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**SILVER SPRING, United States / Maryland, April 3rd, 2024/CyberNewsWire/**The Leading Company for Securing Access Between Workloads Recognized for the Aembit Workload IAM Platform. Aembit, the Workload Identity and Access Management (IAM) Company, has been named one of the Top 10 Finalists for the RSA Conference™ 2024 Innovation Sandbox contest that manages and secures access between critical software resources, like applications and services. Aembit will present its technology to a panel of renowned industry judges and a live in-person audience on May 6 at RSA Conference 2024 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. for its platform Since 2005, the contest has served as a platform for the most promising young cybersecurity companies to showcase their groundbreaking technologies and compete for the title of “Most Innovative Startup.” The competition is widely recognized as a catapult for success as the Top 10 Finalists have collectively celebrated more than 80 acquisitions and received $13.5 billion in investments over the last 18 years. Aembit will have three minutes to pitch the panel of judges before a question-and-answer round. RSAC Innovation Sandbox “The submissions for this year’s RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox contest were both dynamic and inspiring. Along with the rest of our entrepreneurial audience, I am excited to see these ideas come to life on stage,” said Linda Gray Martin, senior vice president of RSA Conference. “The evolution of global cyber threats is constant and there’s no better place to look for solutions and to help solve these challenges than in our own community.” With the rapid expansion of automated software, cloud services, and APIs, enterprises are being met with an exploding number of workloads across their IT environments. Reflect on the now-outdated practice of jotting down user credentials on sticky notes. Similarly, the current method of securing interactions between workloads typically involves the use of static, long-lived credentials, which are prone to theft and often embedded directly within code. This approach not only introduces security vulnerabilities but also complicates management and impedes prompt response during security incidents and compliance audits. Aembit shifts the model so enterprises can focus on managing access, instead of managing secrets. “Aembit automates and secures the entire workload-to-workload access workflow, from discovery, to enforcement, to audit – at scale,” said David Goldschlag, co-founder and CEO of Aembit. “Instead of building another dashboard showing you problems due to secrets and keys, we proactively fix the root cause of these challenges by systematically improving the way workloads are authorized access to your most sensitive resources, without code changes. You can think of us as Okta (or Azure AD), but between workloads instead of between users and services. The RSA Conference presents the ideal platform for us to demonstrate the significance and impact of our solution to the global security community.” The RSAC Innovation Sandbox contest kicks off at 10:50 a.m. PT on May 6, and winners will be announced at approximately 1:30 p.m. the same day. The panel of renowned expert judges includes , partner at Greylock; , chief technology officer at Check Point Software Technologies; , senior operating partner at Energy Impact Partners; independent researcher; and , SVP & CISO at Verizon. , RSAC executive chairman and program committee chair of RSA Conference, will return to host the contest. Asheem Chandna Dorit Dor Niloofar Howe Paul Kocher, Nasrin Rezai Hugh Thompson For more information regarding RSA Conference 2024, taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from May 6 to 9, users can visit . To learn more about the Aembit Workload IAM Platform, . https://www.rsaconference.com/usa watch this demo video About Aembit Aembit is the Workload Identity and Access Management platform that secures access between workloads across clouds, SaaS, and data centers. With Aembit’s identity control plane, DevSecOps can fully automate secretless, policy-based, and Zero Trust workload access. For more information, visit and . www.aembit.io follow us on LinkedIn About RSA Conference RSA Conference™ is the premier series of global events and year-round learning for the cybersecurity community. RSAC is where the security industry converges to discuss current and future concerns and have access to the experts, unbiased content, and ideas that help enable individuals and companies advance their cybersecurity posture and build stronger and smarter teams. Both in-person and online, RSAC brings the cybersecurity industry together and empowers the collective “we” to stand against cyberthreats around the world. RSAC is the ultimate marketplace for the latest technologies and hands-on educational opportunities that help industry professionals discover how to make their companies more secure while showcasing the most enterprising, influential, and thought-provoking thinkers and leaders in cybersecurity today. For the most up-to-date news pertaining to the cybersecurity industry visit www.rsaconference.com. Where the world talks security. Contact CMO Apurva Dave Aembit apurva@aembit.io This story was distributed as a release by Cyberwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here.

Aembit Selected As Finalist For RSA Conference 2024 Innovation Sandbox Contest

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality here Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality. As the winter wore itself away, Mr. Cheesacre, happy as he was amidst the sports of Norfolk, and prosperous as he might be with the augean spoils of Oileymead, fretted himself with an intense anxiety to bring to a close that affair which he had on his hands with the widow Greenow. There were two special dangers which disturbed him. She would give herself and all her money to that adventurer, Bellfield; or else she would spend her own money so fast before he got hold upon it, that the prize would be greatly damaged. "I'm –––– if she hasn't been and set up a carriage!" he said to himself one day, as standing on the pavement of Tombland, in Norwich, he saw Mrs. Greenow issue forth from the Close in a private brougham, accompanied by one of the Fairstairs girls. "She's been and set up her carriage as sure as my name's Cheesacre!" Whatever reason he might have to fear the former danger, we may declare that he had none whatever as to the latter. Mrs. Greenow knew what she was doing with her money as well as any lady in England. The private carriage was only a hired brougham taken by the month, and as to that boy in buttons whom she had lately established, why should she not keep a young servant, and call him a page, if it gave her any comfort to do so? If Mr. Cheesacre had also known that she had lent the Fairstairs family fifty pounds to help them through with some difficulty which Joe had encountered with the Norwich tradespeople, he would have been beside himself with dismay. He desired to obtain the prize unmutilated,—in all its fair proportions. Any such clippings he regarded as robberies against himself. But he feared Bellfield more than he feared the brougham. That all is fair in love and war was no doubt, at this period, Captain Bellfield's maxim, and we can only trust that he found in it some consolation, or ease to his conscience, in regard to the monstrous lies which he told his friend. In war, no doubt, all stratagems are fair. The one general is quite justified in making the other believe that he is far to the right, when in truth he is turning his enemy's left flank. If successful, he will be put upon a pedestal for his clever deceit, and crowned with laurels because of his lie. If Bellfield could only be successful, and achieve for himself the mastery over those forty thousand pounds, the world would forgive him and place, on his brow also, some not uncomfortable crown. In the mean time, his stratagems were as deep and his lies as profound as those of any general. It must not be supposed that Cheesacre ever believed him. In the first place, he knew that Bellfield was not a man to be believed in any way. Had he not been living on lies for the last ten years? But then a man may lie in such a way as to deceive, though no one believe him. Mr. Cheesacre was kept in an agony of doubt while Captain Bellfield occupied his lodgings in Norwich. He fee'd Jeannette liberally. He even fee'd Charlie Fairstairs,—Miss Fairstairs I mean,—with gloves, and chickens from Oileymead, so that he might know whether that kite fluttered about his dovecoat, and of what nature were the flutterings. He went even further than this, and fee'd the Captain himself,—binding him down not to flutter as value given in return for such fees. He attempted even to fee the widow,—cautioning her against the fluttering, as he tendered to her, on his knees, a brooch as big as a breast-plate. She waved aside the breast-plate, declaring that the mourning ring which contained poor Greenow's final grey lock of hair, was the last article from a jeweller's shop which should ever find a place about her person. At the same time she declared that Captain Bellfield was nothing to her; Mr. Cheesacre need have no fears in that quarter. But then, she added, neither was he to have any hope. Her affections were all buried under the cold sod. This was harassing. Nevertheless, though no absolute satisfaction was to be attained in the wooing of Mrs. Greenow, there was a pleasantness in the occupation which ought to have reconciled her suitors to their destiny. With most ladies, when a gentleman has been on his knees before one of them in the morning, with outspoken protestations of love, with clearly defined proffers of marriage, with a minute inventory of the offerer's worldly wealth,—down even to the "mahogany-furnitured" bed-chambers, as was the case with Mr. Cheesacre, and when all these overtures have been peremptorily declined,—a gentleman in such a case, I say, would generally feel some awkwardness in sitting down to tea with the lady at the close of such a performance. But with Mrs. Greenow there was no such awkwardness. After an hour's work of the nature above described she would play the hostess with a genial hospitality, that eased off all the annoyance of disappointment; and then at the end of the evening, she would accept a squeeze of the hand, a good, palpable, long-protracted squeeze, with that sort of "don't;—have done now," by which Irish young ladies allure their lovers. Mr. Cheesacre, on such occasions, would leave the Close, swearing that she should be his on the next market-day,—or at any rate, on the next Saturday. Then, on the Monday, tidings would reach him that Bellfield had passed all Sunday afternoon with his lady-love,—Bellfield, to whom he had lent five pounds on purpose that he might be enabled to spend that very Sunday with some officers of the Suffolk volunteers at Ipswich. And hearing this, he would walk out among those rich heaps, at the back of his farmyard, uttering deep curses against the falsehood of men and the fickleness of women. Driven to despair, he at last resolved to ask Bellfield to come to Oileymead for a month. That drilling at Norwich, or the part of it which was supposed to be profitable, was wearing itself out. Funds were low with the Captain,—as he did not scruple to tell his friend Cheesacre, and he accepted the invitation. "I'll mount you with the harriers, old fellow," Cheesacre had said; "and give you a little shooting. Only I won't have you go out when I'm not with you." Bellfield agreed. Each of them understood the nature of the bargain; though Bellfield, I think, had somewhat the clearer understanding in the matter. He would not be so near the widow as he had been at Norwich, but he would not be less near than his kind host. And his host would no doubt watch him closely;—but then he also could watch his host. There was a railway station not two miles from Oileymead, and the journey thence into Norwich was one of half an hour. Mr. Cheesacre would doubtless be very jealous of such journeys, but with all his jealousy he could not prevent them. And then, in regard to this arrangement, Mr. Cheesacre paid the piper, whereas Captain Bellfield paid nothing. Would it not be sweet to him if he could carry off his friend's prize from under the very eaves of his friend's house? And Mrs. Greenow also understood the arrangement. "Going to Oileymead; are you?" she said when Captain Bellfield came to tell her of his departure. Charlie Fairstairs was with her, so that the Captain could not utilize the moment in any special way. "It's quite delightful," continued the widow, "to see how fond you two gentlemen are of each other." "I think gentlemen always like to go best to gentlemen's houses where there are no ladies," said Charlie Fairstairs, whose career in life had not as yet been satisfactory to her. "As for that," said Bellfield, "I wish with all my heart that dear old Cheesy would get a wife. He wants a wife badly, if ever a man did, with all that house full of blankets and crockery. Why don't you set your cap at him, Miss Fairstairs?" "What;—at a farmer!" said Charlie who was particularly anxious that her dear friend, Mrs. Greenow, should not marry Mr. Cheesacre, and who weakly thought to belittle him accordingly. "Give him my kind love," said Mrs. Greenow, thereby resenting the impotent interference. "And look here, Captain Bellfield, suppose you both dine with me next Saturday. He always comes in on Saturday, and you might as well come too." Captain Bellfield declared that he would only be too happy. "And Charlie shall come to set her cap at Mr. Cheesacre," said the widow, turning a soft and gracious eye on the Captain. "I shall be happy to come,"—said Charlie, quite delighted; "but not with that object. Mr. Cheesacre is very respectable, I'm sure." Charlie's mother had been the daughter of a small squire who had let his land to tenants, and she was, therefore, justified by circumstances in looking down upon a farmer. The matter was so settled,—pending the consent of Mr. Cheesacre; and Bellfield went out to Oileymead. He knew the ways of the house, and was not surprised to find himself left alone till after dusk; nor was he much surprised when he learned that he was not put into one of the mahogany-furnitured chambers, but into a back room looking over the farm-yard in which there was no fire-place. The Captain had already endured some of the evils of poverty, and could have put up with this easily had nothing been said about it. As it was, Cheesacre brought the matter forward, and apologized, and made the thing difficult. "You see, old fellow," he said, "there are the rooms, and of course they're empty. But it's such a bore hauling out all the things and putting up the curtains. You'll be very snug where you are." "I shall do very well," said Bellfield rather sulkily. "Of course you'll do very well. It's the warmest room in the house in one way." He did not say in what way. Perhaps the near neighbourhood of the stables may have had a warming effect. Bellfield did not like it; but what is a poor man to do under such circumstances? So he went up-stairs and washed his hands before dinner in the room without a fire-place, flattering himself that he would yet be even with his friend Cheesacre. They dined together not in the best humour, and after dinner they sat down to enjoy themselves with pipes and brandy and water. Bellfield, having a taste for everything that was expensive, would have preferred cigars; but his friend put none upon the table. Mr. Cheesacre, though he could spend his money liberally when occasion required such spending, knew well the value of domestic economy. He wasn't going to put himself out, as he called it, for Bellfield! What was good enough for himself was good enough for Bellfield. "A beggar, you know; just a regular beggar!" as he was betrayed into saying to Mrs. Greenow on some occasion just at this period. "Poor fellow! He only wants money to make him almost perfect," Mrs. Greenow had answered;—and Mr. Cheesacre had felt that he had made a mistake. Both the men became talkative, if not good-humoured, under the effects of the brandy and water, and the Captain then communicated Mrs. Greenow's invitation to Mr. Cheesacre. He had had his doubts as to the propriety of doing so,—thinking that perhaps it might be to his advantage to forget the message. But he reflected that he was at any rate a match for Cheesacre when they were present together, and finally came to the conclusion that the message should be delivered. "I had to go and just wish her goodbye you know," he said apologetically, as he finished his little speech. "I don't see that at all," said Cheesacre. "Why, my dear fellow, how foolishly jealous you are. If I were to be downright uncivil to her, as you would have me be, it would only call attention to the thing." "I'm not a bit jealous. A man who sits upon his own ground as I do hasn't any occasion to be jealous." "I don't know what your own ground has to do with it,—but we'll let that pass." "I think it has a great deal to do with it. If a man does intend to marry he ought to have things comfortable about him; unless he wants to live on his wife, which I look upon as about the meanest thing a man can do. By George, I'd sooner break stones than that." This was hard for any captain to bear,—even for Captain Bellfield; but he did bear it,—looking forward to revenge. "There's no pleasing you, I know," said he. "But there's the fact. I went to say goodbye to her, and she asked me to give you that message. Shall we go or not?" Cheesacre sat for some time silent, blowing out huge clouds of smoke while he meditated a little plan. "I'll tell you what it is, Bellfield," he said at last. "She's nothing to you, and if you won't mind it, I'll go. Mrs. Jones shall get you anything you like for dinner,—and,—and—I'll stand you a bottle of the '34 port!" But Captain Bellfield was not going to put up with this. He had not sold himself altogether to work Mr. Cheesacre's will. "No, old fellow," said he; "that cock won't fight. She has asked me to dine with her on Saturday, and I mean to go. I don't intend that she shall think that I'm afraid of her,—or of you either." "You don't;—don't you?" "No, I don't," said the Captain stoutly. "I wish you'd pay me some of that money you owe me," said Cheesacre. "So I will,—when I've married the widow. Ha,—ha,—ha." Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. Words to bid him go, were, so to say, upon his tongue. But the man would only have taken himself to Norwich, and would have gone without any embargo upon his suit; all their treaties would then be at an end. "She knows a trick worth two of that," said Cheesacre at last. "I dare say she does; and if so, why shouldn't I go and dine with her next Saturday?" "I'll tell you why,—because you're in my way. The deuce is in it if I haven't made the whole thing clear enough. I've told you all my plans because I thought you were my friend, and I've paid you well to help me, too; and yet it seems to me you'd do anything in your power to throw me over,—only you can't." "What an ass you are," said the Captain after a pause; "just you listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there of course." "How do you know?" "I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come;—and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer." "Upon my word she's kind. Upon my word she is," said Cheesacre, getting very angry and very red. "Charlie Fairstairs, indeed! I wouldn't pick her out of a gutter with a pair of tongs. She ain't good enough for my bailiff, let alone me." "But somebody must take her in hand on Saturday, if you're to do any good," said the crafty Bellfield. "What the deuce does she have that nasty creature there for?" said Cheesacre, who thought it very hard that everything should not be arranged exactly as he would desire. "She wants a companion, of course. You can get rid of Charlie, you know, when you make her Mrs. Cheesacre." "Get rid of her! You don't suppose she'll ever put her foot in this house. Not if I know it. I've detested that woman for the last ten years." Cheesacre could forgive no word of slight respecting his social position, and the idea of Miss Fairstairs having pretended to look down upon him, galled him to the quick. "You'll have to dine with her at any rate," said Bellfield, "and I always think that four are better company than three on such occasions." Mr. Cheesacre grunted an unwilling assent, and after this it was looked upon as an arranged thing that they two should go into Norwich on the Saturday together, and that they should both dine with the widow. Indeed, Mrs. Greenow got two notes, one from each of them, accepting the invitation. Cheesacre wrote in the singular number, altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield, as he might have ignored his footman had he intended to take one. The captain condescended to use the plural pronoun. "We shall be so happy to come," said he. "Dear old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight," he added, "and has already begun to polish off the effects of the farmyard." "Effects of the farmyard," said Mrs. Greenow aloud, in Jeannette's hearing, when she received the note. "It would be well for Captain Bellfield if he had a few such effects himself." "You can give him enough, ma'am," said Jeannette, "to make him a better man than Mr. Cheesacre any day. And for a gentleman—of course I say nothing, but if I was a lady, I know which should be the man for me." About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Anthony Trollope (2006). Can You Forgive Her?. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19500/pg19500-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality

In June, the young family of generative AI (gen AI) unicorns suddenly got a new member. Inflection AI ripped the chart suggested by CBInsights just a month before and got onto the third position, dethroning Cohere AI. So we have to oblige, and after covering two Gen AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, we dive into the precocious startup, Inflection AI. Having introduced its core product, an AI assistant named Pi, in May and published a memo about Inflection-1, a Large Language Model ( ) behind Pi in June, Inflection AI took the industry by storm the same month with an astonishing $1.3 billion in funding and a $4 billion valuation – all within its first two years of existence! LLM The company's sudden surge owes much to the attraction of high-profile investors, including technology luminaries such as Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Reid Hoffman (also a co-founder), along with tech giants and . These financial ties extend beyond mere investments. Microsoft is providing its cloud computing infrastructure to strengthen Inflection's capabilities, while Nvidia, in partnership with CoreWeave, is integrating 20,000 of its H100 GPUs for LLM training. Microsoft Nvidia Let's dive deeper and discover more about the founders, their vision, the development behind the model powering Pi, and other crucial details. Finding them was not that easy! Content Overview The starting point of Inflection Financial and legal situation Mission of Inflection and its founders First product Tech behind Pi (LLM development facts) How Inflection is going to make money? Founders’ attitude toward AI risks A few not widely known facts about Inflection's founders 1. The starting point of Inflection According to the official information, Inflection AI has three founders: Karén Simonyan (Chief Scientist and Co-founder) Reid Hoffman (Co-founder) Mustafa Suleyman (CEO and Co-founder) , Inflection hasn't been very transparent with independent media. Some information available that extends beyond mere press releases or PR work stems from the podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman for Greylock Partners (a VC fund where Hoffman has been a partner since 2009). In January 2022, announcing Mustafa Suleyman as a new partner in Greylock Partners, Reid Hoffman : “I’ve known Mustafa personally for more than a decade. We first met at a pub in London. What struck me most was our inspiring and provocative discussion on the power and potential of AI to help solve some of humanity’s most urgent challenges. It marked the beginning of a deep and lasting friendship between Mustafa and I.” Operating with a low profile said More than a decade ago from 2022 was about a time when Mustafa Suleyman (along with Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg) co-founded DeepMind, one of the first AI research labs. In 2014, it was acquired by Google ( ). In January 2022, Suleyman left Google, joined Greylock Partners, and now the main AI R&D is led by the new structure called Google DeepMind in March 2022, Inflection was born (incubated by Greylock). Located in Palo Alto, California. Introducing Inflection AI on the Greylock website, Suleyman called it an "AI-first consumer products company." However, at that moment he didn't clarify exactly what that meant. 2. Financial situation and legal situation In May 2022, in equity financing, though the source of the capital wasn't immediately clear as Inflection didn't respond to the request for more information. Subsequently, when Inflection announced the $1.3 billion funding round in 2023, they clarified in that the first round was raised from Greylock, Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Mike Schroepfer, Demis Hassabis, Will.i.am, Horizons Ventures, and Dragoneer. TechCrunch that Inflection had secured $225 million reported the official press release At some point, the information on Inflection's website changed to describe the company as an "AI studio creating a personal AI for everyone." They chose the same legal structure as did Anthropic: , a new type of corporation to balance the interests of shareholders, materially affected individuals, and the public good. public benefit corporation 3. Mission of Inflection and its founders Introducing Inflection, as always, on the Greylock podcast, , "Our mission was to build a tool that is designed to understand the user, rather than the other way around. We wanted it – whether that be connecting with other human beings, making decisions, figuring out how to navigate a problem at work, or more.” Reid Hoffman said to be more than an answerer of questions but a participant in the dialogue that helps you along your life's path Throughout other interviews about Inflection and its first product Pi, they used words such as 'reliable,' 'ever-present,' 'non-judgmental,' 'kind,' and 'supportive’. To get to the point where a chatbot can be all this sounded like a mission. 4. First product In May 2022, Inflection AI shipped its first core product – Pi, a chatbot with the primary goal to serve as a 'Personal AI'. It’s said that Pi uses emotional intelligence to aim for human-like conversations. While its use case is narrower than other services like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, or Microsoft’s Bing chatbot, it strives to mimic human conversation patterns. Pi's training incorporates data up to November 2022, and it is committed to user privacy, refraining from using identifiable information in training. WhatsApp, Instagram PMs, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, or via the website – the ways to talk to Pi. The main difference from the most commonly used LLM products is the Pi remembers communications with you. The chatbot is also made to resist starting to flirt with a user. Named for "personal intelligence", Pi functions in several roles like teacher, coach, and confidante, designed to align with individual interests and needs. 5. Tech behind Pi Not much is known about the technology behind Pi. However, a month after its launch, the company revealing its foundation on the proprietary LLM, Inflection-1. According to the website, Pi doesn't utilize any third-party language model APIs. released a memo In the memo, the company stated: "The Inflection-1 architecture, dataset, and training procedure are proprietary, and we omit their details in this memo." What we do know is that Inflection-1 demonstrated impressive performance on the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, surpassing other well-known LLMs such as Meta's LLaMA, OpenAI's GPT 3.5, and Google's PaLM 540B, particularly in answering trivia questions. Additional information from Inflection's partner, CoreWeave's official website, that Inflection AI utilized 3,500 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and a cluster comprising over 40,000 cables and 500 miles of InfiniBand fiber cables for MLPerf Training benchmark competition submission, achieving an impressive 11-minute training benchmark. confirms , that Inflection AI is working on a cutting-edge supercomputer equipped with 22,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs that is expected to be one of the largest In the industry, right behind AMD's Frontier. However, there's some debate regarding the true computational power of this setup. While Inflection AI claims that these GPUs could provide 22 exaflops in 16-bit precision mode, suggest that the actual performance might not meet these expectations. There are rumors calculations by The Next Platform Though the model is proprietary, the references that are mentioned in the do not list any in-house research papers. official memo 6. How Inflection is going to make money? There are many unknowns at the moment. The developers are exploring different monetization strategies, including the possibility of adding subscription options. Another option is to keep it free but use ads to earn revenue. Currently, Inflection AI is a free platform available to everyone worldwide. On our request to learn more about the business model, neither Reid Hoffman nor Mustafa Suleyman replied. In another podcast with Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman stated, “ And likewise, we sort of don’t want to drive the kind of addictive dopamine hits of outrage or anger or despair or viral misinformation. These kinds of things have really incentivized people to spend longer on the platform, and sometimes that’s because they’re getting paid for it. We are very, very conscious that this is a moment that needs to change with AI, and that new business models need to emerge to address this." It’s really important to us that we figure out a monetization mechanic that doesn’t incentivize us to keep you engaged or maybe distracted on the platform for as long as possible. 7. Founders’ attitude toward AI risks Reid Hoffman intentionally chose to be positive about AI. , “So in recent months, He has done so in blog posts, television interviews, and fireside chats. He has spoken to government officials around the world. He hosts three podcasts and a YouTube channel. And in March, he published a book, “Impromptu,” co-written with the A.I. tool . The New York Times reports Mr. Hoffman has engaged in an aggressive thought-leadership regimen to extol the virtues of A.I. GPT-4 “I’m beating the positive drum very loudly, and I’m doing so deliberately,” he said. The 55-year-old sits on the boards of 11 tech companies including , which has gone all in on AI, and eight nonprofits. His venture capital firm, Greylock Partners, has backed at least 37 AI companies.” Microsoft , Reid Hoffman said that the , He thinks that since technology 'always puts tools in the hands of good and bad actors,' throughout our history, we have learned how to figure this out. In the same interview, he said, ' . In an interview to Washington Post conversations about superintelligence divert us from the real risk which is AI in the hands of bad actors. Part of the reason why I beat the drum so firmly in the positive camp is not that I'm risk unaware, and I think we need to navigate them, but oh, my gosh, every month we delay an AI tutor and doctor, for everyone who has a smartphone or has a friend who has a smartphone, just think about the human suffering that is caused by that delay, and that is super important This story was at Turing Post. Consider to receive new episodes straight to your inbox. originally published ing subscrib 8. A few not widely known facts about Inflection Founders Reid Hoffman Reid Hoffman ( ) is among a small group of interconnected tech executives leading the A.I. charge, many of whom also led the last internet boom. on Twitter He is part of the "PayPal Mafia," a group of former PayPal employees who went on to become successful entrepreneurs and investors in the tech industry. Reid Hoffman's entrepreneurial journey has been marked by resilience and determination. After his failure with SocialNet, he became obsessed with scaling and invested heavily in the social networking phenomenon, which eventually led to the co-founding of LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network with a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. He also led the company to its successful acquisition by Microsoft. One of the first investors in OpenAI, he was sitting on its board until March 2023, stepping down to avoid any conflicts of interest with Inflection AI. He still sits on the Board of directors at Microsoft. Reid Hoffman is a proponent of effective altruism (founders of OpenAI and Anthropic have strong ties with EA also), which advocates for using wealth and resources to create the best for the most people. In 2017, he : “If you have wealth, and at least a reasonable moral compass, to ask, “How do you create the most good for the most people?” I’m not saying this is the perfect system. But what’s the better system?” said to the Atlantic Reid Hoffman is a prominent philanthropist and has invested in impact investments through charitable entities. over $1.5 billion Hoffman is an avid fan of Dungeons & Dragons, and he attributes its influence to his thinking about life as a heroic quest with various players coming together to accomplish something. He believes in the power of friendship and considers it the true center of his life. Reid views friendship as a skill that can be learned and improved through asking questions and interacting with others. Mustafa Suleyman ( ) on Twitter He dropped out of Oxford University at 19 to start the Muslim Youth Helpline, a telephone counseling service for Muslims in the UK. He worked as a policy officer on human rights for Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, before founding Reos Partners, a ‘systemic change’ consultancy that uses methods from conflict resolution to navigate social problems. In February 2016, Suleyman launched DeepMind Health at the Royal Society of Medicine, a project that builds clinician-led technology for the NHS and other partners to improve frontline healthcare services He received the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019 for his influence in the UK technology sector and also accepted the Silicon Valley Visionary Award the same year Within DeepMind, he established the DeepMind Ethics & Society research unit, aiming to study the real-world implications of AI and promote ethical practices in the technology industry. One of the founding members of the Partnership on AI — an organization set up in September 2016 to ensure that AI is developed safely, ethically, and transparently — along with Facebook's AI head Yann LeCun, Microsoft Research director Eric Horvitz, and several others. Suleyman recently proposed a modern Turing test, , “to measure whether a machine has achieved ACI, you give an AI $100,000 and see if it can turn the seed investment into $1 million. To do so, the bot must research an e-commerce business opportunity, generate blueprints for a product, find a manufacturer on a site like Alibaba and then sell the item (complete with a written listing description) on Amazon or Walmart.com.” Suleyman expects AI will pass this more practical threshold sometime in the next two years. according to Bloomberg Karén Simonyan There is much less information about Karén Simonyan. Karén is not active on social media, he has no Twitter, a barely filled , and a well-developed . LinkedIn account Google Scholar page Education & Career History: 🔬 Chief Scientist, Inflection AI (2022 – Present) 🔬 Research Scientist, DeepMind (2014 – 2022) 🔬 Postdoc, University of Oxford (2013 – 2014) 🔬 Ph.D. student, University of Oxford (2009 – 2013) While doing his postdoc in 2013, in Oxford, Karén Simonyan along with Andrew Zisserman created the VGGNet image processing framework. VGGNet won the prestigious ImageNet Challenge. To commercialize it, they created a company Vision Factory AI, which was soon acquired by a not-very-known at that time startup DeepMind Technologies, where in 2014 Simonyan became a Principal Research Scientist. There, he played a key role in various AI breakthroughs, such as AlphaZero, AlphaFold, WaveNet, BigGAN, and Flamingo. While in DeepMind, Karen authored and co-authored numerous publications, including five papers in Nature and Science, accumulating an impressive 180,000 citations. Since he co-founded Inflection AI, only one paper was published with Karén Simonyan as a co-author . HiP: Hierarchical Perceiver That’s it for now. The information about Inflection AI will be constantly updated… Thank you for reading, please feel free to share with your friends and colleagues. This story was at Turing Post. Consider subscribing to receive new episodes straight to your inbox. originally published

The Inflection AI Story: How a Secretive Unicorn Reached a $4 Billion Valuation

We can’t help ourselves when we work with what we love. According to Steve Blank, founders who love what they do are more likely to do well: You need to do what you are doing because you love it, because you can’t think of anything better to do with your life. And if that is not the case, don’t do this because it’s going to be a miserable 10 or 20 years. If you are looking at getting rich like the Facebook boys, or the Google boys, or whatever the hot startup is now, that is the wrong reason to do it. If you are chasing the money, I will guarantee you, the more you chase it, the further away is goes. (Steve Blank at MAP14, Mar 13, 2014, ) 34m33s Undeniably, we will put so much energy into the things we love. Love is like gas - if we have a lot, we can drive further. But also, we might not measure our lovely journey - this is the teaser of what is coming next. From the point of view of planning, it’s not difficult to that objectives and key results should have inspiring goals and ambitious concrete measures. hear great thinkers’ recommendations After celebrating that we drive better with inspiring goals and love in the tank, I invite you to reflect on the challenges when this energy drives our rides. love thing The execution path of a strong believer can blind them from seeing the big picture and the challenges of the external environment. Steve Blank also acknowledges the flip side of being a firm believer and how founders - especially great founders - are highly subjective and being a victim of their vision: I am the founder; I implicitly understand the problem, so let’s just get to work and build the complete solution. That is a lot easier than getting out of the building and having to talk with a bunch of people. Or telling you that your baby is ugly. [..] No one wants to hear that your baby is ugly - it’s your vision. (Steve Blank at MAP14, Mar 13, 2014, ) 26m20s We might think that following a vision is not too bad, especially in the case of founders, as they are executing towards the market and eventually find data. But when the action journey is too colored and there are high expectations, the encounter with the unexpected (or unwanted) may not turn exactly into an awakening call. There is still room for more trouble as denial might come into the scene: [If] they tell you that your baby is ugly, smoke is going to start coming out of your ears because cognitive dissonance is going to set in. You are a believer and now they are telling you that you are wrong? Are these people stupid? Which is - the first reaction of a great founder is: They just don’t get it. (Steve Blank at MAP14, Mar 13, 2014, ) 26m39s Therefore, there is a little bit of a paradox because a founder needs to drink the holy water, but it produces bad outcomes if they drink too much. Maybe all of this goes back to the romanticization of ____ (fill in with the process name) as shown in the example from . Let’s consider that angle. Startups: Stop Romanticizing Your Brand and Tailor it for Early Adopters Being impressed by _________ Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, shows a complex situation applicable in the context when founders need to hire board members. At , Glenn has revealed the challenges he lived through as he interviewed very successful people to join his board of directors: Building Your Board with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman I was so busy, like looking ecstatic, as they talked to me when I debriefed with James or Jeff. And I said, “What they say? I don’t know, but that was really impressive.” (Glenn Kelman at Greylock, June 13, 2017, ) 18m17s Glenn’s point is that his attention was taken away, and he couldn’t do much initially. Glenn was impressed or also trying to impress. But why was he impressed in the first place? Well, he is a human right? His movements are driven by inspiration. He loves entrepreneurship; he loves that people can put a dent in the universe and change it. , but he is telling us that he was spending time being impressed instead of using the time, and the time of his candidates, in a wiser way. Therefore, the interaction with his potential board members suffered from tension, with a bias - a sort of enchantment. All right, I made that up Another similar situation is documented by Sal Khan, the inspiring founder of Khan Academy. Khan narrates the situation that he lived when he met Bill Gates for the first time: "We met, and he asked what I was up to, and this is one of those surreal times in your life when 20% of your brain is trying to speak in a cohesive way and the other 80% is saying - that is Bill Gates!"  (Sal Khan @ Kleiner Perkins, December 2, 2014, ) 19m30s These situations show good and bad aspects when high energy and passion follow the execution. This double-edged sword applies to many conditions, such as an individual executing a science project, an author writing an article, a family member helping their family, founders creating a prototype, an early-stage team validating a product, etc. For the case of larger organizations, although you won’t find love/passion/energy involved, I recommend you read about the challenges presented in Andy Grove’s in his article entitled . Strategic Dissonance One thing is to fear the difficulties of the execution path when there is too much energy. Another thing is to know what to do. Perhaps the saying that “love can make you do crazy things” can shed light. Consider a team with a truly inspiring goal and the notion that their energy is in abundance. It’s not that the driver cannot see the proper exits or that they can’t do the math. It might be that the drivers can’t deal with the judgment problem because they can get confused with feedback as they outperform beyond normal. When the above-average performance creates an illusion that an individual is moving toward success? Fred Kofman, the author of Conscious Business, helps us understand that the feedback - as we perceive from our performance - has a significant impact on how we play the game. The following illustration shows what happens if a team compensates individuals based on local performance attributes: In the illustration, if a soccer team compensates the attacking individual by its score - by the number of goals they score - they could still lose, as shown in the 4-5 case. Based on how soccer teams solve their problems, Fred goes on to suggest a challenging solution for us life systems: In a non-linear system, in order to optimize the system, you have to sub-optimize the subsystems. (Fred Kofman @ Linkedin, August 12, 2013, ) 17m58s This viewpoint suggests a strategy the local performance enchants the high-caring individual. Let’s sub-optimize ourselves It is easy to write and tough to do, especially for individuals who don’t have a team to shock-absorb what they do. Telling ourselves to remove love is not an objective solution. Picking less inspiring goals can be worse. But we might be inspired by the points from Steve and Fred to engage in reflecting and improving our awareness about what we do and especially how we do it: [x] Do what you love, yes. [x] Being more conscious about the risk of our convictions, yes. [x] Improving consciousness (and accountability) about the activities that we outperform, yes. [ ] _______, yes. (put your ideas here) We know a lot that we can do, especially when we care too much. But one area to look at is to allow time to reflect, to consider. . Are we allowing ourselves to engage with reflections and planning? Are we checking, reviewing, and shock-absorbing our actions? Are we evaluating our activities with help from our teams or the external environment? Checking our key results against the explicit goal is critical, of course. But our ultimate goal - in the execution path and amid uncertainty - is to learn, fail less, and see the bigger picture. Our drive to deliver outcomes is now in the dashboard, we know But are we allowing ourselves to measure the amount of time with other non-urgent activities that could be strategic? Footnotes Steve Blank at MAP14. (Published on Mar 13, 2014.) MAP14 Public Forum: Steve Blank [video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFx2CQUTpYo Glenn Kelman at The Scaleup Offsite. (Published on Jun 13, 2017.) The Scaleup Offsite 2017, Building Your Board with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivZQfGVN1pY San Khan at Kleiner Perkins. (Published on December 2, 2014.) Education 2.0: John Doerr Interviews Khan Academy Founder Sal Khan. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAFoAQSkYg Fred Kofman at Linkedin. (Published on August 12, 2013.) Fred Kofman | Conscious Business | LinkedIn Speaker Series. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdMvWLARF1w

The Dangers of Putting Passion in the Driver's Seat

Has society told you that girls can do this, but girls can’t do that? Math is not for girls, chess is not for girls, and the top level of academia is mostly males. It is embedded in some of our citizens’ subconscious that we have set gender roles. The level of gender roles varies throughout the world. In some areas women have more rights than others. In some areas, they have no rights. Low self-esteem and gender segregation is something that is deeply embedded in some cultures. Thanks to social media, and streaming media in the form of podcasts and , people have bigger platforms to communicate their messages. Women were able to connect with each other on common causes more so than ever before. Subjects that were normally not discussed were getting the spotlight and some taboos were getting dispelled. It started to feel as if we were making some progress. YouTube Then another paradigm shift started to happen, the transition from Web2 to Web3. During the Web2 boom, people were able to connect, but there was always a middle person, someone taking a cut from advertising, aggregating information on their users and the connection between people started to feel not as authentic. In comes Web3 and we are starting to experience a peer-to-peer economy. Artists of all styles and backgrounds can now sell their art direct to consumers. The NFT space in particular became quite the hot commodity. Did it seem like during the transition from Web2 to Web3 that women got lost in the mix? There has been a barrier for a long time in the world of tech between men and women, as in some other industries. But the Crypto Bro Culture is strong. Is it because they got here first and is this a barrier that can be broken? By the numbers It is not just the digital art world. A data analysis of major US art museums found that their collections were . This is an age-old art form too. 87% male There's an apparent gender gap between the number of men compared to the number of women in crypto. Male creators represent of NFT art sales, while only 5% go to women creators. 77% “The study, conducted by a research agency called and reported by , claims at least 77% of the money generated by NFT art sales over the past 21 months went to male artists, with just 5% going to female artists. “ Art Tactic Bloomberg Despite the metaverse being touted as an inclusive and diverse space, the NFT market has been dominated by the likes of the US artist (aka Mike Winkelman), and Canadian-born (the trio take the top three spots). Beeple Pak Mad Dog Jones While Pak’s nationality, gender and age remain undisclosed, the only known woman to make it into the top ten NFT artists is the musician , whose sales total $8.9m to date, compared with Winkelman’s $50.8m. Overall, male artists account for 77% of all primary and secondary sales, at $258.3m. Grimes The highest selling woman artist in NFTs is currently aka Itzel Yard. Whose work “Dreaming at Dusk” sold for 500 ETH or ~ $2 million. The most well-known female NFT artist must be of . Her work, Woman #5672, went for £567,000 at London Evening Sale IX Shells Yam Karkai World of Women Christie’s earlier this year. Women account for just , according to a report published by the research firm , which based its findings on primary and secondary market sales on over the past couple of years. 16% of the NFT art market ArtTactic Nifty Gateway In 32 countries across the world, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, to the internet. In those countries, a third of women were connected to the internet compared with almost half of men. The digital gender gap has barely improved since 2011, dropping just half a percentage point from 30.9% to 30.4%. Globally, men are 21% more likely to be online than women, rising to 52% in the least developed countries, according to a conducted by the in 2021. men are 50% more likely to have access report World Wide Web Foundation Women in certain parts of the world have a hard time getting internet access, which is a problem if you have dreams of making a career online, where there are plenty of opportunities. New opportunities are popping up left and right in the digital world and gasoline has been poured on that fire since the introduction of crypto and especially lately, NFTs. A space filled with mostly men, but is that tide shifting? Ever heard of Seneca? Many may not know by name, but they do know some of her work. A project that took the NFT world by storm was named . The Bored Ape Yacht Club has almost become a household name, especially for those who are NFT savvy. Seneca Bored Ape Yacht Club Seneca does not get a lot of press. In a from January of this year Rolling Stone To be clear, Seneca was not the project’s sole illustrator. “I am the lead artist behind the original collection,” she says. The ape body itself, she adds, is “exactly line-for-line” her drawing. Other production artists — “ , Migwashere, and a couple who chose to remain anonymous,” according to Gargamel — handled the traits and environment. However, she points out, she did develop some of the major traits, like the grinning mouth, the popping eyes, and the beanie. Thomas Dagley “ Not of ton of people know that I did these drawings, which is terrible for an artist,” she says. Word of mouth has been growing, though, and she hopes that will help her find more collaborations. While she’s not able to discuss financial specifics, her compensation, she says, “was definitely not ideal.” However, she insists, she’s grateful for the experience and the entryway to a realm she can no longer imagine living without. In the meantime, she’s focusing on her solo work. In December, Seneca dropped her debut series of NFTs under her own name as part of a collection called Iconoclast at Miami’s Art Basel. She is currently working on follow up series. Women NFT Projects making a mark The world of NFTs took off last year and it did not take too long for women to make their mark in the space. Some of these projects have a big following among female celebrities, most of them are about more than just art, they are about female empowerment, encouraging diversity, education, taking on charitable causes and making a difference in society. It is refreshing to see a movement in the NFT space that aspires to inspire. Here are some of the top projects and collections: World of Women ’s 2022 collection earned Yam Karkai USD 40 million within two weeks of its release. Back in mid-October, became the first from Hollywood to change her Twitter to a blonde-haired, blue-skinned WoW avatar, but the stampede arrived in January. WoW Reese Witherspoon profile picture In the first few days of the new year, both and purchased and paraded their shiny new NFTs; so did beauty influencer and entrepreneur , who has 50 million followers just , where her profile picture is a WoW avatar. Shonda Rhimes Eva Longoria Huda Kattan on Instagram WoW has also been doing monthly “ArtDrops” - airdropping pieces by lesser-known, emerging crypto artists from around the world, many of whom are women, into members’ virtual wallets. The goal, presumably, is to get closer and closer to flooding the playing field with fresh faces, one drop at a time. World of Women is not only making good use of utility NFTs and minting high end NFTs, they are getting behind some good causes as well. These include: She’s the first: an organization that supports local solutions to educate and empower girls across 26 countries. Code to inspire: a coding school for women in Afghanistan. : supports women victims of domestic abuse. La maison des femmes Women Rise The NFT collection was created by the 26-year-old artist, author, and activist who has been focusing on social justice, women's rights, gender equality, and girls' education. @Maliha_z_art Known as the ‘NFT Queen’ in the crypto space, is a global artist, activist, author and NFT creator. She believes the NFT industry will give artists a new space to showcase their collections. She is determined to bring over 100,000 girls and women to the NFT world by the end of 2022. Mahila Abidi Boss Beauties Lisa Mayer, the founder and CEO of said she is using her business selling NFTs as a vehicle to empower young women. The motto and inspiration behind this trending NFT project is, "A woman can be anything she wants." Boss Beauties Associated with , a charitable foundation that has been funding internships and scholarships for women and building a community of Gen Z change-makers for the past decade, Boss Beauties is the epitome of female empowerment in the NFT space. Sold out in just an hour, Boss Beauties also became the inaugural NFT collection to be featured in the New York Stock Exchange. My Social Canvas Remarkable Women NFT collection by is a celebration and ode to all women inspired by the perspectives of fashion, feminism, and cultural diversity. The collection showcases powerful messages of hope, inspiration, and affirmation in 15 languages. The Remarkable Women Rachel Winter Guided by a deep sense of purpose and meaning, Remarkable Women’s mission is to uplift and empower women by focusing on inclusion and representation. 10% of their first drop proceeds (about $50,000) were dedicated to their strategic partner the Fund for Women’s Equality. 10% of all secondary sales will be put into the Remarkable Women’s Impact Fund with proceeds decided and voted upon by their community members towards causes dedicated to women, justice, equality, and inclusion globally. Crypto Chicks Through her human-inspired NFT art, Ms Polly looks forward to encouraging gender and beauty diversity in the real and virtual worlds. Through ’s Women Artist Fund, they dedicate a minimum 5 ETH each quarter to buy unique pieces from up and coming talent. They showcase their art and stories within the community and through their public, media channels, along with raffling the pieces to community members. They also have a launchpad for women designers, creatives, and small retail businesses to develop the skill sets necessary to thrive in the web3 ecosystem and up level their businesses. Crypto Chick Women and Weapons NFT collection that features in the list includes 10,000 diverse, beautiful, and badass women NFTs by artist . The powerful art collection was first released in 2021. The was to speak to the dialectic nature between a weapon's power versus a woman's power and the femininity of a woman versus the “masculinity” of a weapon and create a conversation. If this image makes you uncomfortable, why does it make you uncomfortable? But James Bond holding the weapon doesn't? The weapons symbolize the in their day-to-day. Sara Baumann main purpose weapons that women carry Sara aims to make a difference in society and raise money for charity. She commits to donating 5 percent of the profits to Malala Fund Charity.** Sad Girls Bar “I think it takes courage to show that you’re vulnerable. It is really about the willingness to truly be ourselves. And especially in web3 people shouldn’t be afraid to express how they really feel.” - Glam Beckett Tweet 4/21/22 Proceed of sales supports “Women Side by Side” — a program of peer support for women delivered by Mind and Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk. We take emotions seriously and sometimes being sad or upset is OK, but conditions after emotional burnouts, self-harm episodes, or suicide thoughts often need a helping hand, support, and all attention. Flower Girls The Flower Girls counts Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Eva Longoria, Brie Larson, America Ferrera, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jimmy Connors, Brooklyn Beckham and President as collectors and community members. TIME Keith Grossman The Flower Girls has passed $15 million in sales. The project donated 20% of primary and secondary sales to children’s charities and 5% of primary and secondary sales to collect children’s NFT art. The project donated over $400,000 to children’s charities in February. Long Neck Ladies The founder, leader, and artist of this NFT project is an inspirational 13-year-old girl named , who started drawing at age four and created her first NFT at the age of nine. Nyla Hayes Last year Nyla created in the style of Long Neckie Ladies and is based on franchise. 1000 unique pieces TIME’s Women of the Year The 100 women featured in this drop include: Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Anna May Wong, Eva Perón, Frida Kahlo, Billie Holiday, China Machado, Dolores Huerta, Gloria Steinem, Indira Gandhi, Tu Youyou, Diana, Princess of Wales, Madonna, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai, Pussy Riot, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. You can find the full list of women featured . here A couple of female-led projects making moves recently: My BFF It is a new community entirely for women and non-binary people who want to get the NFT or cryptocurrency basics right. MyBFF is a learning-based initiative that also offers the latest industry news and reward systems for participation. There are many celebrities and artists who are a part of the founding team, such as Mila Kunis, Tyra Banks and Gwyneth Paltrow. __ __is co-founded by Brit Morin and Jaime Schmidt. Even key VC investors such as Katie Stanton, founder and general partner at , and Sarah Guo, venture capitalist and company-builder at , are a part of the collaboration. MyBFF Moxxie Ventures Greylock GroupHug Founded by , Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, is ‘a creator accelerator that offers funding and mentorship’ from her and other technology and art industry leaders. Randi Zuckerberg GroupHug GroupHug also promotes brand partnerships and gives PR exposure and institutional fundraising training among other things. HUG's mission of supporting diverse creators. Artist-in-residence program, each of our 1/1 artists are funded with a 4-5 digit grant to support their efforts in taking their artistic pursuit to the next level. They have a no-code database of over 300 projects and artists, with an emphasis on women and diverse creators/founders. GroupHug allows users to search and filter projects by founder attributes (Asian-founded, LBGTQIA-founded, etc) as well as mission/cause. They are looking to help women-led projects or startups with at least one female artist or co-founder. Their Hug Hub allows for creators to find other creators to collaborate with and get discovered by collectors looking for projects or art like yours. Six Degrees of Gary Vanyerchuck Anybody who is in the NFT Space knows who Gary Vee is, Chances are that you may have found out about NFTs from Gary Vayerchuck’s new life mission. He is all-in with NFTs and loves to give back to the community as well as other creators. A number of popular female artists got their break due to Gary Vee. Gary is very supportive of a lot of women getting into Web 3, educating them, making sure that they have the opportunity to have high visibility roles. One needs not to look too far from Gary to see this impact he has had not only in his buying power, but hiring practices. has a woman President in , who has had a successful track record already in the space and Gary could not have chosen a better person for a leadership position. Vayner NFT Avery Akkineni Speaking of buying power and the influence it can have on the buying habits of others in the space. World of Women's first collection sold out in a day after Gary Vaynerchuk promoted the NFTs. Gary Vee liked the concept of Women Rise so much, that he minted 10 NFTs at once, the max allowed per wallet. Women Rise Sara Baumann got her first big break with her Women and Weapons collection. Can you guess who was there to buy the first 3 pieces? Yep, Gary Vee. The rest of her , 10 paintings of women carrying weapons ranging from grenades to flamethrowers, then sold out in 45 seconds. genesis NFT collection Rebels with a Cause While there are some charitable causes in the crypto and NFT Space, women-led NFT projects set a great example with reaching out to help others. Some of the causes were mentioned along with the above projects, it is important to highlight some of the other change-makers. has proceeds earmarked for global causes such as women’s justice, equality, and inclusion, with this “remarkable” difference: It isn’t a board of supervisors that decide where the money goes and who it will impact. Its decides and votes. Remarkable Women’s Impact Fund community When you purchase an , is you gain all-inclusive access to a mental health app curated by the Alpha Girl Club Team. Some features of the mental health app will include their daily check-in system, access to mental health experts, exclusive content that will help you get through your day, and much more. Alpha Girls Club NFT partnered with to present a Artists Who Code exhibition which features NFT art by female and non-binary artists, thus popularizing female and non-binary role models in the space. Another important initiative to follow up on this exposure is to focus on the recruitment of women and other underrepresented groups in the NFT and tech industry, something most female-led collections like, for example, CryptoChicks have openly stated doing in their hiring philosophy.** ** Vellum LA Artsy Not a Conclusion, rather a  beginning... Web3 is allowing for a peer-to-peer economy and marketplace. The NFT art world took off like a rocket last year and for some it is about more than collecting and flipping NFTs, status symbol profile pics or just having too much crypto to spend. It is refreshing to see a movement with a cause, as opposed to ego-gloating personal finance and status. The utility NFT movement is gaining steam. Access to real life events, various resources, future collections, collaborate with like minded artists and also get behind common causes. The winds of change are here, the more that get in early and get involved in this young space of unlimited possibilities have a chance to build not only their own future of dreams, but to help others achieve the same. Women are making their mark in the NFT Space and allowing opportunities for other women to aspire to inspire. It is truly remarkable to see the creative power of women working together to build a better future together. Cover Image: Women and Weapons #0010 by Sara Baumann

Getting Past the Bro Barrier in the NFT Industry

Many companies, as they grow, figure out the need to change their brand identities. But we should not assume that they evolved their brands because their original one was simply poor. Have you ever considered that an inferior brand that a start-up uses makes a lot of sense to their initial user? In this essay, I want to focus on the importance of having a brand that speaks the language of your early-stage customers. To get started, let's look at the story of Stripe: Stripe(.com) is a growing payments service. Now, a nice name that is easy to type and speak over the phone. It could be more beautiful and it suits well to the stage that they are at - an at-scale stage. But it wasn't always like that when they started, as revealed by the company's co-founder Patrick Collison: Stripe wasn't called Stripe back then… It was called /dev/payments because we, you can tell, we were great branding experts. (Greylock, 2015, 0h4m30s) Calling a company "/dev/payments" would not indeed make much sense - using the general branding hat as we know it. But luckily they were not branding experts at the time, as they were appealing their initial service to high-tech start-ups that needed an easy payments solution for their Linux systems. For that community, "/dev/payments" was an expression that made a lot of sense with their crowd; it fit with the domain's language. Perhaps they didn't notice what they did, fine. But maybe also the very fact that they were not branding experts, as pointed out by Patrick, perfectly helped them at that moment. They did not have the time (or branding expertise) to screw things up. Taking inspiration from Stripe's case, the following are a few points for entrepreneurs looking at how to better position their brand at the early stage: Don't spend time seeking a romantic "at-scale" brand Trying to look for your future brand, such as a lasting brand, would be a waste of time and it could even take focus away. Instead, come up with a culture-fit brand or, at least, try not to find a brand name that is too neutral or distant. If you have both, of course, go for it. But also remember to try out the different brand directions as you are running your many MVP experiments. You should think of your initial brand name as a test: if you have one that is meaningful and ridiculously nice for a niche of people, then you may be using your time correctly. Your brand may not be perfect, it’s necessary When looking at a brand that helps connect with a niche of users, and their culture, we create an initial story, a discussion. More importantly, it reminds us that everything is yet dynamic in the early stage, that much more will come as we learn with the initial customers, when we find them, the real or right ones. A name, a prototype, an early product - these things not perfect - exist to let us open the discussion with customers. Customers are the ones that can help us to understand the language. And that language is key to the development of the ultimate brand. When started, it wasn't . Instead, and as part of many experiments, they launched their initial service as tailored to a neighborhood at Menlo Park, California - a network called Lorelei neighborhood: Nextdoor.com Nextdoor.com And, we were very lucky, we found a community down in Menlo Park, willing to be her guinea pig. It's the Lorelei neighborhood, this is a photograph that I took one afternoon when I was down in Menlo Park one of the four times that I had to go down and pitch the idea of next door to a group of 10 folks that represented the homeowners association in Lorelei. (Sarah Leary, ProductSF 2016, 0h10m14s) The future brand name will naturally come "The name resulted in misspellings and confusion to those outside the company, so the company renamed itself Stripe" says Wikipedia. If you have a good reason to change your name, you are doing things correctly. Therefore, seek an initial culture-fit representation and drive it to the next stage! In the end, changing it or not won't be up to you - your audience will make that call. References Greylock. (2015, November 4th). Blitzscaling 11: Patrick Collison on Hiring at Stripe and the Role of a Product-Focused CEO [video]. Retrieved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrDZhAxpKrQ Paul Graham. (2013, July). Do Things That Don't Scale. Retrieved from http://paulgraham.com/ds.html ProductSF 2016 (2016, November 10) Nextdoor Co-Founder Sarah Leary on The Journey of the Pivot. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/tvHAcc2UOl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripe_(company)

Startups: Stop Romanticizing Your Brand and Tailor it for Early Adopters

Are you already in the SaaS space or just planning to launch your cloud service? Then you most probably want to know the latest metrics on how your peers are raising capital and where they are pouring their cash. If that’s the case, sit back and keep reading to find out: The number of SaaS companies & SaaS market size by region How SaaS companies are raising capital & SaaS funding amounts How much do SaaS companies spend on marketing & other channels How Many SaaS Companies Are There in the World: Core SaaS Statistics & Geographics Statista reports that , with a whopping 7,000 SaaS firms in the marketing space alone. with a projection to hit $307.3 billion by 2026 at an estimated 11.7% of industry growth rate. the number of SaaS companies in the world in 2021 stands at 25,000 The global SaaS market size is worth $272.49 billion (15,000 companies) and (2,000 companies), followed by Canada (1,000 companies), Germany (1,000 companies), France (939 companies), India (813 companies), and China (663 companies), as Statista states. The top SaaS markets are the US the UK size was valued at about in 2021. The most renowned SaaS moguls in the US are Microsoft, Adobe, Google, and others. The US SaaS market $145.5 billion The ultimate are and , with $3.5 billion and $8,5 billion market size respectively. Asian SaaS leaders India China SaaS Funding Amounts As the world shifts to the cloud, more and more entry points for startups are opening, placing SaaS funding amounts at a staggering $48.5 billion of total investment across 2,600+ firms in 2020 against the previous all-time high of $43.6 billion raised in 2019, says Pitchbook. To get a clear picture of how these record-breaking sums are distributed over the fresh industry players, we've looked into the key metrics from the core thought leaders and analysts, like , Statista, 500 Global, and others. saasindustry.com Here are our findings on the most recent capital raising activities among SaaS companies (Q1 of 2021). SaaS Pre-Seed Funding Amounts Q1 of the year 2021 was a fruitful time for SaaS startups to raise their Pre-Seed capital. On the whole, there were 40 SaaS companies accumulating pre-seed investments worth $8.8 million in total. The biggest Saas funding amounts at the pre-seed stage were distributed between the Germany-based Levity and Denmark-headquartered Oveo, attaining $1,7 and $1,2 million accordingly. SaaS Seed Funding Amounts There were 115 SaaS companies that raised capital at this investment stage. Each company attained no less than $1 million placing the total SaaS funding amount at a whopping $174 million. The ultimate leader on the list is the US-based Trace, whose $8,3 million investments were led by Greylock and Uncork Capital. SaaS Series A, B, C Funding Amounts This, by all means, was the most fruitful capital raising phase, with a total of $3,3 billion raised by 124 SaaS companies across the A, B, C funding rounds. Almost $1.5 billion came from round C alone, while $752 million was raised in Series A, and just over $1 billion in Series B. , the ultimate leader in raising capital for SaaS is the Northern America area, touching $7.8 billion (or 79% of the total investment!), only to be followed by Europe and Latin America, but funds raised in these regions were no more than 10$ each. Speaking geographically Saas Budget on Marketing & Sales and Research & Development To find out where SaaS companies pour their money and how much they spend on Marketing & Sales, Research & development, and other channels, we analyzed hundreds of SaaS companies (B2B) and a range of key benchmarks from SaaS Capital, SaaS Live, KBCM Technology Group, Gartner. In our research, we paid special attention to the following data: Company funding type (bootstrapped / equity-backed) Company growth Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). How Much Do SaaS Companies Spend on Marketing & Sales On the whole, rather than Research & Development. Moreover, whereas the global Marketing expenditure has shrunk to 6.4% in 2020 from 11% in 2019, the marketing spending in the SaaS space stays solid as never before – 10%. the lion’s part of SaaS companies’ budgets is poured into Marketing & Sales efforts (27% of ARR) The major reason behind the trend is that . Here are some illustrations of how much SaaS companies spend on marketing and sales: companies need to acquire recurring revenue and pay off the money spent on customer acquisition : spends close to 19% of its ARR on S&M efforts Zoom : spends close to 27% of its ARR on S&M efforts Twilio : spends close to 40% of its ARR on S&M efforts Wix : spends close to 19% of its ARR on S&M efforts Dropbox : spends close to 50% of its ARR on S&M efforts. Smartsheet As a rule, marketing & sales spending continuously grows over time and peaks when the company's ARR touches €1-€10 million (these numbers are true for the European market but may be approximate for The Northern American region). That said, marketing & sales channels budgets vary from company to company, but a safe estimate for SaaS business owners to keep in mind is somewhere between 10% and 40% of the company’s ARR. SaaS Research and Development Spend Historically, . The reason is straightforward: you should first invest in the quality of your product to guarantee its value and competitiveness in the market, according to the 2021 European SaaS Benchmark. the smaller and younger your SaaS business is, the more you should spend on Research and Development – from 30% all the way to 60% However, once your company hits €10 million in revenue R&D expenditures inevitably drop (European SaaS market). While this is true for the vast majority of SaaS players, your budget planning is subject to the strategy you align your company with. For example, Slack, whose revenue in 2016 hit 105M USD, spent 59% of revenue on Research & Development. Here is what they say: To remain competitive, we must continue to develop new features, integrations, capabilities, and enhancements to Slack… So, there is no one-fit-all strategy for all B2B SaaS marketing budgets. To allocate your funds wisely, you need to figure out the nature of your organization - product-driven and sales-driven. With this in mind, decide on your goals, resources, and product/service specifics to adjust your spending accordingly. Final Thoughts Running a successful SaaS company or any other type of business is not an easy task, as it is a matter of thoughtful budget planning, capital raising, and allocating your resources accordingly. So, keep an eye on the core software as a service statistics - like how your SaaS peers are raising capital, what are their funding amounts, and how they spend their money - and align this info with your own business strategy. First published here

Why you Should Consider Building a SaaS Company

How new models of e-commerce can enable the Passion Economy Before becoming a VC investor, I worked as a Product Manager at Shopkick, a Greylock- and KPCB-backed shopping app that rewarded users for walking into retail stores. Our product roadmap was oriented around the holy grail of combining : enabling people to browse content in the app, share, and shop. Not only do the three factors in tandem create a stickier, more engaging experience that improves with more users, but all three are core to how users naturally shop: say they are more likely to purchase based on a social media referral. content, community, and commerce 71% of users In the US, dominant platforms typically have just two out of the three: Amazon is a wealth of commerce and content related to products, Tik Tok has community and content—but it’s rare to successfully integrate all three elements (they require very distinct DNA to do well!). Successful case studies include Glossier and Food52, while new startups like Supergreat for makeup and cosmetics reviews, Popshop for live video shopping, and Jumprope for how-to content are forging new models of social e-commerce. Coming soon: live shopping features on Instagram and Facebook A natural opportunity for social platforms that already serve as a hub for content and social connections—and which already spark purchase intent—is to allow users to seamlessly purchase. Facebook recently announced its intention to pursue that opportunity with and , which allow businesses to create storefronts that drive product discovery, all in a native shopping experience. In addition, Facebook is rolling out more features for Live Shopping: “Sellers, brands and creators will be able to tag products from their Facebook Shop or catalog before going live and those products will be shown at the bottom of the video so people can easily tap to learn more and purchase.” Facebook Shops Instagram Shops Facebook has a of attempts to move into payments and commerce, and this latest iteration is happening amid an accelerated transition from and a . long history offline sales to e-commerce softening ad market Many have been written about the announcement from a business strategy perspective, but I find it exciting for a few reasons from a consumer and creator angle: smart takes These features create new monetization paths for businesses and creators through selling products, providing another way to participate in the Passion Economy. Because brand sponsorships were mainly accessible to creators with large followings, the addition of e-commerce functionality should lower the barrier to earning income from the platform. As I’ve previously , the importance of individual brands diminish on aggregator e-commerce platforms. It’s to build a strong brand on Amazon because Amazon itself is the brand that consumers trust, and brands become secondary to signals like reviews and sort order. The antidote for brands is to leverage platforms that allow for accentuation of uniqueness and to build an emotional connection with consumers. For many brands, Facebook and Instagram already represent the discovery/storytelling piece of the e-commerce stack—and can enable brands to maintain more pricing power and resist commoditization. discussed challenging Facebook Shops and Instagram Shops represent a model of e-commerce that more closely aligns with consumers' natural shopping behavior, combining serendipitous discovery and social inspiration. Commercial activity is already happening on the platform, and these features are a more user-friendly way to support it. Today, the comments under many creators’ posts are peppered with commerce-related questions like, “Where is that dress from?” and users are left with the onus of finding the products elsewhere. Shops is interesting also from the angle of growing and Facebook’s revenue sources: the company’s revenue today is dominated by advertising, with just 2% of ARPU coming from non-advertising sources ( in US & Canada was $41.41; only $0.92 was from non-ads), and the same holds true across its entire family of apps. In contrast, there’s a ton of revenue to be unlocked through e-commerce: the average Amazon Prime subscriber, for instance, spends about per year on the platform. Facebook is well-positioned to be a major e-commerce player given that it has already aggregated demand and supply (2.6B MAUs, ). diversifying Q4 ’19 ARPU $1,400 140M small businesses Shops represent a natural evolution for Facebook and Instagram, and in many ways, are a step towards catching up to what Chinese counterparts like and have been doing for years. One prominent example of a social e-commerce platform in China is , which was founded in 2015, went public in 2018, and is now worth more than $87B as of June 2020. Pinduoduo’s success has been attributed to its social shopping model in which buyers leverage social platforms and receive discounts for , as well as its C2M (consumer-to-manufacturer) model in which manufacturers design and produce products based on user data, resulting in a more efficient development process. Pinduoduo is the 2nd largest online marketplace in China by number of users and number of orders, with 482M monthly active users, $145 billion in GMV, and $1.6B revenue in . Xiaohongshu Taobao Live Pinduoduo team purchases Q4 ’19 Interview with Ada Yang, International Corporate Affairs, Pinduoduo I recently sat down with from Pinduoduo’s International Corporate Affairs team to get her perspectives on social e-commerce in the US and China and to delve into how Pinduoduo is an enabler of the Passion Economy. Ada Yang Here are some of my top takeaways from the interview: . I was surprised to learn that nearly 15% of Pinduoduo’s GMV comes from products (which I had never thought of as being part of the Passion Economy!). Farmers on PDD are livestreaming while tending to their crops, building relationships with customers who care about where their food comes from, and earning a living by selling to a broader audience of customers beyond their vicinity. The Passion Economy is broader than what one might think , and encompasses all types of work where the worker/service/product isn’t just viewed as interchangeable and commoditized agricultural By removing intermediaries and cutting out middlemen, creators can benefit from higher earnings and consumers can enjoy lower prices. Ada shares lots of great examples of creators leveraging the platform to build a brand and earn a living through e-commerce. While Facebook & IG Shops are long-awaited and much-needed, they only begin to scratch the surface for innovation in e-commerce. Indeed, as Ada points out below, Pinduoduo considers itself part e-commerce platform, part entertainment app, and part social network, meeting multi-faceted user needs through different features. As we graduate beyond the intent-driven model of e-commerce—marked by table-like grids of products, filters, and search bars, there are opportunities to create new experiences that promote the sense of serendipity and fun of shopping in the real world. How has Pinduoduo been impacted by COVID-19? Like most businesses in China, Pinduoduo faced challenges during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year. We stepped up efforts to help the entire ecosystem of users, merchants, and our business partners. For instance, we helped factories that faced a hit to their export businesses to customize their products to sell to Chinese consumers. In February, we launched a “Help the Farmers” section on Pinduoduo to allow consumers to buy fresh produce directly from farmers in poverty-stricken areas. Since May, we’ve recovered to pre-COVID levels with 65M average daily orders, up from an average of 50M in mid-March. What are your thoughts on the recent news from Facebook regarding Shops? Facebook’s latest foray into social e-commerce bears resemblance to what Pinduoduo has been pioneering in China. We are at the beginning of a mega trend in e-commerce where we leave behind the legacy model of “search, pay, and leave” and move toward a more interactive, social recommendations-based model, such as what Pinduoduo has pioneered. At Pinduoduo, we’ve designed the online shopping experience to mimic the offline experience of browsing, getting recommendations and feedback from friends, and interacting with shop staff. I think with the introduction of Facebook and Instagram Shops, you will see a more direct example of how a recommendation model can be integrated with e-commerce. How does Pinduoduo relate to the Passion Economy and the idea of monetizing individuality? We believe in not just providing a platform for people to make a living, but also help them to build their own brands via connecting them to our 600M+ users. We have found that consumers like to know the stories and people behind the product. This appreciation for the work that goes into the making of a product often translates into higher sales. We’re big on putting creators and makers in front of the camera and connecting them with consumers directly, rather than spotlighting influencers who have little connection to the products they’re hawking. For example, a whose family has been in the tea business for generations was able to share that knowledge with Pinduoduo’s users through a livestream. He was able to build a following in the app and recently broke 1M RMB ($141K USD) in monthly sales, and in the process helped his family business undergo a digital transformation. university undergraduate Another merchant, , was similarly able to help boost his family’s business through Pinduoduo by connecting with users through a livestream and explaining how to choose high-end jewelry. Artisans in Shandong province show how they go about crafting woks, shaping the kitchenware by hand with a mallet. a demobilized soldier We’re continually launching new features to engage merchants and consumers. was launched in late 2019 and gives the stage to creators to showcase their work. Any content creator has the chance to broadcast their skills, from agricultural professors delivering , to farmers on the latest growing techniques, to vineyard owners providing online wine appreciation classes. Duo Duo Live online classes What are some surprising examples of workers in the Passion Economy who are enabled by Pinduoduo? . Agricultural sales represent nearly 15% of total GMV on the platform. Farmers are seldom seen or heard but have found their voice on Pinduoduo, which has become China’s largest agricultural e-commerce platform In mid-April, potato farmers in Shandong province hosted a livestreaming session, welcoming more than 600,000 users to visit their farms, virtually. It’s akin to the direct connection and relationship you might build with producers at a farmers’ market, but because of Pinduoduo’s digital platform, customers can purchase from merchants all over the country and enable them to become much bigger businesses. Users saw in real-time how farmers dug up potatoes and could purchase them through the platform. To date, Pinduoduo has held more than 100 livestreaming sessions in conjunction with more than 20 provinces in China to help local regions showcase their farm produce. The webcasts, many of which are helmed by farmers, have helped sell more than 350,000 metric tons of produce directly to consumers, By reducing the layers of intermediaries and their associated costs, Pinduoduo has helped raise farmers’ incomes while allowing users to enjoy lower prices and fresher produce. The cost of an onion in the supermarket (left) vs. Pinduoduo (right) are 5.9 RMB/500 grams and 8.6 RMB/2.5kg, respectively. Savings are achieved via bypassing intermediaries and selling direct-to-consumer, a journey that is chronicled in this YouTube video . How does Pinduoduo differ from e-commerce platforms we’re familiar with in the US? Pinduoduo’s model is designed to more closely mimic how people interact, exchange feedback, and share recommendations when they shop in real life. interactive e-commerce / social commerce Much of legacy e-commerce is based on the conventional search-based, transactional model. But this is increasingly not how most people prefer to shop, either online or offline. . Imagine spotting a nice dress while passing by a shop window or telling a friend about a bargain. Pinduoduo integrates the social aspects of shopping, the interactivity of the process between friends and between shopper and sales assistant, into the user experience. Aside from certain shopping use cases that are truly intent-based (e.g. you are out of toilet paper or pasta and need to replenish) much of shopping in the physical world is actually quite serendipitous We have features like which inject fun into the shopping experience. It’s a game within the app where users can tend to virtual fruit trees and be rewarded with a free box of fruit from Pinduoduo once their virtual tree is fully grown. As of March 2020, logged on to play the game. Duo Duo Orchard 60M daily active users Is Pinduoduo first and foremost an e-commerce platform, social network, or an entertainment app? Pinduoduo is a co-mingled space between the virtual world and the physical world, where users can find the best value-for-money goods. Given that we have more than 600M users and 5M merchants interacting in this space, it’s less useful to put a label on it and say that we are one or the other. Perhaps the best way to understand it is that we are here today precisely because we have created a space that meets the different and evolving needs of our community, whether that’s social interaction, commerce, or entertainment. Why do you think US platforms lag behind in combining commerce, content, and community? There are several aspects to the development and innovation of China’s e-commerce industry that differ from other regions of the world: 1. Many of China’s internet users skipped the desktop internet era and went straight to mobile. With close to 900M people having access to the internet via mobile devices, this has created an important base condition for the proliferation of mobile e-commerce. 2. Mobile payments: China never really had a credit card culture and for most mobile users, cashless transactions took place via smartphone. WeChat Pay and AliPay, the two leading payment apps, together account for 93.3% market share for mobile payments. 3. The logistics industry is well-established, having developed alongside the e-commerce industry. Thanks to the e-commerce boom in China, particularly in the past decade, the logistics and express delivery market is speedy, reliable, and cost-efficient. 4. As the global manufacturing base for much of the world, China has earned the nickname as the “factory to the world.” This manufacturing capacity has provided the e-commerce industry with a wide selection of cost-efficient products that draw in consumers. In my blog post , I wrote that Passion Economy platforms go beyond simply facilitating transactions and provide holistic tools to grow and operate a business. In what ways does Pinduoduo support merchants? We very much believe in the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Pinduoduo has launched various initiatives to empower our merchants and help them not only gain knowledge and skills, but also to leverage technology to improve their business efficiency. We launched to help merchants, including farmers, learn how to sell directly on Pinduoduo and to train them in the basics of e-commerce, finance, business operations, and online marketing. Duo Duo University Pinduoduo also provides consumer insights to merchants to help them better develop and price their products, plan their inventory, and schedule deliveries. This results in more sales and better products for users. Farmers in Yunnan Province learn how to open and operate a store on Pinduoduo at the Duo Duo University. The way we shop in the offline world often blurs the distinctions between social hangout, entertainment, and actual commerce: think of weekends spent at stores with friends/family, asking for others’ opinions on items, and buying together. My former partner Connie Chan recently , “The next Amazon competitor is likely going to look like a social or video app, not a shopping app.” I’m excited about a future where digital platforms reflect our offline behavior, empower creators to build a brand and earn a living, and integrate the trifecta of content, community, and commerce. predicted Originally published as " Facebook and Instagram Shops are here, finally. Plus an interview with Chinese social commerce giant Pinduoduo "

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