axon
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Adam Foroughi and the upside of being turned down
Early investors passed. A billion-dollar sale unraveled. Then AppLovin’s stock collapsed. Adam Foroughi kept building an advertising business whose fortunes depended on what happened after the click.
Dedrone makes the sky harder to sneak through
A fence is a splendid invention until the intruder flies over it. Dedrone turns the air above airports, stadiums and cities into something security teams can finally read.
AppLovin
AppLovin is a Palo Alto-based advertising technology company that runs an AI-driven marketplace connecting app advertisers with the users most likely to engage with them. Founded in 2011, it grew from a mobile-gaming ad network into an S&P 500 company by building AXON, a machine-learning engine that matches advertiser demand to publisher supply in real time. After selling its own games portfolio in 2025, AppLovin now focuses almost entirely on high-margin advertising software, expanding beyond gaming into e-commerce and connected TV.