- The Tech Buzz
- Posts
- 9/12/23
9/12/23
Alpha & Q
September 12, 2023
∆ Tech in the News
Bill Gates is “an Asshole”, says Musk - Elon’s reaction on learning that Gates shorted $1.5B in Tesla stock years ago was just unveiled by his Biographer.
The First 'Big Tech’ Antitrust Case this Century: U.S. v. Google - The biggest monopoly trial since 1998 focuses on alleged illegal abuse of power to make Google search the default option on iPhones and other devices.
Supercharging Indian AI - Jio and Nvidia join Forces to build supercomputer-surpassing AI infrastructure for India. US’ KKR doubled down on Jio’s parent co, Reliance with another $250M investment in the Indian retail giant at $100B.
AI Insight Forums - The first of nine 6-hour congressional forums on Wednesday will host Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang and others to define the US’ position on AI.
Apple’s 5G Chips Deal - Qualcomm renews its deal with its largest customer to supply 5G chips for iPhones until 2026, suggesting Apple's efforts to develop its own internal 5G modem are still a long way off.
[POLL] Would you short Tesla? |
News Bytes
˚The hottest thing in tech this week
Prisoners Training AI Models — Receiving Unexpected Therapeutic Benefit
Finnish startup Metroc.ai partners with prisons to refine their Large Language Models (LLMs) through interactive dialogues with inmates, a strategy inspired by the philosophy of "each one teach one."
The dual-impact approach revealed not just improved model performance but an unexpected therapeutic impact on inmates, reminiscent of controversial studies like the Stanford prison experiments but with a rehabilitative twist. This venture stirs crucial ethical concerns around consent, exploitation, and the implications of algorithmic bias.
It is likely we could see similar adoption by big tech in the private prison system in the US given the low price tag, which begs the question…
Could the future of AI training become a tool for societal reintegration, and even job training for incarcerated individuals?
“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
Deals We’re Watching
Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch
Closed Deals:
SMART Solar Startup - Boston’s SMART-certified Solar developer BlueWave raised $91M in debt and equity funding from KeyBank and Bancorp Impact.
AI Trucking Pivot - The founders of defunct self-driving startup Argo AI, are launching an autonomous trucking business with $1B from SoftBank.
$15M for AI RPG Tools - a16z backed Pahdo Labs, makers of Anime-RPG Halcyon Zero, is adding GenAI tools to allow players to develop their own in-game worlds.
Fresh FoodTech Raises Another $10M - Seattle’s RipeLocker closed a venture round bringing them to $30M raised to for an innovative food preservation tech.
AI Reading Coach - Ello aims to help eradicate childhood illiteracy with AI and child speech recognition tech through upcoming school partnerships. A recent $15M Series A saw VC backers like Goodwater, YC, and Khosla.
Companies to Watch:
Imbuing Reason In AI - Imbue is a research lab developing AI systems that can reason and code with a Series B valued at $1B+ and backed by NVIDIA, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, and Notion co-founder Simon Last.
AI Biotech Boom - Startup Inceptive founded by former Google AI researcher Jakob Uszkoreit, uses AI to design novel mRNA vaccines.
Scala Exits Stealth - The Biodesign startup emerged from the 7th Intel Ignite program with a solution to accelerate the development of biotech proteins.
AI For Health Plan Ops - UK-based Co:Helm creates AI co-pilots that ½ costs for clinical health operations and is partnered with a top U.S. health plan.
Exit to Employees - Common Trust offers employee ownership buyout options for SMBs and has already had dozens of businesses using the service.
Open Deals:
CB Insights Up for Grabs? - The VC and startup market intelligence firm is reportedly exploring sale options at $800M, a 10X multiple of the expected 2023 ARR of $80M.
Tools
HeyGen - The only AI video generator + translator you will ever need.
Doppl - Personalized AI simulations.
If you have a deal or company that you would like to host on our next issue, drop us a line at @ [email protected].
Thanks for connecting with us.
The Tech Buzz Team