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☆ We should embrace rather than fear AI: Cohere CEO
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | 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 EmailWe should embrace rather than fear AI: Cohere CEOAI should be regulated by the existing regulators of each sector, Aidan Gomez, the co-founder and CEO of Cohere, told CNBC's Arjun Kharpal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Persons: Aidan Gomez, CNBC's Arjun Kharpal Organizations: Economic Locations: Davos, Switzerland

☆ Today's GenAI models are cost and energy pigs. Quantum tech could fix that.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Zapata, a startup spun out of Harvard, uses quantum physics math to train GenAI models with less data. AI models must be regularly fed. AI models also require hefty, energy-consuming GPU chips. Since founding that year, Zapata has 18 patents and patents pending on its AI tech, it says. And quantum tech could be among the alternatives.

Persons: Zapata, Andretti, —, Guido Appenzeller, Christopher Savoie, Mario, Michael Andretti's SPAC, it's, GenAI Zapata, OpenAI, hasn't Organizations: Andretti Racing, Service, America, Intel's Data, CNBC, Nvidia, Andretti Global, Andretti, Corp, Zapata, BMW, Computer, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Comcast Ventures, Ventures, Bloomberg Locations: Harvard, Zapata, Savoie

Read previewThe firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has undone months of effort by Microsoft to avoid antitrust regulators probing its massive investment in the startup. It's tough to keep a huge business partnership like this out of what can be intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators. Nadella agreed to give Altman and Brockman their own research arm at Microsoft, if he couldn't negotiate their return to OpenAI. Another interpretation is that Microsoft is keen to show antitrust regulators that OpenAI is an independent company, and not controlled by the software giant. AdvertisementDo you work for OpenAI or Microsoft, or are you someone with a tip or insight to share?

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Lina Khan, OpenAI, Altman, Satya Nadella, Kevin Scott didn't, Kevin, Satya, Microsoft's, Brad Smith, Frank Shaw, Sam, Nadella, Altman's, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Amy Hood, ChatGPT, doesn't, Kali Hays, Ashley Stewart, Darius Rafieyan Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business, FTC, OpenAI, Activision, Blizzard, Markets, Bloomberg, Chief Locations: OpenAI, khays@insider.com, astewart@insider.com

☆ Microsoft assures investors it's spreading its AI bets beyond just OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-07 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AI was a major focus of questions from Microsoft investors during the event. AdvertisementOn Thursday, Microsoft executives made a point to assure investors that it has many irons in the fire when it comes to AI, not just OpenAI. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood jumped in to emphasize the company has AI partners beyond OpenAI. AdvertisementAs Business Insider recently reported, the chaos at OpenAI caused some partners to start looking for a "plan B" for their AI model needs. Are you an OpenAI, or Microsoft employee, or someone with a tip or insight to share?

Persons: —, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Satya Nadella, Nadella, Amy Hood, Hood, Ashley Stewart Organizations: Service, Business, Microsoft Locations: OpenAI, astewart@insider.com

After the sudden ouster of their CEO, hundreds of OpenAI employees signed an open letter demanding Altman's reinstatement and the resignation of the board. And for at least some of those OpenAI employees, there's relief that they don't actually have to go work for Microsoft. Advertisement"Even though we have a partnership with Microsoft, internally, we have no respect for their talent bar," the current OpenAI employee told BI. Money, the great motivatorBeyond the culture clash between the two companies, there was another important factor at play for OpenAI employees: money. Furious Microsoft employeesSome Microsoft employees, meanwhile, were furious that the company promised to match salaries for hundreds of OpenAI employees.

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Altman, Greg Brockman, Brockman, OpenAI, who's, Kali Hays, Ashley Stewart, Darius Rafieyan Organizations: Service, OpenAI, Microsoft, Business, BI, San, CNBC Locations: OpenAI ., San Francisco, OpenAI, khays@insider.com, astewart@insider.com

☆ 2023 has been an AI feeding frenzy, here are the startups that attracted the most investment this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Despite an overall slump in startup funding, 2023 saw a scramble among investors to pour money into AI and machine learning startups. And the company's star still appears to be rising, despite a messy leadership struggle that recently spilled into public view. Meanwhile OpenAI's perennial rival Anthropic attracted multi-billion dollar investments from both Google and Amazon to fund a competing AI model known as Claude. At the same time legacy companies from John Deere to accounting firm PwC played up their AI bona fides to capitalize on the hype. The list doesn't include startups who have not publicly released the amount of their funding rounds.

Persons: OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, Databricks, John Deere, PwC, Fresh Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Technology, Monogram, Sigma, Lambda, Helsing, Metals, Eagle Eye, Amelia, Asimov, Farmers Business, Harbinger, Prins, Silo, Mistral, Alto, AMP, Management Software, Universal, Coro, Kodiak Robotics, Aerospace, Defense, Sana, Corti, Kyte, Mitra, Tech, Boss Digital Technology, Halcyon, & $ Locations: PitchBook

☆ Some OpenAI employees are still feeling uneasy and looking for other jobs despite Sam Altman's return, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Altman is back in charge of OpenAI but some employees are still feeling nervous, per Semafor. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. AdvertisementOpenAI's CEO Sam Altman may be back in charge but some employees are still feeling uneasy. According to one of the outlet's sources, rival AI company Cohere has received several inquiries from OpenAI employees in recent days. AdvertisementAI companies Hugging Face and Cohere told CNBC they've had more customer inquiries following Altman's ousting and reinstatement as CEO.

Persons: Sam Altman, —, Semafor, Altman, We've, Sam, Cohere, Marc Benioff, Salesforce's Einstein, CNBC they've, Clément Delangue, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Salesforce's, CNBC Locations: OpenAI

☆ Sam Altman chaos helped OpenAI rivals, says Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Polly Thompson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI rivals say Sam Altman's ousting and reinstatement as CEO has created opportunities. Hugging Face and Cohere say they've had more customer inquiries following the chaos. Josh Gartner of Cohere told CNBC that clients want "reliable business solutions, not soap operas." AdvertisementOpenAI's rivals say the chaos of ousting Sam Altman as CEO only for him to return days later has helped them attract more interest from potential customers. "I think a lot of companies, organizations now are kind of wondering about the risk about outsourcing their AI to just one AI provider," Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue told CNBC.

Persons: Sam Altman's, they've, Josh Gartner, Cohere, —, Sam Altman, Altman, it's, Clément Delangue, Aidan Gomez, Martin Kon, Google's Anthropic, That's Organizations: CNBC, Service, Nvidia, Salesforce, Oracle Locations: Toronto, OpenAI

☆ OpenAI rival Hugging Face says it's seeing more client interest after Sam Altman fiasco
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue (R) departs the closed-door "AI Insight Forum" outside the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. Artificial intelligence startup Hugging Face says it's seeing increased interest from potential customers following the chaos at rival OpenAI. "I think a lot of companies, organizations now are kind of wondering about the risk about outsourcing their AI to just one AI provider," Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said Tuesday on a call with reporters. Multiple companies told CNBC they'd considered switching from OpenAI to competitors' services as the confusion swelled inside the company. OpenAI has a unique structure in that the parent entity is a nonprofit, with a so-called capped-profit company underneath that umbrella.

Persons: Clement Delangue, Clément Delangue, Sam Altman, Josh Gartner, Gartner, CNBC they'd, Aidan Gomez, Martin Kon, OpenAI, Altman, Cohere, it's, Google's Bard, OpenAI's ChatGPT Organizations: Russell Senate, Companies, CNBC, Google, Nvidia, Salesforce, AMD, Intel, IBM, Qualcomm, Anthropic, Google's Locations: Russell, Washington ,, Toronto, OpenAI, New York, China

At his startup Log10, Bansal oversees the production of tools that third-party developers can use to build LLM-powered applications. Since the OpenAI drama unfolded, Bansal told CNBC the startup's instability was a reason customers cited. A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment but said the startup's services are working again following three hours of issues. One founder of an AI startup, who asked not to be named in order to discuss internal matters, said he uses multiple application program interfaces from OpenAI and has considered switching to offerings from Anthropic, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI executives with backing from Amazon and Google . The source, who previously worked alongside Shear, said Shear is "very smart" and admires his integrity.

Persons: Jaap Arriens, Sam Altman, Arjun Bansal, Bansal, Altman, Emmett Shear, Satya Nadella, OpenAI, Greg Brockman, There's, Shear, he's, Martin Kon, Kon, Anthropic, Srinivas Narayanan, Steven Heidel, Nadella, CNBC's Jon Fortt Organizations: Nurphoto, CNBC, Microsoft, Amazon, Google Locations: OpenAI, LLMs, Anthropic

☆ How Meta could benefit from the OpenAI shakeup
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

It could help Meta boost its open-source Llama AI initiatives, as some companies look to diversify away from relying on a single company's large language model. Its AI research team is considered, with Alphabet's DeepMind, one of the most esteemed groups in the tech industry. Yann LeCun, Meta's AI chief, responded to the post with a curt "Yup." Meta could benefit if companies continue to seek multiple AI vendors, much like firms now rely on multiple cloud providers. The more developers access and improve Llama, the more Meta can potentially lower its overall operating and technology research costs, among other benefits.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman's, There's, Satya Nadella, Altman, Nadella, Zuckerberg, Meta, Alphabet's DeepMind, MSFT, Yann LeCun, curt, Yup, Sam Altman Organizations: Microsoft, Meta, Technologists, Twitter, CNBC

☆ 'The gorilla is gone for the moment': OpenAI's rivals see ways to profit from a Silicon Valley drama
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An in-demand talent pool"Many previously poorly understood secrets will be more widely disseminated across the ecosystem," one European AI founder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. But European competitors can still benefit from OpenAI's implosion. The startup had been on an uninterrupted run for the past year, said EarlyBird VC partner and Aleph Alpha investor Andre Retterath. The turmoil at OpenAI has also galvanized both AI founders and investors in Europe. The company's top expenditure, besides employee salaries, is manually cleaning and sourcing the data they use to train their models, a European VC said.

Persons: Sam Altman, unseats, Nathan Benaich, Altman, Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Silvio Savarese, Einstein, 1RXoc9ekeo, Benaich, Alpha, EarlyBird, Andre Retterath, Retterath, Mariam Pettit, they've, OpenAI, Andrew Scott, 7percent, David Grimm, Grimm, Rebecca Gorman Organizations: Air Street Capital, Business, Aleph Alpha, Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Global Founders Capital, Albion Locations: Europe, OpenAI

☆ OpenAI is bleeding talent in the wake of Sam Altman's ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Tom Carter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Greg Brockman announced three key OpenAI staffers are following him and Sam Altman to Microsoft. Sam Altman is heading up a new AI team at Microsoft after his shock firing by the OpenAI board. All three are senior or longstanding employees at OpenAI, suggesting that the company may face a talent drain after Altman's shock firing. OpenAI announced that Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear would become interim CEO of the AI firm, after negotiations to bring Altman back broke down. The Information also reported that fellow AI startups Cohere and Adept were reaching out to OpenAI employees and that Google Deepmind had received an uptick in resumes from OpenAI workers.

Persons: Greg Brockman, Sam Altman, —, Satya Nadella's, Altman, Jakub Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, Aleksander Madry —, OpenAI, Twitch, Emmett Shear, Pachocki, Mira Murati, Brad Lightcap, Ilya Sutskever, Tao Xu, Google Deepmind, Jim Fan Organizations: Microsoft, Service, Google Locations: OpenAI

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. "Sam and OpenAI were the catalyst that showed the world what AI tech is capable of," Jannsen said. Silicon Valley's high-profile startup CEO firings typically involve wrongdoing, rather than just philosophical differences about where the company is headed. "Sam Altman is a hero of mine," former Google CEO and investor Eric Schmidt said in an X post. — CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this report WATCH: OpenAI says Sam Altman exiting as CEO because 'board no longer has confidence.'

Persons: Sam Altman, Carlos Barria, OpenAI, Steve Jobs, Altman, —, Jobs, U.S . Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Ron Conway, Greg, Brian Chesky, Matt Schlicht, Schlicht, Sam, Ryan Jannsen, Jannsen, Patrick Moorhead, They're, Moorhead, Josh Wolfe, Wolfe, he'd, Eric Schmidt, Tom Williams, Airbnb's Chesky, what's, Chesky, Satya Nadella, Zachary Lipton, Carnegie Mellon's Lipton, Lipton, — CNBC's Lora Kolodny Organizations: Economic Cooperation, Reuters, ChatGPT, Apple, U.S ., Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, Tiger, Sequoia Capital, CNBC, Google, Lux Capital, Cq, Inc, Getty, Carnegie Mellon University, Industry Locations: Asia, San Francisco , California, U.S, Silicon Valley, OpenAI, what's, —

☆ How Disney can save the Marvel Cinematic Universe
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Sarah Whitten | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

CEO Bob Iger suggested as early as March that the company should decrease the number of sequel films Marvel releases in favor of bringing newer characters and stories into the mix. Box office analysts aren't ready to wave the white flag on the MCU, which has left rival DC, owned by Warner Bros. The promise was that the events of the shows would come full circle and influence the content of Marvel's films. Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel in Disney and Marvel's "The Marvels." It is expected that this Deadpool film will follow carry an R rating, which would be a first for a Marvel Cinematic Universe feature.

Persons: Marvel Studios Kevin Feige, Jesse Grant, Captain America, It's, Marvel, Disney, Bob Iger, aren't, Kevin Feige, Paul Dergarabedian, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Loki, Knight, they've, Robert Thompson, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Robbins, Paul Rudd, Scott Lang, Johnathan Majors, Kang the, Kang, Jonathan Majors, Shawn Robbins, Josh Brolin, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Strange, Hugh Jackman, Brie Larson, Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, James Bond, Marvel hasn't, hasn't, it's, America Chavez, Kate Bishop, Kamala Kahn, Cassie Lang, Riri Williams, Ryan Reynolds, Maya Lopez, Wilson Fisk, Lopez, Agatha Organizations: Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios, Disney, Getty, Marvel, DC, Warner Bros, Captain, Syracuse University, Guardians, Rotten, CNBC, Disney Marvel, Sony, Hollywood, Star Wars, Star, Young Avengers, Fox, Hulu Locations: ANAHEIM , CALIFORNIA, Anaheim , Calif, California, Shanghai, Quantumania

Shares of cloud monitoring software firm Datadog surged nearly 30% in Tuesday trading after the company reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings and full-year guidance. The company reported quarterly revenue of $547.5 million, up 25% year-over-year, topping estimates. Datadog reported adjusted earnings per share of 45 cents, better than the 34 cents that analysts expected. Datadog stock fell significantly in August after it revised its guidance down, citing continued reduction in cloud spending by companies. Datadog builds cloud monitoring and security products that work with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

Persons: Olivier Pomel, Datadog, Pomel Organizations: Datadog, LSEG, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Nasdaq Locations: San Francisco, Snowflake

☆ Elon Musk is in the UK for a pivotal summit on AI — here's who's going
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Here's who's goingMajor names in the technology and political world will be there. They range from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose private jet landed in the U.K. late Tuesday, to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. What the summit seeks to addressThe main objective of the U.K. AI summit is to find some level of international coordination when it comes to agreeing some principles on the ethical and responsible development of AI models. The summit is squarely focused on so-called "frontier AI" models — in other words, the advanced large language models, or LLMs, like those developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. Loss of control risks refer to a situation in which the AI that humans create could be turned against them.

Persons: Elon Musk, Mandel Ngan, Rishi Sunak's, ChatGPT, Here's who's, Kamala Harris, Musk, Elon, Brad Smith, Demis, Yann LeCun, Global Affairs Nick Clegg, Adam Selipsky, Sam Altman, Dario, Jensen Huang, Rene Haas, Dario Gil Darktrace, Poppy Gustaffson Databricks, Ali Ghodsi, Marc Benioff, Cheun Kyung, Alex Karp, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Olaf Scholz, Sunak, Will Organizations: Senate, Intelligence, U.S, Capitol, Washington , D.C, Afp, Getty, Bletchley, Microsoft, Tesla, CNBC, Global Affairs, Web, Rene Haas IBM, Marc Benioff Samsung, Technology, South, Sony, Joe Biden Canadian Locations: U.S, Washington ,, China, U.K, South Korean, Chesnot

☆ The UK is gearing up for a pivotal summit on AI. Here's what you need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Where it's being heldThe AI summit will be held in Bletchley Park, the historic landmark around 55 miles north of London. What it seeks to addressThe main objective of the U.K. AI summit is to find some level of international coordination when it comes to agreeing some principles on the ethical and responsible development of AI models. The British government wants the AI Summit to serve as a platform to shape the technology's future. They say that, by keeping the summit restricted to only frontier AI models, it is a missed opportunity to encourage contributions from members of the tech community beyond frontier AI. "By focusing only on companies that are currently building frontier models and are leading that development right now, we're also saying no one else can come and build the next generation of frontier models."

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Peter Nicholls, Rishi Sunak's, ChatGPT, Getty, codebreakers, Alan Turing, It's, Kamala Harris, Saul Loeb, Brad Smith, Sam Altman, Global Affairs Nick Clegg, Ursula von der, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Olaf Scholz, Sunak, —, Xi Jinping, Biden, James Manyika, Manyika, Mostaque, we're, Sachin Dev Duggal, Carl Court Organizations: Royal Society, Carlton, Getty, U.S, Microsoft, Coppin State University, AFP, Meta, Global Affairs, Global Affairs Nick Clegg U.S, Ministry of Science, Technology European, Joe Biden Canadian, Britain, Afp, Getty Images Washington, U.S ., Google, CNBC, Big Tech Locations: London, China, Bletchley Park, British, America, Baltimore , Maryland, Chesnot, U.S, Nusa Dua, Indonesian, Bali, EU

☆ Google commits to invest $2 billion in OpenAI competitor Anthropic
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Google agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI executives, CNBC has confirmed. The commitment involves a $500 million upfront cash infusion and an additional $1.5 billion to be invested over time, an Anthropic spokesperson told CNBC. That same month, Anthropic was one of four companies invited to a meeting at the White House to discuss responsible AI development with Vice President Kamala Harris. Anthropic was founded by Dario Amodei, OpenAI's former vice president of research, and his sister, Daniela Amodei, who was OpenAI's vice president of safety and policy. "The landscape is just very wide, and there's really quite a lot of room for many different users and types of users to make use of these systems."

Persons: didn't, Anthropic, Claude, that's, Slack, Claude 2, Arthur AI, Kamala Harris, Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Amodei Organizations: Google, CNBC, Street Journal, White, Microsoft Locations: Anthropic, Salesforce, Meta, OpenAI

☆ Founders Fund backed Jennifer Campbell's startup before she sold it to Coinbase for millions. Now she's looking to 'harpoon' a startup 'whale' as the firm's newest partner.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Jennifer Campbell left Coinbase to become a partner at Founders Fund. Before Founders Fund, Campbell built and sold a crypto prime brokerage startup. Before Campbell invested at Founders Fund, she got funded by them. Before long, she caught the attention of several funds, including her former backers at Founders Fund, circling the same deals. AdvertisementAdvertisement"I felt like I always knew I wanted to come back to Founders Fund," Campbell said.

Persons: Jennifer Campbell, Coinbase, Campbell, —, let's, Fund's, Erin Gleason Organizations: Founders Fund, Fund, Service, SpaceX, Quiet Locations: San Francisco's Presidio, Coinbase, OpenAI

☆ VCs Marc Andreessen, John Doerr among attendees at Schumer's next AI forum
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Technologists and advocates are again set to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss with Senate leaders the perils and promises of artificial intelligence. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, and John Doerr, chair of Kleiner Perkins, will be among the 21 attendees at the second AI Insights Forum hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., according to a spokesperson for his office. The session is a continuation of the Majority Leader's effort to get the chamber up to speed on AI to determine how best to approach AI regulation. For example, Future of Life Institute President Max Tegmark is also set to attend. Other tech leaders such as Micron Executive Vice President Manish Bhatia, Revolution CEO Steve Case, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez will be in attendance.

Persons: Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz, John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins, Chuck Schumer, Andreessen, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Manish Bhatia, Steve Case, Patrick Collison, Aidan Gomez, Derrick Johnson, Amanda Ballantyne, Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman Organizations: Capitol, Senate, China, Life, Life Institute, Tesla, Space X, Micron, NAACP, AFL, Technology, Microsoft, Google, CNBC, YouTube Locations: coders, India

☆ OpenAI in Talks for Deal That Would Value Company at $80 Billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

OpenAI is in talks to complete a deal that would value the company at $80 billion or more, nearly triple its valuation less than six months ago, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by the venture firm Thrive Capital that would make OpenAI the most valuable start-up in San Francisco, that person said. Amazon said last month that it would invest up to $4 billion in another San Francisco start-up, Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s primary competitors. Over the summer, Cohere, a company founded by former Google researchers, raised $270 million, bringing its total funding to more than $440 million. Inflection AI, founded by a former Google executive, raised a $1.3 billion round, bringing its total to $1.5 billion.

Persons: OpenAI, Amazon Organizations: Google Locations: San Francisco

☆ Meta's unique approach to developing AI puzzles Wall Street, but techies love it
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

If the world's leading AI researchers use Llama, Meta could have an easier time hiring skilled technologists who understand the company's approach to development. Spisak helped oversee PyTorch and other open source AI projects when he worked at Meta from 2018 until January 2023. Although a number of open source LLMs are available, Lambert said Llama 2 is by far the most popular. "Facebook was not and that's sort of how they move forward and democratizing this, giving sort of broad access to open source. However, open source doesn't always win, and Padval acknowledged that "in this case, I don't know how it's going to evolve."

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Josh Edelson, Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion, Joseph Spisak, that's, Zuckerberg, Meta, Andrew Bosworth, Yann LeCun, isn't, Susan Li, Spisak, Cai GoGwilt, GoGwilt, OpenAI's, Ahmad Al, Dahle, he's, Jim Fan, Arjun Bansal, Jensen Huang, Nathan Lambert, Lambert, Critics, Umesh Padval, " Lambert, Nvidia's, Fan, Meta's, Taka Ariga, Ariga, Claude, Elon Musk, Tesla, Nur Hamdan, OpenAI's GPT, Sam Altman, Guido Appenzeller, Thomvest's Padval, Padval Organizations: Meta, AFP, Getty, Microsoft, Industry, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Facebook, Twitter, Finance, Google, AI Research, FAIR, Apple, Nvidia, Web Services, Thomvest Ventures, TC Cowen, United, United Arab Emirates, U.S, Government, AWS, Bloomberg, Amazon, VMware, Intel, Red Hat Locations: Menlo Park , California, Taiwan, United Arab, Washington, Elon, Hamadan, Seoul, South Korea

☆ 4 tech giants have cemented their AI dominance. But there's even more room for growth
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Nearly all tech companies will integrate generative AI by the end of 2024. Respondents said they expected to use generative AI for customer support, content generation and productivity. Google Cloud Google Cloud was the third most likely cloud provider in Oppenheimer's survey to gain future AI spending share. Salesforce and AI Oppenheimer analysts said they see "durable tailwinds for customer support, content generation and code generation, which are considered priority use cases for Generative AI." We agree with this call and are in the camp that Salesforce's generative AI tools should help reaccelerate sales growth all while balancing increasing margins.

Persons: Oppenheimer's, Oppenheimer, Piper Sandler, Copilot, Piper, we've, Salesforce, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Dado Ruvic Organizations: Microsoft, Web Services, Google, Meta, AI, Adobe, CNBC Locations: OpenAI, Jasper

As some high-valued tech startups look to the long-dormant IPO market for their next funding round, Databricks is still finding investors that are happy to keep the company private, at least for now. Databricks, which sells data analytics software, said Thursday that it raised more than $500 million in fresh capital at a $43 billion valuation. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, Databricks last announced funding during the boom market of 2021, at a $38 billion valuation. However, unlike fellow software IPO candidates Canva and Stripe, Databricks has managed to maintain its share price. In the latest round, shares were sold at $73.50 a piece, roughly equal to where they were priced in 2021.

Persons: Databricks, Snowflake, Ali Ghodsi, Headcount Organizations: Nvidia Locations: San Francisco, Databricks

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