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Lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee found rare alignment at a recent hearing about how Congress can help protect kids from online harms.

The hearing on Tuesday, which included a parent who lost a child to suicide after cyberbullying, representatives from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the American Psychological Association, points to the importance the new Congress is putting on protecting kids on the internet.

They’re speaking out in support of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require sites likely to be accessed by kids 16 or younger to maintain certain privacy and safety protections by default. The bill passed unanimously out of the Senate Commerce Committee last year and was reportedly considered as part of the year-end legislation, though it ultimately didn’t make the cut.

“We must and we will double down on the Kids Online Safety Act,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said at the hearing.

Blackburn and Blumenthal both held up a newly released 2021 study on youth risks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which showed that mental health is worsening. The survey found 20% of girls and 11% of boys reported being bullied online over the past year.

President Joe Biden is putting his voice behind the movement for change. Following remarks he made at last week’s State of the Union address, Biden said at an event on Tuesday that, “We have to pass legislation on the damaging technologies having an effect on our kids.”

The level of solidarity on the issue is a rarity in a deeply divided Congress. Though lawmakers have shared similar goals in other discussions around regulating tech, when it comes to protecting kids online, they’re more united in the types of action they want to see take place.

Even so, KOSA and similar measures at the state level have prompted criticism from outside groups, some arguing that the rules would be too difficult to implement in a fair and feasible way.

The groups said last year that vague language requiring platforms to prevent harm to minors could result in restricting too much content, cutting kids off from important information, especially for the LGBTQ community and others that may have limited places to turn. They also warn that some parental consent measures could endanger kids who are experiencing abuse at home.

Evan Greer, director of digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, tweeted her displeasure with the legislative efforts on Tuesday.

“I feel outraged that lawmakers like @SenBlumenthal continue to ignore overwhelming opposition from human rights groups and push the same problematic bills we’ve already explained will do more harm than good, and then blames# tech company lobbying when they don’t pass,” Greer wrote.

Blumenthal and Blackburn revised KOSA last year but failed to completely subdue critics.

Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer at the American Psychological Association, said it’s critical to protect kids without cutting them off from useful resources.

“It’s very important to recognize that online discrimination does have an effect on mental health directly,” Prinstein said. “It is important, however, to recognize that the online community also provides vital health information and does provide social support that can be beneficial to this community.”

All six witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing said they support KOSA and see it as an important step toward protecting children on the internet.

At the end of the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., promised the panelists a markup of legislation on the topic, and said the committee would have to work out questions of jurisdiction with the Commerce Committee.

“That doesn’t sound like much but it is,” Durbin said. “It means that we’re going to come together as a Judiciary Committee and put on the table pieces of legislation to try to decide as a committee if we can agree on common goals.”

Durbin said, “I think we can do this, just sensing what I heard today.”

There’s no shortage of concern in Washington, D.C., and beyond surrounding kids on the internet. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently said that 13, the current age allowed to own a social media account, is “too early” to join such platforms.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the MATURE Act (which stands for Making Age Verification Technology Uniform, Robust, and Effective) on Tuesday. The bill would make 16 the legal age to open a social media account and would put the onus on the platforms to stay compliant.

Legislators in Utah also sought to bar social media accounts under age 16. However, a bill that recently passed the state’s House of Representatives removed that provision, instead allowing for consumers to sue social media companies that knowingly cause harm.

The issue of an age limit and its potential effectiveness was a big topic on Tuesday.

Rose Bronstein, whose son Nate died by suicide last year at age 15 after being subject to cyberbullying, told CNBC in a phone interview after the hearing that raising the age limit would make it easier for parents to keep their kids off of social media. Their kids wouldn’t risk isolation because their peers also wouldn’t be allowed to join.

Christine McComas said age limits would have a limited impact.

“Kids are always three steps ahead of us with any kind of tech,” said McComas, whose daughter Grace died by suicide at age 15 in 2012 after experiencing cyberbullying. “We need to really keep talking about all of it and think about it as a societal shift.”

Bronstein and McComas have been pushing their state legislatures in Illinois and Maryland, respectively, to pass statewide protections. California has already instituted its Age-Appropriate Design Code, which shares similar goals as KOSA. On Monday, Maryland introduced its own version of the bill.

“I think people are more aware now than they’ve ever been before,” McComas said. “And certainly, it’s not all talk. We heard congressional members on both sides of the aisle, from ultra conservative to liberal liberal, who see the problem and feel like something needs to be done.”

But other advocates say it’s time for more action.

Kristin Bride, who testified at the hearing, lost her son Carson at age 16 to suicide in 2020 after cyberbullying. Bride said she and other parents are sick of seeing legislation on the issue fail to advance.

“It is so difficult to tell our stories of the very worst day of our lives over and over and over again and then not see change,” Bride told lawmakers. “We’re done with the hearings, we’re done with the stories. We are looking to you all for action and I am confident that you can all come together and do this for us and for America’s children.”

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Microsoft layoffs hit 830 workers in home state of Washington

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Microsoft layoffs hit 830 workers in home state of Washington

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the Axel Springer building in Berlin on Oct. 17, 2023. He received the annual Axel Springer Award.

Ben Kriemann | Getty Images

Among the thousands of Microsoft employees who lost their jobs in the cutbacks announced this week were 830 staffers in the company’s home state of Washington.

Nearly a dozen game design workers in the state were part of the layoffs, along with three audio designers, two mechanical engineers, one optical engineer and one lab technician, according to a document Microsoft submitted to Washington employment officials.

There were also five individual contributors and one manager at the Microsoft Research division in the cuts, as well as 10 lawyers and six hardware engineers, the document shows.

Microsoft announced plans on Wednesday to eliminate 9,000 jobs, as part of an effort to eliminate redundancy and to encourage employees to focus on more meaningful work by adopting new technologies, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The person asked not to be named while discussing private matters.

Scores of Microsoft salespeople and video game developers have since come forward on social media to announce their departure. In April, Microsoft said revenue from Xbox content and services grew 8%, trailing overall growth of 13%.

In sales, the company parted ways with 16 customer success account management staff members based in Washington, 28 in sales strategy enablement and another five in sales compensation. One Washington-based government affairs worker was also laid off.

Microsoft eliminated 17 jobs in cloud solution architecture in the state, according to the document. The company’s fastest revenue growth comes from Azure and other cloud services that customers buy based on usage.

CEO Satya Nadella has not publicly commented on the layoffs, and Microsoft didn’t immediately provide a comment about the cuts in Washington. On a conference call with analysts in April, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the company had a “focus on cost efficiencies” during the March quarter.

WATCH: Microsoft layoffs not performance-based, largely targeting middle managers

Microsoft layoffs not performance-based, largely targeting middle managers

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CoreWeave is the first cloud provider to deploy Nvidia’s latest AI chips

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CoreWeave is the first cloud provider to deploy Nvidia's latest AI chips

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 2, 2024.

Ann Wang | Reuters

Nvidia’s Blackwell Ultra chips, the company’s next-generation graphics processor for artificial intelligence, have been commercially deployed at CoreWeave, the companies announced on Thursday.

CoreWeave has received shipments of Dell-built shipments based around Nvidia’s GB300 NVL72 AI systems, Dell said on Thursday. It’s the first cloud provider to install systems based around Blackwell Ultra.

The Blackwell Ultra is Nvidia’s latest chip, expected to ship in volume during the rest of the year. The systems that CoreWeave is installing are liquid-cooled and include 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs and 36 Nvidia Grace CPUs. The systems are assembled and tested in the U.S., Dell said.

CoreWeave shares rose 6% during trading on Thursday, Dell shares were up about 2% and Nvidia rose less than 2%.

The announcement is a milestone for Nvidia.

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AI developers still clamor for the latest Nvidia chips, which have improvements that make them better for training and deploying models.

Nvidia said Blackwell Ultra can produce 50 times more AI content than its predecessor, Blackwell.

Investors closely watch how Nvidia manages the transition when it announces new AI chips to see if there are production issues or delays. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said in May that Blackwell Ultra shipments would start in the current quarter.

It’s also a win for CoreWeave, a cloud provider that rents access to Nvidia GPUs to other clouds and AI developers. Although CoreWeave is smaller than the cloud services operated by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, its ability to offer Nvidia’s latest chips first give it a way to differentiate itself.

CoreWeave historically has a close relationship with Nvidia, which owns a stake in the cloud provider. CoreWeave went public earlier this year, and the stock price has quadrupled since its IPO.

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IPO market gets boost from Circle’s 500% surge, sparking optimism that drought may be ending

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IPO market gets boost from Circle's 500% surge, sparking optimism that drought may be ending

Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle Internet Group, the issuer of one of the world’s biggest stablecoins, and Circle Internet Group co-founder Sean Neville react as they ring the opening bell, on the day of the company’s IPO, in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

NYSE

For over three years, venture capital firms have been waiting for this moment.

Tech IPOs came to a virtual standstill in early 2022 due to soaring inflation and rising interest rates, while big acquisitions were mostly off the table as increased regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe turned away potential buyers.

Though it’s too soon to say those days are entirely in the past, the first half of 2025 showed signs of momentum, with June in particular producing much-needed returns for Silicon Valley’s startup financiers. In all, there were five tech IPOs last month, accelerating from a monthly average of two since January, according to data from CB Insights.

Highlighting that group was crypto company Circle, which more than doubled in its New York Stock Exchange debut on June 5, and is now up sixfold from its IPO price for a market cap of $42 billion. The stock got a big boost in mid-June after the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, which would establish a federal framework for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.

Venture firms General Catalyst, Breyer Capital and Accel now own a combined $8 billion worth of Circle stock even after selling a fraction of their holdings in the offering. Silicon Valley stalwarts Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital are set to soon profit from Figma’s IPO, after the design software vendor filed its public prospectus on Tuesday. Since its $20 billion acquisition agreement with Adobe was scrapped in late 2023, Figma has been one of the most hotly anticipated IPOs in startup land.

It’s “refreshing and something that we’ve been waiting for for a long time,” said Eric Hippeau, managing partner at early-stage venture firm Lerer Hippeau, regarding the exit environment. “I’m not sure that we are confident that this can be a sustained trend yet, but it’s been very encouraging.”

Another positive sign for the industry the past couple months was the performance of artificial infrastructure provider CoreWeave, which went public in late March. The stock was relatively stagnant for its first month on the market but shot up 170% in May and another 47% in June.

The IPO market is coming back, but it won't be linear, says Lazard CEO Peter Orszag

For venture firms, long considered the lifeblood of risky tech startups, IPOs are essential in order to generate profits for the university endowments, foundations and pension funds that allocate a portion of their capital to the asset class. Without handsome returns, there’s little incentive for limited partners to put money into future funds.

After a record year in 2021, which saw 155 U.S. venture-backed IPOs raise $60.4 billion, according to data from University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter, every year since has been relatively dismal. There were 13 such offerings in 2022, followed by 18 in 2023 and 30 last year, collectively raising $13.3 billion, Ritter’s data shows.

The slowdown followed the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking campaign in 2022, meant to slow crippling inflation. As the lower-growth environment extended into years two and three, venture firms faced increasing pressure to return cash to investors.

‘Backlog of liquidity’

In its 2024 yearbook, the National Venture Capital Association said that even with a 34% increase in U.S. VC exit value last year to $98 billion, that number is 87% below the 2021 peak and less than half the average for the four years from 2017 through 2020. It’s a troubling dynamic for the 58,000 venture-backed companies that have raised a total of $947 billion from investors, according to the annual report, which is produced by the NVCA and PitchBook.

“This backlog of liquidity drought risks creating a ‘zombie company’ cohort — businesses generating operational cash flow but lacking credible exit prospects,” the report said.

Other than Circle, the latest crop of IPOs mostly consists of smaller and lesser-known brands. Health-tech companies Hinge Health and Omada Health are valued at about $3.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively. Etoro, an online trading platform, has a market cap of just over $5 billion. Online banking provider Chime Financial has a higher profile due largely to a years-long marketing blitz and is valued at close to $11.5 billion.

Meanwhile, the highest valued private companies like SpaceX, Stripe and Databricks remain on the sidelines, and AI highfliers OpenAI and Anthropic continue to raise massive amounts of cash with no intention of going public anytime soon.

Still, venture capitalists told CNBC that there are plenty of companies with the financial metrics to be public, and that more of them are readying for the process.

“The IPO market is starting to open and the VC world is cautiously optimistic,” said Rick Heitzmann, a partner at venture firm FirstMark in New York. “We are preparing companies for the next wave of public offerings.”

There are other ways to make money in the meantime. Secondary sales, a process that involves selling private shares to new investors, are on the rise, allowing early employees and investors to get some liquidity.

And then there’s what Mark Zuckerberg is doing, as he tries to position his company at the center of AI innovation and development.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Last month, Meta announced a $14 billion bet on Scale AI, taking a 49% stake in the AI startup in exchange for poaching founder Alexandr Wang and a small group of his top engineers. The deal effectively bought out half of the stock owned by investors, leaving them with the opportunity to make money on the rest of their holdings, should a future acquisition or IPO take place.

The deal is a big win for Accel, which led Scale AI’s Series A round in 2017, and is poised to earn more than $2.5 billion in the transaction. Index Ventures led the Series B in 2018, and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund led the Series C the following year at a valuation of over $1 billion.

Investors now hope the Federal Reserve will move toward a rate-cutting campaign, though the central bank hasn’t committed to one. There’s also ongoing optimism that regulators will make going public less burdensome. Last week, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that U.S. stock exchanges and the SEC have discussed loosening regulations to make IPOs more enticing.

Mike Bellin, who heads consulting firm PwC’s U.S. IPO practice, said he anticipates a diversity of IPOs across sectors in the second half of the year. According to data from PwC, pharma and fintech were among the most active sectors for deals through the end of May.

While the recent trend in IPO activity is an encouraging sign for investors, potential roadblocks remain.

Tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty delayed IPO plans from companies including Klarna and StubHub in April. Neither has provided an update on when they plan to debut.

FirstMark’s Heitzmann said the path forward is “not at all clear,” adding that he wants to see a strong quarter of economic stability and growth before confidently saying that the market is wide open.

Additionally, other than CoreWeave and Circle, recent tech IPOs haven’t had big pops. Hinge Health, Chime and eToro have seen relatively modest gains from their offer price, while Omada Health is down.

But virtually any activity beats what VCs were experiencing the last few years. Overall, Hippeau said recent IPO trends are generally encouraging.

“There’s starting to be kind of light at the end of the tunnel,” Hippeau said.

WATCH: Uptick in VC-backed startup deals

Uptick in VC-backed startup deals

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