Bill Gates is again arguing that governments should tax automation more directly as artificial intelligence spreads through the economy. In a new essay, the Microsoft co-founder says the current tax structure favors machines over workers because employers pay payroll taxes on human labor while robots can often be written off as business expenses. His proposed fix includes a tax on AI tokens, the units used by language models to process text and other data, as well as a tax on robots themselves. The essay goes beyond tax policy. Gates also proposes a class of “Human Reserved” jobs that society would deliberately keep in human hands even when AI could technically perform them. He points to childcare and jury service as the clearest cases, while placing education and healthcare in a middle category where people would remain involved while using AI tools. Gates says this protected category could cover roughly 40% of jobs at the outer edge of the idea. He argues that AI-driven labor disruption may unfold much faster than earlier technological shifts, reaching legal work, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing within a decade. While recent labor data has not yet shown mass displacement, Gates says he is not waiting for that evidence before pushing for policy action.

Bill Gates has struck a more cautious tone on artificial intelligence, saying the technology could become either "the greatest equalizer in history" or "the biggest source of unfairness." In a new essay published on Aug. 26 U.S. time, Gates said it was the first time he had encountered a new technology and wished it would develop more slowly. He argued that societies need time to prepare for social, political, and economic disruption, even as AI is unlikely to wait. The Microsoft co-founder focused much of his warning on jobs, especially entry-level roles for young workers. He said customer service, sales, software engineering, and legal assistant positions may be affected early, while loan underwriting, data analysis, and medical triage could follow as models improve. He also said falling robot costs and stronger AI could bring machine competition to some physical jobs in construction and hospitality around 2030. Gates also raised concerns about cybersecurity, biotechnology, education, AI companions, and governance. At the same time, he said AI still has strong potential in healthcare, agriculture, and public services. To deal with labor disruption, he proposed setting aside some roles that society chooses to keep human-led, even if machines can perform them, and considering taxes on AI- or robot-driven automation gains to help fund retraining and social support.

Apple held a farewell gathering for Tim Cook at Apple Park over the weekend before his formal departure as chief executive, according to BlockBeats. The event drew roughly 200 attendees, most of them Apple employees, and included a performance by OneRepublic in the campus courtyard. John Ternus is set to take over as CEO on Sept. 1, while Cook will become executive chairman. Several prominent figures spoke at the event, including Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, former chief operating officer Jeff Williams, services chief Eddy Cue, and Ternus. The gathering took place one day before the 15th anniversary of Cook’s appointment as Apple CEO. Photos from the event reportedly showed Cook holding a guitar alongside members of OneRepublic. BlockBeats also said Cook mentioned his partner by name, 「Mike」, during his remarks. The report noted that since publicly coming out in 2014, Cook has rarely discussed his private life in public or semi-public settings.

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham argues that universities often get entrepreneurship education wrong. In a recent essay, he says schools do not need more startup classes or innovation centers to produce future founders. Instead, they should do two things: help students believe starting a company is something they can do, and give them more time to work on their own projects. Drawing on 20 years of observations at YC, Graham says the best predictor of a strong founder is not GPA, business competition results, or the number of entrepreneurship courses taken. What matters more is whether a person is good at making things and whether they have developed a habit of continuously building. He adds that this does not only apply to programmers. Design, science, art, and other forms of creation can also become a founder’s core edge. Graham also pushes back on business plan competitions, saying they may teach the wrong lesson by making students think the main task in entrepreneurship is persuading investors. In his view, fundraising is only a "necessary evil." The real job is to persuade users, and that happens through product, not storytelling. He says universities may be missing not more classes, but more unstructured time for ambitious students to build.

Global markets are heading into a data-heavy Week 36, running from Aug. 31 to Sept. 6, with investors shifting from late-summer policy interpretation to a direct test of economic activity across major regions. China’s official manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs arrive first on Aug. 31, followed by U.S. ISM manufacturing data and eurozone inflation on Sept. 1, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book and Australia’s second-quarter national accounts on Sept. 2, U.S. ISM services and Canadian trade on Sept. 3, and the closely watched U.S. August jobs report plus Canada’s labor force survey on Sept. 4. The central question is whether signals from manufacturing, inflation and labor markets will align around a resilient global growth story or point to a more fragile backdrop. Markets are expected to focus less on any single headline and more on confirmation across orders, employment, prices and regional demand. For crypto, lower real yields and a softer dollar could support BTC and ETH, but only if liquidity improves without a broader washout in risk positioning. Spot demand, trading volume and market breadth are likely to matter as much as rate expectations in determining whether any rally has staying power.

Crypto-aligned political action committee Fairshake and its affiliated groups posted a largely successful night in US primaries, with four of five candidates backed by their advertising either winning or advancing in races across Alaska, Florida and Wyoming. The committees, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, spent about $3.6 million in total on House and Senate contests. The clear exception came in Florida’s 24th congressional district. There, Democrat Oliver Gilbert won with 34.4% of the vote despite being targeted by more than $2 million in negative advertising funded by Protect Progress. The race drew attention over whether the crypto industry could shape Democratic primaries through outside spending. The results arrive as Fairshake continues to expand its political footprint ahead of the 2026 midterms. The PAC reported a $193 million war chest in January and had spent more than $82 million on 2026 races as of June. With Congress set to return in September and the Senate expected to take up a cloture motion on the CLARITY Act, the makeup of the next Congress could carry direct consequences for digital asset legislation.

A political action committee linked to Fairshake, the crypto-backed super PAC funded mainly by Coinbase and Ripple Labs, has spent more than $2 million opposing Democratic candidate Oliver Gilbert in Florida’s 24th congressional district, according to Federal Election Commission records cited by Cointelegraph. The spending stands out because none of the Democratic primary candidates had made digital assets a major campaign issue before the ads appeared. Gilbert is running for the seat held by Representative Frederica Wilson, who voted against both the CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Act and later endorsed him at a June 22 event. Another Democratic contender, Florida state senator Shevrin Jones, completed a Stand With Crypto questionnaire and received a “strongly supports” rating, while an early August poll showed him ahead of Gilbert. Gilbert said the ads were backed by “Trump’s tech billionaire buddies” and described them as an attempt by “crypto con artists” to buy the primary. Fairshake defended the ads’ factual basis but did not explain the spending decision. The group said in January that it held a $193 million war chest, and by June had already deployed more than $82 million in primaries and special elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.

A Q2 2026 Web3 hiring report published by TechFlowPost says the sector is shrinking and facing talent shortages at the same time. Drawing on seven outside reports and application data from Moledao, the report says more than 40 Web3 companies have cut staff this year for a combined total of over 7,000 layoffs, while hiring demand for engineering roles remains strong. On Moledao, engineering accounted for 46.0% of listed roles but only 27.1% of applications, giving it the lowest application concentration index among major functions at 0.6x. Security roles showed a similar, though smaller, gap at 0.9x. By contrast, BD, PM, and Compliance/HR/Ops drew heavier competition from applicants. The report also says AI skills have become a mainstream hiring requirement. The share of job descriptions asking for AI skills rose from 23% at the start of 2025 to 53.1% in March 2026, based on figures cross-referenced from CryptoJobsList and Tiger Research. Compensation data points in the same direction: CryptoJobsList put average pay for mid-level AI-related roles at $115k, compared with $95k for non-AI positions, a 21.1% premium. The report’s conclusion is direct: regardless of track, job seekers now need to treat AI capability as part of the baseline requirement.