🌶️ Hot Fudge Sunday for 2025-07-20

July 20, 2025

Last week

I’m excited to share the latest Winners Circle, a new podcast from NexusTek.

Getting CMMC 2.0 Game Ready for SMB

CMMC 2.0 cybersecurity standards are rapidly approaching, becoming the essential price of admission for doing business with the Department of Defense. Yet for many SMBs in the defense industrial base, the path to compliance feels unclear, overwhelming, and out of reach. In this debut episode of Winners Circle, James Reid, NexusTek vCISO, joins us to demystify the process and offer real-world guidance. From common misconceptions and strategic advantages to fast-track steps for resource-constrained organizations, this 20-minute conversation delivers practical advice for achieving compliance without sacrificing competitiveness. Whether you're assessing your readiness or fine-tuning your roadmap, this session delivers guidance you can act on immediately.

Winning with Secure AI – Leveraging Unlimited AI Access Without Security Risk

Generative AI is transforming how organizations work—but for business and IT leaders, enabling secure, scalable access to AI tools remains a serious challenge. In this second episode of Winners Circle, Mark Richtermeyer, SVP of Artificial Intelligence at NexusTek, joins us to discuss how companies can give employees full access to best-in-class AI tools, without compromising data privacy, compliance, or control. From shadow AI and data governance to standout differentiation and ROI, this eye-opening discussion delivers real-world examples and frameworks for turning AI adoption into a secure, strategic competitive advantage. You’ll also get a firsthand look at the NexusTek Secure AI Platform and how it’s helping organizations maintain control while driving performance. Whether you’re building an AI strategy or just trying to stay ahead of risk, this 25-minute session delivers practical insight and implementation tips you can act on today. To claim your free trial of the SecureAI Platform visit: https://info.nexustek.com/secureai

This week

I’ll continue working on automation ideas for the newsletter.

Hot Fudge Daily Digest

📈 Markets Monday for 2025-07-14

Spicier!

Last week

This week

Quantum Computing, AI, Software, and Space

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/research-hub/screener/9bda6c7b-fe9e-41ca-9da9-e281a4a9889a

🔥 Hot Takes Tuesday for 2025-07-15

💰 + 🤖 Funding for AI-anything companies continues.

Motor AI (autonomous driving software): $20M
Portola (AI companion app): $20M
NetBox Labs (manage networks): $35M
Unify (AI-powered revenue tools): $40M
Moonvalley (ethical AI video models): $84M
OpenEvidence (AI search for doctors): $210M
Thinking Machines Lab (Mira Murati’s AI startup): $2B

🤪 Wacky Wednesday for 2025-07-16

The most interesting shared link in Slack communities:

(safe for work link)

About 1,500 tarantulas found hidden in cake boxes at German airport

Customs officials at Cologne Bonn airport tipped off by ‘noticeable smell’ that did not resemble confectionery

🔙 Throwback Thursday for 2025-07-17

One convergence story that caught my eye this week: Android will soon combine with ChromeOS

An interview with Google President of Android Ecosystem Sameer Samat, who says Google is “going to be combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform”

By Lance Ulanoff / TechRadar. View the full context on Techmeme.

For perspective, 20 years ago, Android was acquired by Google.

Google buys Android

Search giant quietly bought the wireless start-up in July for an undisclosed sum, according to a BusinessWeek report.

Less than 5 years later, Google launched ChromeOS.

A First Glimpse Of Chrome OS In The Flesh | TechCrunch

Following our post about Chrome OS yesterday, it looks like those wily folks at Google have removed the "chromeos" folder from the Chromium build folder. Too bad. But luckily, before they did, TechCrunch reader and Linux user, Jonathan Frederickson, was able to grab the code and managed to install it. He has posted some results in our comments section and even more on his blog. It would seem that the result is the browser aspect of Chrome OS running inside of Linux. As you can see in the screenshots below, it looks very similar to Chrome, the browser, on Windows (still the only officially released version of Chrome), but there are some key differences.

✅ Final Thoughts Friday for 2025-07-18

💰 + ₿ The big tech story for the week was coverage of crypto market value exceeding $4T.

Total crypto market value surpassed $4T for the first time, driven by altcoin rallies and US legislative momentum; Ether jumped 22% over the past five days

By Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.

🔮 Sneak Peak Saturday for 2025-07-19

I’ve selected a Friday news dump item that reached a peak level of trope, cliché, or bromide on the slowest news day that may be attempting to avoid wider coverage.

Joel Kaplan says Meta won't sign EU's AI code of practice, calling its guidelines overreach that will throttle development and deployment of AI models in Europe

By Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.

Of course. Of course.

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#OpenToWork Weekly

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I participated in a #NeverSearchAlone #JSC after rebooting Cuthrell Consulting and joining NexusTek.

I added those #OpenToWork from my LinkedIn network to this newsletter. Over time, we’ve grown an Alumni 🎉 section for those that transitioned to their next career adventure.

Alumni 🎉

Those in my network that are #OpenToWork:

View this page on GitHub.

Thanks to NexusTek for sponsoring the free version of this newsletter post 🤓