Oil companies increasingly using AI to drill faster, Zscaler buys Avalor to bring more AI into its security tools

Top News

Oil companies are increasingly using AI and remote operations to drill faster, suggest better ways to frack, and predict when active well pumps will fail. - Link

Zscaler buys Avalor to bring more AI into its security tools. - Link

Mercedes begins piloting Apptronik humanoid robots. - Link

How Facebook Marketplace keeps Gen Z users coming back to the Facebook app, which they see not as a place to socialize but as a place to score some deals. - Link

In one of the most notable developments under its new CEO, Richard Teng, Binance spun out Binance Labs, its $10B venture capital arm, earlier this year. - Link

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Advice of the Day

Why “Uber for X” startups failed: The supply side is king

Andrew Chen suggests that these ventures primarily failed due to their inability to secure and sustain an efficient supply side, unlike rideshare companies. They faced challenges like infrequent demand, leading to underutilized labour, which, combined with high acquisition costs, made their economic models unviable. Chen argues successful "Uber for X" models require tapping into different labour pools that don't overlap with traditional ridesharing demographics. - Link

Startup Demo of the Day:

Peaka is a serverless connector infrastructure that integrates with 300+ relational and NoSQL databases, SaaS tools, and APIs in seconds, supporting real-time, cross-sourced querying without the need of copying or syncing. - 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

E1914: Raja Doddala explores evolving trends in early-stage investment values and strategies and discusses the future of venture capital, emphasizing the importance of liquidity and portfolio construction. - Watch

E1913: Justin Kwong introduces Melengo, focusing on its comprehensive clothing manufacturing services, business strategy, and team building. Jason explains his A.D.D. framework (Automate, Deprecate, Delegate) for enhancing operational efficiency. - Watch

E1912: Sunny and Jason demo AI products, including Groq's speed, Opus from Claude 3, Mistral, Groq Playground, and EMO by Alibaba. They also explore the use of "guardrails" in Large Language Models and apply Claude to interpret Ikea instructions. - Watch

E1911: Josh Mohrer discusses his experiences with Uber's early days in New York, solo entrepreneurship, and AI's impact on the tech industry. He also explores the future of work, the integration of AI into daily life, and the changes in technology across generations. - Watch

E1910: Jonathan Neman discusses the innovation and scale of Sweetgreen, the future of the fast-casual industry, and how robotics and technology are being integrated into the restaurant sector. - Watch

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