Five hundred and ten billion dollars. That's how much money went into startups in the first half of 2026, more than all of last year combined. And most of it went to just two companies.

Meanwhile, Microsoft cut 9,000 jobs last week, tech employers posted 280,000 new openings in June, and SpaceX paid $60 billion for a company that makes a code editor. The money is moving fast, but it's moving in very specific directions.

Today I'll break down where it's going, which sectors are actually expanding, and how to position yourself on the right side of the split.

Let's get into it.

Microsoft's annual July trim just landed, and it's 9,000 jobs. The cuts hit sales, consulting, and Xbox, following a pattern that's become a yearly ritual at the start of Microsoft's fiscal year. A voluntary retirement program earlier this year reduced the scope, but the cuts still affect roughly 4% of the company's 220,000-person workforce. Some affected employees will be offered other roles internally.

Tech job postings rose for the sixth straight month. Employers listed more than 280,000 new tech job postings in June, and tech occupation employment grew by 47,000 workers. The unemployment rate for tech workers dropped to 2.9%, well below the national 4.2%. The demand is real, it's just concentrated in AI, data engineering, and digital transformation roles.

SpaceX bought the company behind Cursor for $60 billion. The all-stock acquisition of Anysphere closed four days after SpaceX's own record-setting $1.77 trillion IPO. Cursor went from $100 million in annualized revenue in January 2025 to roughly $4 billion by June 2026. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 now uses the AI coding tool.

Legal AI startup Legora tripled its valuation to $5.55 billion. The Swedish company raised $550 million in a Series D led by Accel and is expanding to Houston and Chicago. Legora now supports tens of thousands of lawyers across 800 customers and expects to grow to 300+ US employees by year-end.

A spray-on powder stops life-threatening bleeding in one second. Researchers at KAIST developed a powder that instantly forms a strong gel over a wound. The technology could transform emergency medicine and battlefield care, and human trials are expected within the next 18 months.

AI moves faster than any single newsletter can cover. To actually stay current you'd need to read every major AI newsletter, listen to the AI podcasts that move thinking, watch what every AI lab ships, and scan public-company earnings calls, investor letters, and GitHub. Almost no one has time for that. 

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Global venture funding hit $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to Crunchbase. That's more than the $440 billion invested in all of 2025, and it's a record for any half-year period ever tracked. Q1 alone was $305 billion, the largest quarter on record.

But the headline number hides a concentration problem. OpenAI and Anthropic together accounted for $217 billion of that total, or 43 cents of every dollar. More than 70% of Q2 capital went to AI-focused companies. This isn't a rising tide lifting all startups. It's a firehose pointed at a handful of companies building foundation models.

The exit market is moving just as fast. SpaceX went public at $1.77 trillion in June, the largest IPO ever for a venture-backed company. Days later, it acquired Cursor-maker Anysphere for $60 billion, the largest startup acquisition in history. Twenty-four companies were acquired at $1 billion or more in Q2 alone, totaling $113 billion.

Here's the paradox that matters for your career. The same week this funding data dropped, Microsoft cut 9,000 jobs in sales, consulting, and gaming. Tech layoffs in 2026 have now hit 185,000 workers. But tech job postings rose for the sixth straight month, and tech unemployment is 2.9%. Companies are cutting and hiring at the same time, in different departments.

Why it matters: The money is telling you exactly where the jobs are going. Follow the funding, not the layoff headlines. Companies that raised $50M+ in the last 90 days are building teams right now. The sectors getting capital (AI infrastructure, legal tech, defense tech, energy) are the ones posting roles. The sectors getting cut (sales operations, general consulting, legacy support) are the ones being automated or consolidated. If your job search is targeting companies that are shrinking, this data is your signal to pivot toward the ones that just raised.

The CompTIA data tells a clear story: tech employment grew by 47,000 workers in June, and employers posted more than 280,000 new tech job openings. That's the sixth consecutive month of posting increases.

But the roles being created aren't the same ones being cut. Companies are hiring AI engineers, data engineers, and digital transformation leads while reducing headcount in sales operations, general consulting, and corporate support. Meta posted hundreds of AI engineering roles in the same quarter it flattened non-engineering layers. Microsoft cut 9,000 in sales and Xbox while its AI division continues to expand.

Why it matters: The job market isn't shrinking. It's reshuffling. If you're in a role that can be described as "coordinating" or "supporting," the runway is getting shorter. If you're in a role that can be described as "building" or "implementing," the demand is climbing. The transition window is still open, but the gap between these two tracks is widening every quarter.

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 Every Sunday evening, spend 15 minutes finding companies that just raised money in your target sector. Here's how:

This works because funded companies need to deploy capital, and deploying capital means hiring. You're not competing with the general job board crowd. You're showing up early because you read the funding news.

Microsoft Senior Strategy Manager: $155K-$263K total compensation, with a median around $200K according to Glassdoor (14 salary submissions as of May 2026). Interesting timing: Microsoft just cut 9,000 roles in sales and consulting, but strategy positions remained untouched. The company is trimming execution layers while keeping the people who decide what to build next. If you're in corporate strategy, your skillset is in the "keep" pile at most large tech companies right now.