Cain Peter Hillier
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Reporter @newcomermedia | @tarbellcenter
Signal @ chillier.33
Articles by Cain Peter Hillier
Big Tech Defied Tradition With a Risky Bet on Trump. It’s Not Looking Like a Winner.
The Week in Short Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and many other tech leaders are long on Trump and that’s not a good position. Rest of World falls victim to a more inward-looking era. Anthropic S-1 brings plenty of takes and a searing critique from Roger McNamee. Five races on Tuesday are especially interesting for Silicon Valley, starting with Texas. Thrive bought ADP, the venerable home-security business. Kalshi raised a billion. China’s AI bubble starts to deflate.
The New Space Race: Startups Press Ahead on ‘Orbital Infrastructure,’ Test Feasibility of Data Centers
Space data centers, once confined to sci-fi novels and ambitious pitch decks, are beginning to get real. A SpaceX rocket earlier this month carried an experimental Google satellite that will make simple requests to Gemini while researchers test how its four TPUs hold up in space. The same launch carried the Reason-1 satellite from startup Cowboy Space, which is experimenting with beaming solar power back to Earth with a laser.
Anthropic’s S-1: Key Data Points & Fun Facts for Venture Investors
Anthropic’s S-1 arrived at a particularly fraught moment in the tech business, with anti-AI sentiment raging across the country and a highly consequential election about to take place. The numbers are extraordinary — and will likely polarize the debates even further. We’ve pulled a handful of highlights from the filing, some of which were foreshadowed:
Anthropic’s Pending IPO Has Silicon Valley on the Edge of Its Seat
The Week In Short Anthropic’s pre-IPO fundraising forced VCs to get bigger and the stakes could not be higher for its Wall Street debut. OpenAI is in talks for a $30 billion fundraise as a bridge to an IPO. SemiAnalysis was challenged on its data center build estimates, prompting a lively debate. A ranking of AI VCs from Stanford’s Ilya Strebulaev and Ohio State’s Blake Jackson puts a16z on top.
Competing ARR Estimates & Fuzzy Valuation Math in the Spotlight as Markets Get Edgy
The Week in Short OpenAI’s annual recurring revenue is $20 billion less than news reports had indicated, spotlighting fuzzy math issues. Open-source models from the US and Europe launched to media fanfare this week and vowed to take on China, but national origin doesn’t matter much to the founders using them. Startup funding so far this year shatters 2021 records but slows in latest quarter. Singapore startup Manus raises after its forced split from Meta.
Anthropic's IPO Can't Wait Forever
The Week in Short Anthropic is preparing for its impending IPO while the markets are increasingly uncertain. AMD agrees to acquire Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2 billion in a strategic move to assert its relevance in the AI race. Reid Hoffman returns to the podcast to pitch the benefits of the AI boom. Data from Odin’s Dan Gray illustrates how the VCs with the most capital behind them have typically backed the most unicorns. Salesforce agrees to buy Listen Labs for reportedly $2 billion.
SCOOP: Benchmark Backs Early-Stage Startup Tendrils Compute as Chip Momentum Builds
Benchmark has won out in a hot competition to lead a new funding round for early-stage chip startup Tendrils Compute, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Sources say that the company is already discussing a fast follow-up raise that would potentially value the firm at more than $1 billion. Neither round has previously been reported. Benchmark declined to comment.
Agents Promise to Remake the Web. As Instinct & Muse Take Off, We’ll Begin to See How it Looks.
The Week in Short Meta launches its personal assistant Muse with national advertisements, a cute logo, and lots of ambition. Insurance startup Corgi goes big on outlandish marketing techniques but hits pause on cafés. A16z partner Josh Elman talks Apple and consumer AI on the podcast. VCs share their opinions on the top venture firms in Newcomer’s VC Sentiment Report. Lightspeed backs big AI rounds. Bessemer brings in billions for its latest funds. Investor China trips are back in vogue.
War in the Middle East & Rising Interest Rates Threaten the Funding for AI Build-Out
The Week in Short Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and falling oil exports threaten the capital flows propping up the AI build-out, but it hasn’t slowed much yet. Meta’s personal AI assistant Muse gives Instinct a run for its money. Former SEC regulator Renée Jones says the rules for Silicon Valley need to change on the podcast. A new report from Menlo Ventures details how consumers are using AI tools to make money, but finds that they’re sticking with incumbent chatbots for now.
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