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Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Meta is building an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so employees can get CEO-level guidance without bothering the actual CEO. On the opposite end: two brothers just built a $1.8bn telehealth company called Medvi with a dozen AI tools. No employees. $401m revenue last year. One company clones its CEO, the other proves you barely need one. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Aleph Alpha and Cohere explore transatlantic mega-merger
German AI champion Aleph Alpha and Canadian rival Cohere are in advanced merger talks. The combined entity would be dual-headquartered in Germany and Canada, with Berlin eyeing it as a "key customer." Cohere was last valued at $7bn with $240m ARR. Aleph Alpha raised $500m in 2023 from SAP and Bosch. Both focus on enterprise and sovereign AI.
Anthropic launches Project Glasswing with $100m cybersecurity pledge
Anthropic unveiled Project Glasswing, a cybersecurity initiative backed by AWS, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and CrowdStrike. Its new Claude Mythos Preview model has already found thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities, including a 27-year-old flaw in OpenBSD. Anthropic is committing $100m in model credits plus $4m to open-source security orgs. The model scores 83.1% on cybersecurity benchmarks, up from Opus 4.6's 66.6%.
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Food for thought
Is becoming a people manager a bad career move?
Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk watched his co-founder, the highest-output engineer on the team, become Head of Product. He had all the intangibles, but didn't love people management or a calendar full of meetings. The company missed him doing what he does best, so he moved back to engineering. High performers shouldn't leave it for a better LinkedIn title.
