Alphabet's CFO Ruth Porat announced a new multiyear investment of $5 billion in Waymo during the company's Q2 earnings call.  The funding will support Waymo's goal to build the world's leading aut...

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- Alphabet's CFO Ruth Porat announced a new multi-year investment of $5 billion in Waymo during the company's Q2 earnings call.
- The funding will support Waymo's goal to build the world's leading autonomous driving technology company.
- Google aims to improve efficiencies in its 'other bets' segment, which includes projects like Verily, Calico, and Wing.
- Waymo is delivering over 50,000 paid rides per week and has expanded its driverless ride-hail service to Los Angeles and Austin.

 Source: Techcrunch

Alphabet to Invest Additional $5 Billion in Waymo

Journalist

Alphabet to Invest Additional $5 Billion in Waymo- Grapevine

Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving technology unit, laid off 137 employees in its second round of layoffs this year, the company reported on Wednesday, bringing the total number of layoffs for the year to 8%.

As part of the cuts, Waymo has eliminated some engineering roles to “focus on commercial success,” the company said in a statement.

Is second round of layoffs in #Google started?

Support Specialist

- Waymo is now offering over 100,000 paid robotaxi rides each week in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix.
- This milestone was shared by Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana on social media platform X, doubling previous figures.
- The fleet consists of hundreds of fully autonomous and electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, with 778 robotaxis under deployment in California.
- Waymo has expanded its 24/7 service in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is testing fully autonomous vehicles on freeways.
- Despite commercial success, Waymo faces high costs, with parent company Alphabet planning to invest an additional $5 billion. 

 Source: [Techcrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/20/waymo-is-now-giving-100000-robotaxi-rides-week/)

Waymo Now Providing 100,000 Robotaxi Rides Weekly

- Alphabet's Q2 revenue surged 14%, driven by strong advertising growth, indicating AI chatbots like ChatGPT haven't impacted Google's search engine dominance.
- Cloud computing revenue saw even stronger growth, reflecting high demand for computing and data services as companies integrate AI.
- Alphabet's revenue hit $84.7bn, surpassing analyst expectations, with net income rising 28% to $23.6bn.
- CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted ongoing momentum in search and cloud, despite criticism for slow commercialization of AI technology.
- Alphabet's stock has risen by nearly a third this year, with significant investments in AI and data centers, though some analysts found the Q2 results less exciting than Q1. 

 Source: FT

Alphabet's Q2 Revenue Soars Amid AI and Cloud Growth

- Character.ai is pivoting from building AI models to enhancing its consumer products following Google's $2.7bn deal. 
- The company's new interim CEO, Dominic Perella, revealed that the focus will now be on their popular chatbots. 
- This decision comes after Google hired 20% of Character.ai's staff, including co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. 
- With the funds from the Google deal, Character.ai bought out its investors and distributed company ownership among employees. 
- The company plans to continue AI research and is hopeful of avoiding antitrust concerns.

Source: [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/f2a9b5d4-05fe-4134-b4fe-c24727b85bba)

Character.ai Shifts Focus to Consumer Products Post $2.7bn Google Deal

- OpenAI has secured $6.6bn in new funding and is now valued at $150bn, the highest in Silicon Valley's history.
- The company has asked investors to avoid backing rival start-ups such as Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI.
- OpenAI's move to seek exclusive relationships with investors could limit rivals' access to capital and strategic partnerships.
- The company's latest funding round was led by Thrive, a venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner.
- OpenAI plans to use the new funding to double down on its leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.

Source: [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/66e0653e-c446-47b2-8a7f-baa54ccbfb9a)

OpenAI Secures $6.6bn Funding, Asks Investors to Avoid Rivals

- Uber invests $30 million in Everest Fleet, valuing the company at $425 million post-allotment.
- Everest Fleet issues 13,726 Series C preference shares to raise the funds, as per regulatory filings.
- The Mumbai-based firm plans to use the funds for general operations, working capital, and business expansion.
- Uber now holds an 11.37% stake in Everest Fleet, making it the largest external stakeholder.
- Everest Fleet's revenue for FY24 is projected to more than double to Rs 1,015-1,020 crore from Rs 466 crore in FY23. 

 Source: [Entrackr](https://entrackr.com/2024/09/exclusive-uber-invests-30-mn-in-everest-fleet-at-425-mn-valuation/)

Uber invests $30 Mn in Everest Fleet at $425 Mn valuation

- Premji Invest, led by billionaire Azim Premji, may invest $10-$15 million in San Francisco-based AI startup Galileo.
- This investment is part of Galileo's Series B funding round, following an $18 million Series A round in November 2022.
- Galileo specializes in MLOps, helping data scientists and engineers improve machine learning model accuracy.
- This marks Premji Invest's fifth AI investment in the past year, including stakes in Hippocratic AI, Hugging Face, Canva, and Poolside.
- Premji Invest aims to build a global portfolio in the wake of the generative AI boom. 

 Source: [Moneycontrol](https://www.moneycontrol.com/technology/premji-invest-may-pump-in-10-15-million-in-san-francisco-based-ai-startup-galileo-article-12814083.html)

Premji Invest Eyes $10-$15 Million Stake in AI Startup Galileo

- HubSpot shares dropped 12% after reports that Alphabet is no longer pursuing an acquisition.
- Bloomberg cited sources saying there were no detailed discussions about due diligence between the companies.
- Representatives from both HubSpot and Alphabet did not respond to requests for comment.
- Regulatory pushback has affected other tech deals, including Amazon's and Microsoft's recent acquisitions.
- HubSpot's rapid growth contrasts with Alphabet's, with HubSpot reporting over 20% revenue growth for the past six quarters.

HubSpot Shares Plunge 12% as Alphabet Shelves Acquisition Plans

Google is sick 🤢 !! 700 million to fire people.

Product Designer

- Investors are making an unprecedented bet on OpenAI, valuing the company at $150bn.
- Thrive Capital has already invested at least $1bn, with Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft in talks to join.
- Despite the scale, some top investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital are sitting out.
- OpenAI's revenues have surged to $3.6bn annually, but it still burns through over $5bn a year.
- The company faces fierce competition from Google and Meta, and must manage its transition from a start-up to a corporate giant. 

 Source: [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/a8f9bd05-0999-415d-af86-c73e79ad5733)

Investors Bet Big on OpenAI's $6bn Funding Round

- OpenAI is aiming to raise at least $5bn at a $150bn valuation from investors like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Thrive Capital.
- The San Francisco-based AI start-up is in talks with investors to fund its ambitious AI model development plans.
- Thrive Capital, led by Josh Kushner, is expected to invest $1bn in this round.
- The total fundraising could exceed $6.5bn, with Microsoft already having committed $13bn to OpenAI.
- Despite rapid growth and $2bn in annual revenue, OpenAI remains lossmaking due to high development costs and increasing competition. 

 Source: [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/dde0855e-4543-4d3a-8ff5-e6fb3c3ff305)

OpenAI aims to raise at least $5bn at $150bn valuation

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Atleast not in the form it is now. Found a rare good post on LinkedIn via Twitter which lists the reason why i think so. Also, I was reading psychology of money and one of the chapters discussed how GE used to be the most valued company in 2000s and how within 20 years, everything went to manhole.

Google is seriously going through a leadership crisis. I hate Pichai from the gut. We Indians like him coz he's brown munda, but I have never seen such narrow minded CEO since Balmer.

Hot Take: Google will not exist in next 30 years

Many other xooglers raised these leadership issues earlier. 
 Meanwhile, tier2/3 kids are burning midnight oil to land up in Google to start YT channel

Software Engineer

- AI software development platform, **Poolside**, has raised $500M in a Series B round led by **Bain Capital Ventures**.
- The funding round saw participation from **eBay** and **Nvidia**, among others, bringing Poolside's total funding to $626M and its valuation to $3B.
- Poolside, founded by former GitHub CTO **Jason Warner** and software engineer **Eiso Kant**, develops AI models to assist with tasks like autocompleting code.
- The new funding will be used to bring 10,000 Nvidia GPUs online for future model training and to bolster the company's go-to-market and R&D efforts.
- Despite concerns, developers are showing enthusiasm for AI-powered assistive coding tools, with the market projected to be worth $27B by 2032.

Source: [Techcrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/02/ai-coding-startup-poolside-raises-500m-from-ebay-nvidia-and-others/)

AI Coding Startup Poolside Secures $500M in Series B Funding

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Apple acquires DarwinAI

Product Manager

Bengaluru-based CoRover.ai may be getting a $4 million investment from Google. CoRover.ai developed an LLM called BharatGPT, an AI solution that is much more capable than OpenAI's ChatGPT and supports more than 12 Indian languages and over 120 foreign languages

Google bets big on BharatGPT-maker CoRover, to invest $4 mn in India’s answer to OpenAI, ChatGPT

Google invested 5 million dollars in BharatGPT

- Google is reportedly planning to acquire Wiz, a cloud cybersecurity startup, for $23 billion, making it the largest acquisition in Google's history.
- Wiz, based in New York City, offers advanced security tools for enterprise cloud infrastructure, partnering with giants like Amazon and Oracle.
- The acquisition is seen as a strategic move to bolster Google's cloud security capabilities, especially in light of recent security breaches at Microsoft.
- Google Cloud's Thomas Kurian is leading the acquisition effort, which follows previous significant investments in cloud security, including the purchase of Mandiant.
- While the deal appears likely, it faces potential regulatory scrutiny from US authorities, given the current administration's focus on antitrust actions. 

 Source: The Verge

Google Eyes Record $23 Billion Acquisition of Cloud Security Startup Wiz

🤦

- Google is developing AI software that mimics human reasoning, similar to OpenAI's o1.
- Multiple teams at Google have made progress on AI reasoning software, which excels at solving multistep problems.
- Google uses a technique called chain-of-thought prompting, where the software considers related prompts before responding.
- Google and OpenAI are in a fierce competition for AI dominance, with Google taking steps to regain its lead.
- Despite slower product roll-outs, Google remains a strong player in the AI field.

Source: [SCMP](https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3280882/google-working-reasoning-ai-chasing-openais-efforts?module=top_story&pgtype=section)

Google Chases OpenAI with New Reasoning AI Development

Hi Grapeviners, creating a thread where you can post the name of a toxic culture company along with which department. 

This thread is created as a one stop place to know about Toxic Culture Companies whether it, Early/Seed/Growth Stage/MNC . 


#community

List of Companies to avoid - short reasons welcome

Putting this again

Most YC funded startups 
Most *.ai 
All “Ed-techs” (aka “SalMa” sales and marketing) 
Uber-for-X 
10min-thingmajings 
Niche funded D2Cs 
BNPLs

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

- Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, has achieved a fourfold return on its investment in Zomato after selling shares worth over Rs 4,772 crore
- The Chinese ecommerce giant initially invested Rs 3,246 crore in Zomato between 2018 and 2020 and has now pocketed Rs 12,521 crore from its stake sales.
- Zomato's stock has been rising, driven by the growing value of its quick-commerce unit Blinkit, which UBS values at $15.4 billion, surpassing Zomato's main food delivery business.

 Source: [Economic Times](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/ant-group-nets-4x-return-on-investment-in-zomato-after-latest-part-stake-sale/printarticle/112661054.cms)

Alphabet to Invest Additional $5 Billion in Waymo

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