el producto #428 🚀
Pivots to PMF, Building your AI PM, Pursuing revenue vs UX, Product communication, Apple's execution failures, Ultrathin iPhone 17, Klarna IPO, Claude web search & more
Hi folks 👋
Welcome to a new edition of el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$32B: Google has agreed to acquire cloud security startup Wiz for $32B, marking its largest acquisition ever. The move strengthens Google Cloud’s security offerings amid rising AI-driven cyber threats, with Wiz set to operate across major cloud platforms, including AWS and Azure. Last year, Wiz rejected a $23B bid from Google to pursue an IPO, but this deal signals a strategic shift. While regulatory scrutiny is expected, analysts believe President Trump’s administration may take a more lenient stance on tech mergers. Google expects to finalize the acquisition in 2026
$1B: Klarna filed its IPO prospectus last week and plans to go public on the NYSE under ticker symbol KLAR. The company plans to raise $1B around a $15B valuation:
Revenue grew 24% last year to $2.8B
The company’s operating loss was $121M for the year, and adjusted operating profit was $181M, swinging from a loss of $49M a year earlier
The company was once valued at $46B in a SoftBank-led funding round before dropping to $6.7B in its most recent venture round
CJ Gustafson shared a great S1 breakdown
$1B: losing more than $1B per year on original Apple TV+ content
$300M: Microsoft spends around $300M on quantum computing research each year
$250M: Celestial AI, the Santa Clara–based startup raised $250M to enhance photonic AI chip connections and compete with Nvidia
$120M: Barcelona-based HR tech unicorn Factorial has secured $120M funding to fuel its sales and marketing efforts. The funding comes as HR tech competition heats up, with rivals Deel and Rippling locked in a legal battle over alleged corporate espionage. Factorial, which saw sixfold revenue growth after shifting to a paid model, aims to expand while steering clear of industry drama
📰 What’s going on
Google will use Gemini to replace Google Assistant on mobile devices, prioritizing features like free-flowing conversations and personal research assistance
Google introduced a new interactive AI workspace called Canvas, designed to make collaborations with Gemini on coding and writing projects easier and more efficient. Coincidentally (or not!), OpenAI has a similar tool that also happens to be called Canvas. (Anthropic ALSO has this sort of workspace feature, which it calls “Artifacts”)
Claude chatbot can now search the web for paid users in the US. (Support for free and/or international users is apparently coming soon.) Search only works in tandem with the latest Claude model — Claude 3.7 Sonnet — and has to be purposefully turned on via a user’s profile settings. When activated, Claude incorporates search results directly into its responses, and provides citations allowing for fact-checks and follow-ups
Deepseek is already everywhere in China - including over 20 different cars, all smartphone manufacturers and 100+ hospitals
NVIDIA announced a string of new AI-powered products and updates at its annual AI conference for developers—GTC 2025—which included an AI model for humanoid robots (called Groot N1), two “AI personal supercomputers” (DGX Spark—previously Project Digits— and DGX Station), and two AI ‘superchips’ (Blackwell Ultra GB300 and Vera Rubin)
Rumors are heating up that Apple is developing an ultrathin iPhone 17. What we know: 5.5mm thin, ultraslim bezels, $900, launch September
Apple replaced its Siri leader. Just a week after Apple announced further delays to the highly anticipated revamped AI-powered Siri (now expected in 2026) because development was taking “longer than expected” (which has subsequently triggered a lawsuit for false advertising as Apple device owners haven’t received the AI features they were promised), CEO Tim Cook is replacing the head of Siri—John Giannandrea—after losing confidence in his ability to lead AI development. The head of Vision Pro development—Mike Rockwell—will replace Giannandrea
Meta is finally bringing a knocked-back version of its Meta AI chatbot to 41 European countries and 21 regions outside of Europe (including the UK) in 6 European languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), integrating it into WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook
Robinhood launched a prediction markets hub within the Robinhood App, so customers can trade on the outcomes of world events
📚 Good reads
The dilemma: revenue vs UX. Elena Verna walks us through how the tension between user benefit and financial goals creates a complex decision-making environment - that can be balanced. She also shares a great list of things you shouldn’t do. Unless…
Apple innovation and execution. The failure of Siri 2 is by far the most dramatic instance of a growing trend for Apple to launch stuff late. Ben Evans explores what’s been going on at Apple
Building an AI PM in under 1h. Aakash Gupta and Tal Raviv bring another great practical piece. This isn’t surface-level advice like “use AI for this task.” They walk you through live, in-depth examples, showing exactly how to build your own AI PM
Pivots to PMF. For many startups, the secret to finding product-market fit lies in the pivot. First Round Review explores how Plaid, Clay, Lattice & other startups made it
Early Product communication in orgs. The work of building a new, 0-to-1 Product inside a bigger company is really hard. When you’re an early-stage startup building your first Product you don’t have internal stakeholders to worry about. But when you’re inside of a larger company you’ve got to manage a lot of people’s expectations. Adam Fishman shares a great guide to mastering your communication at different stages of a Product lifecycle
That’s a wrap for this week! 🌟
I’d love to hear your thoughts—what stood out to you, and how are you thinking about integrating these insights into your product strategy? Reply to this email or drop a comment on Substack to share your take. And if you found this valuable, forward it to a fellow PM, Product enthusiast, startup founder or entrepreneur who’d enjoy the read
See you next week! 👋
Angel