view on whether the multiples being paid for AI companies are too high or not either. I don't have any view on whether the multiples being paid for AI companies are too high or not either. I don't have any view on whether all of this capital investment will produce satisfactory returns for equity and debt investors. That's for other people to figure out. One risk, though, is this crowding out effect that the AI boom is sucking up resources that might have been better allocated to something else. People often associate

crowding out with fiscal policy, but when there's a huge investment boom being undertaken by the private sector with a highly uncertain payoff, then the same concept can apply. All that being said, it seems like an unalloyed good thing if AI investment helps accelerate the development of jet engine technology. In fact, if anything, this might be seen as a positive crowding in. And it's not the end of the world if some grid connections get reallocated away from Bitcoin mining. Still, it's worth thinking about this general phenomenon by which capacity, industrial, electric, labor, etc., is increasingly being shifted to this one project of building out AI tech. and quote. As Deva Hazarica joked on X, quote,

every VC emailing their portfolio companies today. Did you see this? Have you thought about how our Tinder for Dogs product might be used by data centers? End quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow. All pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes

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