?TRW #22 | 02 Sep. 2023

Hello there ??

Welcome back to the 22nd issue of #TRW, the weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop with tech trends ??.

As I promised myself at the beginning of August, I took a few weeks off (except for critical work-related matters) to spend some quality time with my newborn daughter. I must say, I really cherished it ????

But now it's time to get back to the grind and bring the newsletter back to your inbox!

In the last issue, I asked for your help in improving #TRW's format and content. Thank you so much to those who responded; your input was incredibly valuable.

If you happen to forget, you can still lend me a hand by filling out this short form (better late than never ??).

Without further ado, let's dive right into this week's tech soup! ??

???What's going on in AI:

• Generative AI and intellectual property - if you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns that and who gets paid? This is a completely new problem that we’ve been arguing about for 500 years (Benedict Evans)
• Automating creativity - there is now strong evidence that AI can help make us more innovative (Ethan Mollick)
• Introducing ChatGPT Enterprise - a new version of the popular tool with enterprise-grade security & privacy has been released (OpenAI)
• Chinese ChatGPT alternatives just got approved for the general public - Baidu launched Ernie Bot back in March, but access to it and its competitors was strictly limited. Now AI-powered chatbots will be widely available to Chinese users for the first time (MIT Technology Review)(€)
• OpenAI’s moonshot: solving the AI alignment problem - the ChatGPT maker imagines superintelligent AI without existential risks (IEEE Spectrum)
• AI vs. Humans: which performs certain skills better? - how quickly AI models have started to beat database benchmarks, as well as whether or not they’ve yet reached human levels of skill (Visual Capitalist)
• Google DeepMind has launched a watermarking tool for AI-generated images - it’s the first Big Tech firm to publicly launch one, after a group of them pledged to develop them at the White House in July (MIT Technology Review)(€)
• ChatGPT for enterprise is ready. But are enterprises ready to adopt generative AI? - consumers rushed to try new Generative AI tools, but their interest is waning. The next phase of growth for Generative AI will come from enterprise adoption (VC Cafè)
• OpenAI reportedly nears $1 billion in annual sales - according to a new report, the maker of ChatGPT is growing even faster than the company projected as demand for AI technology increases (Fast Company)

???Tech & Science:

• Sci-Fi Idea Bank - a curated collection of Sci-Fi ideas waiting to be brought to life (Not Boring)
• Europe spent €600 million to recreate the human brain in a computer. How did it go? - the Human Brain Project wraps up in September after a decade. Nature examines its achievements and its troubled past (Nature)
• Power laws have more power than you think - why hits will persist in a world of infinite content (Every)
• Worldcoin launched. Then came the backlash - the globe-spanning cryptocurrency and biometric-identity project has agitated regulators (IEEE Spectrum)
• The first observation of neutrinos at CERN's Large Hadron Collider - the observation of collider neutrinos will help to understand some of the puzzles of the Standard Model of particle physics (Phys)
• Money is about to enter a new era of competition - digital technology is poised to change our relationship with money and, for some countries, the ability to manage their economies (MIT Technology Review)(€)
• A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care, what's next? - a community of people with type 1 diabetes got a self-built device approved. What can they offer that big companies can’t? (Nature)
• Governments have put $1 billion toward making better meat alternatives, a lot more is needed - we can grow no-kill meat at scale, it’s just a matter of funding (Vox)
• Chinese sextortion scammers are flooding Twitter - scammers are targeting Chinese-language users, harassing political dissidents and influential figures (Rest of World)

????VC, startups & money:

• Raise Less, Build?More - founders are rethinking the traditional VC funding route, opting for a hybrid approach that combines targeted venture funding with early profitability (Terrence Rohan)
• UK launches ￡1 billion fintech fund to compete with Silicon Valley - which is backed by Mastercard, Barclays, and the London Stock Exchange Group, aims to address the issue of fintech companies struggling to reach scale and pursue public listings (CNBC)
• Silicon Valley elites revealed as buyers of $800m of land to build utopian city - Group Flannery Associates, backed by prominent investors, quietly buys 55,000 acres of farmland in northern California (The Guardian)
• Startup failure post-mortems 2023 (Q2’23 Update) - detailed post-mortems of 11 startups that shut their doors in the second quarter of the year (CB Insights)

???Reports & Data:

• Tech valuations Q2’23 report - the reset in private tech company valuations continued in Q2’23, especially at later stages (CB Insights)
• European venture funding halved in Q2 2023 as late-stage investors dialed back - funding totaled $12.4 billion, flat QoQ and down 50% from the $24.7 billion invested in Q2 2022 (Crunchbase)
• Boom of intangible assets felt across industries and?economy - back in 1975, intangible assets made up just 17% of assets on the balance sheets of S&P 500 companies, less than 50 years later they exceeded 90% of total assets (UCLA Anderson Review)
• Clean Energy Report Q2 2023 - in their best quarter since 2021, VC-backed clean energy startups brought in $5.4 billion indicating the vertical’s resilience (Pitchbook)

???Resources for founders and investors:

• Investor updates 101: everything you need to know - preparing to send your investor updates but unsure where to start, or what to include? Sifted spoke to investors and founders to find out (Sifted)(€)
• An interview with Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr (Podcast) - why seed funds can’t invest in “hot startups” anymore, why series A & B is terrible, why the IPO market will explode in 2024 & why VC DD is BS & every VC has more fraud in their portfolio (20VC)
• The internet demands greatness - no one cares, so take more risks (Every)
• You need a Co-Founder - the type of people you’d trust to run the company in your absence (Charlie O'Donnell)
• Building a culture of excellence - David Singleton, CTO of Stripe (Lenny's Podcast)

???Meme of the week:

Great job, you made it to the end! High five???

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See you next week!