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Will superintelligence be safe?

plus: Is an exit good for a founder?

· 771 words

Christian Woese & Melanie Gabriel
June 25, 2024 • Read time: 3 minutes

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Dear hustlers, founders, operators, and visionaries,

Taylor Swift announced she will be ending her Eras World Tour by the end of the year. We don’t know if that’s good or bad news, but we do know her tour has been one of the most successful commercial music endeavours of all time. Music is a business and she knows how to run it. Meanwhile, AI continues to be the hottest topic in the entrepreneurship scene. The big question everybody is asking themselves is: Will AI help me, or will it kill my business? Have you answered this question for your own venture? Email us and let us know.

PS: Has this e-mail been forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

Ousted OpenAI co-founder’s resurrection

Ilya Sutskever, recently ousted co-founder of OpenAI, has announced his new venture: Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI). The plain text website [👀web designers, this is your apply-now-sign] reveals a bold mission: tackling the “most important technical problem of our time” - a safe AI model that is more intelligent than humans.

The elephant in the room: If Ilya exited OpenAI to build a safe AI, what kind of AI is being built at OpenAI? Either way, SSI is unlikely to struggle in attracting talent. Or “wait for it…million billion” funding:

Nvidia becomes the world’s most valuable company

Last week, Nvidia briefly surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world’s most valuable company at a market cap of over $3.3 trillion. Fueled by a tech boom supercharged by AI, Nvidia’s stock price soared nearly 200% last year alone. The investment surge shows no signs of stopping. If you are an operator at a startup, wondering about the value of your stock options, Nvidia’s meteoric rise is a testament to potential success. Early employees reportedly hold option packages worth in the eight-figure range. The tough question: retire early or keep working at one of the most successful companies in recent times?

Looming TikTok ban sends advertisers scrambling

With the US pressuring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s US operations, advertising agencies are drawing up contingency plans in case of a full ban. TikTok boasts 170 million US users (142 million in Europe, 1 billion worldwide) and has revolutionized content creation with its short-form video content. It’s a key platform for reaching younger audiences, leaving advertisers anxious about their upcoming campaigns. Although there have been voices for a ban in Europe too, experts say a new legal basis would be needed to achieve that.

The old vs. new world

Remember our recent story about Apple heralding a new era with Apple Intelligence? Well, this only applies to Apple users outside the EU. Due to regulatory concerns (👋🏽 Digital Markets Act), Apple announced it will not roll out AI tech in the EU market (just yet).

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A world of memes

We can relate.

Food for thought

Will AI take over?

Are “successful exits” really successful?

”We are like gears grinding before they break”

Chinese tech companies have been in fierce competition with their US peers for a while, especially in sectors like e-commerce. With growth slowing, the pressure put on employees is building up to extreme levels. The Financial Times wrote an excellent and shocking piece on the work culture in Chinese tech companies. Read the full article here.

Financial Times: working conditions are brutal in Chinese tech companies

Mark your calendar

Germany

SicherheitsExpo 2024 in Munich, 26-27 June [Program]
The Future Retail Conference in Berlin, 25-26 June [Program]

Romania

Techsylvania in Cluj-Napoca, 26-27 June [Program]

Did we miss an important event? Let us know by replying to this email.

🤫 Not in Europe, but nice to know where tech leaders mingle: Sun Valley, a yearly event in Idaho, that almost no one is allowed to attend. It’s dubbed “summer camp for billionaires” as it hosts the US’ biggest names in media and tech. 👀

Smart hack

Generating outbounds is both an art and a science. We found this cheatsheet in the depths of LinkedIn.