Notion acquires privacy-focused productivity platform Skiff, Jeep-maker Stellantis to adopt Tesla’s charging port

Top News

Notion acquires Skiff, which raised $14.2M to offer end-to-end encrypted file storage, docs, calendar events, and email; Skiff will shut down after six months. - Link

Stellantis, the parent company of brands like Jeep and Chrysler, announce that it will adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). - Link

Score is a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, and it seeks to help raise awareness about the importance of finances in relationships. - Link

Jeff Bezos sold 12M Amazon shares last week, netting just over $2B, his first Amazon stock sale since 2021; Amazon said Bezos plans to sell up to 50M. - Link

How generative AI is transforming the advertising industry; WPP and Publicis plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to embed AI in their businesses. - Link

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Advice of the Day

Seeking Negative Feedback

Elon Musk emphasizes listening to negative feedback, especially for aspiring entrepreneurs. He suggests that people often avoid negative feedback as it can be painful, but it's a mistake to do so. Musk encourages asking friends to focus on what they don't like about a product rather than what they do, as friends may be reluctant to give negative feedback. He suggests that positive feedback should be given less importance, whereas negative feedback should be given more weight. - Link

Startup Demo of the Day:

Undesk is a virtual office that improves productivity in remote workspaces. The tool includes a private productivity tracker where users can track their hours, quality of work, and other metrics.

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

E1895: David Weisburd, Grady Buchanan, Victor Gutwein, and Jason discuss dry powder levels, cash management by GPs, adjustments in investment pace, the importance of GP selection for LPs, VC firm ratings, the impact of relationships within the VC ecosystem, and strategies for performing due diligence on funds and assessing VC returns. The conversation concludes with a rapid-fire segment on the guests' top recent investments. - Watch

E1894: Sunny Madra and Jason go through AI demos, starting with Hume AI, a toolkit for improving technology's emotional impact on humans. They also discuss Eleven Labs ChatGPT and AI's ongoing evolution and application across different sectors. - Watch

E1893: Jason, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit and Ron Biscardi of iConnections, discuss Reddit's history, potential IPO, and insights into venture capital and the future of iConnections. Alexis shares his experiences and advice for startups, while Ron talks about market dynamics and globalization in VC, emphasizing the importance of relationships with LPs and GPs. - Watch

E1892: Eric Migicovsky, from Beeper, discusses the company's mission to provide a universal chat app, challenges with Apple's iMessage ecosystem, and his vision for open messaging protocols. The episode highlights Beeper Mini's release and blockage by Apple, Migicovsky's experiences with platform restrictions, and speculation on future tech development. - Watch

E1891: Jason gives an update on the late-stage VC market and then Sahand Dilmaghani talks about founding Terra Kaffe and the benefits of the Terra Kaffe machines over pod machines. He explains what makes a super-automatic machine produce good coffee and discusses expanding the product's use in offices, schools, and homes. ****- Watch

This Week in Startups Paid Partnerships

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