Jack is Back 
But surprise: Its his AI- robot humanoid version installed by the CCP this time

Analyst

Can’t imagine what he must have gone through

Software Engineer

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Here’s Jack Ma’s memo to Alibaba staff

Looks like Jack Ma is back at the helm of things

Growth And Strategy

Looks like Jack Ma is back at the helm of things- Grapevine

Jack Ma now a teacher in Tokyo

Software Developer

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Collapse of Chinese startup ecosystem. Cost of detaining Jack Ma will be in trillions ! Deng Xiaoping must be cursing Xi Jinping from heaven

Steve jobs quoted this: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do , We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

Is this followed at your startup?

You don't hire smart people and tell them what to do

Product Manager

OpenAI board is reportedly in discussions with Sam Altman to bring him back as CEO.

This funding will enable Kiwi to further expand its ‘credit cards on UPI’ offerings in India.

Fintech startup Kiwi raises $13mn in Series A led by Omidyar

Second big funding announcement for today, we are so back!

UX/UI Designer

- Apple's CFO Luca Maestri to be replaced by Kevan Parekh on Jan. 1
- Parekh, current VP of financial planning and analysis, seen as 'perfect choice' by CEO Tim Cook
- Maestri to continue leading IT, security, and real estate development teams
- During Maestri's tenure, Apple's stock soared over 800% and annual sales more than doubled
- Move follows recent CFO changes at other tech giants like Alphabet and Meta 

 Source: [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/26/apple-to-replace-cfo-luca-maestri-on-jan-1.html)

Apple Announces CFO Transition: Luca Maestri to Step Down, Kevan Parekh to Take Helm

Journalist

Found this report by Inc42 on Linkedin.

Hope things get better!

In April 2022, #Dunzo cofounder &amp; CEO Kabeer Biswas said quick commerce is a game of optimisation — but ironically, 18 months later, Dunzo has very little left…

Inc42 Media on LinkedIn: #dunzo

A report on Dunzo's timeline

Why do people like Dukaan's founders receive funding so easily? Don't we have brilliant minds or promising startups in India, or is it the fault of short-sighted VCs who have money but lack vision?

Is it the founders or VCs who have money without mind ?

Consultant

Almost one year later of, Gojek CO-CEO Kevin steped down from his role, today GoTo CEO Andre also stepped down from his position.

Now, one of the the primary investor is taking his role of GOTO CEO. Investor being CEO is worrisome 😞 

And this is just 2-3 days after Pune office shutdown and 3rd round of layoff.

Things going terrible at Gojek/GoTo

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-walujo-94a2701 
  
 So a multi billion dollar company with 1000s of employees will now be run by a PE guy who hasn’t built a company on his own? What could go wrong…

Corporate Strategist

OpenAi board discussed to get back Sam Altman

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, is launching Safe Superintelligence Inc., an AI startup “prioritizing safety over commercial pressures”.

What’s SSI? Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) aims to create a safe and powerful AI system, approaching safety and capabilities in tandem while avoiding distraction by management overhead or product cycles.

Team? SSI is co-founded by Daniel Gross, a former AI lead at Apple, and Daniel Levy, who previously worked at OpenAI. Unlike OpenAI, SSI will not pursue partnerships with companies like Apple and Microsoft.

What are they upto? Well, SSI’s first product will be safe superintelligence, and the company “will not do anything else” until then 🤐

Still no idea what this means but great team doing something, will be super exciting to see this pan out!

Ilya's new startup!

"BYJU’S grew considerably since our first investment in 2018, but, over time, its reporting and governance structures did not evolve sufficiently for a company of that scale. Despite repeated efforts from our Director, executive leadership at BYJU’S regularly disregarded advice and recommendations relating to strategic, operational, legal, and corporate governance matters. The decision for our Director to step down from the BYJU’S Board was taken after it became clear that he was unable to fulfil his fiduciary duty to serve the long-term interests of the Company and its stakeholders."

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/24/prosus-questions-byjus-governance-says-indian-edtech-regularly-disregarded-advice/?tpcc=tcplustwitter

This is major - Prosus just publically said that BYJU's had improper governance and failed to improve despite their recommendations

Largest shareholder saying this publicly, I wonder if there is any way of recovering from this point

Investment Associate

The timing of Zeptos fundraise is significant given the slump in investments into growth- and late-stage startups on the one hand and the correction being witnessed in the quick commerce segment on the other.

Unicorn drought ends as Zepto raises $200 million at $1.4 billion valuation

Zepto becomes India's 1st 2023 unicorn

Everything kept aside, it’s genuinely awe-inspiring that they’ve been able to do this in a market with close to zero interest in consumer internet plays, and most models failing  
  
 There’s definitely something about the way they executed. And many good things are said within the ecosystem about Aadit as a founder!

This came out of nowhere. Poor investments? Executive troubles? Both?

Honestly the investing team lacked grit and commitment towards a founder or an investment. In late 2019 they finalised terms with us while an international investor was leading the round, they pulled out last minute because some random fuck company raised 2X the amount of our round from tier 1 vc. Now that company doesn’t exist anymore but I guess neither the fund…me too can never be an investment strategy but sadly this is pretty much how Indian vcs think. We’re still alive and growing 😁

Growth Manager

I don’t understand what the point really was 

- companies with a bad product are still struggling 
- companies with a good product are still growing
- rent in Bangalore, Mumbai is still sky high 
- salaries are still high, people are still asking for more 
- food is expensive as ever 
- stock prices of companies that fired people never really went up 

Someone make any sense or any of this?

Layoffs were a total failure at changing anything

EDianbao was started not long after Taobao’s founding in 2003, and enjoyed a surge of growth corresponding to the overall ecommerce boom in China. However, in 2020, EDianbao ran out of cash, despite earlier funding for Sequoia and many others. 

While there were probably many leadership and management issues leading to EDianbao’s shut down, the macro landscape did not help either. China's SaaS sector is a perfect illustration of the “involution”(“内卷“） that everyone is talking about in China.

Founder became monk

Systems Architect

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

People say you can't time the market but I am curious what is the junta on Grapevine thinking about investing in the current times. 

Also where do I invest now? I have some 1L to invest that would not impact my current liquidity.

🚨 Are you guys investing more or not?

- 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)

Looks like Jack Ma is back at the helm of things

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