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Tuesday, February 27, 2024
On Our Final "Virtual Route 66" For the Month: On Odysseus; Crypto , AI & Other Thoughts
We present the following on our World with thoughts courtesy inside Tech, Andresen Horowitz, and the National with a Vision of the Future as we look forward to the continued privilege to serve:
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How AI will usher in an era of abundance
From the plow to the microchip, every new technology has typically been followed by a period of newfound wealth for consumers in the form of cheaper goods, improved productivity, and longer, healthier lives.
At a16z, we believe that generative AI will be no different, and its benefits for consumers will be as profound as the technology is magical.
Our Consumer team’s new Abundance Agenda shows where we think AI will have the most impact, why now is the moment for consumer founders, and where we’re excited to invest. We believe consumers’ lives will be enriched through new channels for creativity and self expression, new paths to self discovery and belonging, and new ways to do the most meaningful work of their lives.
Alongside our agenda, we are releasing market maps for a variety of categories within consumer AI, including productivity, companionship, education, and AI’s first killer use case: making creative content.
2023 was a breakout year for AI video. At the start of the year, no public text-to-video models existed. Just 12 months later, dozens of video generation products are in active use, with millions of users worldwide creating short clips from text or image prompts.
To help understand this explosion in innovation, we’ve tracked the biggest developments so far, companies to keep an eye on, and the remaining underlying questions in this space.
To build a usage-based sales compensation plan that motivates your reps to drive the best possible customer outcomes, it’s important to understand where your sales team actually makes your customers more successful, prioritize the most impactful behaviors for your business, and choose the right compensation levers to drive those behaviors.
This article lays out a step-by-step guide to building a usage-based sales compensation plan that both aligns your sales team’s compensation with your customers’ objectives and recruits top salespeople.
with Aly Raisman, Kris Tatiossian, Olivia Webb, Daisy Wolf, and Julie Yoo
Former gymnast-turned-investor Aly Raisman joins a16z Bio + Health General Partner Julie Yoo and a16z Bio + Health investment partner Daisy Wolf on the Raising Health podcast for a candid conversation on Aly’s passion for more education within the investment space, sharing invaluable insights for entrepreneurs, particularly in biotech and healthcare, along the way.
with Eren Bali, Max Cohen, Kris Tatiossian, Olivia Webb, and Julie Yoo
Max Cohen, cofounder and CEO of Sprinter Health, and Eren Bali, founder and CEO of Carbon Health, join Julie Yoo to talk about becoming healthcare entrepreneurs (despite having non-healthcare backgrounds) and what they had to learn along the way. They also discuss finding product-market fit, how they track PMF using KPIs, and the evolving investor landscape as the digital health space expands and matures.
with Jeff Jordan, J.D. Moriarty, and Sonal Chokshi
When and how to go public is top of mind for many founders, and requires a lot of planning and preparation. Yet things don’t always work out as planned, and it’s hard to figure out the right timing.
In this episode of the a16z podcast, we revisit an earlier conversation from 2017 that covers the process and stories of an IPO — including who is behind the scenes; how things are priced and allocated; and, perhaps the hardest question of all: When is the “right” time to go public?
The discussion features former Opentable CEO and a16z General Partner Jeff Jordan, and J.D. Moriarty, former Head Managing Director and Head of Equity Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in conversation with a16z editor in chief Sonal Chokshi (now editor in chief a16z crypto).
Chris Dixon, founding and managing partner of a16z crypto, is joined by a16z crypto editor Robert Hackett to discuss Chris’s new book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet. The two discuss the themes and process of writing Read Write Own, as well as what this new era of the internet may look like.
Crux is the leading ecosystem for transferable clean energy tax credits. Through powerful software at the center of the largest network of market participants, Crux has quickly become the de facto platform for buying and selling transferable tax credits.
Walmart is acquiring smart TV maker Vizio for $2.3B in an all-cash deal that will bolster its ad business through Vizio's SmartCast Operating System. The smart TV system, which supports free ad-supported streaming on TVs, marks Walmart's entrance into the growing connected TV advertising space, competing against Amazon, Roku, and YouTube.
Details: Walmart will acquire Vizio for $11.50 per share, a 54% premium over Vizio's share price before news of the deal broke last week. While Walmart is one of the top sellers of Vizio televisions, its main interest lies in the latter's data and smart TV operating system, which boasts 18 million active accounts for targeting by advertisers. Vizio's Platform Plus business, which makes up most of the company's profits, also claims over 500 direct advertiser partnerships.
What it means: The deal gives Walmart's Connect ad division new ways to reach customers via in-home media. For Walmart, it's an investment in streaming revenue and customer data, as first-party data on users' shopping habits is growing in value. The retailer also said it could offer new “innovative television and in-home entertainment and media experiences” once the deal closes. The acquisition still needs regulatory approval and can be terminated within 45 days if Vizio receives a better offer.
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft successfully landed on the moon Thursday, marking the first lunar landing by a private company and the first U.S. landing since the last Apollo mission in 1972. Technical issues with the flight delayed the landing by several hours. According to Intuitive Machines, the IM-1 lander is now operational andsending back data, despite initially experiencing weak signals.
More:
NASA confirmed that the lander, launched on Feb. 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, landed on the moon at 6:23 PM ET on Thursday near a crater on the moon's south pole.
The mission is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, which involves private contracts with U.S. companies for moon material delivery.
Odysseus carries a dozen government and commercial payloads, including NASA instruments to “perform science test technologies and demonstrate capabilities” that could help with the agency's future manned moon missions.
Specifically, NASA's instruments will study space weather, lunar surface interactions, and radio astronomy.
Zoom out:
NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon in 2026, including the first woman and person of color.
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The first human recipient of a Neuralink brain chip can now control a computer mouse using their thoughts, according to founder Elon Musk. Speaking at an X event on Monday, Musk said "progress is good" and the patient appears to have "made a full recovery with no ill effects that were are aware of."
More:
In January, Neuralink used a surgical robot to successfully implant the device into the human patient.
The recipient, who was not identified, is now able to move a mouse cursor on a computer screen "just by thinking," Musk said.
Neuralink is also working to add the ability for patients to move a mouse in different directions and hold down a button, he explained.
“We’re trying to get as many button presses as possible from thinking," he said.
Zoom out:
After overcoming FDA concerns about chip overheating, Neuralink received approval last May and began recruiting for its first human clinical trial in the fall.
The brain implant, called Telepathy, will initially help people who have lost limb function, Musk has said.
Nvidia reached a $2 trillion market value on Friday, becoming the third U.S. company to pass the milestone after Apple ($2.83 trillion) and Microsoft ($3.06 trillion). The chipmaker's rapid growth from the AI boom boosted its market value from $1 trillion to $2 trillion in just nine months, outpacing even Apple and Microsoft.
What the numbers show: Nvidia's stock surged 16% on Thursday, adding a record $277B to its stock market value in a single day, the largest valuation increase in Wall Street history. By Friday, Nvidia's market value had topped $2 trillion, two days after its record earnings revealed a 580% increase in full-year profits for 2023. Demand for Nvidia's chips has surged during the AI boom, leading the company to project a 233% increase in revenue for the current quarter.
The bigger picture: Initially focused on PC gaming graphics chips, Nvidia became one of the first chipmakers to embrace AI as companies began buying up GPUs to power their AI projects. Nvidia is now the largest semiconductor manufacturer worldwide and the fourth largest company overall, behind only Microsoft, Apple, and Saudi Aramco. Its record surge has boosted the chip sector and driven global stock indices to record highs.
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Smart home company Wyze admitted that a Friday breach allowed 13,000 customers to view images and, in some cases, videos from cameras not owned by them. The users were able to see thumbnails from other users' cameras, with 1,504 of those customers tapping to view enlarged images or videos, according to Wyze.
More:
Wyze said the "security incident" happened after a Friday service outage attributed to Amazon Web Services.
After the nine-hour outage, Wyze cameras that came back online mistakenly reconnected to the wrong users.
The company blamed the breach on a third party's caching client library that was recently integrated into its system.
Wyze notified all customers on Monday, noting that 99.75% of accounts were unaffected.
Zoom out:
In 2019, another data breach exposed the data of 2.4 million Wyze customers, including usernames, emails, WiFi, and health information, for over three weeks.
Last fall, The Verge reported that a web caching issue led to some Wyze customers inadvertently accessing others' live camera feeds via the Wyze web portal.
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The U.K. government has issued guidance telling schools to ban or regulate student use of mobile phones during the day. The guidance is non-statutory, meaning school officials can still set their own policies, ranging from outright bans to collecting phones upon arrival, or telling students to store them in lockers or bags.
More:
While some U.K. schools already have no-phone policies, the guidelines are meant to promote a more consistent approach, according to the government.
The goal is to "minimize disruption and improve behavior in classrooms," it said.
Under the guidance, teachers can also search students for phones.
The government suggests that schools educate students about the negative effects of phones, and advises parents to contact their children through the school office rather than directly.
Zoom out:
According to UNESCO, fewer than a quarter of the world's countries have school smartphone bans.
France banned cell phones in schools in 2018, and China banned phones without written parental consent in 2021.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has finalized a deal that raises its valuation to $80B or more — a threefold increase in 10 months, the New York Times reported. As a result, OpenAI could become the world's third most valuable tech startup, after TikTok owner ByteDance at $225B and SpaceX at $150B, per CB Insights data.
More:
Under the deal, OpenAI will sell existing shares in a tender offer led by the VC firm Thrive Capital.
OpenAI employees will be able to cash out their shares, differing from a traditional round of fundraising.
Bloomberg reported that the tender offer values OpenAI at $86B.
Zoom out:
The deal comes almost a year after OpenAI closed a $300M share sale, valuing the company at $27B to $29B. In that tender offer, Thrive, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global agreed to purchase OpenAI shares.
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QUICK HITS
Apple Music, in collaboration with SongShift, is testing a feature for importing songs and playlists from competitors like Spotify.
Microsoft will invest $2.1B to grow its AI and cloud infrastructure in Spain over two years, according to Vice Chair and President Brad Smith.
AI audio startup ElevenLabs has applied its AI sound-producing technology to silent video footage generated by OpenAI's new Sora creator.
Samsung is updating the audio capabilities across its phones, tablets, earbuds, and TVs. This includes Live Translate for the Galaxy S24 series, allowing users to translate phone calls in real time with updated Galaxy Buds.
This is a Lynch's Colombian tree frog – and until recently it was feared extinct. It hadn’t been seen for 36 years when, after an intensive nine-month search in 2022, the creature was rediscovered by the ProAves conservation group in the eastern Andes of Colombia.
“It was the best feeling you can have as a conservationist … when we found it, your heart wants to explode with joy,” said Sara Ines Lara, founder of ProAves and Women for Conservation.
The group is now expanding its efforts to other species and territories and told our reporter Daniel Bardsley about its work in the community.
Read more here, where you can learn about the impact of attempts to save an African manatee in Senegal too – and why it is all thanks to funding from Abu Dhabi.
We met this very enthusiastic pair in Dubai this week.
Fresh out of university, the Lebanese graduates have been working on a glove that can help translate hand gestures into spoken words.
Samir Elias and Wassim Omran want the device, which works via Bluetooth and a phone app, to help people who sign or have speech difficulties.
They hope it will help millions in the deaf community, and say it is a potential solution for the “differently-abled community” and could be used in speech therapy centres and hospitals.
Dr Fatima Al Kaabi at the Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Centre, which is at the forefront of cutting-edge research. The National
First to a story that is incredibly close to the heart of one of my brilliant colleagues, Shireena Al Nowais who has been learning about the work of Dr Fatima Al Kaabi and the team at the Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Centre this week – and so in her own words:
“After living with MS for 20 years, this story about the new treatment trials gave me a little bit of hope. It's been a long and lonely road, and this news is something positive to look forward to for everyone living with this burden.
“Dealing with MS is tough, but it's developments like these that remind me progress is happening and a cure is possible. It's comforting to know that there are constant efforts under way to find a cure and not just new treatments.”
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