“precision, potential and optimism”
we're doing a jacuzzi
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
Once upon a time, everyone had an A.I. assistant. (You didn’t?) Then we fired those old-fashioned losers and got A.I. copilots. Well friends, the time has once again come to shitcan your A.I. copilot and upgrade to the latest thing: A.I. agents. The only discernible difference is that the new thing requires 976x more precious natural resources to send an email! While we’re at it, let’s replace H.R. with A.I. avatars, too.
In other news
The news this week is about everyone’s favorite messy start-up soap opera, OpenAI. Despite losing three top executives very suddenly this week, the company’s $150 billion deal is still on.
We (my colleague Mike Isaac and I) have lots of new details about their financials, growth and fundraising right here:
📈 OpenAI Is Growing Fast and Burning Through Piles of Money 📉
What I love about this company is that even amid the raging rollercoaster of their daily news cycle, OpenAI’s employees still had time to be freaked out by something as mundane as a logo redesign. The company’s graphic design artists said a stark new “O” logo evoked “precision, potential and optimism.” But according to Fortune, employees have been very concerned it was “ominous” and “lacking in creativity.” Ugh, what could be worse!?
It should be said that some employees are reacting more normally to all the drama, by comparing OpenAI’s executive turnover to “the hardships parents faced in the Middle Ages when 6 out of 8 children would die prematurely” but not letting it stop them from “doing a jacuzzi with a coworker.”
But I’m not here to snark on the employees of hot A.I. start-ups—everyone has to answer to someone:
Important Business Matters
Startup everyone’s into: Spa vacations are out, gut clinics are in.
Startup everyone’s over: Bolt is at it again. Ryan Breslow’s deal, according to a judge, is a “prisoner’s dilemma.”
Reason to go on living: Look at this $177 million shopping mall ass mansion with its corny rainforest spa.
Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: My culture is not your costume, Meta.
Latest crush: Non-engagement signals.
Latest heartbreak: Our phones are lying to us! “5G” does not actually mean you’re on 5G!
Latest tech feud, explained: WP Engine vs. Wordpress
Latest thing the kids are into: Polluting the sky to save the planet. Seriously, these guys are releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere (and people are paying them to do it!), for apparent climate change reasons despite a lack of rigorous evidence it will do anything but mess up our ecosystem.
Latest thing the olds are into: WE DO NOT KNOW WHO THE CEO OF BOAR’S HEAD IS. I repeat, the public truly does not have a clear answer on who is in charge of a $1 billion revenue company whose cold cuts have recently sickened so many people that ten of them died. Business Heroes™, were you previously aware that anonymity was an option? What a move!
It was a different time
This week’s throwback tale of Business Heroism™ comes from 2000, but could be a mad lib template for stories from 2010 or 2020. (I wrote a few myself.) Back in the dotcom heyday, V.C. was so competitive that investors started offering their companies a suite of services “to ease the rocky passage from idea to going concern.” Just change “computers and consultants” to “GPUs and recruiting” and the story could be published today.
💰Venture Capitalists, Venturing Beyond Capital💰
a dall-e summary of this newsletter:
Some good ideas here, sending to OAI’s graphic design artists.
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
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