DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ AI startup Writer, currently fundraising at a $1.9 billion valuation, launches new model to compete with OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-09 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

San Francisco-based AI startup Writer debuted a large artificial intelligence model Wednesday to compete with enterprise offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic and others. The company cuts costs using synthetic data, or data created by AI. Waseem Alshikh, Writer's co-founder and CTO, told CNBC that Writer has been working on its synthetic data pipeline for years. The generative AI market is poised to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. To date in 2024, investors have pumped $26.8 billion into 498 generative AI deals, according to PitchBook, and companies in the sector raised $25.9 billion in 2023, up more than 200% from 2022.

Persons: May Habib, That's, It's, Waseem, Writer's, Alshikh Organizations: Work Summit, Porsche, Raffles London, CNBC, Meta, Microsoft, Accenture, Uber, L'Oreal, Vanguard Locations: London, England, San Francisco, OpenAI, Anthropic

☆ A top investor in global brands from Airbnb to Snap says we need swift 'guardrails' to get countries on the same page about AI
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The CEO of the VC firm General Catalyst told WSJ that international collaboration will be crucial. World leaders should "align on some core protocols" for AI development, he said. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Advertisement"Now there's this tension where no country wants to be left behind. So far, Russia has lagged behind China and the US in AI development.

Persons: Catalyst, —, Hemant Taneja, Taneja —, Taneja, Joe Biden, it's, Vladimir Putin Organizations: Service, Wall, publication's, US Commerce Department, European Locations: France, India, China, Russia

☆ Why AI makers don't tell their chatbots to answer only what they know
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( Camilo Fonseca | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

AI models too worried about mistakes can stop being useful, according to one AI executive. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Occasional "hallucinations" — errors caused by incorrect assumptions or programming deficiencies — are part of the "tradeoff" for an otherwise useful AI system, Kaplan said. Last year, Google's Gemini AI drew criticism from users for coming up with incorrect answers to straightforward queries. Earlier this year, BI reported that researchers at the company, as part of a study, designed AI models that would intentionally lie to humans.

Persons: Anthropic's Jared Kaplan, Anthropic, —, chatbots, Jared Kaplan, Kaplan, Google's, chatbot, evaluators Organizations: Service, BI

☆ The No. 1 question to never ask in a job interview, says CEO who's interviewed hundreds: 'You risk sending the wrong message'
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

There is one question, in particular, you should "never" ask an employer, says Bert Bean, CEO of the staffing firm Insight Global: "What's the work-life balance for this role?" With this question, he explains, "You risk sending the wrong message about your career aspirations to a future employer." Asking hiring managers about the company's work-life balance can create an impression that you aren't engaged, reliable or committed to the role. "Your future employer shouldn't dictate to you what your boundaries should be." There are other ways to determine a company's approach to work-life balance outside of the interview.

Persons: Bert Bean, Bean, Barry Drexler, Mary Gleason, Drexler, you'll, Arthur C, Brooks Organizations: Insight, CNBC, Summit

☆ The top U.S. city for expats is one of the worst in the world, according to people who live and work abroad there
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Jennifer Liu | In Jljenniferliu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

New York City is among the worst global cities for expats, but it continues to have a strong hold on people seeking a new life abroad. Among the 10 worst cities for expats this year are Paris (41st), London (42nd) and Berlin (45th). "One main problem with the big cities is that expats are less and less able to afford them," says Malte Zeeck, CEO and co-founder of Internations. The top three best global cities for expats are in Spain: Malaga, Alicante and Valencia. Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life?

Persons: Malte Zeeck, It's, Arthur C, Brooks Organizations: New York, CNBC, Summit Locations: York City, expats, New York, Vancouver, U.S, York, Paris, London, Berlin, Spain, Malaga, Alicante, Valencia

☆ Disney's 'Wish' director dropped out of med school and got rejected by the studio multiple times: 'It took me a few tries to get here'
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-02 | by ( Jennifer Liu | In Jljenniferliu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Before she was directing Disney's 100-year anniversary tribute, Fawn Veerasunthorn had been rejected by the studio several times over. While Veerasunthorn was in college, Disney closed the Florida animation studio where her mentor had worked. In 2011, about a decade after she started chasing Disney in earnest, she finally landed a job with the iconic film studio. Veerasunthorn began working on "Wish" in 2020 and co-directed the feature alongside Chris Buck, who's been with the company since 1978. She always considered drawing her hobby and studied computer science in high school before planning to go the medical route professionally.

Persons: Fawn Veerasunthorn, Veerasunthorn, Paitoon Ratanasirintrawoot, Ratanasirintrawoot, Dr, Seuss, Raya, Chris Buck, who's, Arthur C, Brooks Organizations: The New York Times, Columbus College of Art & Design, Times, Disney, Pixar, Universal, Universal Studios, CNBC, Summit, Hollywood Locations: Thailand, Bangkok, U.S, Ohio, Florida, California

☆ How Deere is preparing for a fully autonomous farm by 2030
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Kiley Lambert | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Jahmy Hindman is senior vice president & chief technology officer of Deere & Company , a position he has held since July 2020. The best example of this is our See & Spray technology. Before AI, farmers had to spray the entire field to get rid of the weeds. AI will also help us reach our goal of creating a fully autonomous production cycle for corn and soybean farmers by 2030. An example of this is the ability to retrofit See & Spray technology onto a sprayer built in 2018.

Persons: Jahmy Hindman, Hindman, John Deere, we've, we'll, we're, It's, it's Organizations: Deere & Company, Solutions, CNBC, Summit, Technology, Big Tech, Hindman : Technology, Deere Locations: Hindman

☆ Snap stock rises as sales grow 5% from last year
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Revenue : $1.19 billion vs. $1.11 billion expected, according to LSEG. : $1.19 billion vs. $1.11 billion expected, according to LSEG. Global Daily Active Users (DAUs) : 406 million vs. 405.7 million expected, according to StreetAccount. : 406 million vs. 405.7 million expected, according to StreetAccount. Average revenue per user: $2.93 vs. $2.74 expected, according to StreetAccount.

Persons: Evan Spiegel, Snap, Spiegel, Jerry Hunter Organizations: Inc, New Locations: , California, U.S

☆ OpenAI's Sam Altman reverses threat to cease European operations
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, pauses during the New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, U.S., on Monday, Feb. 25, 2019. In just two days, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed to do a 180 on his public views of European artificial intelligence regulation – first threatening to cease operations in Europe if regulation crossed a line, then reversing his claims and now saying the firm has "no plans to leave." On Wednesday, Altman spoke to reporters in London and detailed his concerns about the European Union's AI Act, which is set to be finalized in 2024, the Financial Times reported. "The current draft of the EU AI Act would be over-regulating, but we have heard it's going to get pulled back," Altman said Wednesday in London, according to Reuters. The more recent proposal for the EU's AI Act will be negotiated among the European Commission and member states over the coming year, the FT reported.

☆ Sam Altman didn't take any equity in OpenAI, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, pauses during the New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, U.S., on Monday, Feb. 25, 2019. Altman didn't take an equity stake in the company when it added the for-profit OpenAI LP entity in 2019, Semafor reported Friday. OpenAI launched as a non-profit model in 2015 with backing from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who committed $1 billion to OpenAI, Semafor reported. But Musk was unhappy with OpenAI's growth, which he assessed as "fatally behind" Google 's work in AI, Semafor reported. 2019, OpenAI took a $1 billion investment from Microsoft , which has since embedded the company's technologies into its products.

☆ A Venture Capitalist Imagines What Generative AI Will Change
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

‘I think it’s going to creep into our lives in ways we never expected,’ says Martin Casado about generative AI. Martin Casado is a general partner at venture-capital company Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on enterprise investing. Mr. Casado started his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked on large-scale simulations for the Defense Department. His work, first as a researcher and now as an investor, gives him insight into the development of artificial-intelligence products and usage. Wall Street Journal reporter Berber Jin spoke with Mr. Casado at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit about the current capabilities, and the possible future of, AI.

☆ SVB Collapse Puts Pressure on Enterprise-Tech Pipeline
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince spoke at The Wall Street Journal CIO Network Summit on Tuesday in Palo Alto, Calif. The abrupt collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is expected to put a damper on innovation in the enterprise-technology market—at least in the short term—with emerging software startups facing new fundraising challenges and higher-priced loans, corporate technology chiefs, investors and industry analysts say. Beyond added financial pressures, they say, enterprise-tech developers—which make business software tools for companies—will also have to adjust to the sudden loss of the bank as a networking hub at the center of the startup ecosystem, which has helped foster the growth of countless go-to enterprise software products and services.

☆ Generative AI Brings Cost of Creation Close to Zero, Andreessen Horowitz’s Martin Casado Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WSJ Reporter Berber Jin, left, spoke with Andreessen Horowitz’s Martin Casado at the WSJ CIO Network Summit in Palo Alto, Calif. The value of ChatGPT-like technology comes from bringing the cost of producing images, text and other creative projects close to zero, according to Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Martin Casado . With only a few prompts, generative AI technology—such as the giant language models underlying the viral ChatGPT chatbot—can enable companies to create sales and marketing materials from scratch quickly for a fraction of the price of using current software tools, and paying designers, photographers and copywriters, among other expenses, Mr. Casado said.

☆ IT Leaders Reassess Vendor Risks After Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Corporate information technology leaders say they are reassessing vendor relationships and putting greater emphasis on risk management as they navigate the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. “You can be proactive all you want, but the response to a crisis, the response to a disruption no one saw coming, is just as important,” said Sineesh Keshav , chief technology officer and chief information officer at logistics real-estate company Prologis Inc. He and other executives spoke Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit in Palo Alto, Calif.

☆ CIOs Build New Bonds With CISOs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Belle Lin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As cybersecurity attacks directed at enterprises continue to evolve, some corporate technology leaders are elevating the roles of their chief information security officers and stressing the importance of directly communicating to their boards of directors how cybersecurity risk can impact their business. “I was trying to think, how do we get cybersecurity at the head of the train,” said Wendy Pfeiffer , chief information officer of cloud-software firm Nutanix Inc. She and other technology leaders spoke Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit in Palo Alto, Calif.

☆ Reserve Bank of Australia says rates have not peaked, path to soft landing narrow
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Philip Lowe, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, speaks during the Australian Payments Network Summit in Sydney Dec. 14, 2022. Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe head of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) reiterated on Wednesday that interest rates had not peaked, adding that he was unsure how high they had to go as the central bank, seeking to control inflation, tried to follow a narrow path to a soft landing. When asked about how far interest rates would have to rise, he said policymakers had an open mind. There is a risk that we have not yet done enough with interest rates and spending is more resilient and that inflation stays high." Markets see higher peakThe RBA most recently implemented an interest rates rise on Feb. 7 and said more would come.

☆ Fed’s Williams Says Policy Will Have to be Kept Sufficiently Restrictive For ‘Few Years’
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Harriet Torry | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A senior Federal Reserve official said the central bank will need to keep monetary policy sufficiently restrictive for ‘a few years’ to bring down inflation and realign supply and demand in the U.S. economy. “To me, the important thing is we need a sufficiently restrictive stance, we need to retain a sufficiently restrictive stance of policy, we’re going to need to maintain that for a few years to make sure we get inflation to 2%, then eventually we’ll get interest rates presumably back to more normal levels,” New York Fed President John Williams said at The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Summit in New York. Fed officials last week approved lifting the benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range between 4.5% and 4.75%. That was a slower pace than at prior meetings, they raised it by a half point in December and 0.75 point in November.

Finance chiefs are coming into the year grappling with a variety of challenges, from rising interest rates and inflation to managing labor disruptions, pricing and inventory. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CFO Journal The Morning Ledger provides daily news and insights on corporate finance from the CFO Journal team. “But…there’s more and more of a belief that any kind of downturn will be short and shallow, frankly. Some finance chiefs, meanwhile, are finding opportunities to expand in the volatile economy. You can’t take everything that your vendors are sending you.”Labor woes persistHiring, however, remains a challenge for finance chiefs.

☆ Fed Officials Signal Higher Interest Rates Will Be Needed to Contain Inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Harriet Torry | Nick Timiraos | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

A senior Federal Reserve official said the economy will need higher borrowing costs for a few years to bring down inflation and prevent price pressures from strengthening. “We still have some work to do to get interest rates in the right place,” said New York Fed President John Williams at The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Summit in New York on Wednesday. The Fed began raising interest rates from near zero last March. Separately, Fed governor Christopher Waller said he was optimistic that the Fed’s rate increases were slowing the economy. “And it might be a long fight, with interest rates higher for longer than some are currently expecting.”Their comments come a day after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the labor market’s surprising strength underscores why bringing inflation down will take longer and require higher interest rates than many investors have been anticipating.

☆ EY’s Split Faces ‘No Tremendous Hurdles,’ CEO Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Jean Eaglesham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

A proposed public sale of a 15% stake in the consulting company, raising about $11 billion, is scheduled for later this year. “I do see potential [further] delays because the deal is complicated,” Mr. Di Sibio said. Mr. Di Sibio is due to head the new consulting company, which needs everything from a new brand to an auditor. PREVIEWEY is hiring rival accounting firm BDO to check the books of the planned public consulting company, Mr. Di Sibio said. So the new EY consulting company name will have to be a made-up word, or a combination of two or three words, he added.

☆ GE’s Finance Chief Sees Future for AI Across Company’s Business
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Thomas Gryta | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

General Electric Co. sees a future for using generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT across its business, from the shop floor to the front office, according to Carolina Dybeck Happe, the company’s chief financial officer. Ms. Dybeck Happe said the use of AI in manufacturing begins with gathering a huge amount of data from different complex systems. A native of Sweden, she joined GE after spending about a year as finance chief of Denmark-based shipping giant A.P. She became GE’s finance chief in early 2020, taking on a role traditionally held by long-term employees of the company, which has long prided itself on its management training. Using artificial intelligence and automation is part of increasing efficiency and quality, Ms. Dybeck Happe said.

☆ Binance.US CFO Says Customer Funds Are Safe
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Patricia Kowsmann | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

The U.S.-based arm of crypto exchange Binance doesn’t lend out customer assets and doesn’t commingle deposits with the larger platform, its financial chief said Wednesday. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CFO Journal The Morning Ledger provides daily news and insights on corporate finance from the CFO Journal team. “At Binance.US, customer assets are theirs,” she said. So that’s the extent of our relationship,” Ms. Lee said. “As far as the business activities go, we do not commingle customers’ assets.

☆ Annoying CAPTCHA is still big for Google and e-commerce in bot battle, and likely to stay that way
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Barbara Collins | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

These are called CAPTCHAs – an acronym standing for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." Except some cybersecurity experts say in addition to the problem of human user annoyance, there's a problem with the underlying approach to cybersecurity. How machines are becoming more like humansAs a standalone cybersecurity tool, CAPTCHAs can be unreliable because of their partially behavioral-based approach. Bots can be programmed to call out to the human solving farm overseas that decipher the CAPTCHA, all in the timespan of a few seconds. In today's world, CAPTCHAs used without any additional layers of cybersecurity protection are typically not enough for most enterprises, said Sandy Carielli, a principal analyst for Forrester.

☆ Amazon's job cut plans show that tech isn't out of the woods just yet
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Indeed, as Insider reported last week, Mark Zuckerberg isn't ruling out the possibility of more layoffs at Meta. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Dan DeLong/GeekWire1. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Photo by Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty2. The tech titans are known for paying the big bucks, but that's not the only way to make it in tech. Tech leaders like Ancestry CEO Deb Liu and Scale AI CEO Lucy Guo will appear on stage.

☆ Women and family health startup Maven raises $90 million for post-Roe v. Wade world
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Maven, the women and family health startup, has raised $90 million in a new fundraising round, and in a tough environment for venture funding. Maven reached unicorn status last August in a $110 million round right before the bottom dropped out of the tech sector. Maven has benefitted from greater focus on women's health, particularly since the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. Global family benefits growth and Medicaid are two areas that Maven is prioritizing with the new funding. The family benefits will build off of the virtual platform that grew during Covid and include new features for Maven Wallet, the company's financial reimbursement platform.

Search resuls for: "Work Summit"

25 mentions found