Dinner parties and billion-dollar deals

Funding Corner

Google invests $2 Billion in OpenAI rival startup: Anthropic

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has emerged as a leading AI startup and major rival to OpenAI with its Claude chatbot, which is used as an intelligent assistant for companies like Slack, Notion and Quora.

Claude stands out for its ability to summarize lengths of text up to 75,000 words - much more than OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has a 3000 word capacity. This allows users to input massive datasets and receive summarized memos, stories or letters. Recent research also found Claude to be one of the most "self-aware" chatbots, as it can accurately determine its own knowledge limitations.

Anthropic gained huge momentum this year; in April, Google invested $300 million for a 10% stake in the company. Just a month later, it raised a monumental $450 million funding round, which, at the time, made it the largest single round for any AI company since Microsoft's investment in OpenAI months prior.

Between its cutting-edge technology, high-profile partnerships and over $750 million in funding, Anthropic has cemented itself as an AI startup leader and relevant OpenAI challenger. Claude shows enormous potential to shape the future of intelligent chatbots and natural language processing.

Personal Anecdote

Why you should have more people over for dinner

There’s something magical that happens when you gather interesting strangers around a dinner table. The simple act of sharing a meal opens our minds and sparks fascinating conversation. We become more willing to connect authentically.

That’s why I love hosting dinners with diverse guests—we effortlessly exchange stories and perspectives you’d never uncover elsewhere. Maybe it’s the wine that adds to the flow of ideas.. I’m not sure.

Anyways, a few friends and I have started an international dinner rota where each week, we randomly select a nationality and host a dinner party serving only the traditional food of that country. Sometimes we invite close friends, and other times people we’ve never even met. We started with Pakistan and our next pick is the Congo— it really keeps us on our toes.

I’m always surprised by the people who show up; on Jamaican night I met a highly successful marketing guru who grew his classic car instagram account to over 100k followers. On Dominican Republic night we had a podcast host, the founder of St Andrews’ Blockchain Society and someone who knows more about Web3 than is healthy, and a guy who has made a fortune renting a fleet of hot tubs across Scotland. And finally, Colombia night inspired a long conversation around the gut-biome and how the right bacteria can enhance your productivity. Hoping to get some of these people featured in the newsletter in the coming weeks.

It’s easy to stay in our comfortable social bubbles. But we grow so much more when we move out from them now and then. We find inspiration in people whose interests are totally different from that of our own.

So, I recommend trying out dinner parties that mix and mingle thinkers from all walks of life. Be deliberate about inviting new voices to your own table too.

-Jake

Things to Read

📕 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

In Outliers, Gladwell examines how high achievement results from a complex interplay of factors beyond just talent - opportunity, timing, training, and cultural legacy also play key roles. To illustrate this, he explores examples like how birthdates shape hockey success, how Bill Gates' background aided his wealth, and how the Beatles' huge practice time explains their fame. My favourite aspect of the book is the constant emphasis on the "10,000-hour rule" which argues that extensive, skilled practice is crucial for developing expert-level skill in anything you do.

Words You Should Know

Acqui-hiring

Definition: When a larger, more successful company buys out a smaller, failing company to gain its talented workforce rather than its products or services. The buying company may pay up to £2 million for a single employee!

Example: As Facebook's growth accelerated in 2009, they purchased FriendFeed, a popular social sharing platform. This acquisition brought over several big name former Google employees to Facebook, such as Bret Taylor who became their CTO. Over the following years from 2009-2013, Facebook ramped up acquiring talent by making 12 total talent acquisitions across 5 fiscal quarters. They focused on recruiting top performers, especially from competitors like Google, to join Facebook through strategic company purchases.

Read more about Acqui-hiring here.

Key Dates

• (New York) 

  • Founder Institute (accelerator applications close December 11th)

• (San Francisco)

  • Y Combinator (late applications accepted until January)

• (London)

  • Techstars Accelerator (applications close November 29th)

  • Founders Factory (rolling admissions)