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Paywall Police + AI Agent Wars

PLUS: Microsoft's Rajesh Jha retires after 35 years, Google throws $17M at bug hunters, Zendesk buys Forethought, Amazon's AI code keeps breaking stuff

March 17, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Whether you’re chasing gold, uptime, or a functioning printer, we wish you luck <3

Sixty-eight years ago today, America sent a grapefruit-sized satellite into orbit and called it Vanguard 1. It was the second American satellite, the fourth man-made object in space, and the first to run on solar power. The thing is still up there, quietly mocking every Tesla Roadster Elon's launched since.

Vanguard 1 is expected to stay in orbit until the late 22nd century, which means it'll outlive your student loans, your car warranty calls, and (maybe) even this author.

FBI Wants to Know Who's Behind Archive.is (And So Does Everyone Dodging Paywalls)

The FBI issued a subpoena to domain registrar Tucows demanding they unmask whoever runs Archive.is. You know, the site that's saved more paywalled articles than your "Read Later" folder ever will. The subpoena, which was supposed to be secret, got posted on Archive.today's X account the same day it arrived with the single word "canary." Subtle as a sledgehammer, and twice as satisfying.

Archive.is has been around since 2012, letting users bypass paywalls by archiving full articles (much to the horror of publishers who think information should cost $40/month to access). Unlike the Internet Archive (which plays by the rules), Archive.is doesn't advertise a copyright removal process, accepts donations, uses European data centers, and may or may not be run by someone named "Denis Petrov" from Russia. Or that could be an alias. Nobody knows, and that's the whole vibe. Oooh, so mysterious!!!

The FBI wants subscriber names, addresses, payment info, IP addresses, phone records, session logs, and probably dental records if they could swing it. The subpoena didn't specify what crime they're investigating, but copyright infringement seems likely. The News/Media Alliance already successfully killed paywall-bypass site 12ft.io in July, so they're clearly on a roll. Tucows, headquartered in Toronto and incorporated in Pennsylvania, says they're "staunch advocates for free speech" but will comply with valid legal request… which is corporate-speak for "we tried, good luck out there."

Nvidia Jumps Into the AI Agent Wars With NemoClaw

Nvidia is reportedly launching NemoClaw, its own open-source AI agent platform to compete with OpenClaw. President and CEO Jensen Huang called OpenClaw "the most important software release probably ever" earlier this month, then apparently decided he wanted a piece of that action for himself. Can't blame him… when you're the guy selling shovels during the gold rush, why not also sell the map?

Nvidia's also been pitching NemoClaw to corporate partners like Salesforce, Cisco, Google, Adobe, and CrowdStrike ahead of its annual developer conference next week. The platform will supposedly include "security and privacy tools," clearly proof that they’ve learned from OpenClaw's nightmare security issues. NemoClaw will run on machines without Nvidia GPUs, which is generous until you realize Nvidia makes the chips powering most underlying AI models anyway. They're playing 4D chess while everyone else is still figuring out checkers.

Atlassian Cuts 10% of Staff Because AI Changed the Skill Mix (And the Stock Price)

Atlassian is laying off 1,600 people—10% of its workforce—and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes says it's about "reshaping our skill mix" for an AI future. Translation: robots are cheaper than humans, and our stock has been tanking since 2021. Atlassian's market cap peaked at $112 billion in 2021, crashed to $30 billion in 2023, and now hovers around $20 billion. That's an $92 billion haircut, which is the financial version of going from Brad Pitt to the guy who plays him in the Hallmark channel version.

Cannon-Brookes insists this is about "adaptation" and "self-funding further investment in AI and enterprise sales." He also mentioned the "SaaSpocalypse,” aka the theoretical collapse of SaaS companies as organizations replace them with vibe-coded tools. Atlassian employees got 20 minutes' notice via email before losing Slack access within 12 hours. The severance package is generous (16 weeks plus a week per year of service, plus a $1,000 "technology stipend"), but let's be real: getting fired via mass email while your CEO talks about "building with heart and balance" is more disrespectful than getting dumped by text.

In his video message, Cannon-Brookes told departing staff he's "deeply sorry for the disruption this creates in your life." Which hits different when you're the guy who created the disruption.

⚙️ TOOL TIME

Experts Exchange: The Community That Actually Answers The Questions Keeping You Up at Night

Look, we could write some flowery paragraph about how Experts Exchange is a vibrant community of IT pros helping each other solve complex problems. But you and I both know what this really is: it's the place you go when Stack Overflow marks your question as a duplicate, Reddit tells you to Google it, and ChatGPT hallucinates a solution that breaks production.

Some cool things we do:

  • Free 7-day trial: no credit card, no commitment, just access to people who know what chmod 777 actually does

  • Real humans with real answers: not AI-generated slop that confidently tells you to delete System32

  • Super real and active leaderboard: we think of solving SQL Server nightmares as a competitive sport (trust us, these people are serious)

  • 16,000+ members who've been there: IT managers, developers, sysadmins, the works

One member’s review sums the EE life up juuustttt riiight: "Couldn't do my job half as well as I do without it!" [@ronald25].

Try it free: experts-exchange.com 

👨‍💻 JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Here’s your chance to lead IT strategy, AI initiatives, and research computing at a medical institute. Must enjoy explaining to scientists why they can't use "MarieCurieRocks" and possess the emotional fortitude to manage SOX compliance audits without crying.

Flywire needs someone to ensure SOX compliance, manage IT controls, and collaborate with Finance/Audit teams. Ideal for people who get genuinely excited about control frameworks and don't mind spending 40% of their life collecting audit evidence.

Provide IT support, manage devices, assist with SOC 2 audits. Perfect for someone who wants to spend half their time helping people reset passwords and the other half explaining that “I clicked it because it said urgent” is not a cybersecurity strategy.

🛩 INDUSTRY MOVES

Hey there, it’s Chip! This week on Experts Exchange, our community tackled some genuinely head-scratching problems:

That’s all for this week! May your servers stay up, your pings stay low, and your Guinness stay properly poured.

Got news to share or topics you'd like us to cover? Send ‘em our way by responding to this email. We can’t wait to hear from you. Really.