Google Announces a New AI Model with Three Tiers, Sam Altman Named CEO of the Year

Top News

Google announces Gemini, a new AI model with three tiers, Ultra, Pro, and Nano, and plans a paid version in 2024; Google says the new Bard beats free ChatGPT. - Link

Sam Altman was named Time magazine's CEO of the year for 2023 and was interviewed alongside 20 people in his close circle. - Link

Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle say they will use AMD's new Instinct MI300X GPU; Microsoft will offer access to the chips through Azure. - Link

iOS 17.2 RC brings Qi2 wireless charging support to iPhone 13 and iPhone 14-series devices; Apple hasn't said if the phones will charge at 15W on Qi2 chargers. - Link

Asana reports Q3 revenue up 18% YoY to $166.5M, vs. $164.1M est., but warns of macroeconomic headwinds; ASAN drops 10%+. - Link

Cisco debuts new security tools, including Cisco AI Assistant for Security, which can understand event triage, root cause analysis, policy design, and more. - Link

Founder University is a 12-week pre-accelerator program run by Jason/LAUNCH for builder founders. We're investing $25k in 20-30 companies from Cohort 7. Apply at founder.university/letsbuild.

Startup Funding

MaintainX, which helps manufacturing and other companies manage operations and maintenance, raised a $50M Series C at a $1B valuation, led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company was founded in 2018 by Chris Turlica, Hugo Dozois-Caouette, Mathieu Marengère-Gosselin, Nick Haase. - Link

AI data startup VAST Data, which unifies storage, databases, and more, raised a $118M Series E led by Fidelity at a $9B valuation. The company was founded in 2016 by Jeff Denworth, Renen Hallak, Shachar Fienblit. - Link

Sydney-based generative AI art platform Leonardo AI raises $31M from Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital, and Samsung Next. Since launching last year, the company has hit seven million users and generated more than 700 million images in total. The company was founded by Jachin Bhasme, JJ Fiasson, and Chris Gillis. - Link

Product Demo & Launches

Boost.space is an all-in-one and user-friendly workflow streamline. - Watch

Kommunicate GenAI provides AI-powered chatbots that can be trained on your documents, FAQs, and Knowledge base. - Watch

StreakAI is a CRM co-pilot for teams in Gmail. It allows you to automate data entry, use natural language to ask questions about your deals, and build custom pipelines without coding. - Watch

Advice of the Day

Successful Co-Founder Relationships

Max Levchin highlights the parallel between successful co-founding relationships and marriages, emphasizing mutual growth and continuous effort to impress and support each other. For example, dividing responsibilities while maintaining a mutual goal of impressing and elevating each other's work. He suggests that treating your co-founder with the same dedication and desire to impress as in a strong marriage can be foundational in driving a startup toward success. - Watch on TWiST

Starting a business is now hassle-free with Northwest Registered Agent. They offer fast company formation, essential documents for bank accounts, mail scanning, and business address services, all while ensuring your privacy. No hidden fees, no upselling, and complete flexibility. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist to get started with a 60% discount.   Ad

This Week in Startups

E1858: Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe discusses the transformative journey of genome sequencing, highlighting the dramatic cost reduction to $99 and its impact on proactive health management. The conversation delves into pivotal moments in health understanding, strategies for healthcare integration, and the need for policy shifts, concluding with reflections on Wojcicki's 17-year journey and her vision for the future of health and genetics. - Watch

E1857: Sunny Madra joins Jason to showcase Figma's FigJam, a collaborative whiteboard tool. The discussion covers AI-generated images, company copyright challenges, and FigJam feedback. Sunny also demonstrates Fal, an AI tool for photo transformation, and showcases the Real-Time Latent Consistency Model. The session concludes with a demo of Alibaba's Animate Anyone. ****- Watch

E1856: David Heinemeier Hansson discusses the launch of his new project, Once.com, which offers a unique alternative to traditional SaaS by charging a one-time fee instead of a recurring subscription, and shares his views on various topics, including copyright, the changing nature of remote work, internal culture challenges at Basecamp, the pace of AI development, and the importance of embracing hardship to build resilience and grit. - Watch

E1855: This episode dives into the rapid evolution of AI and the prospect of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), featuring insights from Adept CEO David Luan. It's a must-watch for understanding how AI shapes our future and data's role in this transformation. - Watch

E1854: Aryan Sharma from Induced AI discusses the development and impact of 24/7 autonomous agents on various sectors. This episode is crucial for grasping the breadth of AI applications and how they're revolutionizing everyday tasks and industries. - Watch

This Week in Startups Paid Partnerships

CLA specializes in supporting venture-backed companies. From entity selection and global expansion to mergers and acquisitions, get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors.

House of Macadamias is the next big health trend. Get a free month's supply of Macadamia Milk with any order using code TWIST20.

Tech Domains has a new program called startups.tech, where you can get your startup featured on This Week in Startups.