VOLUME 41

Good morning! I’ll be honest, I did not feel like writing this newsletter today. It’s been a long week, I’m tired and I’m traveling today. But, consistency is key, and I signed up for this.

In the words of George St-Pierre, a legendary MMA fighter, "You don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. You get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway."

So without further ado… this week’s round ups 🥁

— Jacob Pace

_News_

Elon Musk’s xAI Raises $6 Billion to Develop Artificial Intelligence

Earlier this week, Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, announced that it raised a whopping $6 billion in a Series B funding round, with investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research, and even Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal listed on the cap table!

Prior to this raise, xAI reportedly carried a valuation of $18 billion. The latest fundraise brings the valuation up to $24 billion!

Musk has made it clear before in the past that he wants to be able to compete in the race to develop advanced artificial intelligence (in simpler terms, AI that is more advanced than humans), and put his chops up against companies like OpenAI (an organization he co-founded) as well as Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama.

In fact, OpenAI chief Sam Altman has even said before that he doesn’t care if he needs to spend $50 billion a year to achieve advanced artificial intelligence - he wants to get it done!

xAI’s first product, Grok, came out last year, as a somewhat witty but also technically polished response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Now with a new war chest of resources as Musk’s fingertips, it’ll be exciting to watch what he puts together.

The AI wars are now moving faster than ever, so only time will tell what all this competition in the space will bring us. A robot to do my chores would be nice!

_News_

MrBeast Announces ‘Beast Games’ with $5M Prize Money

Well, it looks like MrBeast has outdone himself yet again. Earlier this year, we reported on MrBeast’s plans to partner with Amazon Prime Video. Well, it looks like there are finally some more details surrounding this groundbreaking partnership.

The title of the reality competition will be appropriately called 'Beast Games' and will feature 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million prize, the biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming. The competition will be available for streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in over 240 countries!

MrBeast, known to constantly raise the bar when you think it possibly can’t get any higher, continues to break boundaries and push the limits on what’s possible. While I don’t think I’m going to sign up for this, I will absolutely be watching.

The first competition is set to kick off next month, with more details to be released soon, so keep your eyes peeled! Or join… if you want a chance to win some dough.

_News_

Google Eyes Hubspot in $35 Billion Acquisition

The word on the rumor mill is that tech giant Alphabet (parent company of Google and YouTube) is in talks to acquire CRM behemoth Hubspot, valued at $35 billion.

If you’re not familiar with Hubspot, they are a customer relationship management platform that was founded in 2006. The platform has maintained its reputation as a strong second place competitor to Salesforce, the leading CRM platform in world, but has still managed to push its way to a sizable valuation, and now is in talks to sell to one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

Now, you might be asking yourself why Alphabet would be interested in purchasing this company, other than put some more revenue on the books. Well, the acquisition here would fit nicely into Google’s current suite of customer engagement tools and analytics capabilities, giving them a stronger foothold in a different market that they currently don’t have much of a presence in.

Google has also been facing scrutiny over its dominance in the tech industry, and an acquisition like this could help diversify its offerings and potentially alleviate some antitrust concerns by expanding its presence in a new sector.

Following the big news, Hubspot’s stock jumped 8%. Happy days for investors!

_News_

Alibaba Expands Global Footprint with New AI-Powered Data Centers

Alibaba has announced an ambitious plan to expand its AI capabilities globally through its cloud services.

To do this, they’ve planned out the launch of data centers in key markets including Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea over the next couple years.

Companies like LVMH Group and the International Canoe Federation (ICF) are currently leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s services, so it’s no surprise that this is becoming an increasingly important effort for them, especially considering the aforementioned bubbling of the ‘AI wars’.

Additionally, their AI development platform Model Studio will soon be available internationally, since it’s only available in Singapore for the time being.

Nice one, Baba!

Phew………… having a newsletter is not easy! 😅

But it is worth it.

Have a great week!