🤫 Elon’s Private Messages

Bruce Willis Deepfake, Mr. Beast's Team, and Optimus Musk

Oct 07, 2022

GM Grapeviners,

So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍

The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥

10 tech & startup stories in 118 super short seconds.

💰Google Alumni Take on Google! An ex Google Exec is launching a Search Engine that doesn’t track your data. Neeva has 600k US users and is launching today in the UK. Neeva has raised $77.5m (£68m) from investors. Try it out here.

😔 A Legend Steps Down. Ray Dalio, the legendary hedgefund investor has given us his leadership role at the firm he started, Bridgewater. If you’ve never heard of Ray Dalio I seriously recommend you watch this TedX talk he gave about how to ensure the best ideas win

🤫 Elon’s Private Messages. Given the on going court case against Musk, Elon’s private text message have been published online. These messages are fascinating and well worth a read. Our favourite messages? A conversation around moving twitter to the blockchain and users paying to tweet. Read the messages here.

🐦 Musk’s Twitter With the expectation that Elon Musk will finally purchase Twitter, what will his Twitter be? Take a look at this piece for 6 predictions.

🤖 Emotional Robots! Have a listen to this awesome Lex Friedman podcast discussing AI having emotions, social robots and self driving cards.

🦾 Optimus Musk On the topic of robots, Elon Musk has unveiled a prototype for the ‘Optimus’. The humanoid will apparently be sold to the public in 3-5 years at a cost around $20,000. Experts have poured cold water on this suggestion.

💥 Yippee-Ki-Yay, Deepfaker Bruce Willis, actor in Die Hard amongst other titles, has sold the rights to his ‘digital twin’ in a first for the industry. This would allow projects to use his likeness on screen in a ‘deepfake’ format. This comes shortly after his diagnosis of aphasia, a language disorder that resulted in him stepping away from acting.

🏦 Tech Boom or Bust? The venture capital world has been eventful these past few years - skyrocketing valuations, celebrity investors, FOMO, and much more. This FT piece is a great summary of where the industry sits today.

🎮 Google Shutsdown Stadia. Google is shutting down its gaming streaming service, Stadia, two years after launching it. This isn’t massively surprising as Stadia really struggled to gain traction with users. Read the full story here.

🎥 Mr Beasts Thumbnail Team. Mr Beast, the biggest Youtube star in the world with 105m subscribers has a full team of six people creating thumbnails for his videos. Check out the tweet below👇