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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

Sam Altman on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13. Photo by AP.

The Unknowns Left in the OpenAI Saga; A Silver Lining in Nvidia’s Blowout Earnings

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 22, 2023 8:00am PST · 3 comments

This morning, OpenAI employees, investors, customers (and exhausted tech reporters) woke up to the long-awaited news: Sam Altman’s back. The embattled CEO may have had to compromise on a few items to land his old gig back: His new board still includes Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, who was part of the old board that fired him in the first place,... This morning, OpenAI employees, investors, customers (and exhausted tech reporters) woke up to...

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. Photo via YouTube/Microsoft Research.

Anthropic Goes It Alone

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 21, 2023 7:29am PST · 5 comments

Just when I thought the OpenAI saga couldn’t get any crazier, I learned last night that OpenAI’s board had approached Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of its biggest startup rival Anthropic, about a potential merger of the two companies as part of an effort to persuade him to replace Sam Altman as CEO.The idea didn’t get very far. In fact,... Just when I thought the OpenAI saga couldn’t get any crazier, I learned last night that OpenAI’s...

Photo via Shutterstock.

The War Within OpenAI and What Comes Next

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 20, 2023 7:11am PST · 9 comments

What a weekend! The OpenAI drama continued on Monday morning, as Ilya Sutskever—OpenAI’s chief scientist and a key figure in former CEO Sam Altman’s firing—tweeted, “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions.” Meanwhile, hundreds of OpenAI staffers, including Sutskever himself, reportedly signed an open letter threatening to quit... What a weekend! The OpenAI drama continued on Monday morning, as Ilya Sutskever—OpenAI’s chief...

Photo by Midjourney.

Regulation Drama in Silicon Valley; Why AI Agents Haven’t Lived Up To The Hype

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 16, 2023 7:00am PST · 2 comments

Photo by Midjourney.

Regulation Drama in Silicon Valley; Why AI Agents Haven’t Lived Up To The Hype

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 16, 2023 7:00am PST · 2 comments

Before we get into today’s main topic, here’s a piece from our editor in chief Jessica Lessin and me that will be interesting if you’re into the drama of Silicon Valley and AI regulation.The article digs into the divisions between tech investors—well known to be an opinionated bunch—around how to regulate new AI technology. The most recent... Before we get into today’s main topic, here’s a piece from our editor in chief Jessica Lessin and...

Martian cofounders Etan Ginsberg and Shriyash Upadhyay. Photo courtesy of Martian.

NEA Leads Funding of Startup That Helps Customers Cut AI Costs; A Chinese Startup Seizes on Meta’s Open-Source Llama Model

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 15, 2023 7:20am PST

In September, I wrote about an emerging group of startups that help developers manage the exploding costs of AI. These companies figure out what tasks can be handled by cheap-to-use AI models so their customers don’t end up paying for a more expensive model from OpenAI that they don’t really need. There’s signs these companies have legs, at... In September, I wrote about an emerging group of startups that help developers manage the...

Puzzle cofounder and CEO Sasha Orloff. Photo courtesy of Puzzle.

Nvidia Steals AMD’s Thunder; The Generative AI Startup Hoping to Making Accounting Exciting Again

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 14, 2023 7:00am PST · 1 comment

Those who follow the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence chips may have noticed fanfare on Monday surrounding Nvidia’s new H200 AI chip, a successor to the vaunted H100 that everyone has been trying to get their hands on this year.But Nvidia’s announcement simply may have been an attempt to steal the spotlight from its biggest... Those who follow the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence chips may have noticed fanfare...

From left to right: Ross Weiner, Brandon Hightower and Alan Bressers. Photo courtesy of AXOM Partners.

The AI Talent Wars Heat Up; The Bankers Banking on AI Deals

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 13, 2023 7:00am PST

After reading my colleague Jon Victor’s piece Friday morning, I called up my 16-year-old brother to give him some career advice: Become an AI researcher.As Jon’s piece details, the market for AI talent is heating up, with recruiters from top companies like OpenAI and Google dangling lucrative compensation packages in front of AI researchers.... After reading my colleague Jon Victor’s piece Friday morning, I called up my 16-year-old brother...

Photo via Shutterstock.

AI Startups Raising Money From China Are Taking a Risk; Why a New OpenAI Product Costs $2 Million; Anthropic’s Lucrative Love Triangle

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 9, 2023 7:00am PST

Photo via Shutterstock.

AI Startups Raising Money From China Are Taking a Risk; Why a New OpenAI Product Costs $2 Million; Anthropic’s Lucrative Love Triangle

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 9, 2023 7:00am PST

The U.S. has increasingly restricted China’s ability to access American tech, but for now, Chinese investors are still free to ride the U.S.-led AI software wave. Partners at top Chinese VC firms including Sequoia Capital China, Source Code Capital and ZhenFund have been criss-crossing the U.S. and quietly taking minority stakes in all manner of... The U.S. has increasingly restricted China’s ability to access American tech, but for now,...

Photo by Midjourney.

Amazon’s ‘Olympus’ Model Faces Steep Odds; Nvidia Crushes Google in AI Chip Test

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 8, 2023 8:05am PST

Amazon’s mostly male executives apparently aren’t among the large group of men who supposedly spend much of the day thinking about the ancient Roman Empire. Instead, the folks at Amazon Web Services have been more focused on Greek mythology—at least when it comes to the naming conventions of their AI models.After its first batch of models,... Amazon’s mostly male executives apparently aren’t among the large group of men who supposedly...

Photo by Getty.

OpenAI’s ‘Extinction Event’ For Other AI Startups

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 7, 2023 7:00am PST

Despite Elon Musk’s attempts to steal the spotlight, the AI community gave its undivided attention on Monday to OpenAI’s first-ever live event for developers and the press. The large-language model developer didn’t announce any mind-blowing research breakthroughs, but several of its product improvements undoubtedly will hurt some smaller,... Despite Elon Musk’s attempts to steal the spotlight, the AI community gave its undivided...

Elon Musk. Photo by Getty.

Musk’s ChatGPT Rival Isn’t as Smart as It Seems; Creators of a Key Open-Source Model Get Offer From Index Ventures

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Natasha Mascarenhas · Nov 6, 2023 7:00am PST

Elon Musk finally unveiled his alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which he developed because he felt it was too woke, as my colleagues first revealed eight months ago. Why do it on a Sunday? Perhaps because OpenAI’s Dev Day event in San Francisco is this morning, and Musk’s xAI team was hoping to upstage it. (Musk also doesn’t distinguish between... Elon Musk finally unveiled his alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which he developed because he...

Chart by Shane Burke.

What it Takes to Make Open-Source AI Cheaper Than OpenAI; Microsoft Goes Multimodal

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 2, 2023 7:15am PDT · 3 comments

Chart by Shane Burke.

What it Takes to Make Open-Source AI Cheaper Than OpenAI; Microsoft Goes Multimodal

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 2, 2023 7:15am PDT · 3 comments

When Meta Platforms’ released its open-source Llama models earlier this year, the tech giant was praised for giving developers a free alternative to the expensive, bleeding-edge large-language models offered by proprietary LLM developers such as OpenAI. Turns out it’s not so simple.In many cases, using open-source LLMs can actually be more... When Meta Platforms’ released its open-source Llama models earlier this year, the tech giant was...

David Bennett, chief customer officer at Tenstorrent. Photo courtesy of Tenstorrent.

An AI Chip Armageddon is Coming; Biden Punts on Open-Source LLMs

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 1, 2023 7:40am PDT

When I asked David Bennett, the chief customer officer of AI hardware developer Tenstorrent, about the future of startups like his, he was blunt: Most will go out of business.To survive, he recommends startups remain flexible and avoid boxing themselves into any narrow use case. Bennett isn’t referring to some niche market, but rather, a... When I asked David Bennett, the chief customer officer of AI hardware developer Tenstorrent,...

President Joe Biden signs an executive order with Vice President Kamala Harris, right, on Oct. 30, 2023. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

What Biden’s AI Executive Order Means

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 31, 2023 7:30am PDT

The AI world (and my inbox) was rocked yesterday by President Joe Biden’s long-awaited AI executive order, which covered a wide range of issues, from the use of AI in education to watermarking AI-generated content. (For a summary, check out my colleague Amir Efrati's piece here.)Now that we’ve had 24 hours to marinate on the order, here are some... The AI world (and my inbox) was rocked yesterday by President Joe Biden’s long-awaited AI...

Jaleh Rezaei, cofounder and CEO at Mutiny, and Sara Hooker, head of Cohere for AI. Photo by Erin Beach.

What You Missed From Our WTF Conference; Biden’s AI Executive Order Unveiled

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 30, 2023 7:35am PDT

Here’s a simple but smart idea I heard about last week: Ask all your employees to use AI for every possible task for a week and see what tasks it’s useful or not useful for.That suggestion came from Rebecca Hinds, head of Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, at our annual Women in Tech, Media and Finance conference, during a discussion on generative AI... Here’s a simple but smart idea I heard about last week: Ask all your employees to use AI for...

Photo via Shutterstock.

Don’t Laugh at Intel; Biden’s Industry-Friendly Executive Order

By Anissa Gardizy · Oct 26, 2023 7:00am PDT

Photo via Shutterstock.

Don’t Laugh at Intel; Biden’s Industry-Friendly Executive Order

By Anissa Gardizy · Oct 26, 2023 7:00am PDT

Congratulations if you already knew that Intel, the American chip pioneer, had started selling artificial intelligence-related software—as opposed to just hardware—to businesses that want to build generative AI apps. I had no idea myself until I wrote a story on Wednesday about Intel expanding that effort. It’s planning to announce the move... Congratulations if you already knew that Intel, the American chip pioneer, had started selling...

Jake Cronin and Joe Jordan, cofounders of Siro. Courtesy of Siro.

IVP’s Risky Perplexity Bet; CRV Funds Salestech Startup; OpenAI’s First-Mover Hangover

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 25, 2023 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

If you’re tired of digging through piles of websites and adding “Reddit” to the end of your Google searches, you may want to take a look at this red-hot AI-powered search engine startup—which now has the backing of yet another VC.Perplexity, whose search engine product competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, is raising around $50... If you’re tired of digging through piles of websites and adding “Reddit” to the end of your...

Photo via Together.

Emergence Capital to Fund GPU Reseller Together at $500 Million Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 24, 2023 7:15am PDT

If you’ve been following our reporting on Together (here and here), which sells access to cloud-based servers running on Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips as well as software to help startups train and run AI models, you may remember the firm raising money at a lower valuation than it could have received. If you’ve been following our reporting on Together (here and here), which sells access to...

A Nvidia HGX H100 artificial intelligence supercomputing GPU. Photo by Getty.

GPUs’ Latest Magic Act: Securing Data Center Debt; Amazon’s Doubling Down on AI Chips

By Anissa Gardizy · Oct 23, 2023 7:15am PDT

While Nvidia makes bank from selling artificial intelligence chips at $32,000 a pop, several upstart cloud providers—as well as the big guns like Amazon Web Services—are buying as many chips as they can so they can rent them out to AI developers. These cloud providers hope to generate revenue of at least several times that sticker price for each... While Nvidia makes bank from selling artificial intelligence chips at $32,000 a pop, several...

Photo via 1X Technologies.

SoftBank Looks to Invest $75 Million in OpenAI-Backed Humanoid Robotics Startup

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 19, 2023 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Photo via 1X Technologies.

SoftBank Looks to Invest $75 Million in OpenAI-Backed Humanoid Robotics Startup

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 19, 2023 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

In tech, all software roads eventually lead to hardware. Look no further than OpenAI’s Sam Altman dreaming up an artificial intelligence-powered personal device with ex-Apple designer Jony Ive and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Another topic the three men may have discussed at Ive’s San Francisco studio: existing AI hardware companies that... In tech, all software roads eventually lead to hardware. Look no further than OpenAI’s Sam Altman...