Community | University 

Feb 09, 2026

Hello, GrowthHackers! 

Welcome to your daily unfair advantage.

Every morning, we cut through the noise to bring you sharp insights, fast news, and fresh sparks to light up your brain and fuel your hustle. From scrappy hacks to big tech moves, AI shifts to culture flips this is your intel to stay ahead, move fast, and break boring.

Think of it as your growth-fueled espresso shot.
Short. Smart. Addictive.

Let’s dive in.👇

Quick Hits

1. Discord to roll out age verification next month for full access to its platform
   (Discord said: vibes are cool, but compliance is cooler)

2. It just got easier for Claude to check in on your WordPress site
   (Claude doing site checks while you sleep)

3. LinkedIn Shares What Works For AI Search Visibility
   (LinkedIn profiles officially became landing pages)

The Growth joke of the day

Why did the marketer update their LinkedIn profile this week?
Because the AI said, “I don’t know what you do.”

What's New in Growth Hacking/Growth Marketing?

Strategies

• Google Releases Core Update Targeting Discover Feed

  Google has released what it calls the February 2026 Discover core update, a broad change to the systems that surface content in the Discover feed.

• SERPs with Ads + AI Overviews Grew by Over 394% in 2025
  While SEOs spent much of 2025 worrying that AI Overviews (AIOs) would siphon off even more organic traffic, Google was figuring out how to balance improving the AI search experience with their need to maintain an ad revenue model.

• Uber to buy delivery arm of Turkey’s Getir
  Uber is buying the business from Getir’s biggest shareholder, the Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. The investment firm was reportedly seeking to sell its stake in the company last year

• Gather AI, maker of ‘curious’ warehouse drones, lands $40M led by Keith Block’s firm 
  Gather AI, a startup that offers an AI platform for warehouse cameras and drones, has raised a $40 million Series B funding round led by Smith Point Capital. That’s the VC firm founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block.

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People

• NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo joins Kalshi as an investor
  Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks announced Friday that he has joined prediction market Kalshi as a shareholder, making him the first NBA player to invest directly in the company.

Did you hear?
The GrowthHackers Podcast is live!🎙️

A Founder’s Journey in Microscope

Building a marketplace is widely considered one of the hardest challenges a startup can face. It requires a fragile balance of matching demand with supply get it wrong, and nothing works.
In our debut episode, "Building Goodbash From Pain Point to Marketplace," we go under the microscope with a founder who dared to implement it. We dive deep into:

• Synchronizing Supply & Demand: How to manage the complexity of multiple personas.

• Reducing Risk: Navigating high marketing costs and fragmented messaging.

• The Waiting List Myth: Do pre-launch strategies create real traction or just an illusion?

Designed for the doers, builders, and growth-minded teams in our community, this episode turns complex startup theory into a proven framework for success.

What's New in Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

• From Svedka to Anthropic, brands make bold plays with AI in Super Bowl ads
  Following last year’s trend of showcasing AI in multimillion-dollar ad spots, the 2026 Super Bowl advertisements took it a step further by leveraging AI both to create the commercials and to promote the latest AI products.

• Benchmark raises $225M in special funds to double down on Cerebras

  This week, AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems announced that it raised $1 billion in fresh capital at a valuation of $23 billion a nearly threefold increase from the $8.1 billion valuation the Nvidia rival had reached just six months earlier.

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