Our weekly tech newsletter. Subscribe today on our blog.
Quick Hits
- Maybe it’s Microsoft: Teams introduces AI-powered makeup filters by Maybelline.
- Triple peak: Microsoft researchers coin phrase to describe developer’s typical day.
- Second bite: Seattle startup CHEQ revives 40-year food festival.
- TikTok = Hollywood: SAG says strike applies to social influencers too.
- VM me: Apple bets on voicemail.
- Nostalgia sells: First-generation iPhone auctions for $190k.
- Neopian renaissance: Virtual pet pioneer ushers in new era.
- EV price wars: Tesla, Ford lower prices in pursuit of U.S. truck market.
- Labor fight: California’s highest court upholds Uber employees’ right to sue for labor violations.
Freeing the LLaMA
In a win for developers, Meta will release LLaMA 2 as free open-source software as a direct download or through partners like AI startup Hugging Face. “When software is open, more people can scrutinize it to identify and fix potential issues,” Meta’s CEO wrote in a Facebook post. An exec at competitor OpenAI snarked back: “LLaMA 2 isn’t GPT-4.” Technology Innovation Institute and startups MosaicML and Together are pushing forward their own open-source AI software.
Apple GPT
Shhhh! Apple is quietly working on AI tools to challenge Microsoft-backed OpenAI Inc., Google, and others. The company built its own framework to create large language models and its own chatbot service, which some engineers are calling “Apple GPT.”
AI makes science exciting again
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is publicly geeking out about the potential for AI to transform healthcare. “With the advent of AI, science is about to become much more exciting—and in some ways unrecognizable. The reverberations of this shift will be felt far outside the lab; they will affect us all,” Schmidt wrote.
Examples he cites:
- Scientists at McMaster and MIT identified an antibiotic to combat a dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- A Google DeepMind model controls plasma in nuclear fusion reactions, bringing us closer to a clean-energy revolution.
- The FDA has cleared 500+ devices that use AI, including hundreds aimed at improving radiology.
The Weekly Pulse
Flexible companies grow twice as fast
Flexible companies add headcount at double the rate of fully in-office peers, according to a new study of 3.6k companies. The study found that flexible work arrangements—hybrid, fully remote, or electively-remote—added headcount at more than 2X the rate of fully in-office companies.
Poll of the Week
Tweet of the Week
What We’re Reading
Let’s All Start Leaving Voicemails Again! (WSJ)
Wikipedia’s Moment of Truth (NYT)
‘Training My Replacement’: Inside a Call Center Worker’s Battle With A.I. (NYT)
How white-collar warriors gear up for the day (Economist)
Why the Remote-Work Debate Stays So Heated (Atlantic)
Podcasts of the Week
Twitter vs. Threads, and why influencers could be the ultimate winners (NPR)
Generative AI and the future of knowledge work (Technology Podcast)
Startups Hiring Now
- Clipboard Health: We help nurses find jobs they love | 21 open roles
- SFR3 Fund: Platform to Acquire, Renovate & Rent thousands of Single-Family Homes | 8 open roles
- Mem Protocol: Building web3 social | 1 open role
Help us spread the word: we'll pay you $200 for every friend you get hired through Wellfound!