Google's new Gemini 3.1 Pro is now rolling out in preview. The model's benchmark results show mostly modest
improvements


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TLDR

TOGETHER WITH [WorkOS] [4]

TLDR 2026-02-20

GO FROM "WE DON'T SUPPORT SSO" TO ENTERPRISE READY IN A WEEKEND
(SPONSOR) [4]

Every B2B company hits the same inflection point Ä enterprise
customers show up and they need SSO, directory sync, audit logs, and
role-based access before they'll move forward. Most teams lose months
building that infrastructure. It doesn't have to be that way.

With WorkOS [4] you get all of it. One platform for auth, identity,
and security. Infrastructure for teams that ship fast and stay fast.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Perplexity already chose WorkOS over
building it themselves.

Build faster with WorkOS  [4]

¨

BIG TECH & STARTUPS

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES GEMINI 3.1 PRO, SAYS IT'S BETTER AT COMPLEX
PROBLEM-SOLVING (2 MINUTE READ) [5]

Google's new Gemini 3.1 Pro is now rolling out in preview. The
model's benchmark results show mostly modest improvements. The updated
model is now available in AI Studio and the Antigravity IDE.
Enterprise users will see the model in Vertex AI and Gemini
Enterprise, and regular users can use it in both the Gemini app and
NotebookLM. The API costs for developers have not changed, nor has the
context window.

AMAZON DETHRONES WALMART AS WORLD'S BIGGEST COMPANY BY SALES (3
MINUTE READ) [6]

Amazon is now the biggest global company by revenue. Walmart was
previously the leader for more than a decade. Jeff Bezos had carefully
studied Walmart's founder, Sam Walton, and embedded many of his
business strategies while building Amazon. Amazon's revenue increased
at almost 10 times the pace of Walmart's over the past decade. Amazon
is the biggest online retailer, attracting 2.7 billion visits to its
websites and mobile apps each month, while Walmart is the biggest
physical retailer in the world, with more than 10,000 stores and
shopping clubs globally.

¨

SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY

THE FICKLENESS OF SCALING LAWS (24 MINUTE READ) [7]

Scaling laws have defined tech in the last five years. Large language
models have demonstrated consistent returns to scaling. However, these
'laws' apply to very few other fields. Little work has been done to systematically understand, in theory or in general, what causes
scaling laws or determines their slope and robustness. This article
looks at what causes scaling laws, what their preconditions are, when
they stop, why they have worked in some fields but not others, and
more.

RESEARCH NOTE: FIVE LESSONS FROM HAVING HELPED RUN AN AI-BIOLOGY RCT
(6 MINUTE READ) [8]

Almost everyone agrees that AI policy should be evidence-based.
However, science is often messy and full of caveats, which doesn't fit
well with policymakers' demands for clean answers. Many AI benchmarks
have saturated and can no longer give a clear 'no' on risks.
Experiments show how much we still have to learn. We need to spend
less time proving that today's AIs are safe and more time figuring out
how to tell if future AIs are dangerous.

¨

PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE

PEAK TRAFFIC SHOULDN'T MEAN PEAK ANXIETY (SPONSOR) [9]

Traffic skyrocketing? If you're on Microsoft Azure [10], there's no
reason to panic. When user demand spikes, Azure adjusts capacity in
the background. Performance stays steady with no manual intervention,
no late-night firefighting, and no scrambling to explain why the site
went down during the big launch. Build without limits with Azure [10]

BUILDING AN ELITE AI ENGINEERING CULTURE IN 2026 (20 MINUTE READ)
[11]

The winning formula in early 2026 is structured context, tiered
rigor, smaller teams with higher leverage, and relentless measurement
of downstream effects. The teams that adapt AI tools without the
underlying taste and discipline are discovering that AI just makes
their existing problems bigger. Teams with strong engineering
cultures, robust CI/CD, clear architectural standards, and effective
review processes see AI compound their advantages. This is widening
the gap between elite and average teams.

STOP THINKING OF AI AS A COWORKER. IT'S AN EXOSKELETON (14 MINUTE
READ) [12]

AI should be treated as an amplifier of human capacity rather than a replacement. AI can still act autonomously with specific tasks, but in
a way that is an extension of human decision-making and context. This
allows humans to do dramatically more work, more sustainably, with
less injury and fatigue. The AI industry's dream of having a fully
autonomous AI employee is seductive, but it will likely set us up for disappointment.

¨

MISCELLANEOUS

HOW WILL OPENAI COMPETE? (24 MINUTE READ) [13]

OpenAI's technology isn't unique. While it has a big userbase, there
is limited engagement and stickiness, and no network effects. Its
competitors have matched its technology and are leveraging their
product distribution. Executing better than everyone else is certainly
an aspiration, but it isn't a strategy.

BYTEDANCE BUILDING OUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TEAM IN US (5 MINUTE
READ) [14]

ByteDance is hiring nearly 100 employees for its AI division in the
US. The company's AI team, called Seed, was established in 2023 and
has labs across the US, Singapore, and China. The open roles include
various job responsibilities such as producing international data,
advancing ByteDance's text, image, and video generation tools, AI
research, and building models for drug discovery and design. The
company's recent AI launches have thrust it into the spotlight in the
US. There has been some controversy over the data used to train its
models.

¨

QUICK LINKS

TOOL OVERLOAD GOT YOUR HEAD SPINNING? (SPONSOR) [15]

Tech stack complexity is out of control, and the last thing you need
is a bigger `stack'. Microsoft Azure gives you a unified view of
applications, cloud resources, and AIÄso you can ship more software
with less open tabs. Simplify with Azure [16]

META'S METAVERSE IS GOING MOBILE-FIRST (1 MINUTE READ) [17]

Meta is separating its Quest VR platform from its Worlds platform,
shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile.

THEFT OF TRADE SECRETS IS ON THE RISEÄAND AI IS MAKING IT WORSE (4
MINUTE READ) [18]

There were around 1,500 federal trade secrets cases filed in the US
last year, up 20% from the previous year.

THERE IS NO PRODUCT (12 MINUTE READ) [19]

Software that can be generated in a weekend is disposable inventory,
not something you can build a startup around.

WHITE-COLLAR APOCALYPSE ISN'T AROUND THE CORNERÄBUT AI HAS ALREADY FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED THE ECONOMY (20 MINUTE READ) [20]

The productivity gains from AI are real, but it won't be
catastrophic, as it will just devalue mechanical skills while
elevating judgment skills.

BUILDING WITH AI AGENTS (3 MINUTE READ) [21]

Nine observations from building with AI agents over the last year.

THE SOFTWARE SHAKEOUT: WHAT IS DURABLE AND WHAT IS NOT IN THE AGE OF
AI? (13 MINUTE READ) [22]

The most value has always historically accrued to the companies that
did the hardest things.

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Thanks for reading,
Dan Ni [29] & Stephen Flanders [30]

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[4] https://workos.com/?utm_source=tldr&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q12026
[5] https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/02/google-announces-gemini-3-1-pro-says-its-better-at-complex-problem-solving/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[6] https://links.tldrnewsletter.com/UPNf5e
[7] https://www.mackenziemorehead.com/the-fickleness-of-scaling-laws/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[8] https://metr.org/blog/2026-02-19-five-lessons-from-ai-biology-rct/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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[11] https://www.cjroth.com/blog/2026-02-18-building-an-elite-engineering-culture?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[12] https://www.kasava.dev/blog/ai-as-exoskeleton?utm_source=tldrnewsletter [13] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2026/2/19/how-will-openai-compete-nkg2x?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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[21] https://tomtunguz.com/9-observations-using-ai-agents/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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