Adam Neumann has raised $100m at a $2.5bn valuation for a residential property business resembling WeWork's model, and Jack Kuveke says venture investors back him because they do not really care about criticism.
Jack Kuveke says Deel placed an ex-Rippling employee inside Rippling who took sales and marketing information from Slack channels, and says the Deel CEO then fled to Dubai.
Pablo Srugo says OpenAI's $40bn raise is the largest private tech deal on record, yet valuations are wild but not so wild that they are wrong.
Adam Neumann Raises $100 Million for WeWork-Style Housing Venture
Funding and deals
Adam Neumann's housing venture. The residential property business, modeled on WeWork, raised $100m at a $2.5bn valuation, with Andreessen Horowitz reported as an investor.
OpenAI. The AI lab raised $40bn, which Pablo Srugo calls the largest private tech deal on record, at a valuation he estimates near $300bn.
Thinking Machines Lab. Mira Murati's AI lab is reportedly raising a $2bn seed round at a $10bn valuation, with no product or revenue yet.
Guest interviews
Jack Kuveke, venture investor at Jabi Capital. Kuveke says investors keep backing founders like Neumann because they do not really care about criticism, and a property management play could be fine. He argues valuations have run ahead of reality, noting Tesla earned less than AirPods at a trillion dollars and Safe Superintelligence raised at $34bn with no revenue. He predicts a great depression and a dollar worth a tenth as much, and calls consumer debt unsustainable.
News
Deel accused of planting spy inside Rippling. An ex-Rippling employee paid about $62,000 a year in Ireland allegedly passed sales and marketing data from Slack to Deel, and was caught opening a trap document 480 times in 24 hours. Andreessen Horowitz backs Deel.
TechCrunch says 11X lied about customer growth. 11X's CEO and Ben Horowitz called it a flat-out lie. Pablo Srugo says 11X looks legitimate with fast-growing revenue, and Jack Kuveke disclosed that 11X sponsored 15 of his newsletters.
Mechanize launches to replace all human workers. An AI researcher started the company to replace workers everywhere. Marc Andreessen says venture capital will be the last job left, but Pablo Srugo says a founder pitching to replace VCs is not aligned with him.
Klarna and DoorDash launch monthly payments for meals. The partnership lets users split meal purchases into flexible monthly payments. Pablo Srugo says Klarna lets people travel and spend beyond what they could otherwise afford.
Sam Altman says polite ChatGPT users are worth the cost. Pablo Srugo says people typing please and thank you cost ChatGPT tens of millions of dollars, and Altman says the expense is worth it.
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