8 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $519.3 Million - Week of November 11, 2024

⏰ Time for a New Approach to VC 💪 Tips for on Building Engineering Teams 👎 How ChatGPT Brought Down Chegg ️‍🔥 Would Dan Gallagher be the New SEC Chief? 🤯 Artificial Superintelligence is Coming!

Nov 11, 2024

Hello from Lisbon! 🇵🇹

This past week, America has elected a new President and San Francisco elected a new mayor! While many Billionaire CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook are congratulating Trump, I am fleeing the country (joke) and speaking at Web Summit 2024 this week on the topic of “Time for a New Approach to Venture Capital.” Join us in Lisbon!

P.S. You can also listen to this newsletter.

Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:

💪 Top 10 Tips for Founders on How to Recruit, Build, and Scale World Class Engineering Teams - I really enjoyed this discussion with Alfred Chuang and Richard Wong. Learning from their experience from Microsoft, BEA Systems, LinkedIn, Sun Microsystems and Coursera - this conversation was just so powerful with so much wisdom for founders. Here are my Top 3 favorite tips:

As a founder, remember, that you are the chief advocate and salesperson for your team, customers, investors, and partners.
Empower your top engineers by making them feel important—grant them status and show them respect.
Prioritize speed over perfection; rapid iteration trumps flawless code in the early stages.
Read more.

️‍🔥 Financial Trade Group Calls on Gary Gensler to ‘Immediately’ Step Down. Will Dan Gallagher Become the New SEC Chief ? — The statement from the ASA, which represents large asset managers, came less than a day after the Presidential race was called for Trump, who incidentally has pledged to fire Gensler if elected. Meanwhile, Dan Gallagher, former Republican SEC commissioner from 2011 to 2015 and currently Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Robinhood is the front-runner. Read more here and here.

👎 How ChatGPT Brought Down Chegg, an Online Education Giant - Its stock is down 99%, and students looking for homework help are defecting to ChatGPT. Since ChatGPT’s launch, Chegg has lost more than half a million subscribers who pay up to $19.95 a month for both prewritten answers to textbook questions and on-demand help from experts. Read more here.

🤯 Sam Altman Says Artificial Superintelligence is Thousands of Days Away —There is a lot of compounding left to do. What happens then? Fix climate, space colonies, limitless intelligence, understanding physics, abundant energy. Watch below:

🍟 Taiwan Chip Output to Hit Record $165 Billion on AI Demand — Meanwhile, the U.S. ordered TSMC to halt shipments to China. Huawei is on a restricted trade list, which requires suppliers to obtain licenses to ship any goods or technology to the company. Any license that could aid Huawei's AI efforts would likely be denied. Read more here and here.

📚 Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation Research Paper by Aidan Toner-Rodgers @ MIT — This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product innovation. Read more.

Last week a total of 8 startups raised $519.3M in funding, 0 Exits: