This Week in Snark: From Kiss Cam Collapses to Color-Picking Clouds

It’s been a banner week for SiliconSnark, where tech ambition, public embarrassment, and corporate delusion collide in the most delightful ways. We’ve got a 3,000-word deep dive into a data startup scandal nobody asked for, biotech spiders doing government deals, Ethernet switches with delusions of grandeur, and AI-powered paint swatches solving the real crises of our time. Oh, and an AI startup that raised hundreds of millions to keep vibing.

If that’s not enough to whet your appetite for chaos, we also published a 10,000-word snark epic tracing the entire history of the AI talent wars. Yes, ten thousand. No, we don’t have lives. Let’s dive in.

🛰️ Astronomer: From Boring Data Startup to Kiss Cam Catastrophe — The Complete History
What started in sleepy Cincinnati as a data pipeline company using Apache Airflow somehow ended up in a national HR scandal involving Coldplay and a kiss cam. This epic retelling of everything that’s ever happened at Astronomer covers it all—founding, funding, flameouts, and finally, fallout.

Equal parts tech soap opera and company history, this one’s heavy on the receipts and light on the forgiveness. It might be the most in-depth piece ever written about Astronomer. That’s not a compliment.

🕸️ Scaling Tech, Silkworm Edition: Kraig Labs Spins a Government-Backed Web
Spider silk biotech startup Kraig Labs announced a strategic government partnership in Southeast Asia to scale its creepy-crawly production operation. The press release was drenched in phrases like “platform expansion” and “infrastructure synergies,” which totally distracted us from the fact that this is, quite literally, a worm farm.

We break down what the deal means, how Kraig Labs has kept this dream alive despite being public on the OTCQB (chef’s kiss), and why synthetic silk might just be the ultimate government flex.

💘 Lovable Raises More Money to Vibe Even Harder
Swedish AI darling Lovable just raised $200 million in a Series A, despite still being in what most would call “beta vibes mode.” The company helps people build apps and websites using natural language, which sounds revolutionary until you remember, oh right, everyone’s doing that now.

But Lovable has one advantage: vibes. With 2.3 million users and 180,000 paying subscribers, they’ve managed to convince investors that “good design energy” counts as a moat. Honestly? Respect.

🎨 Behr Paint and Google Cloud Use AI to Solve the Greatest Crisis of Our Time: Picking a Color
You may have thought climate change or wealth inequality were the great crises of our time. Wrong. According to Behr and Google Cloud, it’s choosing the right shade of beige. Their new AI agent, ChatHUE™, uses cloud tools and Gemini to help people decide if they want “Swan Wing” or “Gravel Whimsy” on their bathroom walls.

We unpack the jargon-packed release and give this “breakthrough” the thorough eye roll it deserves. Spoiler: it’s all just color math in a prettier interface. But hey, it’s AI, so it feels smarter.

📡 Broadcom Launches Tomahawk Ultra, Promises Ethernet That’s So Fast It Might Time Travel
Broadcom shipped its new Tomahawk Ultra Ethernet switch, and you’d think they discovered faster-than-light travel. The press release was so dense with technical jargon and superlatives, we’re still untangling the in-network collectives from the lossless fabrics.

If you're in AI or HPC, this might actually be a big deal. If you're in PR, it's a masterclass in word inflation. We snark our way through it all, with a few guesses about what the next Tomahawk will promise—quantum vibes?

🧠 The Great AI Talent Wars: A Snarky 25-Year Retrospective
Inspired by Meta’s recent poaching spree, we wrote ten thousand words tracing the AI talent wars back to the early 2000s. From the early Google-Brains and Facebook-Labs to the OpenAI exodus and Anthropic arms race, this beast covers it all.

Packed with poaching drama, overhyped academic transfers, and VC-backed signing bonuses that make NBA contracts look modest, this is SiliconSnark’s longest article ever—and maybe its most ambitious. We regret nothing.

In summary: Spiders are scaling. Ethernet thinks it's the flux capacitor. Paint got smarter. Lovable is lovable. Astronomer flew too close to the Coldplay. And we finally wrote something longer than your founder’s Medium post. Catch you next week.