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In Today’s Edition 

• Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret: Founder Liquidity 

• Apple briefly overtakes Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company

• OpenAI Doubles Annualized Revenue to $3.4 Billion

• Citron Research closed its GameStop short position

• Apple's partnership with OpenAI focuses on brand and technology

• Sony Pictures purchased Alamo Drafthouse

• Jake Paul launching a new men’s skincare line, W

• Tesla claims it has 2 Optimus humanoid robots working autonomously in factory

• Spreadsheet Superstars 

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🚀Startups Nuts

Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret: Founder Liquidity 

Founder liquidity is the practice where founders sell a portion of their shares during a funding round. It allows founders to reduce risk and secure personal financial stability while continuing to build the company with a fresh influx of venture capital. The practice is often kept secret because it undermines the narrative of the founder who is 'all-in'. It might change how startups are perceived and valued if it were widely known that founders could de-risk their financial position while their employees remained all-in.

Other News

• Cognigy, a German customer service automation startup, raised $100m in Series C funding

• Battery Smart, an Indian EV battery swapping network, raised $65m in Series B funding

• AccountsIQ, an Irish accounting platform, raised €60m 

• Avava, a Waltham, Mass., medical aesthetics company, raised $35m

• Learn to Win, a Redwood City, Calif. provider of enterprise training SaaS, raised $30m in Series A funding

• Echion Technologies, a British developer of niobium-based battery materials, raised £29m in Series B funding

• Swift Solar, a San Carlos, Calif., solar manufacturer, raised $27m in Series A funding

🏭Business Nuts 

Apple briefly overtakes Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company

Apple reclaimed its position as the world's most valuable company, surpassing Microsoft, due to a surge in share prices following the unveiling of AI-enabled features and software enhancements at its annual developer conference. This move alleviated concerns about Apple lagging in the AI race, and the positive market response, coupled with a record buyback plan, propelled Apple's market valuation to $3.29 trillion, compared to Microsoft's $3.24 trillion. Despite a slower start in 2024, Apple's shares have risen significantly, although not as much as AI chip leader Nvidia, which briefly surpassed Apple's market value last week.

Other News

• OpenAI Doubles Annualized Revenue to $3.4 Billion. The vast majority of the revenue comes from OpenAI's products and services - the company has been working to boost revenue by selling services to enterprise customers.

• Citron Research closed its GameStop short position due to the company's $4 billion cash reserves, despite bearish views on its fundamentals. GameStop's stock volatility, driven by "Roaring Kitty", hasn't deterred the company from using the raised capital for general purposes.

• Apple's partnership with OpenAI focuses on brand and technology exposure over immediate revenue. It isn't exclusive and Apple may incorporate other chatbots in the future. Apple plans to monetize AI through revenue-sharing agreements with partners.

• Meta is reportedly looking to cut down on its number of vice-president positions from 300 to about 250. The company's job cuts were guided by principles focused on making Meta an even stronger technology company.

• Elon Musk says he's on track to win a momentous vote by Tesla shareholders on a massive pay package that threatened to upend his vast corporate universe.

• General Motors is investing another $850 million in Cruise, its self-driving robotaxi unit. Despite losing over $8 billion and facing safety concerns. GM aims to prove the technology's safety and attract long-term investment by gradually reintroducing robotaxis in three markets.

• Sony Pictures purchased Alamo Drafthouse, becoming the first movie studio in 75 years to own a theater chain after the Paramount Consent Decrees were lifted. This move comes amidst the struggle for both studios and theaters to attract moviegoers.

• Jake Paul, a Youtuber is launching a new men’s skincare line, W, at Walmart. The body wash, body spray, and deodorant are priced under $10 and will also be sold on Amazon.

📱Tech Nuts

Tesla claims it has 2 Optimus humanoid robots working autonomously in factory

A recent tweet from Tesla's official account listed a rundown of the company's accomplishments under Elon Musk's leadership since 2018, when shareholders approved the $55 billion pay package. The last item on the list claims that the company has two Optimus robots performing tasks in a factory autonomously. Musk recently said that the Optimus robot might go on sale as soon as next year. It is expected to cost 'less than half of a car'.

Other News

• Nvidia Conquers Latest AI Tests. Systems powered by Nvidia's Hopper architecture dominated the results of two new tests from MLPerf, an AI benchmarking suite, that compare the fine-tuning of large language models and training of graph neural networks.

• Elon Musk responded to Apple's integration of OpenAI ChatGPT on some of its devices by threatening to ban all Apple devices from the premises of his companies.

• Firefox will start automatically upgrading audio, video, and image subresources from HTTP to HTTPS starting with version 127.

• Waymo is recalling and updating the software for all 672 of its driverless vehicles after an error “assigned a low damage score” to a telephone pole, leading a robotaxi to crash itself into one.

🎁Miscellaneous

Spreadsheet Superstars 

Competitive Excel is a real thing. The Excel World Championship was recently held at the MGM in Las Vegas. This article takes readers to the front rows of the event. It details what the competition entails and what the event was like. While the event may never be mainstream, it proves that spreadsheeting can be a sport.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

• X makes likes private

• Why this meme stock frenzy is different than 2021

• Inflation slowed for the second straight month 

• Tesla’s shareholder vote is about more than Elon Musk’s money

• Wealth and money are two different things

😎Fun Fact

On this day today, Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American nominated to Supreme Court (1967)

🔥 Few tools many people are finding useful

• Designs.ai https://designs.ai/- An AI-powered platform for instant creation, editing, and scaling of logos, videos, banners, and mockups in 2 minutes

• Avoma - An AI-powered meeting assistant that automates note-taking, provides transcription and analytics, and improves collaboration

• Audio Input by Suno - Make a song using any sound as the cue

• Gentype by Google - Make creative alphabet images out of anything

• Autodesigner 2.0 - GenAI for precise UI design

• Adcreative AI - Generate ad creatives that outperform your competitors

🐦Joke of the Day

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