Allen Blue

Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

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I’m thrilled to be announcing that Notion Capital is leading the $15m Series A investment in Cogna today. In the industry, we like to think that software has been eating the world. But when you look at the data a better description would be more of a nibble. Depending on what source you look at the software industry represents between 5-8% of global GDP. Contrast that with the services industry that represents between 60-70% of GDP and worth around $25 trillion on a global basis. Most services have been out of reach for the software industry. They have either been too complex or too specialized for off the shelf software to access in any economically viable way. But that’s beginnning to change with GenAI leading to the emergence of ‘service as a software.’ Cogna is at the forefront of this opportunity - building precision software at scale and delivering huge productivity gains for traditional industries. We know Ben Peters & Lars Mennen well having backed their previous company Five AI that was acquired by Bosch in 2022. And we’re very excited to be backing them again together with Hoxton Ventures & Chalfen Ventures Read my full blog post on why we invested here. Radu Bozga Ben Peters Lars Mennen Bryan G. Mike Chalfen Hussein Kanji Kirsten Connell https://lnkd.in/eh8mhcJb

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#SiliconValley Venture Capital Contacts. Explore a robust list of 200+ VC firms and 1,800+ professionals (partners and principals), complete with 1,500 email addresses for your outreach needs. https://payhip.com/b/eUIyc #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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WIESNER ON HUMANS VS AI: MIT Media Lab co-founder and science advisor to JFK, Jerome B. Wiesner was a unique figure in the history of MIT at the crossroads of science, engineering, and the arts with a lifelong pursuit of world peace. There's a terrific talk he gave at the founding of the MIT "E15" building designed by I.M. Pei — often nicknamed "the bathroom building" — that's worth a watch, especially during these extraordinary times https://lnkd.in/g2zEJRrk and a piece of the talk he gave is below. Information on the talk I'm giving with Jerome B. Wiesner Professor Hiroshi Ishii is here https://lnkd.in/gJpKkeY8 on November 8th (Fri) from 11 am EST, and you can register online for free here https://lnkd.in/gADUyCs7 --- Jerome B. Wiesner at the founding moment of the MIT Media Lab's E15 building https://lnkd.in/g2zEJRrk > ... Now some people will be offended by what I'm going to say, but I think man-made systems use better components. Electrical signals travel a million times faster than signals on nerve fibers. And semiconductor devices also act billions of times faster than neurons, which are the biological information processing elements. Also, manmade elements appear to be more reliable. But nature has a very large edge, maybe a decisive edge. In design complexity involving a number of individual elements, it can use it in a system effectively. And these are advantages man may never match. Nature may always retain this edge, who knows? > But for the moment, it really doesn't matter. The manmade systems that we are involved with enhance human creative capacities, that's what they can do, but so far they cannot displace them. Cognitive and computer scientists are having an exciting time trying to understand and imitate human reasoning with computing systems. And though they can do a few things that would be regarded as thinking if done by a human, they differ violently among themselves on whether or not machines with human thinking and creative abilities are possible. Even the so-called artificial intelligence field, which prompted Walter Rosenblith to say he preferred natural stupidity, his greatest achievement in this field is capturing knowledge and skills of humans -- of human experts. > For now, it’s clear that thinking machines and true creativity don’t exist. We should focus on how tech can expand human creative capacity.

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Emily M. Bender does a great explanation in this article. I like how she uncovers the marketing term #AI with the real underlying concept of #automation. BTW, software automation was being done before the widespread use of ML. The bigger issue, as she rightly points out, is how it is hard to understand the bias that comes from training with data a system that is going to be used to make a decision.

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Liquid AI, a one-year-old startup spun off from MIT wants to raise $300 million at a $3.7 billion. It would be 10x cap of its seed round of $37M in January. No product yet. They introduce a new class of time-continuous recurrent neural network models. "We construct networks of linear first-order dynamical systems modulated via nonlinear interlinked gates. The resulting models represent dynamical systems with varying (i.e., liquid) time-constants coupled to their hidden state, with outputs being computed by numerical differential equation solvers." https://lnkd.in/gbqXm8cZ

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20 hours in and Hoyo's formidable craftsmanship is on full display with ZZZ. ⭐1.0 release pool of 16 characters. Hoyo games have always prioritized quality over quantity, leaning instead on deep systems to enable diverse team comps / fun theorycrafting. Interestingly, Wuthering Waves also launched with the same # of characters in its 1.0 pool. I'm personally a big fan of this approach, and hope to see more games adopt it going forward. ⭐Female to male character ratio of 3:1. HSR currently stands at ~2:1 and Genshin at ~1.7:1. Every faction shown so far has only 1 male char. Surprising given Hoyo's recent titles have focused more on the "mainstream anime" audience instead of catering only to the core otaku audience. Very happy to see Hoyo honoring its roots here. They cooked and core fans are going to be very pleased with all of the fanservice (e.g. cinema artwork, main menu char selection, etc.). ⭐C6 / Cinema artwork is... IYKYK. They clearly tested it with HSR and are fully leaning into it with ZZZ. Congrats to all you Grace C6 havers. They knew exactly what they were doing. ⭐First Hoyo game with dedicated furries / anthropomorphic races. Ellen, Ben, and Von Lycaon are all very compelling characters. Wakayama Shion does such a fantastic job as Ellen's VA. Hoyo absolutely nailed the launch banner here. ⭐Just like other Hoyo games, ZZZ is more "casual" than it is "core." It doesn't demand much of your time as a single player live service title. For me it's the perfect side game that I can see myself spending 1-2 hours per week on. I don't expect everyone to like it (might be too "easy" for core gamers), but it's a winning formula that Hoyo has perfected for its target audience. ⭐One of Hoyo's underrated special talents is making "core" genres widely accessible from a gameplay standpoint across all platforms. ZZZ plays flawlessly on mobile, PC, and console without diluting the experience at all. Everything from the simplified switching system to the flat level design was intentional to make it incredibly accessible even for someone who has never played action games before. This is something really only Hoyo is capable of pulling off with such finesse. ⭐Really digging the comic / manga style storytelling. Glad to see Hoyo continue to innovate on how it delivers its stories and really looking forward to seeing more of this. ⭐Hoyo's investments into its music / animation departments are really paying off. The release trailer for ZZZ is Hoyo's best yet and their character drip marketing is perfected to the point where I'm basically forced to pull on every banner. In many ways, Hoyo is slowly becoming the Apple of the gaming industry, and their IPs are rapidly expanding the audience for gacha and anime on a global scale. I'm honestly humbled. Shut up and take my money... #zenlesszonezero

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Exciting update! I’m on Intro, ready to help founders and product leaders scale platforms and drive profitable growth. Currently, Founding Partner at IntuitionAI and Elephant Venture Partners transforming customer-focused innovation and investments. As former CPO of SmartAsset (a Y Combinator Top 100 Company), I helped triple revenue to $100M+ maximizing profitability and achieve a $1B+ valuation. Previously, I drove Audible’s 10X global growth on Amazon. Former PhD and 40 Under 40 Brand Innovator. Let’s discuss:  ✔️ Scaling subscription platforms ✔️ Product-led growth strategies ✔️ AI & ML integration ✔️ Revenue optimization ✔️ Customer centric innovation ✔️ High-growth team building ✔️ B2B/B2C strategies ✔️ Overcoming imposter syndrome Looking forward to sharing insights on scaling and product growth. Honored to be alongside world-class experts like Gontran Mabetomoka (VC, Tech Investor, Serial Entrepreneur), Philipp Schaaf (Fintech COO, scaled companies to $1B+ valuations), Cyril Grislain (22 Exits, Turnaround Specialist), CeCe Cheng (Founder of ShareWell, VC at First Round & Makers Fund), Scott Walker (Director of #1 Netflix hit The Frozen Ground), and Meghan Caiazzo (9-figure CPG Founder, Wine and Spirits Expert). 20% of proceeds go to CareForChildren.org Book a session: intro.co/aniketgune

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💼 Dive into the world of venture capital with our curated list of **270 VC firms in #SanFrancisco**! From firm details to portfolio links, we’ve got you covered. Explore the possibilities: https://lnkd.in/dqizhN92 #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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🚀 New Updates to Gemini Models! 📢 Two new production-ready Gemini models are here: Gemini-1.5-Pro-002 and Gemini-1.5-Flash-002. Key highlights: 💰 Over 50% price reduction on 1.5 Pro for prompts <128K 📈 2-3x higher rate limits for 1.5 Flash & Pro ⚡ 2x faster outputs and 3x lower latency 📊 Significant improvements in math, long context, & vision tasks 🧠 Enhanced performance in code generation and visual understanding They're already available on Google AI Studio & Vertex AI. More on this: https://lnkd.in/dwrCM957 #Gemini #AI

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Too many venture studios are falling short of their potential, leaving immense value untapped. This isn’t due to a lack of vision—it’s the growing pains of building something inherently complex. Our analysis of 500+ studios worldwide revealed common roadblocks that undermine growth: 👉 Systems that falter as new ventures are added 👉 Exceptional IP held back by weak commercialization 👉 Increasing complexity with each layer of growth 👉 Adapting your model becomes a constant uphill battle 👉 Focused on building businesses, not running operations 👉 The studio model seemed straightforward—until it wasn’t These challenges inspired us to collaborate. Venture Studio Associates and 9point8 Collective are uniting expertise to help venture studios thrive. Together, we bring unmatched experience: ✅ 16+ studios launched and advised ✅ Research into 500+ frameworks globally ✅ A network of 1,200+ studio professionals ✅ Proven design and operational strategies We’ve already delivered results for: 📬 Tech transfer studios scaling IP into market-ready ventures 📬 A "studio of studios" launching 5 studios and 11+ companies 📬 Cash-flow-focused studios achieving profitability with 3 ventures 📬 Health & MedTech studios navigating regulatory landscapes 📬 Studios geared toward VC, PE, and debt financing It’s time to realize your studio’s true value. Reach out to discuss: 🤝 Studio design, build, and launch strategies 🤝 Scaling and operational efficiency 🤝 Long-term management solutions 📧 Email us at connect@9point8.co or message us directly for a consultation. We’re opening 3 new client slots for January 2025. Know someone who needs this? Share this with them—they’ll thank you later. Excited to push the boundaries together with Venture Studio Associates and 9point8 Collective together! Neal Ghosh JT Benton Evan Allen Matthew Burris

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Was chatting with another investor today on a call, and mentioned Tim Urban's Wait But Why Blog post, "The AI Revolution" and how prescient it was. Given that it was written in 2015, decided to flex AI's latest muscles to give it a new venue: a podcast. Podcast here: https://lnkd.in/gW8Dh89U Pretty easy to do: Step 1: Save the posts as PDFs. Step 2: Upload to NotebookLM, have it create a podcast. Step 3: Upload to Descript, give it captions. Step 4: Export, publish to Youtube. Total time to create the podcast: ~25 minutes. To generate this podcast and publish it even a few years ago would have taken >8 hours. Love the future (Original posts: https://lnkd.in/gW-PQXE7, https://lnkd.in/gg-nRvxz) #AIRevolution #GenerativeAI #WaitButWhy #TimUrban #NotebookLM #AIContentCreation #Podcasting #Descript #ArtificialIntelligence #ContentFlex #ProductivityHacks #FutureOfAI #AIinMinutes #TechEfficiency #AIandCreativity #YouTubePodcast #InnovationInContent #vibecap #vibecapital

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How close is AI to replacing product managers? Closer than I expected. In collaboration with Mike Taylor(a professional prompt engineer and co-author of the O'Reilly book "Prompt Engineering for Generative AI"), we've begun to develop a benchmark to track how good AI is at the most common and hardest PM tasks. In our first attempt, AI beat humans at 2/3 tasks, including developing a product strategy 😮 Check out our approach, and the surprising results https://lnkd.in/gCBYVqt9

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🚀 Agora Integrates with OpenAI to Launch Real-Time Conversational AI SDK 🚀 Agora Agora, Inc. has launched its Conversational AI SDK, integrated with OpenAI’s Realtime API, which is set to revolutionize real-time, voice-driven AI experiences across multiple industries. This integration is a game-changer for developers, allowing them to effortlessly bring natural, voice-driven AI into a wide array of applications. Whether it’s 24/7 customer support, concierge services, health and wellness, education, language learning, or even gaming, the new SDK provides endless possibilities for more interactive and engaging AI-powered user experiences. Key features of the Agora Conversational AI SDK include: Seamless real-time voice interaction with OpenAI’s GPT models Ultra-low latency response times, thanks to Agora’s global real-time network powering 60 billion minutes of interaction per month Built-in AI echo cancellation and background noise suppression to ensure clear, accurate voice processing in any environment This is a huge leap forward in bringing lifelike AI experiences into everyday life. Companies like Grepp and Wyze are already leveraging this integration to enhance personalized learning and IoT devices. As Agora's CEO, Tony Zhao, put it: "The integration with OpenAI will unleash a wave of creativity and utility in the AI space unlike anything we have seen to date." 🌐 Developers can now tap into the full potential of real-time conversational AI, opening doors to new innovations that were once thought impossible. Learn more about how you can integrate the Agora Conversational AI SDK into your applications and enhance user engagement through natural, voice-driven interactions. 🔗 Check out more here: https://lnkd.in/grxmQgJc #ConversationalAI #RealTimeAI #VoiceDrivenAI #AIInnovation #AgoraSDK #OpenAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIInHealthcare #AIInEducation #AIInGaming #CustomerSupportAI #IoTDevices #TechInnovation #VoiceAI

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LLMs rarely produce a finished copy on the first try. Your best prompts typically give you a rough first draft at best. That’s quickly changing – look at our progress in just 2 years. LLMs have faster response times, more data, and accurate outputs. Imagine 5 years from now?

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Today marks a groundbreaking moment for BLCK VC and our fellow collaborators—Diversity VC, All Raise, 2Gether-International, SomosVC, StartOut, and VetsinTech—as we proudly announce the launch of the Diversity Data Alliance. This important alliance underscores our unwavering commitment to nurturing a venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem abundant in equity and inclusiveness. By standardizing and linking our data, we empower ourselves with the essential tools to track deeper trends that have, until now, eluded us to identify and fill funding gaps for historically excluded investors, founders, and operators. We can’t change what we do not measure, and now with the Diversity Data Alliance, we're now equipped to do both. Join us in this mission. Learn more and get involved: https://lnkd.in/eEZKdrac #DiversityDataAlliance #BLCKVC #VentureCapital #MeasureToChange

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Hosted a curated group of NYC AI builders for dinner tonight, including product / research / eng / design / GTM leaders from Runway, LangChain, Hume AI, Norm Ai, Galileo 🔭, Spring Health, NVIDIA, Scale AI, and Haize Labs (a Visible Ventures portco!) as well as early-stage AI founders Building in AI by day, two musically gifted guests have performed at the Grammys & Obama's inauguration - as marginal cost of software creation trends towards zero, I'm a big believer in NYC's future in the AI ecosystem for the multidimensionality of talents it attracts and empowers - VCs bearish on NYC are simply blinded by their own lack of imagination 🌆 🎶 I noted some of my favorite POVs from the night - some I strongly agree with, some not so much - but welcome any reaction: - OpenAI may be the Waymo in AI where its edge comes from its head start, not from any 'secret sauce.' OpenAI can keep scaling and improving its model quality, but will eventually flatten out due to fundamental limitations of the transformer architecture - that said, similar to Microsoft's bundling strategy, OpenAI has done an amazing job packaging a variety of features and products to create commercial value 📦 - AI research has been boring last year as no new technique has been introduced 💤 - Anthropic will one day face the pressure of pivoting away from its safety / research core and following OpenAI's commercial footsteps, except it will be years later ... ⛑ - Advanced AGI cannot be accomplished as human intelligence is passed down and enriched generationally - there's no way for AI models to 'learn' how to recreate humanity's collective abstract intelligence 👵 - VCs have mistakenly funded many seemingly technical founders who actually ... are not 🥷🏻 - Humans are lazy by default, and no one likes typing - AI products should prioritize reducing the work it takes for end users to interact with and benefit from AI 🐨 - Open source is over-hyped due to lack of means to sustainably access GPU clusters. While Meta can fund its own AGI play, the entire open source community relies on Zuck. Meta also isn’t truly open source as they’ve built a custom license where Azure / AWS would have to pay royalties past certain usage thresholds, which will help fund Meta's model development 🔓 - Crafting a scalable implementation strategy is key to selling to enterprises as adoption is almost always delayed by legal roadblock and organizational grunt work 🚧 - Healthcare AI today lacks creativity - workflow automation for providers / payers may be the first wave, and the next wave should be focused on truly improving care outcomes with AI models 💉 Thank you for John Bryson (Banc of California)'s partnership, and if you are building impactful AI products our doors are always open at Visible Ventures !

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Many assumed that the industry would be well on its way to AGI or superintelligence before AI model builders’ efforts to take advantage of scaling laws might hit a wall. Recent headlines are chipping away at that assumption. One question I've been getting in my inbox: is this the era of diminishing returns for AI? We don't think so. Even if an avalanche of new clusters and synthetic data fail to deliver significantly better model performance, there are good reasons to believe that AI is still going to become orders of magnitude more powerful in the coming years — powering a new generation of startups and ultimately productivity growth and positive benefits for mankind. In fact, with agents and reasoning just beginning to scale and thousands of industry-specific models coming online, it's about to get really exciting. Read our latest blog post on the topic: https://lnkd.in/gFhniNX8

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