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☆ Ali Partovi learned to code in a war zone. Now, he's trying to build a new kind of venture fund.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. But amid the chaos, there was one solid thing in Partovi's life, one thing he knew he could always put in order: computer code. Related storiesNow, Partovi has reached the top echelon of seed investors, ranking 13th on Business Insider's Seed 100 list. 'Neo Scholars'Through his seed-stage fund Neo, Partovi has amassed a formidable portfolio of early-stage investments, including Ramp, Deel, Vanta, MosaicML, and many more. As these "Neo Scholars," as they're known, graduate or drop out to build startups, Neo backs them with money from its investment fund.

Persons: —, Ali Partovi, Saddam Hussein, Partovi's, Hadi, Partovi, Facebook, Uber, There's Erik Goldman, Dropbox, Vanta, There's Ari Steinberg, who's Organizations: Service, Business, Boston University, Sharif University of Technology, Harvard, Microsoft, University, CS, Stanford, Facebook, Airbnb Locations: Tehran, Iran, Iraq, North America, Silicon

☆ A Ukrainian war reporter's story: Why I refused to make a 'deal with the devil'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-04 | by ( Cameron Manley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

He was a student at Mariupol State University in 2014 when war broke out in the Donbas, and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. "I refused to make a deal with the devil. Ponomarenko said he believes the war has "shown what ordinary people are capable of" and has helped reveal "their true selves," pointing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as evidence. AdvertisementCapturing it would put Russian forces within striking distance of Ukrainian operational and supply centers in the area. "Bucha was the greatest moment for me because it shows that life prevails," Ponomarenko said.

Persons: —, Ponomarenko, Viktor Yanukovych, Libkos, Rushing Organizations: Service, Mariupol State University, Business, Kyiv, Kyiv Independent Locations: Volnovakha, Ukraine's, Donetsk, Russia, Kyiv, Dnipro, Avdiivka, Ukraine

☆ I left my VP role at 25 to build a startup. Leaving security and a steady paycheck behind was hard, but I have no regrets.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-30 | by ( Perri Ormont Blumberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Timothy Gamble left his VP role at Walker & Dunlop to cofound HelloData.ai in 2022. I gathered and normalized real-estate data, but my role quickly expanded, and I was soon in charge of the data infrastructure that processed billions of real-estate data points daily. Related storiesNico left W&D one year before me, but we kept in touch. When I left W&D, we decided it made sense to start a real-estate AI company since we both had an entrepreneurial spirit, strong engineering backgrounds, and real-estate domain expertise. Deciding to leave my VP role was scary but the fear of complacency and the prospect of looking back with regret for not pursuing my passions were far greater motivators.

Persons: Timothy Gamble, Dunlop, cofound, Gamble, —, It's, Enodo, might've, Nico Lassaux, Marc Rutzen, Nico, Marc, cofounding, you'll, we're, I've Organizations: Walker, Service Locations: Washington ,, HelloData.ai, Enodo

☆ I quit a comfortable tech job to launch a startup. I had to sacrifice a lot, but now I make $400,000 and travel all the time.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Perri Ormont Blumberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Gene Caballero left his stable job at Dell to cofound GreenPal, an on-demand lawn care service. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. AdvertisementThis as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gene Caballero, a 44-year-old cofounder of GreenPal, based in Nashville. I'm a cofounder of GreenPal, a platform that connects homeowners with lawn care professionals. After purchasing my first home, finding reliable lawn care for myself and my mom was a daunting task.

Persons: Gene Caballero, —, It's, Uber, Airbnb, Bryan Clayton's Organizations: Dell, Service, Business Locations: Nashville, West

☆ A man was arrested after Mint Butterfield, whose dad cofounded Slack and mom cofounded Flickr, was found in the back of a van
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Mikhaila Friel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Butterfield's parents cofounded Flickr, and their father later cofounded Slack. Their parents, Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, cofounded Flickr in 2004, and Stewart Butterfield went on to cofound Slack. Their disappearance resulted in an extensive search effort in Tenderloin, an area in San Francisco known for homelessness, crime, and drugs. Butterfield's parents, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, were married from 2001 until 2007, the New York Post reported. Stewart Butterfield cofounded Slack in 2013 with Cal Henderson.

Persons: Butterfield, Slack, —, Mint Butterfield, Caterina Fake, Stewart Butterfield, cofound Slack, Christopher, Kio, Dizefalo, Adam Schermerhorn, Schermerhorn, Jyri Engeström, Cal Henderson Organizations: Flickr, Service, Saturday, Police, Marin County Sheriff's, San Francisco, Office, New York Post, Yahoo Locations: San Francisco, Tenderloin, Marin County, Marin

☆ A Harvard Medical School professor with ADHD shares how he retrained his brain for deep work and reached peak productivity
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Dr. Jeffery Karp | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Using two tactics to retrain his brain, Karp gained confidence and pursued a career in academia. The MIT and Harvard professor shares the benefits of working in a flow state in his new book. Though I still struggle every day in various ways, I'm grateful to be able to say that these LIT tools enabled me to meet and far exceed those dismal early expectations. AdvertisementYou're never too old to charge your brain this way, and most definitely no one is ever too young. In fact, LIT tools can be lifesavers for kids, as they were for me.

Persons: Jeffery Karp, Karp, —, Eric Kandel, you've, we're, I've, they've, Jeff Karp, William Morrow, Jeffrey Michael Karp Organizations: MIT, Harvard, Service, Harvard Medical School, National Academy of Inventors, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Institute for Medical, Biological Engineering's College of Fellows, Biomedical Engineering Society, Canadian Academy of Engineering, Karp Lab, Center, Medical Locations: Canada, playbook, LIT

☆ 8 things you need to know about EV startup founder William Li — known as China's version of Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Alexandra Bacon | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Shanghai-based premium EV company was co-founded in 2014 by its CEO, William Li. William Li, also known as Bin Li, has been dubbed the "Elon Musk of China" for his push to develop self-driving EVs and his loyal fan base. He co-founded his first major company in his mid-twentiesBitauto, a car comparison website, was co-founded by Li in 2000. AdvertisementAnyone who purchases a Nio car can access "Nio Houses" equipped with meeting rooms, lounges, baristas, and supervised kids' play areas. To Li's dismay, Nio cars are not yet available for sale in the USLi has expressed dissatisfaction with the US tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.

Persons: William Li, Li, —, Bin Li, Elon, EVs, he's, Tesla, Zoey Zhang Li, Nio, Li livestreamed, HECTOR RETAMAL, ET7, ALY, Elon Musk Organizations: Service, REUTERS, Peking University, New York Stock Exchange, NYSE, CNBC, Reuters Locations: China, Shanghai, Anhui, Nio, Europe, Xiamen, Mexico

☆ Sam Altman said he texted Elon Musk after the billionaire sued him
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Altman said he texted Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO sued him. Musk sued Altman and OpenAI earlier this year, alleging the company violated its 'founding agreement.' AdvertisementOpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he fired off a text to Elon Musk right after he found out the Tesla CEO had sued him. In the face of Musk's very public disses, Altman has been more diplomatic in his public response to Musk. "I miss the old Elon," Altman told Swisher.

Persons: Sam Altman, texted Elon Musk, Altman, Musk, —, Elon Musk, Kara Swisher, Swisher, OpenAI, cofound OpenAI, Tesla, Lex Fridman Organizations: Service, City Arts, OpenAI, Microsoft, GPT Locations: Elon

☆ A Chinese gaming billionaire now ranks as one of the top landowners in the US
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-10 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AdvertisementChinese billionaire Tianqiao Chen is the US' 82nd-biggest individual landowner according to the latest edition of The Land Report. Chen owns 198,000 acres of timberland in central Oregon through his investment group – Shanda Asset Management – per the ranking. Related storiesThe land is currently owned by Shanda Asset Management, The Land Report said, citing Oregon tax records. Shanda Asset Management is a branch of the Shanda Group, an investment firm. As well as the land in Oregon and Ontario, Shanda Asset Management owns real estate in China.

Persons: Tianqiao Chen, —, Chen, Bend . Chen, Canadian Irving, Chrissy Organizations: Deschutes National Forest, Shanda Interactive Entertainment, Service, Forest, Bend ., Business, Fidelity National Financial Ventures, Forest Resources, Deschutes Land Trust, Shanda Asset Management, Shanda, Management, Bloomberg, Nasdaq, Shanda Group Locations: timberland, Oregon, Deschutes, Bend, Ontario, Canada, Canadian, China

☆ Elon Musk's Cybertruck apocalypse
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

In most regards, the sales pitch for Tesla's new Cybertruck doesn't differ in its particulars from the value proposition of any other pickup or SUV. But unlike the Cybertruck, its sales pitch has a curve: Musk has said all along that it's designed to be your go-to vehicle for the End of the World. "The apocalypse could come along at any moment, and here at Tesla we have the finest in apocalypse technology." If you believe in an apocalypse with trucks, you must also believe that someone will be maintaining the necessary infrastructure. In the early 20th century, when cars first came within financial reach of average Americans, the sales pitch focused on freedom of movement.

Persons: Elon, Musk, —, It's, cofound, Ursula K, Le Guin, Ken Liu, Mike Pondsmith, Adam Rogers Organizations: SpaceX, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Cooperation Locations: Francisco, Megacity

☆ Ilya Sutskever's U-turn on ousting Sam Altman came after Greg Brockman's wife cried and asked him to change his mind: WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Kai Xiang Teo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever had a dramatic reversal regarding the ousting of his cofounder, Sam Altman. The U-turn came after an emotional plea from cofounder Greg Brockman's wife, the WSJ reported. His change of heart came after conversations with staff and with OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman's wife, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Anna Brockman — who married Greg Brockman in 2019 — cried and pleaded with Sutskever to change his mind, per the WSJ. Anna Brockman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent through Greg Brockman and outside regular business hours.

Persons: OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman's, Sutskever, —, Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI, we've, Anna Brockman —, Greg Brockman, It's, Altman, Greg, Anna Brockman's, @ilyasut, cfSvY7uniV — Greg Brockman, OpenAI's cofounders, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Brockman, Anna Brockman Organizations: Service, Street Journal, OpenAI, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Business Locations: OpenAI

☆ Elon Musk says he'd 'like to be friends again' with Google cofounder Larry Page after they got in a spat over AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk says he wants to rebuild his friendship with Google cofounder Larry Page. Page reportedly once called Musk a speciesist in a discussion about humanity and AI safeguards. We were friends for a very long time," Musk said of Page on Lex Fridman's podcast. AdvertisementAdvertisementElon Musk wants to be on good terms with Larry Page again after the two fought over AI safeguards. AdvertisementAdvertisement"The future of AI should not be controlled by Larry," Musk told Hassabis, according to the biography.

Persons: Elon Musk, Larry Page, Page, Musk, Lex Fridman's, —, Larry, Walter Isaacson's, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Tucker Carlson, OpenAI, Sam Altman Organizations: Service, Google Locations: DeepMind

☆ OpenAI forms new team whose mission includes researching and preparing for catastrophic scenarios like biological and nuclear threats
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI is building a new "Preparedness" team to further AI safety. The ChatGPT-maker's newest team aims to address potential risks linked to advanced AI, including nuclear threats. The Preparedness team is hiring for a national security threat researcher and a research engineer. The Preparedness team will help "track, evaluate, forecast, and protect against catastrophic risks," including chemical, biological, nuclear, and cybersecurity threats. As part of the team, OpenAI is hiring for a national security threat researcher and a research engineer.

Persons: —, OpenAI, Aleksander Madry, Aleksander Madry didn't, Elon Musk, cofound OpenAI, Sam Altman, Lex Fridman's, we're, Claude, Yann LeCun Organizations: Service, MIT, Intelligence

☆ The giant sucking sound you hear is the gobs of capital being pulled away from emerging managers. Here's how one solo capitalist defied the slump.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-12 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Those who raised their first venture capital funds in the pandemic-era boom times are now struggling with their sophomore efforts. Despite the tailwinds, some emerging managers are defying the slump and raising new funds. He told Insider exclusively that he's now closed on $15 million for fund two from investors including Cendana Capital, Invesco Private Capital, and two dozen startup founders. And so in 2019, he reached into his network of founders and raised a $2 million fund to invest in software companies. Now, he's already gearing up for fund three, which Wan said he plans to launch in 2024.

Persons: Insider's Callum Burroughs, Jordan Wan, Wan, Zocdoc, Oliver Kharraz, it's, Alan Ni, Jake Cooper, Manoj Kanagaraj, Blackstone, Cooper didn't, Cooper, they've, Wolf Organizations: Sequoia, Partners, Cendana, Invesco, Capital, Oscar Insurance, Garner Health Locations: London, Denver , Colorado, Wan

Aug 15 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence code cleanup startup Grit has raised a $7 million in a seed round, the New York City-based startup said on Tuesday. Founders Fund and Abstract Ventures led the round, with participation from Quiet Capital, 8VC, A* Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, SV Angel, Operator Partners, CoFound Partners, and Uncorrelated Ventures. Grit provides an AI-powered product that automates software maintenance, traditionally a manual and frustrating task for software engineering teams, particularly for large enterprises with antiquated code bases. For example, when new versions of software come out, engineering teams can spend months updating their code to work with the new software version, which Grit uses AI to entirely automate, said the company’s CEO Morgante Pell. In one case, a software project that was supposed to take six months was shortened to one week using Grit, he said.

Persons: Morgante Pell, “, John Luttig, Anna Tong, Tomasz Janowski Organizations: New, Fund, Ventures, Quiet, AME Cloud Ventures, SV Angel, Partners, CoFound Partners, ”, Reuters, “, Thomson Locations: New York City, San Francisco

☆ Underwear brand Parade strikes a deal to be acquired by lingerie manufacturer, CEO Cami Téllez confirms
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Melkorka Licea | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Gen Z underwear brand Parade has been sold to lingerie manufacturer Ariela & Associates International. Founder and CEO Cami Téllez told staffers via Slack that she might be forced to leave the company. The Gen Z-favorite underwear startup Parade struck a deal to be acquired by the lingerie manufacturer Ariela & Associates International on Monday afternoon, Cami Téllez, the company's cofounder and CEO, told Insider. In the message, Parade employees were informed that meetings with AAI associates would be placed on their calendars so the team could better understand how their roles functioned. In March, Parade inked a deal with Target to be sold in nearly 400 of its stores nationwide.

Persons: Cami Téllez, Slack, Téllez, Jack DeFuria, Friday's Slack, Ariela Esquenazi Organizations: Ariela, Associates International, Associates, AAI, Columbia University, cofound, AAi, Stripes, Greycroft Partners, Target

☆ 3 ways Warren Buffett's protégé invests like him—and where she and the billionaire differ
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Ryan Ermey | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Few investors, however, have gotten the opportunity to emulate the Oracle of Omaha the way Tracy Britt Cool has. Where Britt Cool is forging her own pathDespite the similarities in approach, Britt Cool says she isn't trying to build a mini Berkshire. The bigger you get, the harder it is to deliver the same returns," Britt Cool says. Kanbrick, meanwhile, focuses on small to midsize companies where Britt Cool says she and her team can add the most value. A hands-on approach Buffett likes to delegate, letting people he thinks are great managers run the show.

Persons: Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, Tracy Britt Cool, Britt Cool, Buffett, Britt Cool's, they're, Warren Organizations: Oracle, Berkshire Holding, Wall Street, Berkshire Locations: Berkshire, Omaha

☆ Google's top AI researchers, including all the authors behind a landmark paper, have left for competitors. Here's where they are now.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Top AI researchers have been leaving for startups where their work can have more impact. That frustration over Google's slow movement has been corroborated by other former Google researchers who spoke to Insider. Niki Parmar left Google Brain after five years to serve as a cofounder and CTO of Adept, though in November, she left to found a stealth startup. Lukasz Kaiser left Google Brain after working there for more than seven years to join OpenAI in 2021. Sharan Narang, another contributor to the T5 paper, left Google Brain in 2022 after four years there.

Persons: it's, Llion Jones, OpenAI's, ChatGPT, Sundar Pichai, Bard, Daniel De Freitas, Noam Shazeer, Ilya Sutskever, Sutskever, OpenAI, Ashish Vaswani, Niki Parmar, Jakob Uszkoreit, Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst, Lukasz Kaiser, Kaiser, Illia Polosukhin, Meena, De Freitas, Romal Thoppilan, Character.AI, LaMDA, Elon Musk, Character.ai, Winni Wintermeyer, Thoppilan, Alicia Jin, BERT BERT, BERT, Jacob Devlin, Colin Raffel, Raffel, Sharan Narang, He's, Azalia Mirhoseini, Anna Goldie, Mirhoseini, Goldie, Claude, DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman, Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind, Suleyman, Reid Hoffman Organizations: Google, Bloomberg, New York Times, Microsoft, Street Journal, Neural Networks, OpenAI, YouTube, Elon, UNC Chapel Hill, Meta, Anthropic, Society Locations: ChatGPT, Character.AI, DeepMind

☆ 6 years ago, AI startup MindsDB was an open source project that few took seriously. Now it's worth $160 million and on a growth rocketship.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

MindsDB helps developers apply machine learning to their data to build AI applications. Founded in 2017, the startup began as an AI open source project that some doubted in its early days. But six years ago, MindsDB was just an abstraction and later an open source AI project that few paid attention to. "'You're going to be able to automate the work of a machine learning engineer? "After YC, we became an actual company," Torres said.

Persons: MindsDB, Jorge Torres, he's, Torres, cofound, Adam Carrigan, Aneesh Chopra, Barack Obama, Carrigan, Michael Seibel, Y, Seibel, Luck, There's, It's Organizations: Mayfield Fund, Benchmark, Forbes, Investors, CareJourney, Mayfield Locations: London

☆ Elon Musk says people are 'already cyborgs' because machines maintain our memory for us
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The billionaire tweeted that humans depend on machines to maintain their memory. His comments come as the rise of AI has raised questions about how replaceable humans are. Elon Musk said people are "already cyborgs" because of humanity's dependence on machines to maintain memory. Musk tweeted: "We are already cyborgs. In his tweet, Musk tried to outline the current differences between humans and AI machines.

Persons: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Musk, cofound Organizations: Microsoft

☆ Meet the climate startup turning a 5,000-mile stretch of seaweed from a plague of coastal communities into a giant carbon store
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-24 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

London-based Seaweed Generation is one such startup dedicated to seaweed sequestration. She's part of a wave of new "blue economy" entrepreneurs taking advantage of seaweed for carbon removal. Seaweed GenerationThe seaweed RoombaEstridge's Seaweed Generation has developed a robot that she described as a "Roomba meets Pac-Man." Seaweed Generation will work in waters with around 4,000 meters of depth and no upwelling current, which could bring sargassum back to the surface. Seaweed Generation has a planned pilot with the government of Antigua, which is invested in protecting its tourism industry.

☆ Inside the AI talent wars: Tech companies are ransacking university AI programs at Stanford, MIT, and Cornell in search of engineers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Driven by the recent AI boom, companies are raiding top college campuses for rare technical talent. She's currently on leave from her Stanford AI Ph.D. program to focus on Moonhub. In 2011, new AI Ph.D. graduates took jobs in the tech industry and academia in about equal measure. But since then, the majority of new grads have headed to the AI industry, with nearly double the percentage of AI Ph.D. grads taking industry jobs versus academic roles in 2021, according to Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI's 2023 AI Index Report. "All AI companies have roles for people with Ph.D.s and without," said Attaluri, the soon-to-be researcher at DeepMind.

☆ Inside the AI talent wars: Tech companies are ransacking university AI programs at Stanford, MIT, and Cornell in search of rare talent
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

☆ This startup turning human waste into fertilizer just raised $7.5 million. Here's the 17-slide pitch deck Wasted used to raise the fresh funds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wasted is making fertilizer out of urine and just raised $7.5 million in fresh funding. Wasted, which he created alongside Taylor Zehren and Thor Retzlaff, is redesigning the porta-potty to ultimately turn human waste into agriculture fertilizer. At least 40 wastewater treatment plants were damaged as a result of the 2017 hurricane Harvey, which saw raw sewage spill out onto streets. Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are common fertilizers found in human waste but are typically extracted from the earth for use. There is a long history of some countries using untreated or partially-treated human waste as fertilizer.

☆ This a16z-backed startup wants to make it easier for designers to create interactive, animated graphics. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck Rive used to raise $10 million from Two Sigma Ventur
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rive offers designers and developers a tool to create animated, interactive graphics. Brothers Guido and Luigi Rosso cofounded the graphic design startup in 2016. Currently, design processes are inefficient, with engineers forced to rebuild mockups that designers create in tools like Figma, Guido Rosso told Insider. To that point, Rive also offers open-source libraries to load and run Rive graphics across a variety of destinations, including apps, games, and websites. Here's an exclusive look at the 10-slide pitch deck Rive used to raise $10 million in Series A funding from Two Sigma Ventures:

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