Author: Jay Wong
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Meta and AI Ads
Zuck’s vision of having AI generate marketing collateral and automatically run ads is closer to reality than most people think. Ironic that Gemini is making this process so easy, which means Meta has a clear path in making it happen. Shrimp cocktail (Fri/Sat only) from Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park. From Meta’s Q2 2024 earnings…
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Oura Ring: Using AI Image Recognition to Track Meals
My wife recently stopped using the Oura Ring and became a Fitbit user, so I became a proud owner of a new tech gadget. If you haven’t heard of the Oura Ring before, it’s a ring-like device that you wear on your finger and throughout the day, it records your biometrics data such as heart…
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Consumer GPUs Might Make Neoclouds Optional
Open Source Catches Up, and Consumer Hardware Is Ready Open-source large language models have quietly caught up to their closed-source cousins. Models like OpenAI’s gpt-oss-20B, Meta’s Llama, and many models coming out of China can now deliver reasoning, code generation, and conversational ability that would have seemed like science fiction three years ago. And they’re…
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Jony Ive’s startup, io, merges with OpenAI
Today’s big announcement in AI is the merger of Jony Ive’s startup, io, with OpenAI. Note, I’m using the term “merge” here because that’s how OpenAI is describing this transaction. This transaction would normally be considered an acquisition by most observers. After watching the video, my biggest takeaways are: Given the above, and plans to…
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April 2025 AI Financing Report
Last month, the top AI news was mostly about infrastructure and export restrictions as the trade war heated (note: Liberation Day was April 2). AI infra was dominated by Nvidia’s planned $500 B U.S. supercomputing program and the EU’s €200B initiative to fund 13 AI‑chip gigafactories, even as power‑supply constraints pushed Amazon and Microsoft to slow…
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Exploring ChatGPT Operator: A Glimpse into the Future of Agentic AI
OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Operator is an early preview of an AI agent designed to interact with the web much like a human would—navigating pages, clicking buttons, scrolling through content, and even filling out forms. This technology leverages a model known as the Computer-Using Agent (CUA) and represents a shift from passive AI responses toward proactive,…
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DeepSeek’s Wake-Up Call
Over the past month, and especially in the past 48 hours, a Chinese company called DeepSeek has been creating an unexpected divide in Silicon Valley, as industry leaders grapple with the economics of an evolving landscape. Companies like OpenAI and Google have invested billions in developing advanced AI models, only to find themselves shouldering the…
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Why Traditional Valuation Methods Fall Short for AI-native Companies
Picture this scenario: your traditional valuation methods might suggest a $100M valuation for an AI-native company, yet the market values it at $1B based on the most recent fundraise. This isn’t an isolated incident – it’s a pattern we’re seeing across the AI landscape. At Stepmark Partners, the premier investment bank dedicated to the AI…
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Software Revenue Models: The Key to Building a Successful Business
When it comes to starting a startup, figuring out your revenue model is as important as developing the product itself. A great revenue model that aligns with your customer needs can be an incredible flywheel. On the other hand, a business model that is incongruent with customer needs can lead to the startup’s closure. If…
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From Pixelated Blackberries to 4K Streaming: A View on Technological Progress
In 2008, as a young auditor at Ernst & Young, I attended my first college football game. My audit senior had won tickets and invited me along. Like many professionals at the time, I carried a company-issued Blackberry 8830 – then considered the pinnacle of “smart phone” technology. I used it to capture a video…
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