Microsoft ranked #1 best-managed company of 2023, Google announces MedLM AI models for medical industries

Top News

Microsoft tops the list of best-managed companies of 2023. Technology giants led the way, with Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet and IBM rounding the top. - Link

Google announces MedLM, a family of AI models fine-tuned for the medical industries and based on Med-PaLM 2, available to Google Cloud customers in the US. - Link

Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available in beta on Meta Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro, for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. - Link

Amazon launches Your Books, a feature that lets users organize all their books, including print, Kindle, and Audible titles, while providing recommendations. - Link

Google releases Imagen 2, launched in preview in May 2023 and built using Google DeepMind tech, offering “significantly” improved image quality and new features. - Link

The Equinix Startup program helps early-stage companies build a competitive advantage with infrastructure, including up to $100K in credits, personalized consultations, and guidance from the Equinix team. Go to https://deploy.equinix.com/startups/ to apply today. Ad

Startup Funding

True Anomaly, a startup specializing in hardware and software for military and intelligence space surveillance systems, secured $100 million in a Series B funding round led by Riot Ventures. - Link

Line Next, a unit of LY Corporation dedicated to NFTs with 5.5 million users globally, raised $140M in funding. This round was led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a firm backed by Peter Thiel. - Link

Andalusia Labs, based in Abu Dhabi, focuses on providing risk management services for digital assets. The company raised $48M in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed, reaching a valuation of over $1B. - Link

Product Demo & Launches

Ask Viable transforms feedback into PRDs, FAQs, reports & more in minutes with AI. - Link

Buenoverse lets anyone create 2D virtual worlds together with friends in real-time.

Advice of the Day

User-Focused Product Development

Emmett Shear (Co-Founder, Twitch) emphasizes the importance of user-focused product development. Advising founders to engage with users first to generate product ideas rather than using user feedback for product validation. This approach ensures products are built on actual user needs and feedback. - 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.

This Week in Startups

E1863: Steve Ruiz, Founder of tldraw, joins Jason, discussing the origins and business plan of tldraw, including the viral success of Make Real. The conversation delves into topics such as "Open Core," demos of tldraw and Make Real, exploring multi-modal AI responses, questioning the creation of consciousness in AI, and concluding with insights into the future potential and integration of tldraw across various AI models. - Watch

E1862: Sunny Madra joins Jason in a discussion covering topics such as Google NotebookLM, Bard's Gemini upgrade, Google's branding challenges, Ars Technica's experimental test bed, and the evaluation of Mixtral's 8x7B model. The conversation also includes Sunny's demonstrations of creating an AI influencer using the Juggernaut XL model in Google Colab and showcasing Magnific's powerful image upscaler. - Watch

E1861: Kevin O'Connor, traces his tech journey from DoubleClick to venture capitalism. Covering AI's transformative impact, startup evolution, and the challenges of convincing companies to use data, O'Connor provides insightful perspectives on successful entrepreneurship, remote work debates, and the current landscape of startup valuations and venture capital funds. - Watch

E1860: Scott Orn discusses the challenges of founder salaries, emphasizing the trade-offs in entrepreneurship, dangers of underpayment, and gender disparities. The episode also covers the importance of structured approaches to compensation, managing personal and company finances, and the dynamics of salary distribution within a company, including the impact of investor expectations. - Watch

E1859: Jason welcomes Michael Putz, CEO of Blackshark.ai, to discuss lessons from video game creation, the vision behind a digital twin of the planet, and Blackshark's programming methods. The conversation covers modern data training, In-Q-Tel's investment, a live demo of Orca Huntr, satellite imagery updates, remote work perspectives, and how Blackshark's team uses AI for efficiency. - Watch

This Week in Startups Paid Partnerships

Miro offers collaborative online whiteboards. Sign up for a free account and experience a seamless, visual collaboration platform that brings your ideas to life a miro.com/startups.

NetSuite offers the ultimate KPI Checklist for CFOs including customizable templates, process maps, and user guides. Download your free KPI Checklist at netsuite.com/twist.

Embroker’s startup insurance program helps startups secure the most important types of insurance at a lower cost. Use code TWIST to get an extra 10% off at Embroker.com/twist.