August 06, 2024 | Read Online

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0. Data and calendar

All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).

All times are ET.

1. Google illegally monopolized online search, judge rules in 2020 antitrust case

Alphabet stock was -4% on the news:

Google Finance: Alphabet Class A stock.

In question: $26B in payments to become default search engine.
Apple and Mozilla could be the biggest losers if the ruling is upheld.
Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act,
Court to decide on what happens next: injunctions are a real possibility, and a Google appeal is likely.

2. OpenAI co-founders Schulman and Brockman depart

John Schulman is joining rival Anthropic.
Greg Brockman on leave until the year-end.
Sam Altman and Wojciech Zaremba are the two founding members that remain.

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4. Global assets rebound: Japan's Nikkei +10%, S&P futures +0.4%, Bitcoin +5%

WSJ.

U.S. Services PMI showed expansion at 55.0, slightly under the 56.0 expected but still bringing some calm to markets.

5. OpenAI will not release GPT-5 at DevDay events this fall

Markets now give 79% odds that GPT-5 will only be released in 2025 or later:

Polymarket.

OpenAI spokesperson: "We're not planning to announce our next model at DevDay. We'll be focused more on educating developers about what's available and showcasing dev community stories."
Oct. 1: SF Dev Day event, Oct. 30: London event, Nov. 21: Singapore.
Another sign of LLM quality plateauing.

Relatedly, Gemini 1.5 Pro Experimental, launched on Aug. 1, became the #1 LLM on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena Leaderboard

LMSYS Chatbot Arena Leaderboard.

6. Groq raises $640M at $2.8B valuation

Groq is now the #12 most valuable generative AI startup:

Generative AI Unicorns Database.

BlackRock led the new round in the AI chip startup.
2x valuation since last round in April 2021.
Founded in 2016, the startup challenges NVIDIA with its AI chips, specialized in LLM inference.

7. Global tablet shipments +18% to 35.9M units in Q2

Tablet shipments are still down vs. their 2020/2021 levels:

Canalys.

Apple still leads with 38.7% market share

Canalys.

8. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

YouTube video by 20VC with Harry Stebbings

David Cahn: Why Servers, Steel and Power Are the Pillars Powering the Future of AI | E1186

9. Other headlines

AI

SK Hynix wins $950M of U.S. grants, loans for AI chip site.
Placer.ai , AI market research providing startup, raises $75M at $1.45B.
NVIDIA reportedly trained AI model by scraping Netflix and YouTube videos.
Lumen Technologies secures $5B deals on AI-driven demand.
Palantir raises its 2024 revenue forecast to ~$2.75B on AI growth.
Chinese firms stockpiling Samsung chips ahead of expected curbs.

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Tech

Thoughtworks to be taken private by Apax Partners in $1.75B deal.
X closes its San Francisco office.
Safari gets Distraction Control for beta users.
Riverlane, quantum error correction platform, raises $75M at $400M+.
~6,500 Samsung employees returned to work after strike fails.

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Tech & law

Elon refiles lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman.
Illinois governor approves biometric privacy law overhaul to cut penalties.
TikTok agrees to withdraw its reward program in EU.
US NIST to publish three security algorithms preventing quantum hacking.

Biotech

Rapamycin + trametinib outperform rapamycin alone in mice study.
National uninsured rate rises from 7.7% to 8.2%.

Business

Saudi Aramco to return $31.05B to shareholders after profit beat estimates.
Bloomberg News dismisses reporter that broke embargo on prisoner swap.

Crypto

SEC asks NY court to deny Coinbase's subpoena request.
Binance reportedly challenges India's $86M tax notice.
Memecoins tanking amid drop in broader crypto prices.

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U.S. politics

Harris VP expected to be announced today: Gov. Shapiro or Waltz.
Supreme Court rejects Missouri bid to block Trump sentencing in NY case.
Harris 53% odds, +1.9 now at Nate Silver's presidential forecast.

World

Iran, Hezbollah expected to attack Israel at same time.
Maduro tells Venezuelans to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram, WeChat.
UK's Starmer, Elon clashed over riot remarks.
Bangladesh army to install interim government.

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