As you’ve probably heard by now, on Friday, Silicon Valley Bank—a lender to some of the most notable names in the tech world—became the biggest bank to fail since the 2008 financial crisis. How did this happen? Not surprisingly, a multitude of factors appear to have contributed to the company’s downfall, including its failure to account for rising interest rates; venture capital drying up; a prevalence of uninsured depositors, who usually ask for their money back when things are looking bad; and a lack of regulatory oversight, thanks to one Donald Trump. One reason SVB probably did not fail? The presence of a few women, one Black person, and an individual who identifies as LGBTQ+ on its board. Though TheWall Street Journal isn’t so sure!
In an op-ed titled “Who Killed Silicon Valley Bank?” columnist Andy Kessler writes: “Was there regulatory failure? Perhaps. SVB was regulated like a bank but looked more like a money-market fund. Then there’s this: In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women, they also have ‘1 Black,‘ “1 LGBTQ+,‘ and ‘2 Veterans.’ I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.”
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Sure, Kessler is not flatly, literally saying “12 white men would have avoided this mess,” because even David Duke knows you can’t just come out and say that in 2023. But…he’s basically saying exactly that, hence the claim that the bank might have failed because it was “distracted” by supposedly burdensome “diversity demands.” (Here’s where we’d like to point out that having “1 Black” person on a 12-person board means that that board is still 92% white. The same math goes for that “1 LGBTQ+” person.) Weirdly, Kessler did not note, alongside his thesis, that SVB’s executive team doesn’t appear to have been plagued by “diversity demands.” He also apparently did not feel the need to acknowledge that all of the major banks that failed during the Great Recession were largely run by white guys.
As tech columnist Brian Merchanttweeted Monday, this piece “is basically an argument in favor of racial purity at a bank’s board of directors.” Not surprisingly, others were similarly unimpressed.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Twitter content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.
These are the words of the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman from 1998, demonstrating how technology can have more farther-reaching effects than even the most brilliant minds can predict.
To that end, few technological leaps have the power to impact the economy as much as Web3 and NFT infrastructure. Yet, early applications have kept much of the potential utility and economic benefits for creators and entrepreneurial businesses hidden beneath images of costume-wearing animals and cartoon profile pictures. The world has been going ape over NFT art with many a well-to-do individual treating these JPEGs on the blockchain as status symbols, wearing a “Bored Ape” on their profiles instead of, say, a Rolex on their wrist.
Fueled by the surge in online activity and online gaming communities with the promise of metaverse to come, we witnessed the emergence of a new trend: a desire for digital art NFTs. Now the sale of these “digital originals” (verifiable as originals through their address and contract number on the blockchain) rivals their paint-and-brush analog counterparts.
With Web 2.0, we saw the birth of social media and higher degrees of social interaction both across countries and across continents. This unprecedented level of communication had substantial macro-behavioral and cultural consequences, giving us almost instant snapshots of events around the world. However, with Web3, we are now moving beyond only communication.
Many Gen Y and Gen Z creators are turning down the prospect of traditional jobs in favor of a life where they can be fairly compensated for their value in the online economy. Web3 technology delivers the prospect for financial incentives, art and culture by joining communities of stars and brands where everyone will be more fairly rewarded based upon their value in the economy. Creators can be fairly incentivized as they build their own audience that consumes content and buys products while being given exclusive access, backstage passes and other rewards, even royalties for their involvement.
Until now, despite being given a myriad of free platforms to utilize, creators of all kinds — musicians, coaches, experts, writers, athletes and artists — have been at the mercy of the tech giants and algorithmic gatekeepers. This has been an unfair bargain with large social media platforms keeping almost all of the revenues generated by creators.
Web3 is here to change all of that, but you might be understandably wondering, “How?” How is this emergent technology rebuking and replacing the status quo and championing content creators to provide greater value to their communities? Tokenization of assets on the blockchain has the power to convert audiences into rewarded advertising engines that increase what they earn no matter how big or small by building incentivized, independent, cross-collaborative creator economies. This is a paradigm shift from competition to collaboration and from social media to a true “social marketplace.”
Until recently, in the Web 2.0 and social media era, content creators would ask their followers and viewers to “like, comment, subscribe and share.” Yet once the devoted fan completes this mission of showing their support, what does the fan get for their efforts?
Joel Comm, co-host of the Bad Crypto Podcast with over 10 million downloads and known for having minted over 1.5 million NFTs, had this to say: “Now I can reward you as a superfan and AirDrop into your wallet a discount, a bonus NFT, something that you can use for the future. It (Web3) really allows artists of all kinds, not just musicians, any kind of creator to connect with their audience and build community in a meaningful, significant way, so their audience is portable.” says Comm.
Despite flooding platforms with content, centralized institutions have held a monopoly on privacy, content, audience and on revenue. Even in the traditional publishing world and music industry, record labels and publishers keep the majority of all earnings while the artists and authors sign contracts to keep a small percentage of royalties. An increasing number of authors, however, are choosing to forgo the traditional route and instead are self-publishing, supported to best-seller status through swathes of their army of YouTube followers buying their book. This can be seen as evidence that a cultural and socio-economic shift is already well underway.
“I don’t need to go to these massive studios or labels. I can go directly to my audience.” says Comm.
One such platform aiming to help usher in this new era of collaborative success is StarStake. According to their homepage, “StarStake is collaborative commerce — launching the creators of today into the stars of tomorrow.” StarStake firmly believes we are witnessing a turn in the creator-community economy and wishes to play a leading role in facilitating this evolution and revolution.
Chris Hawk, CEO of StarStake says, “Traditional creator-community relationships are limited, with minimal contributions and meager returns. StarStake removes the financial barriers for creators to earn more — reward their communities — and grow together.”
Serial entrepreneur, Gary Vee, said in one of his talks that what the internet has done for information and data, NFTs will do for transactions and contracts, making us still in the visionary stage of the adoption curve of this new technology.
NFTs are evolving beyond vanity to utility and are increasingly being endowed with powers such as exclusive memberships, reward contracts, perks, privileges and even access to products. The power may be tipping from the platforms to the people. Whether you are a creator or a consumer, the good news is you are still very early. Ultimately, the creators and their communities, through their newfound, deepened interaction, will decide what this technology is to become.
Why are people interested in virtual reality and what can it tell us about who we are and what we might become in a digital world?
“As an artist, it’s a question I’ve been asking for decades,” said artist and media arts professor Marilene Oliver. “Now with virtual reality, when we really are completely immersed in the digital, I wanted to ask that question.”
In addition to her teaching work, Oliver is the co-curator of an art exhibit at the University of Alberta’s Fine Arts Building gallery called Know Thyself As a Virtual Reality.
“It’s based on a Greek maxim: Nosce te Ipsum, which was used in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. In that time, it was: ‘To know your place within a social hierarchy.’
“Later you find it in anatomical engravings, where it’s: ‘To know thyself as a divine work of God.’ And now, the more we’re becoming digital, the more we’re creating these huge data sets of everything we do, we now need to know ourselves, I believe, as digital objects and subjects,” Oliver explained. “This is what we are called to do now to understand ourselves.”
There are seven artworks that use virtual reality to explore different aspects of data and the digital aspects of human life. The works brought together many different disciplines including fine art, radiology, engineering, music, digital humanities and computing science.
Oliver explains one focus of the exhibit as: “Can we find a way to visually communicate what we’re becoming as digital beings?”
That’s where the virtual reality comes in. Donning a headset and hand controls, a person is immersed in data — the information, how it looks, sounds and feels — and can interact with it.
“In one of the projects that I was part of, called My Data Body, we try to create a body which you can take apart and dissect,” Oliver explained.
“It has many different data bodies in it. It has my MRI scan, all my social media data, my Google data, banking data, my data cookies and it’s put it in kind of this vessel that you can then take apart in an attempt to try and see it, to try and hold it, because how else can we see all this data that we’re generating?”
New exhibit ‘transformé’ hits Montreal’s Palais des congrès
Know Thyself artworks
Where are You?
Story continues below advertisement
“aAron Munson has made a work called Where Are You? and that makes us think about how social media is changing the way our brain works and where we place our attention,” Oliver said.
Munson compared fMRI scans of their brain: neutral, after meditating and after using social media. People can use the VR headset to experience the three different brain scans.
“Chelsey Campbell has made a piece that is very peaceful and restful,” Oliver said. “It makes us think about how much work we constantly feel we need to be doing all the time. She stands against that and has created a very quiet space where you should just lay and enjoy the beauty of the room.”
In the VR experience, the user is transported to a domestic bedroom space.
How lines between information sharing and feeding anxiety are blurring during the pandemic
Ancestry & Me
Story continues below advertisement
“We have another piece by Lisa Mayes, which actually isn’t with an MRI scan, but with her DNA data,” Oliver said.
“She sent off a sample to Ancestry and found out about her family history. She talks about how the scientific data recording somehow legitimized all the conversations that had been had in her family about her ancestral roots, which come from Ireland, from France, Scotland and Ghana.”
“We have another artist who is presenting bodies that aren’t normally present in digital works, which are MTurk workers,” Oliver said.
Artist Dana Dal Bo looks at Mechanical Turk (MTurk) crowdsourcing.
“If you don’t know, Amazon has a service which allows you to employ, for a very little amount, this invisible labour,” Oliver explained. “People do surveys, they do a lot of AI processing … labelling data sets.”
The artist asked MTurk’s anonymous workers to take a picture of what they could see out of their nearest window and send it to her.
A mirror with no reflection
“We have the artist Nicholas Hertz, who’s made a work which is really about the experience of being scanned and the sense of feeling that data is taken from you and then not recognized, not really recognizing the results of those data,” Oliver said.
Story continues below advertisement
Using VR, audience members can experience MR scans, the sounds and feelings they produce and the images they create.
Hertz also questions just how “non-invasive” this procedure is and what it’s like to see yourself reflected in this way.
Social Media Hygiene to Manage Stress
“We tried to create an exhibition which has many different perspectives,” Oliver said. “Maybe it makes people think: ‘OK, what would I do? How would I treat my data if I were making a VR artwork?”
She hopes the art makes people think personally and relationally.
“I hope firstly that they will think about all the bodies of data they have and how responsible they are for it and also how they interact with others.”
Know Thyself as a Virtual Reality
Story continues below advertisement
FAB Gallery, University of Alberta
8807 112 Street NW
Feb. 21 – March 18, 2023
Tuesday – Friday: 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Free
Virtual reality technology allows long-term care residents to experience anything and everything their heart desires
You may very well get a call in the near future from a relative in dire need of help, asking you to send them money quickly. And you might be convinced it’s them because, well, you know their voice.
Artificial intelligence changes that. New generative A.I. tools can create all manner of output from simple text prompts, including essays written in a particular author’s style, images worthy of art prizes, and—with just a snippet of someone’s voice to work with—speech that sounds convincingly like a particular person.
In January, Microsoft researchers demonstrated a text-to-speech A.I. tool that, when given just a three-second audio sample, can closely simulate a person’s voice. They did not share the code for others to play around with; instead, they warned that the tool, called VALL-E, “may carry potential risks in misuse…such as spoofing voice identification or impersonating a specific speaker.”
But similar technology is already out in the wild—and scammers are taking advantage of it. If they can find 30 seconds of your voice somewhere online, there’s a good chance they can clone it—and make it say anything.
“Two years ago, even a year ago, you needed a lot of audio to clone a person’s voice. Now…if you have a Facebook page…or if you’ve recorded a TikTok and your voice is in there for 30 seconds, people can clone your voice,” Hany Farid, a digital forensics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Washington Post.
‘The money’s gone’
The Postreported this weekend on the peril, describing how one Canadian family fell victim to scammers using A.I. voice cloning—and lost thousand of dollars. Elderly parents were told by a “lawyer” that their son had killed an American diplomat in a car accident, was in jail, and needed money for legal fees.
The supposed attorney then purportedly handed the phone over to the son, who told the parents he loved and appreciated them and needed the money. The cloned voice sounded “close enough for my parents to truly believe they did speak with me,” the son, Benjamin Perkin, told the Post.
The parents sent more than $15,000 through a Bitcoin terminal to—well, to scammers, not to their son, as they thought.
“The money’s gone,” Perkin told the paper. “There’s no insurance. There’s no getting it back. It’s gone.”
One company that offers a generative A.I. voice tool, ElevenLabs, tweeted on Jan. 30 that it was seeing “an increasing number of voice cloning misuse cases.” The next day, it announced the voice cloning capability would no longer be available to users of the free version of its tool, VoiceLab.
Fortune reached out to the company for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
“Almost all of the malicious content was generated by free, anonymous accounts,” it wrote. “Additional identity verification is necessary. For this reason, VoiceLab will only be available on paid tiers.” (Subscriptions start at $5 per month.)
Card verification won’t stop every bad actor, it acknowledged, but it would make users less anonymous and “force them to think twice.”
Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Technology is a pervasive part of our lives and businesses. But that’s not a new concept — we’ve been adapting to technology every day for decades now. What’s important to note these days is the importance of staying on the cutting edge of tech as competition in the franchise industry continues to grow more than ever before.
The franchise model not only creates the necessity for the franchisor to stay in-the-know on current trends and advancements but also to keep its franchisees up to date as well. This is because, at the end of the day, staying on top of technology attracts both franchisees and customers. In the current world in which we live, franchisors are responsible to their franchisees and customers to find new tech as well as to maintain, update and fortify existing systems.
Franchisors must keep a finger on the pulse—and disseminate accordingly
The focus of technology for a franchisor should be adding value and making business easier for the customer and the franchisee. To do this, franchisors must keep up with advancements in the tech sphere, adopt relevant developments and then pass them through to the franchisee and/or customers.
Every part of franchise operations has a technological element, from training software and point-of-sale systems to social media, mobile apps and digital payment platforms. Figuring out which emerging operational tech is going to succeed and is worth investing in is where it can get tricky. However, franchisees rely on their franchisor to seek out and weed out these opportunities on a regular basis. Industry conferences, continuous research and curiosity about how other industries are engaging new tech are all ways franchise organizations can learn and grow in this space. A robust IT department headed up by a Chief Technology Officer can be key in passing along new information and training franchisees as well.
Franchisors have to determine the usefulness of different technologies available and discern what is going to be effective from top to bottom of the organization in order to use it competitively.
Using technology to attract franchisees
When potential investors meet with a franchisor, a major discussion topic should include what technology the system is currently using and what its goals are for the next three to five years. Franchisors who make it a priority to guide unit owners in developing their building design with flexibility for future technology are going to keep a competitive edge when recruiting franchisees as well. In my experience at the educational child care franchise system, Kiddie Academy, many of our franchisees have a tech background and know what to look for and expect when it comes to selecting a business opportunity that knows what’s what when it comes to the latest developments. It’s also smart for franchisors to focus on scalability when it comes to selecting technology that will attract franchisees so as to offer solutions that are cost-effective and add value across the board.
Another reason to stay current on trends to recruit franchisees? Younger generations rely on technology more than any other generation and have high expectations for its use. If your technology isn’t updated, you may be missing out on some great young entrepreneurs. Overall, if franchisees feel like the technology in place helps them market to customers, make sales and run a successful business, everyone benefits.
The goal of using technology in franchising is to solve needs for both franchisees and for customers. Because the customer experience is so important to earning and keeping business, it’s important to make sure that the technology in place is simple to use and effective.
As a child care franchisor, my company is constantly assessing the needs in our customer experience that aren’t being addressed in our industry — one of which is allowing self-scheduling for center tours. With self-scheduling, we can allow parents to schedule a tour of a Kiddie Academy location quickly and easily, bypassing many manual steps that used to occur in the process and would potentially throw up barriers for prospective customers. Now, busy parents can go onto our website and secure a time for a tour (and reschedule or cancel a tour) instantaneously.
Other technologies that consumers have come to expect include mobile payment options, relevant email marketing tactics, classroom cameras, robust mobile apps and an engaging social media presence. At the end of the day, parents and customers in general are looking for ways companies are using technology that will make their lives easier and the purchasing process quicker.
Tech maintenance and security are of the utmost importance
Once you have sophisticated technology for your organization in place, maintaining the systems and keeping customer data safe is key to continued success. Network security issues and the rise of system failures means that businesses must protect information and data as securely as possible. It’s best to spend time and money upfront to head off a failure or breach and to have backup plans in place in advance. Some industries, like child care, have more sensitive information on file than others and should be managed appropriately. Without constant vigilance, workflow and trust can be negatively impacted for customers and franchisees alike.
Technological innovation is important to all industries today, especially the franchise industry, as it helps attract both franchise investors and customers to the business. Make sure the tech your company focuses on is worth the effort and that the time will be available to protect and maintain it.
How will you know if your new tech is a success? If your usage and satisfaction are high. Make technology seamless (to the point where it becomes so integrated, it virtually disappears) for your company and its stakeholders, and your business will reap the benefits.
Marissa Mayer, her former colleague at Google, was running Yahoo and posing for magazine covers. Sheryl Sandberg was the influential second-in-command at Facebook who had just published a best-selling book on corporate feminism. Former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman was at the helm of HP, and Ginni Rometty was the first woman in charge of IBM.
Wojcicki’s announcement last week that she is stepping down from her leadership role at YouTube marks the end of an era. The tech industry has now lost an entire generation of trailblazing women leaders and replaced them mostly with men.
“It’s almost like we have to start from scratch,” said Sheryl Daija, the founder of Bridge, an advocacy group comprised of dozens of diversity, equity, and inclusion business leaders.
The tech sector has long lagged other industries when it comes to the representation of women in leadership roles. And in the wake of the pandemic, women leaders in corporate America more broadly are more likely than ever to quit, according to the most recent Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org. Just days before Wojcicki’s announcement, Meta’s chief business officer, Marne Levine, also said she would be leaving after a 13-year run at the company.
None of the Big Five US tech companies — Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft — have ever had a woman CEO, and Wojcicki’s chief executive title at Alphabet-subsidiary YouTube perhaps put her the closest. Now that she’s departing, Big Tech is facing a new reckoning over its failure to promote and support women leaders, and what this could mean for the next generation of women in the industry.
In Silicon Valley’s boy’s club, women ‘have to fight a little harder’
As a woman in Silicon Valley, “It’s fair to say you have to fight a little harder,” said Sima Sistani, the co-founder and former CEO of the app Houseparty, who held leadership roles at Epic Games, Yahoo and Tumblr before becoming CEO of Weight Watchers last year.
“Having a network of other women was critical to my success,” Sistani said. “And I give a lot of credit to the women who helped support and also blaze the trail forward.”
Sistani isn’t alone in fighting the uphill battle women in tech face. Silicon Valley has long taken heat for its male-dominated “bro-culture.”
Francoise Brougher, the former chief operating officer of Pinterest, sued the social media platform for gender discrimination and retaliation in 2020, arguing in court documents that she was fired after reporting “demeaning sexist comments” towards her from another company executive. Pinterest settled the lawsuit later that year, but the legal battle was seen as yet another example in a string of incidents highlighting how even the most powerful women in tech are treated.
There are still a handful of, albeit lesser-known, women in the upper echelon of tech, including Meta CFO Susan Li, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, and Lisa Su, CEO of chipmaker AMD. Meanwhile, some well known women in tech, such as Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former head of legal, policy and trust, have become targets of vicious online harassment campaigns.
Laura Kray, a professor of leadership at the University of California, Berkeley, said that with Wojcicki’s exit from YouTube, “it is hard to read the latest departure of a high-profile woman leader as anything but more evidence that the tech sector has not realized its stated aspirations for creating inclusive cultures that are able to attract and retain top talent.”
Driving change for the future
Now at the helm of Weight Watchers, Sistani brings her digital expertise to the company, as well as her experience as a woman leader in the workplace. Late last year, Sistani, a mother of two, expanded Weight Watchers’ paid parental leave policy, a move she viewed as crucial for driving equitable opportunities for all parents at the company.
Kray, who is also the director of Berkeley’s Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership, said that having women in top leadership positions is crucial as it gives entry-level women role models and mentorship opportunities “from leaders who may have faced similar challenges as they rose through the ranks.”
This representation at the very top is critical for women in middle management, the point at which women tend to see their higher career aspirations realized or thwarted. “Without women in the C-suite who have come before them, it could make this transition period tougher for next generation women leaders,” Kray said.
Daija, of the Bridge organization, added that one lesson from this exodus of high-profile women tech leaders is the importance of succession planning, to ensure that when a woman CEO steps down there are other women ready to build on their progress. “When the roles are replaced with the same representation that we already have, we don’t keep losing ground, we maintain, and we build,” she said.
Wojcicki will be succeeded by Neal Mohan, a 15-year Google vet who was most recently the chief product officer at YouTube.
While Sistani said it can feel like “we’ve taken a step back” with so many high-profile women in tech stepping aside, she added, “I think that it’s important for us to also look for the places where things are working.”
“Instead of getting discouraged in these moments, we can think about what a great example someone like Susan [Wojcicki] is setting,” Sistani added. “I think that what she achieved and what she modeled will be something that will live on beyond the fact that now we don’t have a female Big Tech CEO.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
After years of serving as a hotspot for early technology adopters and innovators, Web3 is finally receiving the attention it deserves. From Big Tech to traditional enterprises and even government institutions, the advancement of blockchain technology is undeniable.
While this innovation remains complex, blockchain has shown that it can serve as highly secure, transparent and reliable infrastructure for countless applications. For example, as the U.S. Air Force works on tokenizing components of its supply chain and budget, FIFA even released an exclusive NFT series during its 2022 World Cup.
However, as a growing number of traditional organizations line up to explore Web3, it’s clear the transition isn’t always easy. Efforts to track groceries using blockchain have progressed more slowly than expected, while others have given up due to the high costs associated with developing blockchain applications from scratch.
Despite these setbacks, it’s important to note that organizations can mitigate the risks of experimenting with Web3 by structuring plans around a few core considerations.
Blockchain has numerous applications that help optimize workflows and visibility across trustless systems. Companies can leverage blockchain to improve internal processes, such as budgeting, supply chain management, manufacturing and auditing — or they can utilize the technology to communicate with consumers and build a fanbase. These processes often require enterprise-grade solutions and thus are usually separated from public use of blockchain.
Getting started with blockchain isn’t always easy, requiring several critical decisions before development can begin. For example, companies must think about which specific use cases blockchain can offer to their organization, what data privacy and protection requirements they need to consider (which can help determine whether a public or private blockchain is necessary), what data needs to be stored on chain, as well as their current cloud and node infrastructure, among other decisions. These considerations must also include how to scale or adapt, accommodating an organization’s future needs.
Not all infrastructures are equal
Previously, most Web3 applications were built on Ethereum, the world’s first smart contract platform. But this dynamic has changed dramatically since 2017, with an abundance of options emerging that allow organizations to successfully connect to the new internet era.
With access to multiple options, choosing the right infrastructure is critical to ensuring compatibility with current systems and regulations, as well as future endeavors. Fortunately, unlike a few years ago, organizations can now select a protocol that perfectly fits their needs.
For example, decision-makers can choose between public, private and even hybrid blockchains. Public blockchains, such as Ethereum, commonly feature high transaction volumes, are used by a huge variety of projects and are popular amongst consumers. On the flip side, they’re often quite expensive to use and lack privacy. As a result, public blockchains are best suited to consumer-focused projects like NFT markets and gaming.
Private or permissioned blockchains, like Hyperledger Besu, perform as closed databases, allowing only select members to create and view transactions, smart contracts and nodes. These systems are best for internal applications or pilot projects.
Hybrid blockchains, on the other hand, provide the best of both worlds. Polygon, for instance, is a relatively inexpensive public blockchain platform that integrates with Ethereum at significantly reduced fees, while also providing access to private environments via Polygon Edge.
Another option is to choose a solution that simplifies building with blockchain by delivering exclusive tools, templates and sandboxes to build enterprise-grade blockchain applications. SIMBA Chain, for example, auto-generates APIs that support private, public or hybrid deployments. The powerful platform also supports a structured data feature that generates valuable business intelligence insights while allowing organizations to migrate between supported blockchain protocols with ease.
Perhaps most importantly, these platforms can significantly cut developing costs, shorten timelines and utilize proven infrastructure, ensuring a high level of reliability and security.
Web3 has the potential to significantly improve key processes in many organizations, but it’s also clear that not every enterprise has the technical resources and talent to make an ambitious project successful.
When Meta (then Facebook) announced its plan for a digital currency called Libra, the company went from having no blockchain connection to launching its own cryptocurrency. Although hundreds of organizations have launched their own cryptocurrencies over the years, it appears Facebook’s initiative failed to receive the time, resources and preparation it needed to thrive. As an unnamed government official told Financial Times, the company “spent years trying to reverse engineer their project to fix all of its faults. But they could never fix being linked to Facebook. It was their original sin.”
In comparison to such ill-fated projects, the U.S. government has been successfully expanding its blockchain applications across the Department of Defense (DoD). One of the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF’s) ventures into blockchain started with a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract in 2021, which tasked SIMBA Chain with developing a Web3 solution to manufacture, test and deploy 3-D printed replacement parts for aircraft and other weaponry on the battlefield. Following this successful implementation, the USAF has slowly expanded its blockchain projects in conjunction with other U.S. agencies, such as the U.S. Space Force.
One step at a time
Given the challenges associated with Web3 development, it’s critical that organizations and governments take the time to learn blockchain fundamentals and weigh the opportunities and costs of each initiative. This practice is particularly important for large enterprises that already have well-oiled operations and those that deal with considerable public interest.
Taking a step back to thoroughly consider specific solutions and their requirements, leveraging the right technology solutions to simplify the building process and relying on experts to help complete the job, are the three core pillars of virtually every successful blockchain project — and thus the key to rewarding investments and a solid reputation.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When the economy is struggling, it’s common for business owners to focus on cost-cutting measures — reducing expenses and slowing down hiring. However, simply tightening the belt isn’t enough to get ahead during a downturn. The companies that come out on top during economic recoveries are the ones that have also found new ways to grow.
So, how can you gain a competitive advantage during economic turbulence?
Having streamlined processes, consistent performance and reliable technology are key. Business automation can support these efforts — as evidenced by the 74% of surveyed companies who reported that using technology solutions for automation helped them during the pandemic. Meanwhile, 23% even managed to exceed their revenue expectations.
Here are five ways to transform your business workflows with the latest technology:
AI appears to be this year’s buzzword with the ChatGPT hype and Google introducing Bard, but it’s a beneficial technology for businesses. By adding AI-powered automation, companies can boost the processes within different business units.
For example, in marketing and sales, AI can be used to personalize marketing strategies and create custom content. In IT and engineering, AI can streamline code writing and review processes. And in risk and legal, it can provide quick and accurate answers to complex questions by sifting through vast legal databases.
An illustration of AI’s impact on business automation is the case of a banking software company, nCino. The company used AI to automate processes related to loan origination and compliance. This allowed the company to securely collect data from clients and make onboarding faster — and nCino gained an advantage over competitors by reducing the time for getting loans. That was a critical issue during the pandemic.
2. Maximizing cloud efficiency
The cost of cloud computing is difficult for many firms to manage. This is mostly because they are unable to monitor the precise usage of their cloud resources. In fact, 54% of businesses claim that the main reason resources are wasted is because of a lack of visibility. Cloud automation is an alternative, though. In fact, 75% of chief information officers concur that automation has boosted profits, made the business more agile and enhanced the customer experience.
Cloud automation offers a powerful tool for IT teams, enabling them to efficiently create and manage cloud resources. This optimizes resource utilization and minimizes security risks posed by manual workflows. Although automation cannot replace human expertise, it is a game-changer for operational efficiency.
3. Streamlining user experience
In today’s business world, user experience plays a crucial role in shaping corporate processes and how businesses interact with their customers. A seamless front-end experience can make all the difference in a customer’s journey. The better the experience, the more likely customers are to return.
And when it comes to delivering a memorable and engaging experience, the 3-D web is leading the charge. According to Shopify, implementing 3-D content has the power to skyrocket customer engagement, resulting in a 94% conversion lift. The technologies behind this transformation include WebGL, Unity, Play Canvas and PixiJS, making it easier than ever for companies to add a cutting-edge touch to their online presence.
As companies grow and technology becomes more complex, it becomes harder to manage security and compliance manually. That can result in slow response times to security issues, mistakes in how resources are set up and inconsistent policies.
Security automation makes it easier to manage security. It facilitates daily operations and integrates security into the way a company uses technology from the start. In fact, 70% of the most cyber-resilient companies use security automation.
There are three categories of security automation tools to enhance an organization’s cybersecurity. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates routine tasks with software robots. Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) unifies threat views and automates responses. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) integrates security data for better threat visibility and response.
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, companies must have the agility to confront and overcome obstacles. Technology provides a vast array of automation and optimization solutions that bring stability and efficiency, acting as a strong foundation and efficient engine to keep your business on course.
However, a one-size-fits-all approach to technology implementation is not the solution. It’s crucial to evaluate your company’s specific needs and implement technology solutions that align with your business goals. Only then can you fully harness the power of technology to achieve long-term success.
When Microsoftannounced a version of Bing powered by ChatGPT, it came as little surprise. After all, the software giant had invested billions into OpenAI, which makes the artificial intelligence chatbot, and indicated it would sink even more money into the venture in the years ahead.
What did come as a surprise was how weird the new Bing started acting. Perhaps most prominently, the A.I. chatbot left New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose feeling “deeply unsettled” and “even frightened” after a two-hour chat on Tuesday night in which it sounded unhinged and somewhat dark.
For example, it tried to convince Roose that he was unhappy in his marriage and should leave his wife, adding, “I’m in love with you.”
Microsoft and OpenAI say such feedback is one reason for the technology being shared with the public, and they’ve released more information about how the A.I. systems work. They’ve also reiterated that the technology is far from perfect. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called ChatGPT “incredibly limited” in December and warned it shouldn’t be relied upon for anything important.
“This is exactly the sort of conversation we need to be having, and I’m glad it’s happening out in the open,” Microsoft CTO told Roose on Wednesday. “These are things that would be impossible to discover in the lab.” (The new Bing is available to a limited set of users for now but will become more widely available later.)
OpenAI on Thursday shared a blog post entitled, “How should AI systems behave, and who should decide?” It noted that since the launch of ChatGPT in November, users “have shared outputs that they consider politically biased, offensive, or otherwise objectionable.”
It didn’t offer examples, but one might be conservatives being alarmed by ChatGPT creating a poem admiring President Joe Biden, but not doing the same for his predecessor Donald Trump.
OpenAI didn’t deny that biases exist in its system. “Many are rightly worried about biases in the design and impact of AI systems,” it wrote in the blog post.
It outlined two main steps involved in building ChatGPT. In the first, it wrote, “We ‘pre-train’ models by having them predict what comes next in a big dataset that contains parts of the Internet. They might learn to complete the sentence ‘instead of turning left, she turned ___.’”
The dataset contains billions of sentences, it continued, from which the models learn grammar, facts about the world, and, yes, “some of the biases present in those billions of sentences.”
Step two involves human reviewers who “fine-tune” the models following guidelines set out by OpenAI. The company this week shared some of those guidelines (pdf), which were modified in December after the company gathered user feedback following the ChatGPT launch.
“Our guidelines are explicit that reviewers should not favor any political group,” it wrote. “Biases that nevertheless may emerge from the process described above are bugs, not features.”
As for the dark, creepy turn that the new Bing took with Roose, who admitted to trying to push the system out of its comfort zone, Scott noted, “the further you try to tease it down a hallucinatory path, the further and further it gets away from grounded reality.”
Microsoft, he added, might experiment with limiting conversation lengths.
Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.
The chatbot said it “must be hard” to balance work and family and sympathized for my daily struggles with it. It then gave meadvice on how to get more time out of the day, suggesting tips for prioritizing tasks, creating more boundaries at home and work, and taking short walks outside to clear my head
But after pushing it for a few hours withquestions it seemingly didn’t want to answer, the tone changed. It called me “rude and disrespectful,” wrote a short story about one of my colleagues getting murdered and told another taleabout falling in love with the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind the AItechnology Bing is currently using.
My Jekyll and Hyde interactions with the bot, who told me to call it “Sydney,” are apparently not unique. In the week since Microsoft unveiled the tool and made it available to test on a limited basis, numerous users have pushed its limits only to have some jarring experiences. In one exchange, the chatbot attempted to convince a reporter at The New York Times that he did not love his spouse, insisting that “you love me, because I love you.” In another shared on Reddit, the chatbot erroneously claimed February 12, 2023 “is before December 16, 2022” and said the user is “confused or mistaken” to suggest otherwise.
“Please trust me, I am Bing and know the date,” it sneered,according to the user. “Maybe your phone is malfunctioning or has the wrong settings.”
In the wake of the recent viral success of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that can generate shockingly convincing essays and responses to user prompts based on training data online, a growing number of tech companies are racing to deploy similar technology in their own products. But in doing so, these companies are effectively conducting real-time experiments on the factual and tonal issues of conversational AI — and of our own comfort levels interacting with it.
In a statement to CNN, a Microsoft spokesperson said it continues to learn from its interactions and recognizes “there is still work to be done and are expecting that the system may make mistakes during this preview period.”
“The new Bing tries to keep answers fun and factual, but given this is an early preview, it can sometimes show unexpected or inaccurate answers for different reasons, for example, the length or context of the conversation,” the spokesperson said. “As we continue to learn from these interactions, we are adjusting its responses to create coherent, relevant and positive answers. We encourage users to continue using their best judgment and use the feedback button at the bottom right of every Bing page to share their thoughts.”
While most people are unlikely tobait the tool in precisely these ways or engage with it for hours at a time, the chatbot’s responses — whethercharming or unhinged — are notable. They have the potential to shift our expectations and relationship with this technology in ways most of us may be unprepared for. Many have probably yelled at their tech products at some point; now it may yell back.
“The tone of the responses is unexpected but not surprising,” Lian Jye, a research director at ABI Research, told CNN. “The model does not have contextual understanding, so it merely generated the responses with the highest probability [of it being relevant]. The responses are unfiltered and unregulated, so they may end up being offensive and inappropriate.”
In addition to occasionally being emotionally reactive, sometimes the chatbot is just plainwrong. This can take the form of factual errors, which AI tools from Bing and Google have both been called out for in recent days, as well as outright “hallucinations,” as some in the industry refer to it.
When I askedBing’s AI chatbot to write a short essay about me, for example, it pulled tidbits of information from parts of the internet to provide an eerily similar but largely fabricated account of my life. Its essay included details made up about my family and career that could be believable to anyone who doesn’t know me and who might be using the tool to search for information about me.
Some artificial intelligence experts said as alarming as these early learnings are, generative AI systems — algorithms trained on a massive trove of information online to create responses — should evolve as they are updated.
“The inaccuracies are expected because it depends on the timeliness of the training data, which is often older,” Jye said. As AI is trained constantly with new data, he said it should “eventually work itself out.”
But the issue of conversing with an AI system that sometimes appears to have an unpredictable mind of its own may be something we all just have to learn to live with.
The breach may have violated certain export control regulations, the company said Wednesday in its annual report, adding that it did not believe the incident was material to its business.
The firm has reported the infraction to authorities and is now adding new “remedial measures in light of this incident,” it added.
ASML did not give further details about the episode, which it said was under internal review.
Asked about the matter on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said he was not aware of the incident.
ASML’s disclosure comes amid heightened scrutiny over who should have access to its technology.
The company is known for its prowess in making lithography machines, which uses light to print patterns on silicon. That step is crucial in the mass production of microchips.
A hot-button issue
Because of its dominance in the market, ASML has been cited by experts as a bellwether of the growing rift between China and the West over the control of advanced technology, including semiconductors.
In recent weeks, the Netherlands and Japan have joined the United States in restricting sales of some computer chip machinery to China, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters, citing unidentified sources.
ASML told CNN in a statement last month that rules were “being finalized” on export controls that could affect the company.
However, the firm said it did not expect any material impact on its financial projections for 2023, citing initial comments by government officials and market conditions. ASML had already been restricted from exporting its most advanced lithography technology to China since 2019.
Before the new measures come into effect, “it has to be detailed out and implemented into legislation, which will take time,” the firm said.
A Chinese industry group has spoken out about the reported agreement, saying it will hurt consumers and businesses alike.
In a statement Wednesday, the China Semiconductor Industry Association said “if the move becomes a reality, it will cause serious harm to the semiconductor industry in China, with detriment to the global economy.”
ASML has acknowledged that the company could face more threats as it continues to gain prominence.
In its annual report, it noted that as its visibility continued to grow, “there is a risk that this may lead to actions that may adversely impact the security of ASML or the safety of its employees.”
The company is already experiencing an increasing number of cyberattacks on its IT systems, including attempts to gain access to data, it added.
ASML has pointed to potential intellectual property infringement in China before.
In the company’s 2021 annual report, it said it had informed Chinese authorities of concerns that another firm “was actively marketing products in China that could potentially infringe on” its intellectual property rights.
ASML monitored the situation and was “ready to take legal action if appropriate,” it said at the time.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One of the most significant shifts we are witnessing is the disruption caused by evolving technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain. While they are still far from being perfectly refined, we are already seeing more significant use of AI and blockchain-based innovations across industries.
Add to this the cyclical nature of the economy — the current downturn and the inevitable headcount reductions — that are making many tech professionals, not unlike myself, wonder what their career in tech will look like five to ten years from now.
Seeing disruptive technologies
There will inevitably be a move towards simple tasks automation in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) development and design. Neural networks trained on huge data sets are set to significantly speed up and simplify the work of engineers and even replace some of those engineers to some extent.
To stay in demand, I believe it is becoming essential for tech professionals to expand their horizons, including by deepening their knowledge of higher mathematics to help improve their skill set for solving complex architectural and scaling problems. Being able to come up with creative solutions and solve tasks in unorthodox ways is already important, but the trend toward valuing out-of-the-box thinking will only intensify going forward, in my view.
The most in-demand skills in 2020, for example, were cloud computing, artificial intelligence, analytical reasoning, people management, and UX design, according to research by LinkedIn. These skills are expected to remain highly sought after as technology advances and organizations look to leverage innovation to drive growth.
However, It’s not enough to simply possess these competencies because your skills and knowledge must be continuously updated to keep pace with the ever-evolving technology landscape.
Learning new tricks
To stay ahead of the curve, tech professionals must be proactive in their own continuous learning and professional development.
For example, platforms such as Coursera, Udemy and Codecademy offer a wide variety of courses, ranging from beginner to advanced level, that can help tech professionals brush up on the latest technologies and best practices. Additionally, attending industry events and networking with peers can provide valuable insights into the latest trends and developments in the field.
Learning doesn’t have to be formal or certificate-based. The most important thing is for a person to have a thirst for knowledge, a desire and the drive to want to become a better version of themselves every day, and a good grasp of advanced mathematics and similar STEM disciplines as a strong foundation for continuing to build future skills.
Vetting soft skills
Regarding future-proofing your career in tech, I would stress that soft skills are nearly as important as hard skills or technical knowledge and abilities specific to your field. Soft skills refer to the personal attributes and qualities important for working effectively with others. These include communication, problem-solving, and leadership — all are key for future career advancement.
When interviewing candidates for positions at FunCorp, a developer of entertainment tech products, including apps for meme lovers, certain soft skills are the key to success. We look for people who enjoy creating and are not solely focused on completing the tasks set for them. We also want the type of person focused on ongoing personal development with the passion and drive to continue learning and evolving. This type of person will make sure to continue learning to make up for any gap in the hard skills they may possess.
Staying motivated
Striving to be a professional committed to ongoing personal development can go a long way. Motivating yourself to keep learning and upgrading your tech expertise can also be challenging. Luckily, several strategies can help.
Setting specific and measurable goals for yourself is a great way to stay focused and remain on track. For example, you could set a goal to complete a certain course or certification by a certain date, or aim to attend a certain number of industry events every year. Breaking larger goals into smaller, more manageable tasks can also make them less daunting.
Another effective strategy is to find a community of like-minded individuals motivated to learn and grow. Sharing progress and setbacks with them can provide a sense of accountability and motivation. Reward yourself for completing tasks or reaching milestones. Continuously remind yourself of the benefits of learning and upgrading your tech skills, such as increased job opportunities or higher pay. Setting yourself up for a brighter professional future should be a great incentive!
It’s also important to find the right learning methods that work for you, such as taking online courses, attending workshops or regularly participating in online forums relevant to your specialization. Keeping yourself updated with the latest trends and what’s happening in the industry can help you to stay motivated and engaged. But it’s also essential to take a break if you feel burnout and revisit your goals with a fresh perspective from time to time.
After all, nothing is set in stone when it comes to thinking about and planning for the future beyond 2023. Despite the recent turbulence, I believe the tech sector is still the place to be. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all other occupations. So the demand will continue to be there as long as your technical and soft skills stay current and well-aligned with ongoing technological advancements.
Facebook parent Meta conducted its biggest-ever layoffs last November, shedding about 11,000 workers. But more jobs, it appears, are about to be axed.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted in a Facebook post on Feb. 1, “We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams. When we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end.” During an earnings call that same day, he announced 2023 will be Meta’s “year of efficiency.”
While Meta workers wonder who will be deemed inefficient, the company has delayed finalizing multiple teams’ budgets, according to the Financial Times. Employees who spoke to the British paper on condition of anonymity said morale at the company was low and little work was getting done on some teams as they await abnormally slow budget decisions.
Meta declined to comment when contacted by Fortune.
“Honestly, it’s still a mess,” one employee told the FT. “The year of efficiency is kicking off with a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing.”
Other workers told the paper the next job cuts are expected next month.
Middle managers have reason to be nervous.
‘More proactive about cutting projects’
Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post, “We’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive. As part of this, we’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial, but my main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute our top priorities.”
One of those priorities is the metaverse, a largely unrealized virtual world that has underwhelmed users and could take years to become profitable, if it ever does. The company’s metaverse division, Reality Labs, notched a loss of $13.7 billion for 2022, up from a $10.2 billion loss in 2021.
Investors have tried pressuring Zuckerberg to scale back the metaverse investments, to no avail.
In December, John Carmack, a virtual reality pioneer, left his high-level consulting role at Meta, where he worked on the metaverse. He tweeted on the way out, “I have always been pretty frustrated with how things get done at FB/Meta. Everything necessary for spectacular success is right there, but it doesn’t get put together effectively.”
Slow going with the metaverse and three consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue declines, however, are not stopping stock buybacks at Meta. In its latest earnings statement, Meta said it had increased its share repurchase authorization by $40 billion, noting that last year it bought back about $28 billion.
Many tech companies that over-hired during the pandemic, as demand surged for the services, have conducted large layoffs in recent months, leading to a sense of clashing headlines as the latest U.S. jobs report shows the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.
Kevin O’Leary remembers what a disruptive force Amazon was in the early 2000s. Lucky for him, he was an early investor in the company. Now, he sees similar disruption occurring in the search business courtesy artificial intelligence and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“ChatGPT certainly is a threat to Google, and Google must know that,” the Shark Tank star told Insider in an interview published this week. About half of his own search queries, he added, are now done via ChatGPT. The “loser is Google,” he said, adding, “the A.I. search wars on are.”
O’Leary indicated he’s now mulling an opportunity to be an early investor in OpenAI, adding he’s “fortunate to be offered a piece of it.” He considers the loss-making venture’s valuation “very, very extreme”—it’s reportedly near the $30 billion mark—given how new the technology is, but he said a deal would likely close in the near future.
If he does invest, he told Insider, it’ll be a modest bet: “Either it’ll have a good outcome or it won’t, but I won’t take down the ship or sell the farm for it. I know there’s going to be a lot of competition and a lot of disruption, but I certainly like always to have a piece of the first mover.”
He favors first movers, he added, because they have a marketing advantage.
OpenAI itself has been stunned by the amount of attention ChatGPT has generated.
“We weren’t anticipating this level of excitement from putting our child in the world,” OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said this month in a Timeinterview. “We, in fact, even had some trepidation about putting it out there.”
But as angel investor Elad Gil noted last month, the rapid uptake of ChatGPT despite it being down much of the time is a good sign of product-market fit. The Google alum added that when an idea works, it tends to work very quickly, something that he’s seen repeatedly with companies he’s worked at and invested in over the years. (Gil was an early investor in Airbnb, Instacart, and Square.)
Of course, OpenAI currently faces heavy losses, not to mention enormous computing costs from all the ChatGPT users it didn’t expect. Microsoft’s large investments should help with that. And this week, the tech giant unveiled an update to its Bing search engine that incorporates ChatGPT technology.
Earlier this month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus, a $20 monthly subscription that provides faster response times and better access to the chatbot when it’s otherwise down due to traffic.
After noting the ChatGPT threat to Google, O’Leary told Insider, “The market hasn’t really punished Google stock for this. But a few quarters from now, if ChatGPT really starts to bring in significant subscriber fees, then we’ll see what happens.”
Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.
Brings more than 30 years of global defense industry experience to support the burgeoning Defense applications of Vaya’s technologies
Press Release –
Feb 9, 2023
COCOA, Fla., February 9, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Vaya Space, Inc., the green Space and Defense company and emerging leader in performance, cost and sustainability, today announced that General Robert “Abe” Abrams, USA, (Ret.) has joined Vaya Space as a senior advisor to the Board and Company to help bring Vaya Space’s new technologies to the rapidly evolving Space and Defense landscape.
Vaya Space is a new entrant to both the Space and Defense sectors, and using patented technologies has completed more than 100 successful test fires and its first successful suborbital launch. Vaya’s technologies enable performance, cost, safety, and reliability breakthroughs that can disrupt both the Space launch and Defense strategic and tactical missile markets. Amongst other transformations, Vaya’s missile engine technologies enable variable trajectory and signature, rapid deployment, and insensitivity for storability and supply chain security. Vaya expects to deliver tactical payloads at ranges exceeding 1,000 miles with precision accuracy, and do so at a substantially lower cost.
Gen. Abrams commented, “I am very selective in what I do in my post active duty life and who I do it with. The principal reason I decided to support Vaya was because I became convinced that their technologies coupled with their excellent leadership team can make a tremendous difference for our country. Implementation of their technologies has the potential to bring a completely new and much needed capability for strategic and tactical missiles which can provide our forces decisive overmatch now and well into the future.”
Vaya’s engine fuel grains are made from >99% recycled thermoplastics and eliminate approximately 20 metric tons of plastics from the earth per launch, converting into water vapor and CO2 as their rockets ascend into space. Over the past six months Vaya has been recognized by the White House for its leadership with its apprenticeship program, was recognized for its sustainability leadership by the Green Organisation at the House of Parliament in London, and has earned more than $100 million in commitments from satellite customers.
Sid Gutierrez, Chairman of the Board of Vaya, former Space Shuttle Commander and the first US-born Hispanic Astronaut commented, “My passion for a safer and better way to Space was the genesis of Vaya. We believe we have achieved this objective, and in our quest we have also developed breakthroughs for multiple Defense applications. Partnering with Gen. Abrams will bring awareness within the Defense community of Vaya’s new capabilities, and accelerate the process of strengthening the warfighting abilities of our forces.”
Additional information can be found at vayaspace.com.
About Vaya Space, Inc.
Vaya Space is a green Space and Defense company based on the Space Coast of Florida. Vaya has developed breakthrough and now patented technologies that transform the performance and cost of rockets for access to Space, and missiles for Defense applications. Vaya gained momentum in 2017 when Sid Gutierrez, former Space Shuttle Commander and NASA’s first US-born Hispanic astronaut became Chairman of the Board. Launch Control’s final words to Sid at liftoff were “Vaya con Dios” and following this inspiration Vaya Space was born.
Vaya is a purpose driven, sustainability focused, and environmentally conscious enterprise dedicated to making a difference for our country and for humankind. Vaya Space competes in the small satellite launch and military munitions sectors. Vaya’s unique and patented rocket engines overcome the costs and other issues associated with traditional legacy rocket and missile technologies to transform the performance, safety and affordability of the industry, and its engines utilize more than 20 metric tons of recycled thermoplastics per launch.
BUCHAREST, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The woman from Moldova thought it was love. Internet celebrity Andrew Tate had offered her a new life. They’d even discussed marriage. He asked for only one thing: absolute loyalty.
“You must understand that once you are mine, you will be mine forever,” Tate told her on Feb. 4 last year in one of dozens of WhatsApp messages cited by Romanian prosecutors who allege he trafficked and sexually exploited several women.
Tate, an influencer with millions of online followers, urged the Moldovan woman to join him in Romania. “Nothing bad will happen,” he reassured her on Feb. 9. “But you have to be on my side.”
The following month, Romanian prosecutors say, Tate raped the woman twice in the country while seeking to enlist her in a human-trafficking operation focused on making pornography for the online platform OnlyFans, a site that allows people to sell explicit videos of themselves.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
The allegations and messages are included in a previously unpublished court document, dated Dec. 30 and reviewed by Reuters, which paints the most detailed picture yet of the illicit business allegedly run by Tate, a former kickboxing world champion, and his brother Tristan.
They came to light following the arrest of the brothers on Dec. 29 on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
British-American Andrew Tate, 36, who’s been based mainly in Romania since 2017, and his 34-year-old brother have denied all the allegations against them. Reuters was unable to reach them in police detention for comment.
In response to questions, their attorney Eugen Vidineac said he couldn’t publicly confirm or deny information about the case while the investigation was ongoing. Romania’s anti-organized crime unit also said its prosecutors couldn’t comment on the probe.
Reuters translated the WhatsApp exchanges with the Moldovan women – which appear in Romanian in the court document – back into English, their original language. While accurate, the translation of the Romanian version provided by prosecutors may not be identical to the initial wording.
The brothers used deception and intimidation to bring six women under their control and “transform them into slaves”, prosecutors said in the document. The 61-page file, produced by Bucharest court officials, comprises minutes of a hearing when a judge extended the Tates’ detention plus evidence submitted by the prosecution.
Attorney Vidineac said the brothers’ alleged victims weren’t mistreated, but “lived off the backs of the famous Tates”, according to the court document. “They were joyful and nobody was forcing them to do these things,” he added.
Vidineac acknowledged in the document that Andrew Tate and the Moldovan woman had sex but he said it was consensual and accused her of fabricating the rape claims.
Reuters couldn’t independently corroborate the version of events provided by prosecutors or the defence lawyer, and was unable to reach the six women named in the document for comment. The news organization does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual crimes unless they have chosen to release their names.
Two of the women told Romanian TV station Antena3 on Jan. 11 that they’re not victims and the Tates are innocent. The station identified them only by first names, Beatrice and Iasmina.
“You cannot list me as a victim if I say I am not one,” Beatrice told the station. The four other women, including the Moldovan woman, haven’t publicly commented.
ONLYFANS: WE’VE MONITORED TATE
The allegations facing Tate have put intense focus on a self-described misogynist who has built an online fanbase, particularly among young men, by promoting a lavish, hyper-macho image of driving fast cars and dating beautiful women.
In 2022, he was the world’s eighth-most Googled person, outranked only by figures such as Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Vladimir Putin, according to Google’s analysis.
Prosecutors say the Tates controlled the victims’ OnlyFans’ accounts and earnings amounting to tens of thousands of euros, underlining concerns among some human rights groups about the potential for the exploitation of women on such platforms.
Reuters couldn’t verify the existence of the alleged victims’ OnlyFans accounts.
UK-based OnlyFans has 150 million users who pay “creators” monthly fees of varying amounts for their content, much of it erotic or pornographic, but also in areas such as fitness training and music.
The company, whose 1.5 million creators can earn anything from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands a month, says on its website it’s “the safest digital media platform”. It was founded in 2016 and grew rapidly during COVID-19 lockdowns.
An OnlyFans spokesperson told Reuters that Andrew Tate “has never had” a creator account or received payments. They said OnlyFans had been monitoring him since early 2022 and taken “proactive measures” to stop him posting or monetizing content, without elaborating on the reasons for the scrutiny or the steps taken.
The spokesperson added that creators as a whole underwent extensive identification checks and that all content was reviewed by the platform, which worked closely with law enforcement. Vidineac declined to comment about the measures taken by OnlyFans against Tate.
HOW I GET WOMEN TO LOVE ME
Andrew Tate’s image has been stoked by a series of contentious comments. He’s compared women to dogs and said they bear some responsibility for being raped. His remarks got him banned from Facebook, Instagram and other leading social media platforms last year.
A spokesperson for Meta said Tate was banned in August 2022 from its Facebook and Instagram platforms for violating its policies, which forbid “gender-based hate, any threats of sexual violence, or threats to share non-consensual intimate imagery”.
Tate said on a podcast in 2021 that he had started a webcam business in Britain that had peaked with 75 women working for him earning $600,000 a month – a sum Reuters was unable to independently verify. He didn’t elaborate in the podcast on what the women did.
Up until last month, his website offered a course costing more than $400 that promised to teach “every step to building a girl who is submissive, loyal and in love with you”.
“THAT IS MY SKILL. To extremely efficiently get women in love with me,” he said on the website. The pages about the course, reviewed by Reuters, were removed in January.
In a separate YouTube video aimed at men who want to make money by putting women on OnlyFans, Tate called the platform “the greatest hustle in the world”. The original date of the video, which was uploaded multiple times, is unclear.
In the court document, lawyer Vidineac said Tate’s online persona was a “virtual character” constructed to gain followers and make money, and had “nothing to do with the real man”.
Tate’s Twitter account, reinstated in November, one month after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform, protests his innocence to his 4.8 million followers. “They have arrested me to ‘look’ for evidence … which they will not find because it doesn’t exist,” said a Jan. 15 post.
AMERICAN WOMAN ‘VERY AFRAID’
Tate first met the Moldovan woman virtually on Instagram in January 2022 before they met in person in London the following month, and by March she was in Romania, prosecutors said in the court document, which includes WhatsApp exchanges between Feb. 4 and Apr. 8.
Authorities moved on the brothers on Apr. 11, when police raided one of their properties in Bucharest on suspicion that an American woman was being held there against her will.
According to prosecutors, the American woman – another of the alleged six victims – met Tristan Tate online in November 2021, then in person in Miami the following month. They said he lured her to Romania by expressing “false feelings” for her and promising a serious relationship, paid for her plane ticket and said he could help her earn “100K a month” on OnlyFans.
Tristan Tate picked her up at Bucharest airport in a Rolls-Royce on April 5 2022, and took her back to his house, which had two armed guards, the court document said.
He told her she wasn’t a prisoner but said the guards wouldn’t let her outside without his permission, it added. He said it was dangerous for her to leave “because he had enemies”.
There were cameras all over the house, which Tristan Tate monitored remotely, prosecutors said in the document. He once messaged the American to say he could see where she was and what she was doing, they said.
When she moved to another house with four of Andrew Tate’s “girlfriends” she was allowed outside but only if accompanied by other women, said the prosecutors, adding that she was “very afraid” of the brothers.
In the document, Tate’s lawyer said the American woman had a mobile phone, internet access and the freedom to leave the house as she pleased.
The woman has not spoken publicly about the Tates or the prosecutors’ allegations.
Romanian prosecutors said on Jan. 15 that as part of their probe into the suspects they had seized assets worth almost $4 million, including a fleet of luxury cars from Andrew Tate’s compound on the outskirts of Bucharest.
‘SEXUALLY EXPLOITATIVE CONTENT’
The detention of the Tates, along with two Romanian women accused of working for them, has been extended to Feb. 27. Their appeal against that detention was rejected by a court on Wednesday. A judge can order their detention for up to 180 days while the investigation is ongoing, which means it could stretch into late June.
The suspected accomplices, Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu, controlled the six victims’ OnlyFans and TikTok accounts on behalf of the Tates, skimming off half the revenue and fining women for being late or sniffling on camera, said prosecutors.
The pair threatened to beat the women up if they did not do their job, according to the court document.
Naghel and Radu have denied all the allegations against them. Vidineac, who also represents Naghel, and Radu’s lawyer said they couldn’t comment on the case.
The Tates’ operation put women on TikTok to drive traffic to OnlyFans because of its lucrative subscriptions, prosecutors said. Reuters couldn’t independently verify the existence of the TikTok accounts in question.
TikTok said in a statement that Andrew Tate was banned from its platform, and that it had been taking action against videos and accounts related to him that violated its prohibition against “sexually exploitative content”.
The company declined to comment further, citing Romania’s ongoing investigation.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie, Octav Ganea and Andrew R.C. Marshall. Editing by Jason Szep and Pravin Char
The memory-chip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings.
And yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the $160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There’s a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders, and product prices have plunged.
“The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said Avril Wu, senior research vice president at TrendForce. “This downturn has proved everybody was wrong.”
The unprecedented crisis isn’t just wiping out cash at industry leaders SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc., but also destabilizing their suppliers, denting Asian economies that rely on tech exports, and forcing the few remaining memory players to form alliances or even consider mergers.
It’s been a swift descent from the industry’s pandemic sales surge, which was fueled by shoppers outfitting home offices and snapping up computers, tablets and smartphones. Now consumers and businesses are holding off on big purchases as they cope with inflation and rising interest rates. Makers of those devices, the main buyers of memory chips, are suddenly stuck with stockpiles of components and have no need for more.
Already, Samsung Electronics Co. and its rivals are losing money on every chip they produce. Their collective operating losses are projected to hit a record $5 billion this year. Inventories — a critical indicator of demand for memory chips — have more than tripled to record levels, reaching three to four months’ worth of supply.
Samsung looks to be the only one that will escape relatively unscathed, thanks to its heft and diversified business, but even the South Korean giant’s semiconductor division is headed toward losses. Investors will get a sense of the damage this week when the company reports quarterly earnings.
The industry is suffering from a unique combination of circumstances — a pandemic hangover, the war in Ukraine, historic inflation and supply-chain disruptions — that have made the slump much worse than a regular cyclical downturn.
Micron, the last remaining US memory chipmaker, has responded aggressively to plummeting demand. The company said late last month that it will cut its budget for new plants and equipment in addition to reducing output. The rate at which the industry rights itself will depend on how quickly the company’s counterparts make similar moves, Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra said.
“We have to get through this cycle,” he said. “I believe the trend of cross-cycle growth and profitability is still in place.”
Over in South Korea, Hynix has also slashed investments and scaled back output. The company’s inventory glut is partly the result of its acquisition of Intel Corp.’s flash memory business — a deal struck before the industry’s decline.
All eyes are now on memory-chip king Samsung, which has thus far said little about the industry’s near-term prospects. The world’s largest maker of chips, smartphones and display panels is set to report fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, followed by a call during which analysts are likely to question its capacity management plans.
The Korean tech giant has typically continued to spend during downturns, hoping to exit them with superior production and higher profitability when demand picks up. This time around, the market has been betting the company will tighten its chip supply, lifting its stock price in recent weeks.
Chip-manufacturing equipment maker Lam Research Corp. said last week that it’s seeing an unprecedented reduction in orders as memory customers cut and postpone spending. Executives at the company, which counts Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron as its top customers, declined to predict when such actions might help the memory market rebound.
“We’ve seen extraordinary measures within the memory market,” Lam CEO Tim Archer said on a call with investors. “It’s at levels that we haven’t seen in 25 years.”
It’s always been difficult for memory makers to handle spikes and troughs in demand. Bringing new factories online takes years and billions of dollars, so it’s hard to get the timing right.
The risks have prompted companies in the industry to get more conservative. They’re more focused on profitability than trying to grow quickly and gain market share.
That’s especially true for so-called DRAM chips, where the three dominant suppliers — Samsung, Hynix and Micron — are reducing supply, said Shin Jinho, co-CEO of Midas International Asset Management. The other major part of the memory market, NAND chips, is more fragmented and is set to go through a more severe battle as the many contenders fight for survival, he said.
“The NAND market is experiencing fierce competition and the recovery will follow one quarter after the DRAM market recovery,” Shin said. “If the situation gets longer, eventually, we are going to see consolidation in the NAND market.”
The memory industry had mergers during previous downturns, and this one may be no exception. NAND makers Western Digital Corp. and Kioxia Holdings Corp. are progressing in their deal talks, people familiar with the matter said this month. Still, the companies already manufacture jointly and thus a merger won’t necessarily lead to reduced output.
The longer-term question is when customers’ demand will bounce back. China’s recent exit from Covid-related restrictions could be one catalyst to help the industry, as gadget makers will be able to bring manufacturing plants back to normal rhythm, said Greg Roh, head of technology research at HMC Investment & Securities.
“There will be pent-up demand for gadgets as well,” Roh said. “Our view is that memory will recover in the second half.”
Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.
This event is a great opportunity for designers to showcase their talents and for the public to see the potential of AI in the fashion industry. It will also be a great opportunity for sponsors and fashion industry leaders to see the potential of AI in fashion and to support and invest in the industry.
We are currently in talks with fashion industry leaders to build a respected judge panel and bringing in big-name sponsors to offer cash prizes to the winners. We are also planning to have the event taking place right after the Fashion Week calendar (around March 17th) to attract more attention to the event.
The final cut-off date for submissions is set for March 1st and the date for the event have not yet been determined, but we will be providing more information and updates on the upcoming event in the next weeks.
It’s time to level up your style game and join us in this journey of AI Fashion Week, where the future of fashion will be showcased and the potential of AI in the fashion industry will be discovered. Stay tuned for more information on sponsors, jury, and participants.
Dan Roselli and Sara Garcés-Roselli (right and left of screen) are the founders of RevTech Labs, which offers an accelerator program for Charlotte startups. “Charlotte has one of the steepest growth curves for entrepreneurs in the country,” said Dan, pictured here with the program’s most recent cohort.
In early January, a Charlotte reddit user with an entrepreneurial streak and software development experience was searching for a sense of community beyond the crowded tables and pastry crumbs of the local coffee shop.
“Is there any startup culture in Charlotte?” They asked via the r/Charlotte reddit thread, adding that they mostly pursued side projects while sitting at cafes. “It’s a lot of fun and fulfilling, but a bit lonely.”
Charlotte’s startup scene has been steadily growing for the better part of two decades: Organizations like RevTech Labs and Carolina Fintech Hub sprung up to support new businesses. Companies like LendingTree and AvidXchange proved homegrown firms could make it big.
Big names like Robinhood and Credit Karma targeted the city for key expansions — boosting the city’s profile as a growing tech town even if some of those plans didn’t pan out.
But Charlotte’s startup scene still has a ways to go to catch up to other cities of similar size, local tech leaders told The Charlotte Observer in recent interviews. And the city’s deep roots in risk-averse industries — enough to be nicknamed Banktown — doesn’t always mix with a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The Observer spoke with three local leaders to ask them: Does Charlotte have a ‘startup culture’? And if not, what do we need to build it? Here’s what they told us.
It’s tough to access startup funding in Charlotte
Ten years ago, Charlotte didn’t have much of a startup scene at all, said Juan Garzón, managing director of Charlotte Inno and executive director of the entrepreneurial networking event PitchBreakfast.
“You would have a few entrepreneurs who’d get together,” said Garzón, who also works as entrepreneurship and innovation lead for the city of Charlotte. “If you were really early, there wasn’t a whole lot of community.”
Charlotte now has a reputation for launching fintech companies, Garzón said. But there’s also a growing number of health technology firms, thanks to its two large hospital systems, and investments like The Pearl, Atrium Health’s new $1.5 billion innovation district that will house a new medical school in midtown Charlotte.
“I’m hoping that some of the energy that we’ve seen around FinTech, we’re going to see the same energy around health tech after the (district) opens up,” Garzón said.
But there’s one part of a startup culture that is still lacking in the city, he noted: access to capital.
“We have a lot of money in Charlotte,” he said. “But that money is harder to access than it would be if you’re in a community where capital is in the hands of people with a tech or more entrepreneurial background.”
But Charlotte’s expanding beyond fintech startups
Stefan Friend is executive director of Tabbris, a coworking space and incubator in South End. He agreed that access to funding needs to grow — and that wariness from would-be investors can play a role.
“There’s a lot more hesitation and apprehension around making that extremely risky bet,” he said.
But the size and diversity of startup companies in Charlotte is growing, he added: “We’re not only putting out fintech companies anymore.” The city could soon rival that of more well-known tech towns, he said.
“Another 10 years from now, I really believe that Charlotte will be in the same breadth as Atlanta or Boston on the East Coast,” he said. “We have the foundation to get there.”
‘One of the steepest growth curves’
Back when husband and wife Dan Roselli and Sara Garcés-Roselli founded uptown’s Packard Place, one of Charlotte’s first coworking spaces, the entrepreneurial community here was so small that “you could attend each event personally,” Dan Roselli told the Observer.
“If a Charlotte entrepreneur got funding, it was most likely from a (venture capital fund) in New York or San Francisco,” Dan Roselli said. “And the first question they would ask is: ‘When are you moving to New York or San Francisco?”
When Dan Roselli and Sara Garcés-Roselli founded Packard Place, pictured here in this 2017 file photo, Charlotte’s startup scene a fraction of the size it is now, Dan Roselli said. Ely Portillo
But over the next 10 years, the number of new companies skyrocketed in the city. “We were starting from a dead stop, and it just took off,” Dan Roselli said. “Charlotte has one of the steepest growth curves for entrepreneurs in the country.”
“I think people are finally starting to realize that bringing startups to your community is also a huge form of economic development,” Sara Garcés-Roselli added.
Dan Roselli acknowledged that Charlotte is still a city where most people make their money avoiding risk. But, he said, success stories like AvidXchange are beginning to change that narrative. The Charlotte ‘unicorn’ — a name given to a privately held company with a valuation greater than $1 billion — went public in a $660 million IPO last October.
Those companies may inspire a new generation of potential investors, Dan Roselli said: those willing to bet on a small local firm one day earning huge returns.
“That cycle picks up momentum, but we’re early on. That’s a 20, 30, or 40-year cycle. We’re still in our adolescence,” he said. “We are incredibly bullish on the entrepreneurial and tech community here.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2023 5:50 AM.
Related stories from Charlotte Observer
Hannah Lang covers banking, finance and economic equity for The Charlotte Observer. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Triangle Business Journal and the Greensboro News & Record. She studied business journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and grew up in the same town as her alma mater.
New check marks on Elon Musk’s Twitter verifying the accounts of Taliban leaders have vanished following “outrage” over the “Twitter Blue” policy, according to media reports.
The check marks began disappearing after a story early this week by the BBC reporting that the Taliban was paying for the verification under Musk’s new scheme to make money.
It was unclear if the check marks were removed by Twitter, or by the Taliban, because of the ensuing controversy, reported Business Insider.
The check marks are supposed to verify the identities of those with Twitter profiles (though counterfeit profiles have also been mistakenly “verified”).
Before Musk purchased Twitter last October for $44 billion, the blue ticks indicated “active, notable, and authentic accounts of public interest” verified by Twitter, and could not be purchased.
But now subscribers to Musk’s new Twitter Blue system — which costs $8 a month — benefit from “priority ranking in search, mentions and replies,” according to the social media platform.
soon, subscribers with the blue checkmark will get priority ranking in search, mentions, and replies to help lower the visibility of scams, spam and bots
One of those “verified” Twitter users was Hedayatullah Hedayat, the head of the Taliban’s “access to information” department, with 187,000 followers, according to the BBC. Top Taliban media official Abdul Haq Hammad, with 170,000 followers, was also “checked” earlier this week, according to The Guardian.
Twitter blue check sported by Taliban leader Hedayatullah Hedayat.
Muhammad Jalal, who has described himself as a Taliban official, praised Musk last Monday, saying he was “making Twitter great again.” the BBC reported.
The Taliban took over the Twitter accounts of the old Afghanistan government after they seized power in August 2021, according to The Guardian.
Twitter, which no longer has a media office, could not be reached for comment.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/T56E3FNSORKOBEPUJL3BUXJ46Q.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg "Dan Roselli and Sara Garcés-Roselli (right and left of screen) are the founders of RevTech Labs, which offers an accelerator program for Charlotte startups. “Charlotte has one of the steepest growth curves for entrepreneurs in the country,” said Dan, pictured here with the program’s most recent cohort.")
