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Techmeme
May 27, 2024, 6:25 PM

Top News

xAI:
xAI raised a $6B Series B from Valor, Vy Capital, a16z, Sequoia, Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, and others, Elon Musk says at a pre-money valuation of $18B  —  xAI is pleased to announce our series B funding round of $6 billion.  —  xAI is pleased to announce...
Axios:
Elon Musk says all of the $6B in xAI's Series B is new money, rather than shares “given” to investors in his Twitter takeover; some investors also backed OpenAI  —  - That said, there's plenty of overlap in the investor list, and it's unclear if the original Twitter/X backers …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A closer look at Apple's AI strategy: Project Greymatter, local and cloud LLM data processing, Siri, sealing a chatbot partnership deal with OpenAI, and more  —  Though Apple's first set of modern AI features won't be as impressive as rival offerings, the company is betting that its massive customer base can give it an edge.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro / New York Times:
Q&A with Netflix's Ted Sarandos on the state of Hollywood, shifting US tastes, programming strategy, ads, corporate activism, YouTube, live events, AI, and more  —  Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times  —  If you're anything like me, you probably spent some large portion of this week sitting on your couch watching Netflix.
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Researchers find that GPT-4 can outperform human analysts in predicting the direction of future corporate earnings even when given only financial statements  —  Researchers from the University of Chicago have demonstrated that large language models (LLMs) can conduct financial statement analysis …
Reuters:
China set up a new ~$47.5B state-backed investment fund on May 24 as the third and largest phase of its Big Fund to boost the country's semiconductor industry  —  China has set up a new state-backed investment fund with registered capital of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion) to boost the country's semiconductor industry.
Wall Street Journal:
An analysis of ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity's responses to some real-life questions and everyday tasks: Perplexity ranked first overall  —  We tested OpenAI's ChatGPT against Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini, along with Perplexity and Anthropic's Claude.  Here's how they ranked.
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
Data.ai: of the top 20 education apps in the US App Store, five are AI agents that help with school assignments, the two most popular of which are Chinese-owned  —  Evan, a high school sophomore from Houston, was stuck on a calculus problem.  He pulled up Answer AI on his iPhone …
More: Tech in AsiaMastodon: @BrideOfLinux@mastodon …X: @emollickLinkedIn: Abhishek Sharma and Randy Wilkins
John Koblin / New York Times:
A look at the growing importance of ads for video streaming services, as Antenna says that 56% of new subscribers chose the cheaper ad-supported tier in Q1 2024  —  Ads are here, there — almost everywhere — on streaming services now.  —  Not long ago, streaming TV came with a promise …
Louise Matsakis / Big Technology:
How Shein and Temu, which are spending billions on digital ads and offering steep discounts or free products, have become big threats to Amazon in the US  —  In the fall of 2020, Amazon looked unstoppable.  The pandemic lockdowns had supercharged its e-commerce business …

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Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Can The Web Survive Generative AI? -- With Matthew Prince
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Tech Brew Ride Home:
AI Business Bigger Than The Smartphone Business?
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Hard Fork:
GPT-5 Backlash + Perplexity C.E.O. Aravind Srinivas on the Browser Wars + Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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The head of ChatGPT on AI attachment, ads, and what's next
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Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Great Chat:
Warm intros and hot takes: It's time to get ready for fundraising season
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Earlier Picks

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Viola Zhou / Rest of World: