☕Tech Readings of the Week #17
Hello there 👋
Welcome back to the 17th issue of #TRW, the newsletter that brings you awesome tech updates to make your weekends even more exciting. 😎
It appears that the Italian Government has finally taken a bold step to supercharge the local tech industry...
...by proposing the Colosseum as the venue for the "match of the century" between Musk and Zuckerberg! 🤯🙄
Probably it's not entirely true, but in any case, where can tickets be purchased?
In the meantime, enjoy the readings and have a fantastic weekend! 🚀
🤖 What's going on in AI:
- AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born - generative AI models are changing the economy of the web, making it cheaper to generate lower-quality content. We’re just beginning to see the effects of these changes (The Verge)
- ‘It’s not like science fiction any more’: Nasa aiming to make spaceships talk - researcher Dr Larissa Suzuki tells how Nasa is developing a ChatGPT-style interface (The Guardian)
- An Interview with Marc Andreessen about AI - and how you change the World (Stratechery)
- Biotech begins human trials of drug designed by artificial intelligence - Insilico Medicine says the trial of lung disease therapy is a milestone for generative AI in drug development (Financial Times)(€)
- Humans may be more likely to believe disinformation generated by AI - the way AI models structure text may have something to do with it, according to the study authors (MIT Technology Review)(€)
- Stanford: Most large AI systems don’t meet proposed EU requirements - compliance with Europe’s draft AI Act may prove challenging for creators of large language models (Twch Brew)
- AI and The Burden of Knowledge - a story of superior intelligence and possible obsolescence (The Generalist)
- From IBM to Databricks, It’s been a big week for tech M&A - sometimes, no one is buying. Other times, everyone is spending big (Crunchbase)
📰 Tech & Science:
- The dawn of spatial computing - a close look at the breakthroughs in mixed reality tech (Every)
- Lasers enable internet backbone via satellite, may soon eliminate need for deep-sea cables - optical data communications lasers can transmit several tens of terabits per second, despite a huge amount of disruptive air turbulence (Tech Explore)
- Brain implants could be the next computer mouse - what the world’s fastest brain-typist is telling us about the future of computer interfaces (MIT Technology Review)
- Linda Yaccarino’s vision for Twitter 2.0 emerges - staff should be ready for "hand-to-hand combat" as the company preps new ad offerings (ARS Technica)
- Oculus founder explains what Apple got right & wrong on Vision Pro - it's mostly right "for Apple" (RoadToVR)
- Google says it will start blocking Canadian news stories in response to new law - in response to a new law that would compel tech companies to pay publishers for content (NPR)
- New Moon rover gives It the old college try - the United States' first robotic lunar rover was built by Carnegie Mellon students (IEEE Spectrum)
- The one-shot drug that keeps on dosing - What if a single shot lasted for months? (ARS Technica)
- Scientists are gene-editing flies to fight crop damage - the spotted-wing drosophila is a threat to fruit growers across the US and Europe (Wired)(€)
💸 VCs, startups & money:
- Silicon Valley braces for the worst as funding dries up - painful adjustment looms for start-ups as they burn down cash reserves (Financial Times)(€)
- These are the sectors where hot seed-stage startups are clustering In 2023 - the clustering effect is clear in this year’s vintage of seed-funded startups. A handful of categories accounted for an outsized number of investments. (Crunchbase)
- 1,600 workers set to lose their jobs as Getir prepares to exit Spain - the news comes just a week after Getir announced it was exiting France (Sifted)(€)
- From AI to SVB and everything in between - a quick look back at the first half of 2023 (Crunchbase)
Recommended by LinkedIn
📊 Reports & Data:
- How tough Is the fundraising environment actually? - it's chilly out there, but private market fundraising hasn't frozen over (Pitchbook)
- YC top companies List by revenue - a startup is designed to grow fast, and the best metric to gauge that growth is revenue. After all, you make what you measure (Y Combinator)
- 2023 US Venture Capital Outlook: H1 Follow-Up - S&P and NASDAQ are in the green, median pre-money valuations for seeds are going steady, and micro investors are buoying the pre-seed market. But a flurry of startups is headed for liquidity limbo (Pitchbook)
📚 Resources for founders and investors:
- Risky Business: venture scale vs. venture risk - while only an infinitesimal number of venture-backed companies achieve venture scale, 100% of venture-backed companies take on venture risk (Bryce Roberts)
- The VC jobs hierarchy - you can’t work in the startup world without knowing what a VC firm is, but do you know exactly what each person within that firm does? (Sifted)(€)
- Navigating the high cost of AI compute - as a predominant factor driving the industry today is simply the cost of training and inference (a16z)
- OpenAI PPUs: How OpenAI's unique equity compensation works - a look at one of the hottest and most secretive AI companies today (Levels.fyi)
- What LPs want to see from first-time VC fund pitch decks - just like startups VCs need a deck to pitch to LPs — but what do they need to include? (Sifted)(€)
💎 Meme of the week (actually not a meme):
Great job, you made it to the end! High five 🙌
I hope you enjoyed this week's newsletter and found something that inspired you.
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If you have any suggestions or want me to feature something (such as your startup) in the next issue, drop me a DM 📫
See you next week!
Edoardo
Thanks for Sharing! 😁 Edoardo Reggiani