Welcome back to review week! There’s a lot of news this week. There was a CEO shakeup with Instacart and 11X. The web series is back – kind of. The thread is getting video ads. And more. Let’s get to that!
Big move: Instacart CEO Fidji Simo will become CEO of the application Openai, the company said this week. Shimo is already on the Openai Committee. She will be tasked with helping Openai in scaling the functions of a “traditional” company, CEO Sam Altman said, but he has no offering anything on what it means.
Speaking of Openai, the company decided to maintain control of its for-profit organization after it first announced that it had planned to convert it into a for-profit organization. Openai said it had made the decision “after hearing from civic leaders and having a constructive dialogue with the Delaware Attorney General and the California Attorney General’s office.”
Speaking of CEO moves, 11x CEO Hasan Sukkar has announced that he will step down and move to the position of “non-executive chairman.” In March, TechCrunch reported that 11X was showing off customer logos on businesses’ websites that are not active customers, and that one of those companies threatened to sue the issue.
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Trademark Friction: Tesla wants to trademark the terms “cybercab” and “robotaxi,” but the terms are so common that they have been rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Tesla has three months to submit a response. Alternatively, the office will abandon the application.
Thanks: Speaking on stage at Stripe’s annual session meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has planned to automate the entire advertising industry with a black box end-to-end AI advertising tool. As Maxwell Zeff reports, “This is public considering they are already flooded with generative AI slops about what AI ad testing does for the meta platform from a user experience standpoint.”
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Speaking of ads, Meta announced at the Newfront Conference that it was testing video ads in threads. The update follows Meta’s recent announcement that threads will reach over 350 million active users.
Yes, please! I’m not very familiar with the kitchen, so Posha’s new robot cooking your meal for you sounds like a dream come true. Scroll through the list of recipes, select the recipe you want, add the appropriate amount of requested ingredients, and the machine will make a meal from there.
We’re back, Baby: Before the rise of vertical videos, the YouTube-scripted web series was successful enough to spin out into cult favorite television shows such as “Broad City”, “Insecure” and “Letterkenny”. Currently, the web series is back, but I live on Tiktok, a new platform.
Saying goodbye to the true one: Bill Gates said Thursday that the Gates Foundation will only last 20 years to tire of financial resources and end operations. He has pledged to donate 99% of his property. He is worth an estimated $100 billion today.
analysis
What Openai’s next: Openai’s new restructuring plan can satisfy regulators and investors who have invested heavily in the company in hopes of future profits. But it may also disrupt Openai’s future ambitions, especially in regards to potential IPOs.