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☆ Inside a C.E.O.’s Bold Claims About Her Hot Fintech Start-Up
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Erin Griffith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ms. Yahyaoui’s compelling background helped her stand out among entrepreneurs when she moved in 2018 to San Francisco, where she founded a student aid start-up called Mos. The app hit the top of Apple’s App Store and Ms. Yahyaoui raised $56 million from high-profile investors, including Sequoia Capital, John Doerr and Steph Curry, according to PitchBook, which tracks start-ups. In podcasts, TV interviews and other media, Ms. Yahyaoui, 39, frequently discussed Mos’s success. But internal company data viewed by The New York Times showed that as of early last year, only about 30,000 customers had paid for Mos’s student aid services. Less than 10 percent of Mos’s roughly 153,000 bank users had put their own money into their accounts, the data showed.

Persons: Amira Yahyaoui, Yahyaoui, John Doerr, Steph Curry, Mos Organizations: Sequoia Capital, The New York Times, TechCrunch Locations: Tunisian, Algerian, San Francisco

☆ It's hard to compete with Elon Musk when recruiting AI talent, CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said Elon Musk's xAI is stiff competition in the recruiting space. The AI CEO said Musk's company offers the highest compensation at the moment. Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of the AI company Perplexity, said it can be difficult to compete with the Tesla CEO when recruiting. Musk launched his own AI startup, xAI, last year and Srinivas said it has since become one of the highest-paying companies for AI talent — on par with OpenAI. In January, Financial Times reported that Musk's AI venture was in talks to raise $6 billion at around a $20 billion valuation.

Persons: Aravind Srinivas, Elon Musk's, It's, —, Elon Musk, Tesla, Musk, Srinivas, OpenAI, Alex Heath, Perplexity, Heath, OpenAI's ChatGPT, xAI's, Patrick Collison, Collison, Srnivas, he'd, Mark, Fortune, X Organizations: Service, OpenAI, Street Journal, Financial Times, xAI, TechCrunch, Twitter, SpaceX, Musk .

☆ TikTok ban: Tech VC Keith Rabois threatens Republicans with funding halt ahead of House vote
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"Will never fund any Republican candidates or leadership PACs (or the NRSC) run by Republicans who vote against the TikTok legislation," venture capitalist Keith Rabois wrote on X. "Support for the TikTok bill is an IQ test" for members of Congress, Rabois wrote in an email to CNBC. In February, Rabois gave $500,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee that backs House Republican candidates, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. A managing director at Khosla Ventures, Rabois gave just over $41,000 combined last year to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Rabois said that whether or not he continues to support the NRCC will be partly tied to how Republican leadership handles the upcoming vote.

Persons: Keith Rabois, Will, ByteDance's, Rabois, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Chuck Schumer, ByteDance, Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer, TikTok Organizations: Khosla Ventures, TechCrunch, San Francisco Design Center, Republicans, CNBC, Congressional, Fund, Republican, Tesla, Senate, Democrat, National Republican, Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, CCP Locations: San Francisco , California, United States, China, American, La

☆ You can watch movies under the stars using the projector built into the 'treehouse' tent for Rivian's R2 and R3 models
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rivian will sell a rooftop tent with a built-in projector for its new models, TechCrunch reported. The tent, called "Treehouse," will be sold as an accessory to its upcoming R2 and R3 models, TechCrunch reported. AdvertisementThe Rivian Treehouse is our take on the rooftop tent. The EV maker is taking $100 preorders for the R2 SUV, with prices for the vehicle starting at $45,000. AdvertisementOwners can also camp inside the R2 SUV as every seat can be folded down.

Persons: Rivian, —, Rivian's, Brian Gase, Gase, lanning Organizations: TechCrunch, EV, Service

☆ The Juggernaut promised to revolutionize South Asian news. But insiders say the company's founder misled investors, struggled to raise money, and left workers 'heartbroken.'
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Katie Warren | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +33 min

They were gathered for the inaugural summit of The Juggernaut, a digital South Asian news startup that launched in 2019. The Juggernaut spokesperson told BI that "multiple employees have equity in the company," but BI was unable to identify any such employees. "Twenty years ago, you might've struggled to mention a South Asian actor that you've seen in a movie," he said. As of January, the site had about 10,500 subscribers, Sur told investors in an email viewed by BI. Some feel that the publication has strayed from its mission of delivering "untold, smart South Asian stories and news you won't find anywhere else."

Persons: —, Richa Moorjani, Manish Chandra, Anish Melwani, Sadiq Khan, Amitav Ghosh, Roy Rochlin, Jay Bhattacharya, didn't, Sur, Padma Lakshmi, Moorjani, Mira Nair, Oprah Winfrey, she'd, who've, Josh Benson, Bhattacharya, might've, you've, Dev Patel, Priyanka Chopra, Black millennials, Bhattacharya's, Adam Hansmann, Kevin Lin, Albert Ni, Charles Hudson, Steve Jennings, Sur's, Kyle Stanford, Axios, Stanford, Snigdha, Winfrey, MICHAEL TRAN, hadn't, wouldn't, Fariha Róisín, Meghna Rao, Róisín, Rao, Rao didn't, they'd, she's, it's, Hudson, who'd, Reetu Gupta, Aditi Shah, Sean Gupta, Steven Simione, would've, we're, Brian Morrissey, Morrissey, cofounders, Narendra Modi's, Sneha Mehta Organizations: Spring Studios, Netflix, Business, New Yorker, Harvard Business School, Guardian, American, Old Town Media, Athletic, BI, Indian, Yale, McKinsey, Precursor Ventures, Forbes, Getty, TechCrunch, YouTube's Sustainability, YouTube, Paramount Pictures Studios, Immigration Services, Stanford, Digiday, Gannett Locations: York City, chai, Jean's, hasn't, Sur, New York City, South, Asian, India, Madhya Pradesh, Queens, Sur texted, Indian American, AFP, Róisín, Los Angeles , California, South Asia, Silicon

☆ VC Dick Costolo dishes on the new startup funding frenzy and valuations coming back to earth. 'The world now is much more sane.'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

He prefers getting to know founders long before they decide to raise money so he can pounce on the right opportunity. Investors, including hedge funds, hurtled term sheets at founders to beat the competition, skipping the usual diligence along the way. Flush with cash, the partners are seeing a flood of hyper-growth startups come to market for funding after a two-year dry spell. The funding blockage is also softening as valuations come back to earth, Costolo said. "Prices are a lot more sensible now," Costolo said, noting the exception of valuations in artificial intelligence.

Persons: Dick Costolo, Costolo, Costolo isn't, Adam Bain, Twitter's, Dario Amodei, Kimberly White, Getty Costolo, they're, Bain, David Fischer Organizations: Twitter, Business, Advisors, Software, Carta, TechCrunch, Google, Nvidia, Fund, Health Locations: Jackson Hole , Wyoming, Detroit

☆ Rippling CEO Parker Conrad dishes on why the startup is sitting on a massive $750 million war chest
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. To this day, Rippling hasn't touched the money it raised in that emergency package, Conrad told Business Insider. Rippling will invest hundreds of millions of dollars from the balance sheet into research and development this year, according to CEO Parker Conrad. Parker Conrad says Rippling hasn't touched any of the venture capital it raised over the last two rounds. Shepherding the startup through this next growth phase is new chief product officer Eisar Lipkovitz, Rippling told Business Insider exclusively.

Persons: Parker Conrad, Conrad, Rippling hasn't, Kleiner Perkins, Rippling, Amy Osborne, Mamoon Hamid, they've, TechCrunch, Eisar Lipkovitz, Lipkovitz, Deel, Melia Russell Organizations: Business, paychecks, Bedrock, Washington Post, JPMorgan, Google Locations: Silicon, San Francisco, Asia, Lyft, Rippling

☆ 23andMe considers splitting up company to revive stock price
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Ashley Capoot | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Shares of 23andMe sank 21% on Thursday, a day after the genetic testing company reported dismal fiscal third-quarter results and discussed splitting itself in two to help juice its stock price. 23andMe reported revenue of $45 million for the quarter, down from the $67 million it reported in the same period last year. The five-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company went public in 2021 via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, a deal that valued the company at around $3.5 billion. The company has launched additional therapeutics and research businesses, but its share price has tumbled more than 95% from its peak. They lowered their target price for the stock to 85 cents from 90 cents.

Persons: 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki, Sergey Brin, Forbes, Joe Selsavage, Selsavage Organizations: TechCrunch, 23andMe, Nasdaq, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, CNBC Disruptor, Citi, CNBC PRO Locations: San Francisco , California, 23andMe

☆ Read the pitch deck that helped Latino-focused fintech platform Suma raise $2.2 million to teach money management through videos and gaming
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Suma Wealth, a 3-year-old fintech company that combines culturally relevant content and experiences with financial tools to help Latinos build wealth, raised $2.2 million in new funding. Leading the round was Radicle Impact, which was joined by Vamos Ventures, OVO fund, and the American Heart Association Impact fund. She got the idea for Suma during the pandemic when she saw its disproportionate impact on Latinos, Acevedo told TechCrunch. Along with closing the seed round, Suma announced that it had passed 1 million users on its platforms and acquired Intellecto, a platform designed to personalize users' learning experiences. Check out the pitch deck that Suma used to raise its most recent funding.

Persons: Suma, Beatriz Acevedo, Acevedo, they've, Wells Organizations: Vamos Ventures, American Heart Association, Ulu Ventures, Fund, Chingona Ventures, Business, FDIC, Suma, JPMorgan Chase, TechCrunch Locations: Wells Fargo

☆ Startup funding is falling in most major cities. So why is Boston pulling ahead?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Melia Russell | Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

AdvertisementThe Bay Area took the lion's share of capital raised on Carta in 2023, followed by Boston, then New York. AdvertisementAccording to Carta data, select metro areas saw the total early-stage funding raised decline by at least a third from 2022 to 2023. Yet early-stage funding was only down 24% in Boston, however, the smallest decrease of the metro areas that Carta tracks. According to Carta data, about $2.6 billion of capital raised in biotech flowed to Boston startups last year. Beyond biotechThe Carta data shows Boston also had strong showings across investment in software-as-a-service and hardware.

Persons: —, Zach Weinberg, Roche, Carta, Founders, that's, Rudina Seseri, Seseri, Peter Walker, Michael Greeley, Greeley, Mark Castleman, Castleman, Clement Cazalot, Cazalot, Walker Organizations: Service, Massachusetts Turnpike, Partners, Business, Carta, Boston, East Coast, Companies, Area, Flare Capital Partners, pharma, Intel Ignite, Glasswing Ventures, Founders, Machinery, Pritzker Group, Armory Square Ventures, Way Ventures, Klaviyo's, New York Stock Exchange Locations: Boston, New York City, East, Boston , Cambridge, Newton , Massachusetts, Newark, Jersey City , New Jersey, New York, San Francisco, Bay, France, Copley

☆ Apple is shipping out jailbroken iPhones and a bunch of stickers to bug bounty hunters
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Camilo Fonseca | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewJailbreaking iPhones — essentially, hacking iOS to remove security features — is a talking point on social media again. Gergely Kalman, a security researcher, posted a photo of a "Security Research Device," or SRD, a jailbroken iPhone 14 Pro sent to him by Apple, on X (formerly known as Twitter). Apple pre-jailbreaks the devices, allowing third-party researchers to probe for vulnerabilities without worrying about being locked out. "Apple strongly cautions against installing any software that modifies iOS," the iPhone User Guide said.

Persons: —, Gergely Kalman, Kalman, Apple Organizations: Service, Apple, Business, iOS, TechCrunch Locations: Spain

☆ Marcelo Claure and Paul Judge bought SoftBank's diversity fund. Now they're trying to raise $200 million for it.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewFormer SoftBank executive Marcelo Claure and serial entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge are in the throes of raising a new $200 million fund. The past year has been transitional for the fund since Claure and Judge bought the $100 million fund from SoftBank. Since then, there haven't been any new investments, but the two are poised to capitalize on the success of the first fund and are raising the second Open Opportunity Fund. He said that limited partners' interest has been positive overall since the Open Opportunity Fund's first fund has had so much success. AdvertisementJudge said that he expects the first Open Opportunity Fund to continue to deliver "top quartile" returns to its investors over the next five to seven years.

Persons: —, Marcelo Claure, Paul Judge, It's, Claure, haven't, SoftBank —, I've, Judge, George Floyd's, Masayoshi, Shu Nyatta, Stacy Brown, what's Organizations: Service, Business, Opportunity Fund, Opportunity, Fund, Mastercard, Vista Equity Partners, Ventures, Sprint, Bicycle Capital, TechCrunch Locations: SoftBank, Atlanta, America

Zuckerberg has accumulated a long history of public apologies, often issued in the wake of crisis or when Facebook users rose up against unannounced — and frequently unappreciated — changes in its service. Whether or not the public always buys his apologies, there's little doubt that Zuckerberg finds it important to make them himself. BLINDED BY BEACONPhotos You Should See View All 45 ImagesFacebook's first big privacy blow-up entailed a service called Beacon, which the platform launched in 2007. VR TOUR OF A DISASTER ZONEZuckerberg's fascination with virtual reality long predated his decision to rename the company Facebook as Meta Platforms. That data was reportedly used to target voters during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign that resulted in Trump's election.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, “, you've, Meta's, Zuckerberg, it's, Here's, Beacon, — Zuckerberg, “ we’ve, we’ve, who'd, ”, Hurricane Maria, Trump's, Steve Bannon Organizations: FRANCISCO, Facebook, TechCrunch, Business, Yorker, Federal Trade, VR, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, Cambridge, CNN Locations: It's, Puerto Rico, Hurricane, CAMBRIDGE

☆ Cult-favorite fashion brand Selkie used AI to design its new clothes, and fans are disappointed
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Amanda Krause | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewThe cult-favorite fashion brand Selkie seems to have fallen from its pedestal after using AI to create new clothing designs. AdvertisementThey also argued that using AI goes against Selkie's message of encouraging inclusivity, "artistic self-expression," and ethical manufacturing. John Lamparski/Stringer/Getty ImagesSelkie responded to the complaints via an Instagram comment, in which the brand acknowledged that AI art is "polarizing." The rise of AI in fashion has prompted backlash against other brands and designers in the past. A fashion model also told The Guardian that AI was used to alter her appearance and make her skin appear lighter in photos, and AI Fashion Week is now an annual event.

Persons: —, Kimberley Gordon, Gordon, John Lamparski, Stringer, Selkie, Selkie's, Levi's Organizations: Service, Business, TechCrunch, Selkie, York, Guardian

☆ 23andMe took 5 months to realize hackers had stolen data from customer accounts
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Advertisement23andMe customer accounts were breached by hackers last year, but it took the DNA testing company five months to detect the intrusion. The company learned about the attack after stolen customer data was advertised on Reddit, as well as on the darkweb forum BreachForums, per the filing. The filing stated: "On October 10, we required all 23andMe customers to reset their password. 23andMe previously told Business Insider that the hackers gained access to customer data through " credential stuffing ." 23andMe didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Persons: 23andMe, didn't, —, 23andMe didn't Organizations: Service, TechCrunch, Business

The genetic testing company 23andMe is being accused in a class-action lawsuit of failing to protect the privacy of customers whose personal information was exposed last year in a data breach that affected nearly seven million profiles. The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in federal court in San Francisco, also accused the company of failing to notify customers with Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage that they appeared to have been specifically targeted, or that their personal genetic information had been compiled into “specially curated lists” that were shared and sold on the dark web. The suit was filed after 23andMe submitted a notification to the California Attorney General’s Office that showed the company was hacked over the course of five months, from late April 2023 through September 2023, before it became aware of the breach. According to the filing, which was reported by TechCrunch, the company learned about the breach on Oct. 1, when a hacker posted on an unofficial 23andMe subreddit claiming to have customer data and sharing a sample as proof. The company first disclosed the breach in a blog post on Oct. 6 in which it said that a “threat actor” had gained access to “certain accounts” by using “recycled login credentials” — old passwords that 23andMe customers had used on other sites that had been compromised.

Persons: 23andMe, ” Organizations: California Attorney General’s, TechCrunch Locations: San Francisco, California

☆ OpenAI drops prices on new GPT 3.5 Turbo model and announces fixes for 'laziness' in GPT 4 Turbo
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewOpenAI is set to introduce a new GPT 3.5 Turbo model — the same model used to power ChatGPT — and will lower prices on the product for the third time in the past year. GPT models teach themselves to understand the relationship between the tokens and can produce the subsequent token in a sequence, according to OpenAI. GPT-3.5 Turbo has become the industry standard among other AI models seeking to compete with OpenAI's accuracy and brand recognition. AdvertisementOpenAI is also introducing an updated version of the GPT-4 Turbo preview model, the company said this week. The update comes about three weeks after OpenAI reopened sign-ups for its subscription model, ChatGPT Plus, which is powered by GPT-4.

Persons: —, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Business, TechCrunch

☆ Don't worry — the machines won't be as smart as humans for a long time, because they've still got a lot to learn
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Much of today's most popular AI models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4, are trained on what's publicly available on the internet. It's worth noting that AI models exist today that are pretty effective at generating images, but these are text-to-image models, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Koller also sees issues with today's LLMs. This isn't the first time doubts have been raised about the capacity of today's AI models. Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunchThis is not to say today's LLMs are useless.

Persons: —, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Bill Gates, Daphne Koller, MacArthur, Koller, Neilson Barnard, chatbots, Yann LeCun, –, today's LLMs, LLMs, that's, Kai, Fu Lee, Steve Jennings Organizations: Economic, Service, Big Tech titans, Google, Microsoft, Getty, Meta Locations: Davos, Switzerland, today's, silico

☆ UiPath stock spikes more than 20% after earnings beat, generative AI integration
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Jake Piazza | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Co-founder and CEO of UiPath Daniel Dines speaks on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2019 at Arena Berlin in Berlin on Dec. 12, 2019. UiPath stock popped more than 20% on Friday, one day after the company released quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations. UiPath also raised its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2024 outlook for annual recurring revenue. For companies like UiPath that are reliant on subscriptions, annual recurring revenue is an important metric that reveals how much money a company receives on a recurring basis. "The weaving of Generative AI into its broadened automation platform, is driving strong adoption amongst enterprises," the analysts wrote.

Persons: UiPath Daniel Dines, UiPath, Davidson, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: TechCrunch, Berlin, Bank of America, CNBC PRO Locations: Berlin

☆ Two Amazon and Netflix alums have raised $1 million for their fintech startup that aims to disrupt entertainment and production financing
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Conduiit, a fintech startup that promises to save entertainment companies time and money by centralizing their production finance operations, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. He saw how production companies were using a hodgepodge of services to manage day-to-day transactions, as well as managing individual productions in silos, resulting in lost time and wasted expense. ConduiitCharging on a SaaS model, Conduiit lets production companies access all their compliance, management, accounting, and payment tools from a single platform. "There are two Black founders in a world that doesn't have a lot of them," said Glover of Hamilton and Thurman. Only about 1% of venture funding in 2022 went to Black startup founders, according to Crunchbase data analyzed by TechCrunch .

Persons: Hiro Mizushima, Shawn Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton's, Jason Thurman, who's, HBO Max, Max, John Oliver, Drew Glover, Glover, Thurman, we're Organizations: Fiat Ventures, Aperture Venture, Business, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, HBO, Jigsaw, Laylow Productions, Productions, Silicon Valley Bank, Fiat, TechCrunch Locations: Silicon, Hollywood

☆ Password authenticator Okta says hackers stole names and email addresses of all its customer support users
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Okta said hackers stole a report with names and email addresses of all customer support users. Those users face an "increased risk of phishing," the password authenticator said in a blog. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . But in a blog post Wednesday, Okta said hackers stole a report that included the names and email addresses of "all Okta customer support system users." A group of hackers called Lapsus$ extortion group accessed a customer support engineer's account in January 2022 and shared screenshots of Okta's systems, per the report.

Persons: Okta, —, David Bradbury, Bradbury Organizations: Service, FedEx, P, TechCrunch Locations: San Francisco

☆ Forbes built a hall of shame for all the questionable people on its 30 Under 30 lists
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Plenty of people on the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists have turned out to be not quite so shiny. AdvertisementThe Forbes "30 Under 30" lists celebrate the achievements of young people making a mark in a range of sectors. Its "hall of shame" starts – appropriately enough – with Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX cofounder who was on the 30 Under 30 finance list in 2021. Caroline Ellison was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list last year. Outside the 30 Under 30 finance class, the gun rights activist Cody Wilson also makes the hall of shame.

Persons: Forbes, Sam Bankman, Martin Shkreli, —, Mark Zuckerberg, FTX, Fried, Caroline Ellison, Eduardo Munoz Alvarez Martin Shkreli, Craig Ruttle, Charlie Javice, Frank, JP Morgan Chase, Javice, Morgan, She's, Nate Paul, Lucas Duplan Clinkle, Lucas Duplan, Peter Thiel, Andreesen Horowitz, Cody Wilson, Kelly West, Steph Korey, James O'Keefe, Prendergrast, she's Organizations: Forbes, Service, Prosecutors, Justice, TechCrunch, Business, Reuters, Project Veritas, The City Magazine Locations: Alameda

☆ Elon Musk's Neuralink raises more cash ahead of human trials next year
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Neuralink has raised another $43 million, per an SEC filing, as it faces mounting scrutiny. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel's Founders Fund led the latest round, TechCrunch reported. AdvertisementElon Musk's controversial brain implant company Neuralink has raised more funding as it gears up to start human trials. The latest round was led by billionaire investor Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, TechCrunch reported. The latest funding round comes as Elon Musk faces further criticism over the deaths of monkeys that Neuralink used to test its chips.

Persons: Neuralink, Peter Thiel's, —, Elon, Elon Musk, Gary Gensler, Musk, Luke, Optimus, Neuralink didn't Organizations: SEC, Fund, TechCrunch, Service, Elon, Responsible Medicine, Business

☆ 'Black Twitter' asks 'What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?' in the wake of ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Monica Melton | Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Sam Altman's high-profile firing has drawn comparisons to Timnit Gebru's exit from Google. Some tech observers and "Black Twitter" asked: "What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?" Sam Altman's shocking ouster— and reinstatement — to OpenAI drew comparisons to Steve Jobs's exit and eventual return to Apple . But a less obvious comparison has been drawn that asks the question: "What if Sam Altman was a Black Woman?" Advertisement"What If Sam Altman Were A Black Woman?

Persons: Sam Altman's, Sam Altman, —, OpenAI, Steve Jobs's, Timnit, Altman, wasn't, Gebru's, Googlers, Jeff Dean, WVBvXJZwh0 — Daniel, @growing_daniel, Eric Schmidt —, Kimberly Bryant, Bryant, TechCrunch's Dominic, Madori Davis, Greg Brockman, z5Dc1BbhbQ — Taylor Poindexter, @engineering_bae, aren't, Émile Torres, Black, Gebru, Torres Organizations: Google, Service, Apple, Microsoft, Tech, Black Locations: America, OpenAI

☆ Here are the dozen brands that have paused ads on X amid ongoing crisis for Elon Musk’s platform
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —At least a dozen major brands have halted ad spending on X, formerly Twitter, since its latest advertiser exodus began last week over concerns about antisemitism and hate speech on Elon Musk’s social media platform. The ongoing exit of advertisers marks a deepening crisis for X, which was already struggling to woo brands back to the platform following Musk’s takeover last year. IBM’s decision also came after Musk had publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in a post on X earlier in the week. X also said it had made the pro-Nazi accounts identified by Media Matters ineligible for monetization, meaning ads can no longer be run on their pages. (Media Matters has vowed to fight the lawsuit from X and says it stands by its reporting.)

Persons: Axios, they’d, Musk, Apple, Linda Yaccarino, Richard Spencer, —, CNN’s Oliver Darcy, Liam Reilly, Brian Fung Organizations: New, New York CNN, Elon, Fox Sports, Ubisoft, TechCrunch, Paris, CNN, White, IBM, Media, Disney, Paramount, Comcast, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros, Media Matters, University of Michigan, D.C, National Football League Locations: New York, Washington

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