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That Was The Week
That Was The Week episodes
- Robots and Humans
Contents
Editorial
Essays of the Week
State of Private Markets: Q1 2023
Fund Size Is Still Strategy - The Growing Disconnect Between Founders and VCs
'ZIRP' No More: A Founder Playbook for the Market Downturn
Series D Hits Lowest Point In Years. What Does That Mean?
Nearly Half of YouTube’s U.S. Viewership Is Now on TVs, Helping Drive Ad Shift
The Unified Content Business Model
Video of the Week
Greg Brockman at TED
Yejin Choi at TED
AI of the Week
Google "We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI"
Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?
Lina Khan: We Must Regulate A.I. Here’s How.
Google Suffers a Major Loss
Slack updates aim to put AI at the center of the user experience
Profit in AI
News Of the Week
OpenAI closes $300M share sale at $27B-29B valuation
New Unicorns Led By AI Companies In April, And Two Dropped Off
ARM registers for US initial public offering
Twitter Plans to Enable Publishers to Charge Per-Article to Bypass Paywalls in the App
Startup of the Week
Elon Musk Continues to Transform Las Vegas
Tweet of the Week
Paul Graham
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message40 min - Shrinking
Contents
Editorial: Shrinking
Essays of the Week
These 4 Charts Show That, Slowly But Surely, Startup Funding Deal Sizes Are Shrinking
The Fintech Funding Crunch In 4 Charts
M&A for venture-backed startups has fallen to the lowest quarterly level in a decade
Elon Musk Is Transforming Twitter, Not Killing It
The Mother of All Pivots
Grimes invites people to use her voice in AI songs
2023 State of AI in 14 Charts
The History of AI in 7 Experiments
Michelle’s Approach to ChatGPT Has Me Convinced Google Will Launch a Direct Competitor
The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born
Facebook Parent Meta Soars After Blasting Q1 Earnings Forecasts; Zuckerberg Sees More Cost Cuts
First Republic Plunges To Fresh Record Low Amid FDIC Receivership Report
Humane
Benedict Evans
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message38 min - Gone: DVDs, Magazines and Buzzfeed News
Content this week from: @jonfingas, @harrymccracken, @TurnerNovak, @fredwilson, @kwharrison13, @ballmatthew, @ttunguz, @timoreilly, @davidcummings, @NeilThanedar
Netflix will shut down its DVD rental business in September
The End of Computer Magazines in America
Shuttering of BuzzFeed News Signals Shift to Survival Mode
Can Substack Save the Social Network?
What Is A Protocol And Why Does It Matter?
Building an Actual Unicorn
2023 Private SaaS Company Valuations
Is Twitter finally dying?
Why Every Startup Needs an AI Strategy
Sam Altman: Size of LLMs won’t matter as much moving forward
You Can’t Regulate What You Don’t Understand
China’s new GDP figures may restore faith in its economy
Elon Musk wants to develop TruthGPT, ‘a maximum truth-seeking AI’
Google Looks to Turbocharge AI Efforts With Combined Brain, DeepMind Unit
VCs Challenged by the Downturn
Tiger Global Management’s $12.7 Billion Venture Fund Records 20% Loss
Apple launches Apple Card’s savings accounts with 4.15% interest rate
SeetGeek
@NeilThanedar
This week’s headline is “Gone.” Specifically, Nexflix’s DVD service, Maximum PC and MacLife Magazines, and BuzzFeed News. The latter was “shuttered” today.
We could extend the meaning to include unicorns, later-stage venture funding, and Elon Musk’s first Starship.
In the case of the first three, it is surprising that they survived this long.
But I think these closures are a moment to acknowledge and mark. They have already been replaced long ago, and their passing is a testament to the work Netflix has done with streaming, the emergence of the newsletter and blog, and the frustrations we all have with headline writers seeking clickbait.
The downbeat tone continues with a Vox piece asking (with an implied answer) Is Twitter finally dying? Vox is no longer a news publication when it comes to Twitter, it has become a rag with a campaign seeking to fight against the company’s very existence. It is the Fox News of Twitter coverage.
A more thoughtful piece from Kyle Harrison is still, however, downbeat. It asks why almost all unicorns have never made a profit but overlook that many have enormous free cash flow that they decided to spend on growth as a conscious strategy. Spending profits (thus removing them as profits) is what startups should be doing. Amazon has done so for decades successfully.
Turner Novak writes about Substack, one of the emergent platforms, and asks the question, “Can Substack Save the Social Network?”
He tracks the history of Substack, increasing the tools that enable its writers, creators, and consumers to discover and recommend each other and the impact on subscriber growth. Meanwhile, Tomasz Tunguz of Theory VC states that all startups must have an AI strategy. Fred Wilson says protocols are important but are not well understood.
These articles and others focus on what is new and what comes next. As Leonard Cohen famously wrote, “that’s how the light gets in.”
In Silicon Valley, over $11.5 billion was invested in AI startups in the past three months. Web 3 funding has slowed to a crawl but has not disappeared. And biotech funding remains vibrant, along with new energy startups.
We are entering a phase where a new cohort of companies, funded since the middle of 2022, is attracting capital because of the scale of their ambition and the opportunity it represents. The number of funding rounds at the seed and early stage is declining, but the quality of the investments and the amounts raised are both strong.
2023 will be a big year for the next generation of successful startups, and I can’t wait to see what they bring to the table.
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message29 min - Substack and Twitter: Launch of Notes is a significant move
- Editorial:
- Product of the Week
Now live for all: Substack Notes
Notes questions answered
Is Substack Notes a ‘Twitter clone’? We asked CEO Chris Best
Essays of the Week
‘We have to move fast’: US looks to establish rules for artificial intelligence
Prohibition of AI that ‘subverts state power’ in China may chill its nascent industry
What the End of HBO Max—and the Rise of ‘Max’—Means for Streaming
Crypto VC Funding Slows to a Crawl
Here Comes the Startup Panic
SignalRank Funding Round and the Next Steps
AI of the Week
- Y Combinator’s Most Recent Winter 2023 Batch Shows A Shift To AI, DevTools And B2B
A Brief Note To Our Founders Re: Impact Of Artificial Intelligence
News Of the Week
Garry Tan’s First Big Move as Y Combinator CEO Roils Founders
As tech slumps, SoftBank sells VC unit to Singapore-based firm led by Masayoshi Son’s brother
European VC Funding Drops 66% As Seed Takes A Hit, US Investors Pull Back
Twitter, Inc. is now X Corp.
Twitter partners with eToro to show real-time stock and crypto information
Twitter Rolls Out Creator Subscriptions
More newsrooms bail on Twitter as Musk meddles with account labels
Startup of the Week
Betaworks’ new ‘camp’ aims to fund transformative early-stage AI startups
Apple Savings Account
Tweet of the Week
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message35 min - Embrace AI Experimentation
Contents
Editorial: An Open Letter
Essays of the Week
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter
The Open Letter to Stop 'Dangerous' AI Race Is a Huge Mess
Vinod Khosla on how AI will ‘free humanity from the need to work’
Thinking About AI
A Short History of Artificial Intelligence
ChatGPT Gets a Computer
The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs
Video of the Week
- Coldfusion - AI is Evolving Faster Than You Think [GPT-4 and beyond]
News of the Week
Are solo GPs screwed?
Death of The Generalist Seed VC
The NFL Is Quietly Investing Millions Into Its Venture Capital Fund, 32 Equity
Apple Mixed-Reality Headset May Not Appear at WWDC as Mass Production Pushed Back Yet Again
Startup of the Week
Good Eggs Cuts Its Valuation 94% in Lifeline Financing as More Startups Get Desperate
Tweet of the Week
- Sam Altman
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message34 min - Are You a Communist? TikTok CEO Abused in Congress
Content this week from @stuwoo @mvpeers @JuliaAngwin @chloexiang @vice @neuwaves @jason_keobler @tayhatmaker @pkedrosky @blurcon @billgates @theo_wayt
Editorial: Are You a Communist?
Essays of the Week
Who Is Shou Zi Chew, the TikTok CEO Trying to Reassure America?
U.S. Tech Should Support TikTok at This Moment
How to Fix the TikTok Problem
Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional, Ludicrous, and a National Embarrassment
TikTok CEO says it wasn’t ‘spying’ when ByteDance employees surveilled journalists
Teens Social Media Habits and Experiences
Society's Technical Debt and Software's Gutenberg Moment
The Age of AI has begun
Amazon Faces Moment of Truth on Alexa as ChatGPT Steals Its Thunder
Video of the Week
- The Age of AI and Our Human Future
News of the Week
OpenAI connects ChatGPT to the internet
OpenAI and Microsoft Are Partners, Until They Vie for the Same Customers
Apple reportedly plans to spend $1B a year to release Apple TV+ movies in theaters
Amazon layoffs will shut down camera review site DPReview.com after 25 years
JPMorgan to acquire Aumni, provider of venture capital analytics software
GitHub Copilot X: The AI-powered developer experience
Adobe Launches Firefly AI
The FTC Just Announced a Solution to an Annoying Problem
Startup of the Week
Character.AI Hits Unicorn Status With $150M Raise As AI Craze Continues
Tweet of the Week
- Keith Teare (yes, me)
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message36 min - As The Crisis Deepens
That Was The Week 2023, #9
Content this week from @AlphaSignalAI, @kleinerperkins, @thegeneralistco, @theinformation, @htaneja, @om, @mslopatto, @geneteare, @reidhoffman @garrytan, @techcrunch, @wsj
Contents
Editorial
Essays of the Week
Venture Capitalists Made a Big Mess of SVB
What happens to Silicon Valley without Silicon Valley Bank?
Where the Venture Community Goes From Here
A Tough Weekend
The Silicon Valley Bank fallout is just beginning
In Their Own Words: What Silicon Valley Bank Meant To The Valley
Impromtu - A Book Written by Reid Hoffman and GPT4
Changes at YC
Video of the Week
- The BBC visits CYBERIA Café
News of the Week
TikTok Is in Deep Trouble
First Republic Gets Additional Funding From Fed, JPMorgan
GPT-4 will arrive next week and will be multimodal
Microsoft’s new Power Platform AI copilot will build your apps for you
LinkedIn Adds AI-Generated Profile Summaries and Job Listings
Robots Don’t Make Art
AI Will Make Human Art More Valuable
Mark Zuckerberg Ends the Tech Party
Tiger Global Writes Down Venture Funds’ Bets by 33% in 2022
Uber, Lyft Score Victory as California Court Affirms Right to Treat Drivers as Contractors
Startup of the Week
- The Remaking of Kleiner Perkins
Tweet of the Week
- @AlphaSignalAI
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message37 min - Silicon Valley Bank: Canary in the Coal Mine?ContentsEditorial: Silicon Valley Bank. Canary in the Coal Mine?Essays of the Week
- Silicon Valley Bank CEO Tells VC Clients to ‘Stay Calm’
- Silicon Valley Bank shoots self in foot
- A Great Thread by Genevieve Roch-Decter
- Another Good Thread, by Turner Novak
- Some SVB customers are struggling to wire funds out of the bank
- Silicon Valley Bank’s Stock Plunge Sends Jitters Through The Startup World
- Banks Lose Billions in Value After Tech Lender SVB Stumbles
- Generative AI And The Future Of Creative Jobs
- Yes, ChatGPT Is Coming for Your Office Job
- How ChatGPT Will Restructure Engineering Teams & Create Opportunity for Startups
- OpenAI President on Musk Criticism: ‘We Made a Mistake’
- Substack: Empire of Narratives
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message37 min - Venture Apocalypse?
That Was The Week 2023, #7, with content from:
@pmarca @chamath @eladgil @annimaniac @Cookie @hunterwalk @SignalRank
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message33 min - Bubbles and AI
Bubbles and AI, by @kteare
That Was The Week 2023 #6
Content from @hunterwalk @altairvc @krishnanrohit @micsolana @johnbattelle @BessemerVP @stephen_wolfram @emollick @thecontentmines @tferriss @bgurley @Altimor
---Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message35 min
About That Was The Week
From the publisher's feed
That Was The Week is an editorialized and curated weekly look at developments in tech, startups, and venture investing with a video and podcast for paid subscribers. All free subscribers get a 6-month…
complementary paid subscription.
www.thatwastheweek.com
www.thatwastheweek.com