🔵 Can AI be our moral compass?

OpenAI is funding research at Duke University to explore if AI can predict human moral judgments. With a $1M grant, the study dives into using AI in ethical decision-making across medicine, law, and business.

The challenge? Morality is complex and subjective. Past efforts like Ask Delphi faced issues, from biases to contradictory judgments. Will AI ever master the art of ethics, or is this a philosophical puzzle too intricate for machines? 🤔

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💻 Robots taking over? Let’s talk numbers
South Korea leads with a whopping 1,012 industrial robots per 10,000 workers, making it the robot king. Singapore and Germany follow close behind, while China flexes as the ultimate robot collector with the largest total count.

👀 Automation game strong, but how long before we start seeing robot unions popping up in the US?

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🔗 ByteDance Values Itself at $300 Billion Amid TikTok Uncertainty

ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, recently valued itself at $300 billion in a share buyback offer, maintaining its 2022 valuation despite prior dips. TikTok’s U.S. prospects remain uncertain following legislative pressure for ByteDance to sell or face a ban, though Donald Trump's reelection has brought potential policy shifts, with Trump expressing support for keeping TikTok in America.

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💫 Startups Forge Ahead Despite IPO Challenges

The U.S. IPO window remains closed, but startups are making moves with major funding rounds and acquisitions. Klarna and other tech firms explore public offerings, while notable investments include Writer’s $200M raise and Tessl’s $125M funding. Additionally, AI startups dominate Paris’ Station F incubator.

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📎 Bottom Up by David Sacks: Key Sales Pipeline Metrics Simplified
1️⃣ Pipeline Generation Metrics

Opportunities Created: Count of potential deals.
Pipeline Value Created: Total ARR (or TCV) value of these deals.
Win Rate: Percentage of deals closed (~20% is standard).

2️⃣ Pipeline Conversion Metrics

Sales Cycle Length: Time to close deals, often 6-9 months for complex B2B products.
Cohorted Win Rates: Analyze win rates by client cohorts; identify drop-off points and optimize support.
Stage Conversion Rate: Track how deals move through sales stages to find bottlenecks.
Average Time per Stage: Spot delays and improve pipeline flow.

3️⃣ Active Pipeline Metrics

Open Pipeline by Close Date: Forecast when deals will close and revenue will arrive.
Weighted Pipeline: ARR multiplied by the probability of closing, varying by stage.
Pipeline Waterfall: Visualize pipeline changes over time to pinpoint growth drivers.

#️⃣ These metrics provide a data-driven approach to refining your sales strategy and forecasting growth. Leverage tools like SaaSGrid to automate and visualize these insights.

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♻️ OpenAI’s Upcoming Model May Face Slower Improvement

OpenAI's next model, reportedly named Orion, might not show the same leap in performance as prior models like GPT-4. Testers noted smaller improvements, especially in areas like coding. To address this, OpenAI has formed a foundations team to explore new training strategies, including synthetic data generation and post-training optimization.

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⛔️ Exosonic Shuts Down After Struggling to Gain Traction
Exosonic, a startup focused on supersonic air travel and UAV technology, is winding down after five years due to a lack of customer support and insufficient funding. Despite hitting key milestones, including test flights and government grants, the company couldn’t bridge the gap between R&D and commercialization, particularly in the defense tech space.

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🙂 Do You Have the Founder's DNA?
Thinking of becoming a founder? Recent research highlights the top 10 personality traits — like adventurousness, resilience, and high energy — that set founders apart, showing that a unique mix of confidence, calm, and cooperation can help them thrive in the startup world. Here’s the full list:

1. Love of adventure
2. Lack of modesty
3. High activity level
4. Low anxiety
5. Focus on long-term results
6. Trustworthiness
7. Non-negativity
8. Optimism
9. Tendency to cooperate
10. Low emotionality

🙂How many of these 10 traits do you have? 🙂

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🟢 Meta's Ambitious Leap with Llama 4 AI Models
Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the upcoming Llama 4 models are being trained on a GPU cluster exceeding 100,000 H100 chips, positioning Meta at the forefront of the generative AI race, with an expected launch in early 2025.

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