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Apple Planning to Launch Vision Pro by February

Plus: The Brain-Implant Company Going for Neuralink’s Jugular 

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Cash Nut
December 21, 2023

In Today’s Edition 

  • Big Tech’s Year of Partnering Up With AI Startups

  • ShareChat faces large valuation cut in new funding

  • DocuSign shares spike on report company is exploring a sale

  • Warner Bros. Discovery merger talks with Paramount Global may draw out NBCUniversal

  • Waymo finds that its driverless cars ‘significantly outperformed’ humans

  • The Brain-Implant Company Going for Neuralink’s Jugular 

🚀Startups Nuts

Major tech organizations like Microsoft, Salesforce, Nvidia, and Alphabet are deepening their involvement with AI startups by forming partnerships and investing significantly in the sector. The partnership is proving mutually beneficial for both, as AI startups gain access to costly computing infrastructure and large organizations can bolster their product lineup with new AI capabilities. 

Social media startup ShareChat is in advanced talks with existing investors to secure a downround of $50M. Existing investors Temasek and Tencent are set to participate in the round. Sources informed TechCrunch that the firm has been offered the new funding at roughly $1.5B valuation, about 70% lower than its $4.9B valuation from last year. 

🏭Business Nuts 

DocuSign shares rose as much as 15% and closed up 12% on Friday after the Wall Street Journal reported the e-signature software company tapped advisors about a possible sale. After losing almost two-thirds of its value last year, DocuSign’s rebound this year has been less dramatic than many of its tech peers. The stock is up 16% in 2023, while the Nasdaq Composite has gained 41%. The company has a market cap of about $13 billion.

Warner Bros. Discovery merger talks with Paramount Global may draw out NBCUniversal

Warner Bros. Discovery held early talks with Paramount Global this week to discuss a potential merger. The discussions should be seen as a kickoff to the next chapters for Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global. The discussions should be seen as a kickoff to the next chapters for Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global.

📱Tech Nuts

Apple has ramped up production of the Vision Pro to meet its goal of launching the device by February. Sales of the device will be limited to the US to begin with. Customers will need to purchase or pick up their devices in-store as Apple wants to ensure customers have the right headband size and Light Seal for an appropriate fit. Apple plans to do headset assembly for customers who need custom Zeiss prescription lenses in its retail locations. There probably won't be a launch event for the device.

A safety study from Waymo found that its driverless cars led to a significant reduction in the rates of police-reported and injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers. There were 85% less injuries for crashes involving the Waymo Driver and 57% fewer police reports. The accidents covered in the study included all crashes, regardless of the vehicle's role in the crash. Waymo is pushing broadly for international standardization for valid analysis of autonomous vehicle crash data.

🎁Miscellaneous

Synchron has a brain-computer interface that promises to provide an invaluable communication method to people with severe paralysis without open brain surgery. The device is delivered like a stent, inserted into the jugular vein in the neck and then moved to a blood vessel near the brain's motor cortex. It allows people who suffer from brain-stem stroke or degenerative diseases to do basic computer tasks like sending messages and accessing digital health services without moving a muscle. The company is now in the middle of a US-based feasibility study, which, if successful, could lead to a larger study that will determine whether the device gets approved for clinical use.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

😎Fun Fact

The world's oldest surviving bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in Italy in 1472

🔥 Hot Book of the Day

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The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity.

To explain, Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel draw on cutting-edge theory and evidence to examine today’s most fundamental economic questions, including the roots of growth and inequality, competition and globalization, the determinants of health and happiness, technological revolutions, secular stagnation, middle-income traps, climate change, and how to recover from economic shocks.

They show that we owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism. But we also need state intervention with the appropriate checks and balances to simultaneously foster ongoing economic creativity, manage the social disruption that innovation leaves in its wake, and ensure that yesterday’s superstar innovators don’t pull the ladder up after them to thwart tomorrow’s.

A powerful and ambitious reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.

“A cutting-edge analysis of what drives economic growth and a blueprint for prosperity under capitalism.”

🐦Joke of the Day

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