Author : zebethcontrol

Waabi unveils its first generation self-driving truck • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in autonomous trucking, Transportation, WaabiNo Comments

Autonomous trucking startup Waabi has unveiled its first generation of trucks that are purpose-built for OEM integration. The trucks are powered by the Waabi Driver, a combination of Waabi’s software, sensors and compute. Their launch signals both that Waabi is ready to verify and validate its self-driving stack and that it’s open for business. Waabi is starting out with a handful of trucks that appear to be made by Peterbuilt (although Waabi wouldn’t name its first OEM partner). In the future, the Waabi Driver will be integrated into vehicles at the factory level with no interruption to an OEM’s assembly line, according to Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO. The initial batch of trucks will be used for data collection and testing, as well as commercial pilots, said Urtasun. Waabi is testing with commercial partners today and expects to name names in the coming weeks. The startup launched last June with a vision of bringing a new generation autonomous driving to market, one that takes an AI-first approach. In February, Waabi revealed Waabi World, a closed-loop simulator that both virtually tests Waabi’s self-driving software and teaches it in real time. Urtasun believes Waabi’s training and testing strategy will enable the company to scale autonomous trucking faster than competitors. That’s in part because Waabi doesn’t have to spend as much time collecting real world data to train its models or testing its trucks in the real world. In fact, Urtasun said Waabi’s trucks, which are tested almost entirely in simulation, can reach autonomy before even interacting with real data. Waabi’s simulation technology also helped the company design a next generation truck by testing out different sensor placement on a digital twin of the vehicle itself. “The first generation that we built is actually the best placement of sensors that you can have,” Uratsun told ZebethMedia. “Typically in the industry, you will build a prototype, collect data, make your server compatible and then you will discover issues and build the next generation a year and a half, or two years later. With Waabi our hardware design is done in simulation so you already built that next generation.” The result is a truck that doesn’t look clunky or like it’s been retrofitted with sensors after the fact. The hardware is lightweight and seamlessly integrated into the body, which Urtasun says makes for a more aerodynamic design and one that’s easier to clean and maintain. “The technology is flexible on the hardware and software front, which enables us to offer the Waabi Driver for all different truck platforms and OEMs, and you can easily integrate whatever the next lidar or camera version will be superfast due to our simulator,” said Urtasun, noting that this flexibility was another reason Waabi would be able to scale quickly. While the company’s business model is still developing, the executive said Waabi will likely go to market with a driver-as-a-service model — Waabi will work with OEMs to integrate the Waabi Driver and will sell its service to fleets and shippers. Waabi is focused on solving for middle mile trucking, where it believes self-driving tech will first deploy at scale. The company recently hired Dustin Koehl as its new head of transportation, someone who has spent 16 years in the trucking industry. “We really care about bringing the customers to our journey, and something you see in the tech industry is people saying, I’ll build the technology and you will use it. But that’s not how you build a product that is really solving the pain points of the industry,” said Urtasun.

I volunteer as tribute! • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in EC Future of Work, EC Media, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Opinion, parody, Social, TwitterNo Comments

It’s not every day that an opportunity like this comes around. After working at Twitter for years, I’m finally being asked to do more with less. I’ve always wanted fewer co-workers, a manic boss, reduced communication, and non-stop chaos. And if I do well, I’ll help save the richest person alive both money and pride! Can you imagine a better offer? Let me explain. You see, there’s a man called Elon Musk. He’s very involved in a bunch of projects and doesn’t like to work in any single office. Heck, Elon doesn’t even work for just one company! He’s in charge of a bevy of concerns that keep him rather occupied. You can even track his jet as he flies about, busy as a bee. (It makes perfect sense that the leader should not have to work in an office while I am required to report to my cubicle daily — after all, the wealthy are our moral superiors!) But after he corralled a host of rich folks to invest and underwrite his hostile takeover of Twitter, things got sticky for poor Elon. He’s a big tweeter, you see, and before he owned the website, he could post whatever he wanted and get away with it. Remember that time he tweeted that he had the capital to take Tesla private? That was a tiny error, but Elon is still in charge of Tesla, collecting the lion’s share of the wealth on the backs of others. So it all came out fine!

Elon Musk, disaster artist • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Social, TwitterNo Comments

We’re at the point in the Elon Musk/Twitter debacle where the fact that it’s a shit show is our new normal, and anything that resembles a normal functioning tech company or leadership is more newsworthy than the inverse. But even as we take for granted that Musk’s rule will continue to tend towards chaos, it’s worth stepping back to look at the billionaire executive’s history of inciting catastrophe as a preferred method of doing business. Crises lead to an acute need for solutions Musk has always positioned his businesses as being intended to serve the long-term interests of humanity as a whole, and to his credit, he has always seemed to genuinely believe that to be true, a trait he shares with Superman — but also with Lex Luthor. In doing so, Musk is tapping into something often used as a unifying motivator behind great effort in disaster and alien invasion films: Namely, that if we face an existential threat, we’re more likely to face it as a unified force capable of superhuman feats. Starting with Tesla, Musk’s businesses have all been positioned as solutions to monumental problems that ultimately threaten the long-term survival of the human race. X.com, which would become PayPal, is probably the exception to that rule, but the fact that it’s an exception in more ways than one is probably much more prescriptive about everything that comes after than anything else. Tesla was intended to help humanity avoid the existential threat of climate decay — particularly at the hands of carbon emissions, by becoming the first company to effectively build electric vehicles at mass market scale. SpaceX is a different approach to the same problem — a means to “make humanity an interplanetary species” that imagines a future state in which Tesla and related climate change mitigation efforts have, at best, bought us extra time to get off this festering dirt ball and to another (even less hospitable though?) celestial body like Mars. Musk has also founded not one, but two organizations for the purposes of combatting a threat many would consider even more far-fetched, but no less existentially challenging should the worst-case scenario come to pass: namely, artificial intelligence. Aiming to take an approach to artificial general intelligence that worked more on influencing the direction of its development, Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside former YC President Sam Altman and others. While he no longer seems directly involved in that organization’s day-to-day operations (he left the board in 2018), Musk also later founded Neuralink, a startup focused on the more ‘practical’ (insofar as the word has any meaning in this context) application of creating an implantable brain computer to help people augment their intelligence in a bid to keep pace with AI’s eventual presumed supergenius powers. Messes as macro- and micro-motivators As much as Musk uses looming global threats as consistent base notes that hum threateningly in the background of all his businesses, he also employs specific, immediate crises to ‘motivate’ his employees for fast (and often reckless) change. To be fair to Musk, it looks like often these crises arose from the same kind of brash hard-charging that you could say allowed him to break his way into businesses like the automotive and aerospace industries, where entrenched interests and high-costs have typically meant newcomers didn’t last long. Musk has specific intelligence and talents that have contributed to his success, but preparedness and planning aren’t among them, based on my longtime observation of his career. Some leaders, as they proceed in their career, seek to shore up their shortcomings through training and self-improvement: Musk, I think, saw the power that chaos creates and chose to go in a different direction, frequently architecting the disasters that prompt abrupt transformations and fire-drill urgency in his own teams — and that further his business interests when it comes to public policy, too. Author and tech industry critic Paris Marx famously pointed out that much of Musk’s hyping of his proposed hyperloop technology was actually about defraying support for the high-speed rail project in California, framing much of his work in transportation as amounting to attempts to “stifle alternatives” to individual car ownership, and by extension, Tesla. Perhaps the most insidious (but also arguably effective) way that Musk wields disaster as a motivator is in moving his employees to action. The Tesla Model 3 production process is a prime example: Musk himself described it as “production hell” in the early days, and was frequently found sleeping on factory floors while trying to rally his workforce around the challenges they faced. But much of the challenge was down to a decision on Musk’s part to eschew a traditional auto assembly line approach in favor of ultra-dense and ultimately unworkable automated robotic assembly units. On its surface, that was a big bet that didn’t quite pay off despite Musk’s best efforts. A more critical observer might argue, though, that Musk chose a much riskier path to the detriment of his workforce because he knew he’d be able to recoup a lot more sweat equity once they were in crunch mode regardless of the outcome of the automated play. Twitter: Elon’s calamity masterpiece Elon’s piece-de-resistance so far has to be Twitter, however, when it comes to causing massive problems and then putting added responsibility on people under his supervision. From the start, when he cleared house by laying off half the workforce (with predictable ripples in terms of knock-on infrastructure effects, not unlike when Thanos disappeared half the Marvel cinematic universe) he’s being sowing chaos. For the past couple of weeks since then, it’s seemed like he’s been introducing new disasters almost daily, including sprint product introductions (and rollbacks), sudden reversals in the company’s work-from-home policies, and just today, an ultimatum essentially promising those who remain significant overwork. Musk clearly thrives in a chaotic milieu, and Twitter is the best example yet of him architecting the landscape exactly to his preferred habitat. In the process, he’s also revealed much more about

Microsoft and Nvidia team up to build new Azure-hosted AI supercomputer • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in AI, Enterprise, Microsoft, nvidia, Robotics & AI, supercomputerNo Comments

Roughly two years ago, Microsoft announced a partnership with OpenAI, the AI lab with which it has a close commercial relationship, to build what the tech giant called an “AI Supercomputer” running in the Azure cloud. Containing over 285,000 processor cores and 10,000 graphics cards, Microsoft claimed at the time that it was one of the largest supercomputer clusters in the world. Now, presumably to support even more ambitious AI workloads, Microsoft says it’s signed a “multi-year” deal with Nvidia to build a new supercomputer hosted in Azure and powered by Nvidia’s GPUs, networking and AI software for training AI systems. “AI is fueling the next wave of automation across enterprises and industrial computing, enabling organizations to do more with less as they navigate economic uncertainties,” Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and AI group, said in a statement. “Our collaboration with Nvidia unlocks the world’s most scalable supercomputer platform, which delivers state-of-the-art AI capabilities for every enterprise on Microsoft Azure.” Details were hard to come by at press time. But in a blog post, Microsoft and Nvidia said that the upcoming supercomputer will feature hardware like Nvidia’s Quantum-2 400Gb/s InfiniBand networking technology and recently-detailed H100 GPUs. Current Azure instances offer previous-gen Nvidia A100 GPUs paired with Quantum 200Gb/s InfiniBand networking. Notably, the H100 — the flagship of Nvidia’s Hopper architecture — ships with a special “Transformer Engine” to accelerate machine learning tasks and — at least according to Nvidia — delivers between 1.5 and 6 times better performance than the A100. It’s also less power-hungry, offering the same performance as the A100 with up to 3.5 times better energy efficiency. One of the first industrial-scale machines to sport H100 GPUs, the Lenovo-built Henri system operated by the Flatiron Institute in New York City, topped the list of this year’s most efficient supercomputers. As part of the Microsoft collaboration, Nvidia says that it’ll use Azure virtual machine instances to research advances in generative AI, or the self-learning algorithms that can create text, code, images, video or audio. (Think along the lines of OpenAI’s text-generating GPT-3 and image-producing DALL-E 2.) Meanwhile, Microsoft will optimize its DeepSpeed library for new Nvidia hardware, aiming to reduce computing power and memory usage during AI training workloads, and work with Nvidia to make the company’s stack of AI workflows and software development kits available to Azure enterprise customers. Why Nvidia would opt to use Azure instances over its own in-house supercomputer, Selene, isn’t entirely clear; the company’s already tapped Selence to train generative AI like GauGAN2, a text-to-image generation model that creates art from basic sketches. Evidently, Nvidia anticipates that the scope of the AI systems that it’s working with will eventually surpass Selene’s capabilities. “AI technology advances as well as industry adoption are accelerating. The breakthrough of foundation models has triggered a tidal wave of research, fostered new startups and enabled new enterprise applications,” Manuvir Das, VP of enterprise computing at Nvidia, said in a statement. “Our collaboration with Microsoft will provide researchers and companies with state-of-the-art AI infrastructure and software to capitalize on the transformative power of AI.” The insatiable demand for powerful AI training infrastructure has led to an arms race of sorts among cloud and hardware vendors. Just this week, Cerabras, which has raised over $720 million in venture capital to date at an over-$4 billion valuation, unveiled a 13.5-million core AI supercomputer called Andromeda it claims can achieve more than 1 exaflop of AI compute. Google and Amazon continue to invest in their own proprietary solutions, offering custom-designed chips — e.g. TPUs and Trainium — for accelerating AI training in the cloud. The push for more powerful hardware will continue for the foreseeable future. A recent study found that the compute requirements for large-scale AI models has been doubling at an average rate of 10.7 months between 2016 and 2022. And OpenAI once estimated that, if GPT-3 were to be trained on a single Nvidia Tesla V100 GPU, it would take around 355 years.

Microsoft’s SQL Server 2022 is all about Azure • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in cloud connection, database, developers, Enterprise, Microsoft, on-premises database, sql server, SQL Server 2022No Comments

Microsoft today released SQL Server 2022, the latest version of its database software, which originally launched more than 33 years ago. Microsoft describes this release as the “most Azure-enabled release of SQL Server yet” and with connections to Azure Synapse Link for enabling real-time analytics over the database, Azure Purview for data governance and disaster recovery with the help of Azure SQL Managed Instance, this release is, in many ways, the culmination of the cloud-connection groundwork the team started quite a few years ago. “From the very beginning, the vision [for SQL Server] really was about — databases were very complex — how do you make that extremely simple? And in many ways, I think that has been a key reason why it lasted for so long and how we’ve evolved it as well,” Ran Kumar, Microsoft’s corporate VP for Azure Data, told me. “One of the big things that I think about with SQL Server 2022 is that we’ve made it completely cloud-connected to Azure.” He noted that while the migration of on-prem workloads is happening, Microsoft’s customers are all moving at very different speeds and some, for a multitude of reasons, may never move to the cloud at all. That, he argues, is why the company always bet on a hybrid approach, but it is also why a lot of customers started asking about how they could get the value of being in the cloud without actually having to move all of their data to it. “That was really the key thesis of why we invested in making this into a cloud release,” Kumar said. Image Credits: Microsoft A good example here is the new disaster recovery function that allows users to replicate their data in SQL Managed Instance on Azure and use that as a backup for their main on-premises SQL Server, which should make it easy to fail over to that when the main server goes down. Kumar also noted that with Synapse Link, SQL Server users can now run real-time analytics over their database without having to set up a complex infrastructure. “All you need to do is check a box and say: ‘replicate this data in near real time.’ It lands it into Synapse and you can have your Power BI report that’s reading that data and that whole pipeline is just built for you,” he said. And for companies that do indeed have a hybrid setup, support for the Purview data governance service now enables them to set their policies, no matter whether the data resides in SQL Server in the cloud or on premises. In addition to the work on the new cloud-connected capabilities, the team also, of course, worked on improving the database’s overall performance, stability and security posture. At the core of that work, at least for this release, was the database’s intelligent query processing engine, which can now optimize queries in a number of more complex scenarios, for example. Also interesting is a new pay-as-you-go billing model for SQL server through Azure Arc, Microsoft’s platform for managing cloud and on-premises resources. Using a connection to Azure Arc, which is part of the SQL Server 2022 setup process, on-premises users can now also opt for cloud-enabled billing to manage consumption spikes or for ad hoc use cases. As Kumar noted, SQL Server usage, despite all of the competition available today, continues to grow (though in part, that’s driven by existing customers expanding their usage). The new edition of SQL Server is now generally available, including the free Developer and Express editions.

New code suggests Twitter is reviving its work on encrypted DMs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Apps, dms, Elon Musk, encryption, Security, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Under Elon Musk, Twitter may be reviving a project that would bring end-to-end encryption to its Direct Messaging system. Work appears to have resumed on the feature in the latest version of the Android app, according to independent researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who spotted the changes to Twitter’s code While Musk himself recently expressed interest in making Twitter DMs more secure, Twitter itself had abandoned its earlier efforts in this space after prototyping an encrypted “secret conversations” feature back in 2018. Had the encrypted DM’s feature launched, it would have allowed Twitter to better challenge other secure messaging platforms like Signal or WhatsApp. But work on the project stopped and Twitter never publicly explained why — nor had it commented on the prototype Wong had also found being developed in the app years ago. Now, Wong says she’s seen work on encrypted DM’s resume, tweeting out a screenshot of Twitter’s code which references encryption keys and their use in end-to-end encrypted conversations. Another screenshot shows a “Conversation key,” which the app explains is a number generated by the user’s encryption keys from the conversation. “If it matches the number in the recipient’s phone, end-to-end encryption is guaranteed,” the message reads. In response to Wong’s tweets, Musk replied with a winking face emoji — an apparent confirmation, or at least what stands in for one these days, given that Twitter laid off its communications staff and no longer responds to reporters’ requests for comment. Unlike the other projects Musk’s Twitter has in the works, like a relaunch of the Twitter Blue subscription now due out later this month, end-to-end encryption is something that cannot– and should not — be rushed out the gate. Meta, for example, took years to fully roll out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Messenger, after having first tested the features in 2016. It wasn’t until this summer that Meta announced it would finally expand its E2EE test to individual Messenger chats. The company explained the delay to launch was, in part, due to the need to address concerns from child safety advocates who had warned the changes could shield abusers from detection. Meta also intended to use A.I. and machine learning to scan non-encrypted parts of its platform, like user profiles and photos, for other signals that could indicate malicious activity. Plus, it needed to ensure that its abuse reporting features would continue to work in an E2EE environment. In short, beyond the technical work required to introduce E2EE itself, there are complicating factors that should be taken into consideration. If Musk announces encrypted DMs in a compressed timeframe, it would raise concerns about how secure and well-built the feature may be. Plus, with Twitter’s 50% workforce reduction and the departure of key staff — including chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who would understand the cryptological challenges of such a project — it’s unclear if the remaining team has the expertise to tackle such a complex feature in the first place. Musk, however, seems to believe encryption is the right direction for Twitter’s DM product, having recently tweeted “the goal of Twitter DMs is to superset Signal.” And, in response to a user’s question about whether Twitter would merge with telecommunication or become a WhatsApp replacement, Musk responded simply that “X will be the everything app.” “X” here refers to Musk’s plan to transform Twitter into a “super app” that would combine payments, social networking, entertainment, and more into one singular experience. Last week, he spoke in more detail about his plans for the payments portion, suggesting Twitter could one day allow users to hold cash balances, send money to one another, and even offer high-yield money market accounts.

Microsoft Teams now lets you challenge colleagues to a game of Minesweeper or Solitaire • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Apps, Enterprise, Gaming, Microsoft, Microsoft TeamsNo Comments

With remote or hybrid work going nowhere any time soon, Microsoft today announced new social gaming functionality inside its Teams productivity and collaboration platform. Available to Teams Enterprise and Education subscribers only, the new “Games for Work” app allows colleagues to challenge each other to a game of Minesweeper, Wordament, Icebreaker, and even Solitaire, a classic card game familiar to anyone who has used Windows from 1990 onwards. Microsoft said that each game — including Solitaire — has a multiplayer option for up to 250 players, with support for those only wishing to spectate. And given that the games are only available for paying Teams subscribers, no ads are included. The new app was developed by an Xbox Games Studio called Microsoft Casual Games. Microsoft Solitaire While baking games into what is ostensibly a business product for most people might seem counterintuitive, the logic is sound enough: workmates have long engaged in games socially at work, whether it’s table tennis or a game of cards during lunch. For remote workers, that desire to connect and interact competitively is surely still there. “Games promote creativity, collaboration and communication in powerful and unique ways, and we can’t wait to see the how the Games for Work app on Microsoft Teams inspires productivity and helps foster connections in the workplace,” noted Jill Braff, general manager of integrations and casual games at Microsoft, in a blog post. The Games for Work app integrates with Teams on desktop and mobile, with Microsoft adding that it plans to add new games in the future.

Yubo expands its real-time audio moderation technology to the U.K., Australia and Canada • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Apps, Social, YuboNo Comments

Yubo, a social livestreaming app popular with a Gen Z audience, announced today it’s expanding its audio moderation technology to the U.K., Australia and Canada. The Paris-based company first launched the technology in the U.S. earlier this year in partnership with Hive. Yubo says although the technology is still in its infancy, its has proven to be effective at detecting potential real-world risk, such as violence to others or self-harm. The audio moderation technology works by recording and automatically transcribing 10-second snippets of audio in livestreams of 10 or more people. The text is then automatically scanned using AI to detect problematic content, such as nudity or drug use. Yubo sends alert pop-ups to tell users that they’re doing something inappropriate while it’s happening. Yubo says only text that contains words or phrases that violate the app’s policies are flagged for review by Yubo’s. The incidents are then investigated in real time to determine what actions should be taken. Transcripts with no suspected violations are not reviewed and are automatically deleted after 24 hours. Transcripts that are flagged and require investigation internally or by law enforcement are stored for up to a year. “Our expansion of audio moderation technology is not only a key element of Yubo’s ever-evolving safety product roadmap, but a critical development in expanding the parameters of online safety industry-wide,” said Yubo COO Marc-Antoine Durand in a statement. “There is still a lot of progress to be made in the area of voice detection, but we are proud to be forging a path for our peers by being the first to launch audio moderation with Hive and helping make this tool more reliable and effective through this trial.” Founded in 2015, Yubo users hang out in livestreaming rooms where they can socialize, play games and make new friends. Unlike other social media platforms, there aren’t creators on the platform broadcasting to fans. Instead, Yubo’s main focus is on helping users socialize naturally. The company has managed to attract 60 million young users, which means that the stakes are high when it comes to safety in all aspects. In September, Yubo said it was nearly done verifying the age of 100% of it user base using age estimating technology. The startup originally started verifying the age of its users back in May. By building a safe community on its platform, Yubo will be able to foster engagement, which could in turn lead to increased revenue.

Amazon begins layoffs as economic woes mount • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Amazon, Hardware, layoff, LayoffsNo Comments

This week, Amazon began the process of cutting jobs across the company. Managers have begun informing employees that they have two months to find another role inside the company or accept severance, according to reports. Numerous employees have acknowledged that they were impacted by the moves via services like LinkedIn. Other reports, meanwhile, cite frustrations among the workforce that the company has not sent any companywide notifications to acknowledge the size and scope of the cuts. We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment. The news follows weeks of rumors around accelerating belt tightening led by CEO Andy Jassy. Following reports that the company was eyeing its devices division in particular, word arrived earlier this week that the company plans to lay off 10,000 – comprising roughly 3% of its corporate workforce. The figure would mark the largest “workforce reduction” ever undertaken by the e-commerce and cloud computing giant in its nearly 30-year history. Retail and human resources are also said to be impacted, along with the company’s cloud gaming service, Luna. The cuts come less than two months after Google pulled the plug on its competing service, Stadia. Last week, a spokesperson for the company told ZebethMedia, We remain excited about the future of our larger businesses, as well as newer initiatives like Prime Video, Alexa, Grocery, Kuiper, Zoox, and Healthcare. Our senior leadership team regularly reviews our investment outlook and financial performance, including as part of our annual operating plan review, which occurs in the fall each year. As part of this year’s review, we’re of course taking into account the current macro-environment and considering opportunities to optimize costs. The statement acknowledged what’s amounted to major financial headwinds for everyone from the smallest early-stage startup to the largest multinational corporation. Amazon’s devices division, which includes Echo Products, Fire Tablets and its Alexa business, was a prime candidate for the chopping block, given that it’s reportedly been operating at a $5 billion a year revenue loss. It’s been a long tail strategy to broader acceptance of its smart assistant, Alexa, but Jassy appears to be taking an especially close look at those divisions that require a lot of runaway. The company’s last mile delivery robot Scout was among the recent casualties in a broader consolidation of its robotics division. Amazon’s far from the only major tech corporation to make big cuts as it braces for economic headwinds. Last week, Meta laid off 11,000 — around 13% of the company’s entire workforce. Under the guidance of new CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has also begun laying off what could amount to thousands, while Salesforce and Stripe have grappled with their own restructuring. In addition to broader macro concerns, Amazon’s revenue has also begun to return to Earth following pandemic-fueled surges in online shopping.

Meet the startups competing at TC Sessions: Crypto • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Crypto, Galaxy Ventures, Gradient Ventures, pitch-off, Startups, TC Sessions: Crypto, TC Sessions: Crypto 2022No Comments

We’re thrilled to announce the three early-stage startups that will take the stage and go head-to-head in the pitch competition at TC Sessions: Crypto — this Thursday, November 17, in Miami. There’s still time to be in the room. Buy your pass right now to watch these founders square off in front of a live audience. They’ll have to work hard to impress our expert VC judges — Wen-Wen Lam, partner, Gradient Ventures and Will Nuelle, general partner, Galaxy Ventures. While all three startups will receive invaluable exposure to investors and media, only one will win the glory and earn an automatic place in the Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2023. ZebethMedia handpicks a cohort of 200 early-stage startups to receive a VIP experience that includes, for starters, exhibiting all three days of the show — for free — plus a shot at winning $100,000. Al right, let’s get to it. Here are the three startup contenders who are prepped and ready to compete in the TC Sessions: Crypto pitch-off. As if a pitch competition isn’t enough of a draw, consider this. At a time when convulsions in the cryptoverse have created serious uncertainty, there’s no better time or place to tap into the latest thinking and analysis from the leaders across blockchain, cryptocurrency, DeFi, NFT and web3. Just for starters, you’ll hear from: Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Coinbase Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO, OpenSea Changpeng (CZ) Zhao, founder and CEO, Binance And you do not want to miss the ZebethMedia Chain Reaction podcast — recorded live onstage. You can bet our hosts will have plenty to say about the fallout of recent events and thoughts on what comes next. TC Sessions: Crypto takes place on November 17 in Miami. Don’t miss your chance to witness a crypto pitch-off, hear the current thinking from the industry’s top leaders, gain analytical insight, and network for opportunities to grow your business. Buy your pass today, and we’ll see you in Miami. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Crypto? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.