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☆ 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

☆ Inside Amazon's rush to respond to ChatGPT. 'Amazon must be really scared about being late on all of this.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

"Amazon must be really scared about being late on all of this," one Amazon employee said in an interview. The same rules apply to the new Microsoft Bing search engine that uses ChatGPT's technology, an internal document said. "Since generative AI is all the rage right now, it will be included in the themes, and there will be a special award for the project that best demonstrates generative AI," the email said. Mike Blake/ReutersEmployees are still curious about Amazon's response to ChatGPT and generative AI, frequently bringing up the topic in internal town-hall meetings. He also said that Amazon's top leadership team, called the S-team, was "very excited about it" and that generative AI was a "big area of focus for us."

Persons: ChatGPT, Sam Altman, Sven Hoppe, It's, hackathons, Andy Jassy, Mike Blake, Adam Selipsky, Jassy, Eugene Kim Organizations: Amazon, Echo, Microsoft, Employees, Getty, Bloomberg, Burnham, Reuters Employees

☆ Lab-grown breast milk startup Biomilq aims to change infant nutrition — if it can release a product
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Biomilq, the company behind the breakthrough, had been working for nearly a decade to replicate the process of making human milk — but outside of the body. While the crisis has highlighted the importance of a resilient formula supply, human milk experts, milk bank advocates and Biomilq all stress the same message: Breast milk is best. The startup will likely take a "gradual approach" to introducing its science via "an early-life nutrition product in partnership with one of these bigger companies," Strickland explained. Breast milk is woefully understudied — to the point that it's difficult "to even say what human milk is from a nutritional standpoint," Perrin explained. The company is researching which aspects of human milk its system is best suited to produce.

☆ Researchers found a surefire predictor of success — and what separates those who find it from those who keep failing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Susie Allen | Kellogg Insight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Using this insight, the researchers are able to successfully predict an individual's long-term success with just a small amount of information about that person's initial attempts. Indeed, in another recent study, Wang himself found that an early career setback often set up scientists for later success. In all three datasets, an individual's second-to-last attempt did tend have a higher probability of success than their very first effort. Rather, there's a singular learning threshold that separates eventual successes from the rest. "Thomas Edison said, 'people give up because they don't know how close they are to success,'" Wang explains.

☆ A 'Shark Tank' winner and stay-at-home dad who Mark Cuban called a 'compassionate capitalist' doubled down on his business when his wife's health took a sudden turn: 'There is no greater incentive to
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Freya Williams was a CEO and her family's breadwinner before contracting long COVID. Her husband dove into his small business and landed an investment from Mark Cuban of "Shark Tank." But COVID led to "long COVID" for her. Thousands of Americans have likely left the workforce because of long COVID, and Williams is among them. Delaney added that his wife's suffering and his family's precarious position had changed his drive as a business owner.

☆ Adtech giant The Trade Desk strikes deal to solve one of marketers' biggest challenges in the $80 billion retail media space
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Trade Desk wants to take a bigger slice of the $80 billion retail media market. Adtech giant The Trade Desk has landed a partnership that aims to solve one of advertising's biggest challenges in the $80 billion retail media space: getting timely data on how their ads are driving sales across multiple retailer sites and stores. Attain, which will charge advertisers on a CPM, or cost-per-thousand-impressions basis, will offer The Trade Desk advertisers metrics including sales, return on ad spend, and conversion rates. The Trade Desk is the largest independent adtech firm, and the company's moves typically indicate where the industry is investing. The Trade Desk is set to release its latest earnings report on May 10.

☆ Carlyle has a secret weapon for training its top leaders: a four-star Navy Admiral who led thousands of sailors into battle and captured cocaine-filled cartel submarines
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Emmalyse Brownstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

James Stavridis, a retired Navy Admiral, is leading a new leadership program for Carlyle partners. Now, he's leading a new training course for the firm's partners called the Admiral Leadership Program. James Stavridis, a retired four-star Admiral, served in the Navy for 37 years before joining Carlyle in 2018. Inside Carlyle's first training program for partnersAbout 15 partners at Carlyle, from ESG to credit and tech, are participating in the Navy admiral's leadership program. Anna Tye, a partner on Carlyle's technology investing team, is also part of the leadership program.

☆ Doctors are building tech startups to help fix a healthcare system reeling from crisis after crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

But with increasing patient demand and complexity, there are not enough doctors in the healthcare system to match that level of care, he said. With its promise of free universal healthcare, the UK's National Health Service has long been a source of national pride. A growing number of clinicians are becoming "doctorpreneurs," applying their first-hand experience in healthcare to build startups to help fill that gap. As clinicians in the UK expand their startups abroad, they predict the doctorpreneur trend will become a global phenomena — with health startups in other countries looking to the UK for inspiration. Selim noted that many doctors — across continents — are also incentivized by a unifying mission, which is to offer patients hope.

☆ A man got a priest's blessing to convert a 137-year-old church into an Airbnb that rents for at least $200 a night. See the transformation.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Dan Latu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Six months into what ended up being a two-year project, Rooney said he had second thoughts. "If I would have known how much work and time it would have taken, I'm not sure I would have done it," he said. Kyle RooneyRooney, a real-estate investor who owns two other short-term rentals as well as some long-term rentals, said the project was a real "leap of faith." But I've been doing it long enough that I have the best portfolio of 'help' to make things happen," he wrote in an email. "I struggle to screw in a lightbulb, and I've always told myself I won't ever do real estate if it affects how I do my day job.

☆ Private school vouchers are shaping up to be huge part of the 2024 election as GOP candidates work to 'one up' each other on the issue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The GOP movement toward "school choice" is gaining momentum in many states. GOP presidential candidates have promised to send more public money to private schools. While battles over how classrooms should teach about race and LGBTQ topics have fired up the GOP base, the expansion of school vouchers is taking hold in red states. Spar said vouchers amounted to "using taxpayer money to go to private schools and home schools with practically no accountability." As Congress then turned its attention toward COVID pandemic relief, at least one bill that didn't pass had funding for private schools and homeschooling.

☆ I made $1 million in revenue from documenting my life with chickens on social media. Here's how I turned my blog into an empire.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Perri Ormont Blumberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Lisa Steele is a blogger and small-business owner who made more than $1 million in revenue in 2022. Now, I'm earning more than $1 million in revenue annually through book royalties, brand deals, and a backyard-poultry product line. I might have a phone call about products we're launching or about a new brand I'm working with, or I might design product labels or do research for a blog post. When I'm working on a book, and I've written seven in the last decade, I schedule social media as much as I can to give myself larger blocks of time to concentrate on writing. My time is super flexible, so I can live my life and still have a successful brand.

☆ Real estate investors who flipped 15 properties that profited $1.2 million in 2022 share 4 keys to successful flipping
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Since executing that deal in 2009, the investors have done 91 flips mostly in the Denver area, they said. They did 15 in 2022 alone and turned $1.2 million in gross profits, according to a profit-and-loss statement of their LLC viewed by Insider. "You're going to want to look at the age of the furnace. Because if you feel kind of strange when you're looking at it, so will the potential buyers." But now that we've been doing it for a long time, we know what to expect and we know what to look for."

☆ 'We didn't come from rich families': How 2 friends bought their first home as college students and then built a 7-figure real estate flipping business in Denver
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

They experimented with other ventures, including a hookah lounge, before focusing on real estate. Along the way, the entrepreneurs opened a hookah lounge and a bar before committing to real estate full-time in 2019. While they had a real estate agent showing them homes, Khosravi and Blue found their first property on their own. "I was visiting some friends at ASU and there was a hookah lounge there. At the time, "we were making $35,000 a year, if that, from the hookah lounge," added Khosravi.

☆ Staying in British castles may be easier — and cheaper — than you think
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Lucy Handley | Chris Dwyer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Storied Collection is a travel website that lists heritage hotels and homes — including private castles — so vacationers who love history can easily find accommodations that suit them. The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa is located inside the Royal Crescent, a row of terraced houses built between 1767 and 1775. Hauge and Goldin, with the help of former CEO of Best Western UK Rob Paterson, launched Storied Collection in 2022. Surnames of previous owners include Cooper, Bingham and Synge, according to Storied Collection. The drawing room of the Sir Percy Blakeney Suite at the Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa in Bath, England.

☆ 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' editor never thought he'd get an Oscar nomination: 'That's not how I saw my career going'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Nicolas Vega | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"That's not how I saw my career going," Rogers tells CNBC Make It. Paul Rogers poses with the Editing Award for 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' during the 2023 EE BAFTA Film Awards. That's where he realized he had a passion for film editing – the process of putting a film's footage together into a finished product. "We never in our wildest dreams thought it was an Oscars type of film," Rogers says. " Everything from the production design to the performances to the camera work to the editing, and that's no accident.

☆ Stakeholder Labs sees an opportunity helping companies convert customers into shareholders. Here's how the fintech backed by a Reddit cofounder plans to do it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Stakeholder Labs helps businesses identify and engage with retail investors. Stakeholder Labs provides plug-in software that verifies a company's shareholders and measures customer behavior with a goal of driving long-term loyalty. "Not trying to convert that customer into a shareholder is the biggest missed opportunity," Max Goldstein, head of marketing and shareholder experience at Stakeholder Labs, added. Stakeholder Lab's software, called Roundtable, is integrated directly into a company's website or app, allowing customers to self-identify as a shareholder. Stakeholder Labs customers range from small to mid-sized publicly traded companies that tend to be more agile and willing to try new technologies.

☆ This fintech helping companies engage and build loyalty with retail investors just nabbed funding from Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Stakeholder Labs helps businesses identify and engage with retail investors. CEO and cofounder Matt Joanou observed the untapped potential of retail investors while at Reddit. This startup wants to help companies engage with their retail investors, and it just got backing from an investor well-versed in building active communities. Stakeholder Labs provides plug-in software that verifies a company's shareholders and measures customer behavior with a goal of driving long-term loyalty. Stakeholder Lab's software, called Roundtable, is integrated directly into a company's website or app, allowing customers to self-identify as a shareholder.

☆ I make 6 figures as a virtual assistant and now teach others how to do the same — here's how I got started
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Sasha Weilbaker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Erin Booth is a virtual assistant who coaches others, sells courses, and runs a YouTube channel. Her advice for getting started as a virtual assistant is to reach out to past colleagues for work. She ended up being my first virtual assistant client, and she hired me to do a few easy personal tasks for her, like organizing her Google Drive. I asked myself "What kind of skills or training did I wish I had when I first started as a virtual assistant?" Are you a virtual assistant who wants to share your story?

☆ I'm a 6-figure virtual assistant. Here's how I found my first clients and monetized my skill set.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Sasha Weilbaker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

☆ Check out the pitch deck the Y Combinator alum SilkChart used to raise $5.2 million from investors like SoftBank
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The marketing startup SilkChart seeks to help businesses better understand their advertising data. It was in Y Combinator's spring 2022 class and says it was able to grow revenue during the program. Now, SilkChart has raised $5.2 million in funding to scale its data-analytics business. Investors include Y Combinator, SoftBank, the ad agency Dentsu, Harlem Capital, and Global Founders Capital. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck that the founders of SilkChart used to raise $5.2 million in funding:

☆ North Carolina electric grid shooter 'knew exactly what they were doing,' sheriff says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Sharon Bernstein | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Fields' comments came as North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned of a "new level of threat" posed by the incident and called for hardening of critical infrastructure including the power grid. “Protecting critical infrastructure like our power system must be a top priority,” said Cooper, a Democrat, in a press briefing on Monday. Schools in Moore County will be closed for a second day on Tuesday and 38,000 households were still without power amid freezing nighttime temperatures after the Saturday shootings. The saboteur "knew exactly what they were doing to cause the damage and cause the outage that they did," Fields said. That is nearly everyone who the company serves in Moore County, spokesperson Jeff Brooks said at a press briefing on Monday.

Creeping prices are this year’s Grinch, so our team focused on essentials in our annual list of favorites. Throughout the year, we tested all sorts of gadgets, and only ones worth the money made it into this guide. This season, the best gear is stuff you and your loved ones will put to good use, such as a Wi-Fi-boosting Alexa speaker, a noise-canceling earbud upgrade and an adjustable light to illuminate webcam appearances. There are plenty of fun products, including a projector that plugs into a lightbulb socket, and a sensible splurge or two. A $1,100 vacuuming and mopping robot, anyone?

☆ Larry David predicted FTX’s implosion
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN Business —Larry David made a prediction about this week’s crypto meltdown that was prettaaay prettaaay good. In a Super Bowl ad for the FTX crypto exchange in February, Larry David sarcastically predicted that FTX wasn’t going to make it. At the end of the ad, David learns about FTX, “a safe and easy way to get into crypto.” A dismissive David says, “Ehhh, I don’t think so. And I’m never wrong about this stuff — never.”“Don’t be like Larry,” the FTX ad closes. The full extent of FTX’s financial problems aren’t yet known, but multiple reports say the firm is facing an $8 billion shortfall.

☆ Bono’s new book is more than a rock star memoir. It’s also a powerful tribute to America
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( John Blake | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

Born Paul David Hewson in Dublin, Ireland, Bono is a global rock star, an activist and an entrepreneur who is currently touring the US to promote his memoir. Bono’s book, though, is more than a rock star’s memoir. A belief in America as an idea, not a religionAs any casual fan of U2 knows, U2 has long had a close relationship with the US. Martin Luther King Jr., with their song, “Pride (In The Name of Love).”In “Surrender,” Bono pays tribute to America itself. “The search for common ground starts with a search for higher ground,” Bono writes in the memoir.

☆ I talked to 70 parents who raised highly successful adults—here's the 'rare' skill they all taught their kids
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Margot Machol Bisnow | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

For my book, "Raising an Entrepreneur," I talked to 70 parents who raised highly successful people. When I asked them what skills they taught their kids at an early age, there was one in particular that they all agreed on: curiosity. As parents, we all want to raise confident, fearless and resilient kids. They encouraged their kids to fix things. Robert's curiosity for how things worked started when he was a young boy, when he unscrewed all the doorknobs in his parents' house.

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