Five Stories That Actually Moved the Needle This Week

Q1 2026 just dropped the most absurd VC numbers in history, a famous AI researcher cashed a $1.1 billion seed check, the OpenAI–Microsoft marriage became an open relationship, and two vertical-AI star

1. The AlphaGo Guy Just Raised $1.1B — Before Writing a Single Line of Product Code

David Silver, the DeepMind researcher behind AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and MuZero, emerged from stealth this week with Ineffable Intelligence and the largest seed round ever recorded in Europe: $1.1 billion at a $5.1 billion valuation. Sequoia and Lightspeed co-led, with Nvidia…