Foley & Lardner LLP

October 8, 2026 Foley Viewpoints Ready for Anything: Open for Whom? On Tuesday night, in the middle of San Francisco Tech Week, a full room of CFOs, founders, investors and bankers rode up to the 19th floor of One Market Plaza for a conversation with no slides, no pitches and no record. The premise was the title.

Jump to: Executive Summary | Why State AG Elections Matter to Business | Strategic Considerations for Companies Heading into the Fall | Policy and Enforcement Trends to Watch | The 2026 Election Landscape | State-by-State Races and Transitions to Watch | Conclusion State attorneys general continue to shape the business environment through enforcement actions, multistate investigations, regulatory challenges, and high-profile policy litigation.

On Tuesday night, in the middle of San Francisco Tech Week, a full room of CFOs, founders, investors and bankers rode up to the 19thfloor of One Market Plaza for a conversation with no slides, no pitches and no record. The premise was the title. IPO windows open and close within weeks, the SPAC market has been reborn with a rulebook, and growth companies have to be ready for several outcomes at once. The one ask of the panel beforehand was to be as candid about what is not working as about what is.

Addition of experienced first-chair litigator expands the firm’s antitrust litigation and enforcement depth across key sectors Foley & Lardner LLP announced today that Jonathan Lasken has joined the firm’s Washington, D.C. office as a partner in its Antitrust & Competition Practice Group, further strengthening the firm’s capabilities in high-stakes antitrust litigation, government investigations and enforcement, and merger review.

Friends, Joe Baratta leaves Blackstone at year-end, and Blackstone will not replace him. Hernan Cristerna, JPMorgan’s longtime M&A chief, retires the same week. The generation that built modern private equity is handing over the keys. Growth equity is doing the same, with less press. Here is the week. When a Fund Changes Generations Many of the firms that built growth equity were founded in the 1980s and 1990s. Their founders are passing the firm to a second generation, or should be.

October 7, 2026 At Foley, collaboration is embedded in our culture and in how we serve our clients. We recruit, retain, and promote people from a variety of backgrounds who bring together their unique strengths, perspectives, and approaches to deliver innovative solutions and service excellence.

Takeaways from the Jefferies monthly software valuation update Rob Bartlett of Jefferies joined the panel I moderated last month on whether companies should buy, sell, or wait. This week I read his team’s monthly software valuation update, with data through September 30. I read a lot of bank decks. This one I read twice. Here is what is new in it, and what the room added that the charts cannot. More than 80 percent of public software companies are expected to grow less than 20 percent next year.

In September 2026, FDA took another significant step toward integrating new approach methodologies, or NAMs, into drug development by issuing a Direct Final Rule on Nonclinical Testing Terminology (the “September 2026 direct final rule”).[1] Read together with FDA’s March 2026 draft guidance on NAM validation, the rule moves the question for NAM developers from whether FDA will consider non-animal data to how a specific NAM earns regulatory trust.

On the opening day of SF Tech Week, I asked a room full of founders and investors at Sidebar Summit to raise a hand if they had ever been called a genius because something worked. Most hands went up. Then I asked them to keep it up if, honestly, it could have gone the other way. Almost every hand stayed up. That is the thin line, and it was the throughline of my conversation with Venky Ganesan, Partner at Menlo Ventures. Silicon Valley grades people by outcomes. The company sold: genius.

Introduction The acquisition of AI companies has become one of the most consequential deal categories in technology. Global investment in generative AI surged to $25.2 billion in 2023, and the global AI market is projected to reach $407 billion by 2027. With that growth has come a wave of acquisitions by major technology companies seeking to add AI capabilities to their platforms, and with those transactions has come a rapidly evolving diligence playbook.