DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

[1/3] Former U.S. President Donald Trump departs from Trump Tower to give a deposition to New York Attorney General Letitia James who sued Trump and his Trump Organization, in New York City, U.S., April 13, 2023. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which had last September asked the Washington court for guidance on local law. Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in an email: "We are confident that the Second Circuit will rule in President Trump's favor and dismiss Ms. Carroll's case." Carroll, 79, has long accused Trump of stalling to keep jurors from ever hearing her case. The case is Trump et al v. Carroll, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, No.

☆ Trump lawyers say accuser in E. Jean Carroll rape-defamation case got funding from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Attorneys for Donald Trump on Thursday accused writer E. Jean Carroll's lawyers of deliberately failing for months to disclose that LinkedIn co-founder and major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman helped fund her rape-defamation case against the former president. Trump's lawyers said that on Wednesday, Carroll's attorneys disclosed that Hoffman was the "primary backer" of that nonprofit group, American Future Republic. In her deposition, Carroll noted that her suit was a contingency case, meaning her attorneys only get paid if she wins the case. That funding came in September 2020, nearly a year after Carroll filed a complaint against Trump in state court, her lawyer noted. Carroll's team also challenged Trump's lawyers' requests for last-minute changes to the trial schedule.

☆ Trump again asks to delay the E. Jean Carroll rape case — this time to probe billionaire Reid Hoffman's support for the litigation
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Ashley Collman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Trump's lawyers asked to delay the E. Jean Carroll battery and defamation trial a month on Thursday. It is unclear how much of Reid's money granted through his nonprofit was used by Kaplan Hecker & Fink for the Carroll case. Seth Wenig/APOn Tuesday, Trump's lawyers asked the judge for a one-month delay to allow the "media frenzy" around his arrest to die down. Judge Kaplan has also complained about numerous attempts to delay the case in the past. But that litigation has been in limbo while appeals courts weigh in on whether Trump can even be sued in that case.

☆ Elon Musk says he gets 'swarmed' at parties by people wanting to discuss work, and struggles to trust people, reporter who secured rare interview says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk gave an unexpected interview to the BBC late Tuesday. According to James Clayton, the reporter who spoke to Musk, the billionaire opened up about his personal life. Musk said he's often "swarmed" by people at parties wanting to discuss work, Clayton wrote. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops — delivered daily to your inbox. Musk spoke with BBC correspondent James Clayton about his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October and the six months that have followed including the layoffs.

☆ Some new offices are mini towns with their own restaurants, doctor offices, and hotels. Workers actually want to go.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The idea is getting replicated from the Bell Labs location, or Bell Works New Jersey, Keating said. The spaces run by Bell Works' own coworking brand, CoLab, are nearly 100% occupied. At Bell Works New Jersey, Zucker partnered with Toll Brothers to build a 185-home 55-and-over community. At BRIC, tenants can take advantage of a dozen art galleries, some of which show the work of building tenants. A lobby area near offices at Bell Works Chicagoland.

☆ LinkedIn’s Co-Founder Helped Fund the Suit Accusing Trump of Rape
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Benjamin Weiser | Charlie Savage | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a harsh critic of former President Donald J. Trump, has helped pay for a lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, the New York magazine writer who sued Mr. Trump for rape and defamation, according to newly filed court papers in the case. Mr. Hoffman’s support for Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit, which was first disclosed in a letter to a judge on Thursday by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, has sparked a sharp dispute in the case, which is scheduled for trial in federal court in Manhattan on April 25. Mr. Trump’s lawyers, writing to the judge, accused Ms. Carroll of concealing Mr. Hoffman’s role, which they said they only learned of this week from her lawyers. They said the disclosure raised “significant questions” about Ms. Carroll’s credibility and whether her allegations against Mr. Trump were, as he has claimed, a “hoax” brought “to advance a political agenda.”They asked for a one-month postponement so they could investigate the funding issue. The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, on Thursday evening said he would allow Mr. Trump’s lawyers the opportunity to conduct a narrow inquiry into the funding issue, but he declined to delay the case.

Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labeled "Secret" and "Top Secret" but has not independently verified their authenticity. This could help investigators focus their effort, though many people could have had access to these documents. Some images also depict printouts of documents with time stamps at the top right corners showing when they were printed. One of the leaked documents rests on a table and in the right corner of the picture is what appears to be a bottle of Gorilla super glue. U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday that they have not ruled out the possibility that the documents may have been doctored.

☆ Elon Musk's AI ambitions for Twitter show that some of the people calling for the tech to 'pause' seem to be acting out of their own self-interest
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk-owned Twitter purchased 10,000 GPUs, apparently to get into the generative AI boom. This move goes against Musk's open-letter plea for companies to slow down AI development. It also backs up Reid Hoffman's claim that some like Musk wanted the pause so they could catch up. In December, a few months after taking full ownership of Twitter, Musk went so far as to tweet about how he cut OpenAI's access to Twitter, which was used to train OpenAI's language models. For someone who says he wants to pause AI development, Musk seems to be doing the very opposite of that.

☆ Flight to 'what are perceived to be safer assets' could cost in the long term, Citi says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailFlight to 'what are perceived to be safer assets' could cost in the long term, Citi saysRobert Hoffman of Citi Private Bank says what might be a short-term haven for people, such as short-term Treasurys and high-grade investment bonds of short duration, is "likely going to cost you quite a bit in long-term return and long-term performance."

U.S. officials have said some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to understate Russian losses. Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks. The Pentagon said that over the weekend, U.S. officials spoke with allies and had notified the relevant congressional committee about the leak. Some of the most sensitive information is purportedly related to Ukraine's military capabilities and shortcomings. Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, played down the lasting impact of the leak.

☆ Leaked Amazon memo shows plans to reduce employee stock awards in 2025
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Leaked Amazon memo shows plans to reduce employee stock awards in 2025. The company is considering increasing the cash portion of compensation to help cushion employees against its stock price going down in the future. In other news:The late Cash App founder Bob Lee. Cash App creator Bob Lee died after a reported stabbing in San Francisco Tuesday. Silicon Valley is grieving the loss of the founder of Cash App and the former chief technology officer at Square.

☆ Gary Vaynerchuk to managers: Forget a 4-day workweek. If you want to make your people happy, fire the jerks.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Gary Vaynerchuk said companies should fire the "assholes" creating "toxic" work environments. He has also said recently that companies need to appeal to Gen Z better, given their many work options. In TikToks posted this week, Vaynerchuk railed against "toxic work environments," slamming companies for retaining employees and management that compromise the "joy" of their staff members. "Joy doesn't come from four-hour workweeks," Vaynerchuk said in one video, seeming to reference the current movement for a four-day workweek. And Vaynerchuk is betting that people also want to be treated right while on the clock.

☆ LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman credits Buddha as his biggest influence
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In an interview with The Generalist, Hoffman said he's been most influenced by Buddha. Hoffman also said in the interview that Aristotle initially inspired him to study philosophy. Hoffman, who cofounded LinkedIn, announced he was stepping down from the board of OpenAI last month. Hoffman holds a master's in philosophy from Oxford and even planned to go into academia at one point. Hoffman, who calls himself an "accidental technologist," credits his philosophical instincts as the reason he is in the industry.

☆ Slowing down A.I. advances looks like 'mistaken effort,' says LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailSlowing down A.I. advances looks like 'mistaken effort,' says LinkedIn co-founder Reid HoffmanReid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the calls for a pause in the development of artificial intelligence, the rift between Elon Musk and Sam Altman and more.

☆ LinkedIn cofounder says Elon Musk has an 'it's only great if I do it' mentality when it comes to ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman told CNBC the call for an AI slow down is a "mistaken effort." He said Elon Musk has an "it's only great if I do it" mentality when it comes to ChatGPT. Both Musk and Hoffman helped found OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left the company's board of directors in 2018 and has been critical of the company ever since. Despite his longtime friendship with Musk, Hoffman said he's "much more on the path that OpenAI has gone" when it comes to developing the technology. Spokespeople for Musk, Hoffman, and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

☆ Bank crisis 'a simpler fix' than last time in '08: Semafor's Hoffman
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailBank crisis 'a simpler fix' than last time in '08: Semafor's HoffmanLiz Hoffman, Semafor business and finance editor, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss Jamie Dimon's annual letter, how to ensure the banks are investible, and more.

☆ These are the 12 best books to get up to speed on the hot new world of generative AI, according to experts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AIScreenshot from Impromptubook.comAuthor: Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn cofounder, investor at venture firm Greylock Partners, and former board member of OpenAI. Publish Date: March 15, 2023Why it's good: As a former board member of OpenAI — one of the startups leading the generative AI charge — Hoffman has seen up close how the large language models behind generative AI tools like ChatGPT work. His book, available as a free pdf, was written with GPT-4, the newer, more powerful version of ChatGPT. The book is the first to be written by GPT-4, Hoffman said in a LinkedIn post announcing his work earlier this month. Learn more about Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI

☆ There are the 9 best books to get up to speed on the hot new world of generative AI, according to experts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

“I have argued for years that the biggest banks in the world are still too big to fail. In practice, however, the economic damage would be considerable.”Keller-Sutter was at the center of a government-orchestrated rescue of Credit Suisse by its larger rival UBS (UBS) earlier this month. They were designed to make it possible to wind down a big bank without destabilizing the financial system or exposing taxpayers to the risk of losses. Although some investors in Credit Suisse bonds lost everything, Swiss taxpayers are still on the hook for up to 9 billion Swiss francs ($9.8 billion) of potential losses arising from certain Credit Suisse assets. The rest is lent out at higher interest rates or invested, because that’s how big banks make most of their profit.

“I have argued for years that the biggest banks in the world are still too big to fail. In practice, however, the economic damage would be considerable.”Keller-Sutter was at the center of a government-orchestrated rescue of Credit Suisse by its larger rival UBS (UBS) earlier this month. Global standards for dealing with teetering “too big to fail” banks were key a part of the package of rules introduced after the global financial crisis. They were designed to make it possible to wind down a big bank without destabilizing the financial system or exposing taxpayers to the risk of losses. The rest is lent out at higher interest rates or invested, because that’s how big banks make most of their profit.

☆ Elon Musk and Sam Altman founded OpenAI together, but now they're publicly trading barbs. Here's the history of their relationship and feuds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Sarah Jackson | Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in 2015, alongside other Silicon Valley figures, including Peter Thiel, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator cofounder Jessica Livingston. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk have a long history. GettyThe group aimed to create a nonprofit focused on developing artificial intelligence "in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole," according to a statement on OpenAI's website from December 11, 2015. Source: Insider

☆ Bank carnage rages on: President Biden calls for stricter regulation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailBank carnage rages on: President Biden calls for stricter regulationHosted by Brian Sullivan, “Last Call” is a fast-paced, entertaining business show that explores the intersection of money, culture and policy. Tune in Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET on CNBC. Herb Greenberg, Empire Financial Research; Richard Bove, Odeon Capital Group; Liz Hoffman, Semafor, join the show to discuss whether the bank crisis is over.

☆ How age-old retailers like Foot Locker are boosting sales for new brands like Hoka and On
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Danni Santana | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Foot Locker and other sneaker retailers have learned their lesson about depending too much on Nike. Foot Locker has allocated more wall space to emerging performance running brands like On and Hoka. Foot Locker and other sneaker retailers have learned their lesson from Nike's shifting strategy. Although Nike still sells at some retailers like Foot Locker, Nike is committed to putting its own direct-to-consumer sales first. "Acquiring a 21-year-old in New Jersey is more expensive for us to do than Foot Locker because Foot Locker has kept that relationship with that consumer," On co-CEO Marc Maurer told Insider in an interview.

☆ NHL roundup: Bruins lock down Atlantic Division title
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +11 min

Hathaway has scored three goals since joining the Bruins in late February, two of which have been go-ahead tallies. Linus Ullmark made 11 of his 26 saves in the third period, improving to 11-1-0 in his last 12 starts. For the Lightning, Victor Hedman scored the lone goal and Andrei Vasilevskiy was credited with 32 saves. Leon Draisaitl had a goal and an assist, and Zach Hyman and Warren Foegele also scored for Edmonton. Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk scored his seventh goal in seven games and Mark Kastelic and defenseman Thomas Chabot also tallied.

☆ AI storytelling startup Tome records fast user growth, to launch paid tier soon
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 23 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence storytelling startup Tome has seen its user numbers triple in a month to 3 million and is planning to launch a paid subscription in the coming weeks, Chief Executive Keith Peiris told Reuters, as AI products grow in popularity. Tome is also adding a document-to-presentation feature powered by GPT-4, the latest foundation model released by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The feature enables users to turn a document of up to 25 pages into AI-generated slides with text and soon photos, competing head-to-head with Microsoft's (MSFT.O) AI "Copilot". "It's a push into work and enterprise use cases for us after all the demand we've seen," said Peiris, co-founder of Tome. Tome's product is currently free to use, while it will soon launch a paid tier that costs about $10 a month to guarantee unlimited access for users, Peiris said.

Search resuls for: "" Hoffman"

25 mentions found