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☆ Who is Sam Altman? The man behind ChatGPT is about to have his moment on Capitol Hill
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

New York CNN —For a few months in 2017, there were rumors that Sam Altman was planning to run for governor of California. Altman, the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT and image generator Dall-E, is set to testify before Congress on Tuesday. Maybe I’m wrong?’ Thank God someone with so much power has so much humility.”Others want Altman and OpenAI to move more cautiously. OpenAI co-founder & CEO Sam Altman speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at Moscone Convention Center on October 03, 2019 in San Francisco, California. Similar generative AI technology is quickly finding its way into productivity and search tools used by billions of people.

☆ I quit Goldman Sachs after only a year. Here's how I knew leaving for a tech startup was the right career move.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Chris Hladczuk | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Chris Hladczuk leads growth at Meow, a fintech startup, after quitting Goldman Sachs. I picked a weird day to quit — it was my 24th birthday and I called my boss to tell her I was leaving Goldman Sachs. The power of Goldman SachsI love Goldman because it taught me how to win. With my future career in mind, is my pace of learning higher at Goldman in investment banking or at an early-stage startup? Chris Hladczuk currently leads growth at fintech startup Meow.

☆ Y Combinator CEO on leaving Palantir: 'I'm working like a dog for Peter Thiel... Who's the real chump?'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Will Gendron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan discussed his time at Palantir during its early days at the Axios BFD summit. "I'm working like a dog for Peter Thiel ... Who's the real chump?" He went on to explain that at Palantir he was "working like a dog for Peter Thiel." "I'm working like a dog for Peter Thiel... Who's the real chump?" He returned to Y Combinator as a partner from 2010 to 2015, and as its CEO in January.

☆ Brex: 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Fintech startup Brex was already a high flier, growing by 200% last year with more than 200,000 customers from startups to enterprises. Now following the collapse of SVB, Brex has gained billions of dollars in deposits from thousands of ex-SVB clients. With previous experience in founding Pagar.me, one of Brazil's largest payment processors, their idea for Brex was to combine financial products and software in a single platform. The founders conceived Brex in a Y Combinator accelerator program after growing frustrated applying for a credit card to launch and fund their original idea for a VR startup. What has differentiated Brex from the status quo in corporate cards is its focus on fast-growing businesses.

☆ Microsoft M12 boss departs tech giant's VC arm to help turn London-based investor Systemiq Capital into the Sequoia of climate tech
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A founding partner at Microsoft's VC arm M12 has left to take up a GP role at a climate tech investor. Goldstein has joined Systemiq Capital and plans to turn it into the Sequoia of climate tech. One of the founding partners of Microsoft's venture arm M12 has left the company to join London-based investor Systemiq Capital, which he wants to help turn into the Sequoia of climate tech. Systemiq Capital, meanwhile, was spun out of advisory firm Systemiq in 2022 to allow it to thrive on its own, Goldstein said. The climate tech investor expects to reach final close on its second fund, worth $200 million, towards the end of 2023.

☆ Wall Street's most important workers you've never thought of
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

And on Wall Street, where the volume of information continues to rise, application design and user interface is taking center stage. User interface and user experience have long been underappreciated in finance, which is ironic considering the public nature of the work. Read more about Citadel X, the $57 billion hedge fund's user experience and interface team. If you're still trying to understand the collapse of yet another regional bank, we've got you covered. The German bank is building out its investment bank as it eyes a potential return of M&A, the Financial Times reports.

☆ AI startup founders from Y Combinator's latest class reveal the top 3 things they learned from the accelerator
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Several AI startup founders who participated said the program had many more in person events. And they also said it was a huge benefit and made a difference being in San Francisco. For its winter 2023 cohort, Y Combinator accepted founders from 282 startups for its coveted startup accelerator program. Insider spoke with the founders of four AI startups that went through this latest batch and asked them to share what they learned most from the experience. "It feels like the next platform shift, and San Francisco is definitely the heart of it."

☆ Investing in Space: Relativity CEO bets on bigger rockets, A.I. capabilities
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Morgan Brennan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

While it didn't reach space, the most powerful rocket ever built marked a milestone and shined a light on a broader industry trend: building bigger rockets. Take Relativity Space, a CNBC Disruptor 50 company valued at more than $4 billion, that has emerged as the posterchild of the trend. Even Rocket Lab is busy developing a more powerful rocket than its current small launch-focused Electron. CNBC's weekly "Manifest Space" podcast focuses on the billionaires and brains behind the ever-expanding opportunities beyond our atmosphere. In "Manifest Space," sit back, relax and prepare for liftoff.

☆ He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

But, "you do at some point need to start having contact with reality," he told Insider. The plan was still only a rough sketch, Blania told Insider, but that didn't seem to matter to his host. "He always wanted to understand everything at a very deep level," Thrun told Insider in an email. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ Sam Altman is building his utopia, whether you want it or not
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

Altman told Insider, "We debate our approach frequently and carefully." "I don't think anyone can lose your dad young and wish he didn't have more time with him," Altman told Insider. Altman told Insider that his thinking had evolved since those posts. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ VCs are scrambling to invest in AI startups in Y Combinator's latest class: 'There's hysteria for a reason'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

VCs are scrambling to back the AI startups in Y Combinator's latest batch. Several generative AI startups have already secured funding from top firms, sources say. And while valuations are down across the board, YC AI startups are still hot. Startups focused on AI, and generative AI specifically, which saw a substantial jump in the latest batch, were some of the most highly sought after by investors. An AI feeding frenzyVC buzz was common across generative AI startups both in the application and infrastructure layers.

☆ Why Michael Bloomberg is the keeper of the keys on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Bloomberg deals in data — via its ubiquitous terminal — which serves as the lifeblood of Wall Street. (A funny nugget from the FT story: Bloomberg is not part of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In many ways, the Bloomberg terminal is the cockroach of Wall Street. Tiger Global's down bad. Here's more on Tiger Global's unique approach to investing in startups and why it backfired.

☆ Developer tool startups in Y Combinator's latest class are grabbing the attention of investors like Elad Gil and Google's Gradient Ventures. Here are 4 that have already landed funding.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Developer tool startups that were part of Y Combinator's latest class are drawing strong interest from several high-profile venture capitalists. Sequoia partner Lauren Reeder personally participated in the code review startup's recent funding round, according to a Sequoia spokesperson. That fundraising was at a $30 million post-money valuation, one person familiar with the deal said. Developer tool startups accounted for 26% of the companies in YC's winter 2023 batch, up from 16% of the summer 2022 class, according to the accelerator's startup directory. Have a tip on a startup funding round?

☆ Airbnb CEO says his $75 billion company was rejected by investors—until a $40 box of cereal turned things around
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Megan Sauer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and his two co-founders did it with $40 boxes of cereal. Specifically, they sold self-designed cereal boxes featuring then-presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as a breakfast option in Airbnbs. The cereal proved popular, selling more than 1,000 boxes and making $30,000 for the company, Chesky said. It might have never happened without the cereal: Airbnb was rejected by multiple major investors during its first year of operations, Chesky noted in a 2015 Medium post. "The investors that rejected us were smart people, and I am sure we didn't look very impressive at the time," he wrote.

☆ Y Combinator's latest class is a feeding frenzy for VCs looking to back AI startups: 'There's hysteria for a reason'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

☆ Exclusive: AI startup LangChain taps Sequoia to lead funding round at a valuation of at least $200 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

AI startup LangChain is raising between $20 and $25 million from Sequoia, Insider has learned. The latest round scored the hot upstart a valuation of at least $200 million, according to sources. Just a week after announcing a $10 million seed investment from Benchmark, AI darling LangChain has scored even more capital from yet another top-tier VC. As an open-source project, LangChain is especially known for its strong community — one that Chase is personally involved in. Chase's dedication to openness and collaboration is a major differentiator for the founder's community, and therefore, his startup, Turow said.

☆ Elon Musk dreams of Twitter's AI power
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk's personal AI ambitions. Elon Musk was one of the more prominent names on an open letter calling for a pause in AI development. My teammate Asia Martin points out that Musk's position on AI is contradicted by Twitter's investment in generative AI. Twitter's recent purchase of hardware normally used to develop generative AI products shows the extent of this ambition. Read more on Elon Musk's AI ambitions.

☆ Vector database Chroma scored $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation. Here's why its technology is key to helping generative AI startups.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chroma helps manage vector embeddings, or numerical representations of data AI models can process. The startup raised $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation led by Quiet Capital. The company recently closed a $18 million seed round led by Quiet Capital at a $75 million valuation. Originally, Chroma's tech aimed to serve machine learning engineers who were training and deploying AI models. Because this limits the model's context window, this approach tends to prevent hallucinations, or confident but incorrect responses from AI, Troynikov told Insider.

☆ This Y Combinator-backed startup helps reduce climate-warming methane in cow burps. Check out the pitch deck Alga Biosciences used to secure $4 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Y Combinator startup Algo Biosciences has developed a way to reduce methane in cow burps. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck the company used to secure $4 million from Collaborative Fund. A Y Combinator-backed startup trying to curb methane spewing cow burps has just landed $4 million in its first institutional funding round. Berkeley-based Alga Biosciences, founded in 2021, has developed a feed additive to reduce methane from cow burps using biochemically modified kelp. Check out the 11 slide pitch deck the company used to raise the funds.

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

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

☆ There are more generative AI startups that are launching out of Y Combinator than ever before. Here are 55 of them.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The startup accelerator Y Combinator had the most generative AI startups ever in this cohort. These startups are set to reveal what they've been working on at Demo Day on April 5 and 6. Here are 55 generative AI startups in the startup accelerator's winter 2023 batch. This year, the hottest topic in startup and VC land is generative AI, and this cohort saw a jump in the number of generative AI startups that made the cut. The last cohort had only nine startups that described themselves as generative AI companies, but the current one has over 50 startups in the category.

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

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

☆ Wall Street wants to lend to Hollywood, and that could be bad news for the rest of us
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Today, we've got stories on an upheaval within BlackRock's communications department, a debate over the merits of the man bun on Wall Street, and why I'm not intimidated by Gen Z anymore. Insider's Rebecca Ungarino and Reed Alexander have a story on private lenders looking to make investments in media and entertainment. Hollywood has long represented an interesting investment opportunity for Wall Street, but lending to the industry is an interesting twist. As Reed pointed out in a follow-up story, Wall Street is keen to apply artificial-intelligence tools to identify projects worth greenlighting. And here's more on why Wall Street is so high on the entertainment industry leveraging AI.

☆ Y Combinator's head of admissions is reviewing over 20,000 startups for its summer 2023 cohort. Here's what she's looking for.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

For early-stage founders looking to grow their startups in an accelerator, few names spark as much excitement as Y Combinator. Several of Silicon Valley's marquee companies are Y Combinator graduates, including Airbnb, Stripe, and Dropbox. While the number of startups that were part of last year's summer cohort were down 40% from the previous batch, this winter batch had 17.5% more startups accepted, said a Y Combinator spokesperson. Now, Y Combinator is looking ahead to its next batch, accepting applications for the summer 2023 cohort, which are due by April 7th. Stephanie Simon, the head of Y Combinator's admissions team, wants founders to know she's still sifting through all those applications.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck that Y Combinator alum Careerist, a tech career training and job placement startup, used to raise $8 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Careerist is an edtech startup that helps train and recruit workers for open tech jobs. Now, the team has grown to over 100 employees and just raised $8 million in venture capital funding. Careerist also offers tech recruiting help, automating the job application process to help users find viable leads for new roles. The accelerator helped the Careerist team get in touch with investors for the company's seed round and also many employer partners, and was very helpful in figuring out how best to grow the business, Tysbaev said. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck Careerist used to raise $8 million:

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