On the whole, CEOs are a pretty circumspect bunch. 

This makes sense — they are stewards of billions in market cap (and their own legacies, of course). 

But surprisingly, CEOs of some of the biggest US companies have been outspoken about — and on opposing sides of — one controversy. 

That is the question of taking US government and military contracts (and military contracts in general). For example: Bezos and Nadella do not agree with Google execs, for reasons we surface in this brief. And the differences of opinion don’t end there.

Should military contracts be out of bounds? If so, why, given the long intertwined history of tech and defense in the US?

Should Google help the US build AI for war? (Former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene said the company would not pursue projects using AI for weaponized systems in the future after 3,100+ employees wrote a letter protesting Pentagon-funded Project Maven.)  

These are hard questions and we don’t pretend to have the answers, but the conversation is worth tracking closely.

• Get a 360-degree view of the business and tech landscape
• Make data-driven decisions for strategic initiatives
• Tie together historically unconnected data sources to analyze market trends

• $20M: Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which offers a libido drug often referred to as “female viagra,” has raised $20M. The startup has now amassed $109M in disclosed funding since its first raise in 2012. We take a closer look at how technology is changing women’s health here.

• 90%: An AI system developed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence answered 90% of the questions on an 8th grade science test correctly, which requires advanced language and logic skills. Want to know where AI is heating up? Check out our AI deals tracker, which categorizes around 7K deals across 20 industries.
   
• $150K+: Luxury carmaker Porsche has unveiled its first range of electric cars, reflecting a broader industry shift towards electric vehicles (EVs). The new models look set to compete with higher-end EVs, with a starting price tag of over $150,000 and an expected range of around 300 miles. Check out our report to find out which companies are pulling ahead in the race for the electric car.

• $121M: Achilles Therapeutics, a UK-based biotech company developing cancer treatments that target neoantigens, raised a $121M mega-round this week. Find out more about neoantigens, and why they could be the next big immunotherapy breakthrough, in our report on personalized cancer treatment.
   
• 419M: An unprotected database containing information originating from Facebook was found to contain 419M phone numbers. The leak reportedly affected users based in the US, UK, and Vietnam. Worried about data security? Check out our cyber defenders report for an overview of startups looking to make the internet safer.  

• 304.77 mph: Bugatti said that its high-end Chiron model broke the speed record for a mass-produced car after it reached a speed of 304.77 mph — about 40% the speed of sound.
   
• 500+ years: Researchers at the National Gallery of London uncovered a draft version of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks — painted over half a millennium ago — hidden beneath the finished painting. The gallery said that the concealed outline was created with a material containing zinc, allowing a technique called macro X-ray fluorescence to image the work by detecting the element’s presence.