The pandemic era taught many of us that bikes are a great way to get around cities. Doubly so if they are e-bikes, replete with batteries to help reduce the amount of sweat required to get somewhere. Swytch Technology, a startup that builds e-bike conversion kits, isn’t targeting your average cyclist in the United States…
“There’s a ton of stuff that really could be impacting the lives of everybody on Earth, that is not making it out of the lab and into practical application,” said David Van Wie, founder and chief investment officer at Aventurine Capital Group. That’s how he summarizes the problem he is trying to solve with his…
In Silicon Valley, some of the brightest minds believe a universal basic income (UBI) that guarantees people unrestricted cash payments will help them to survive and thrive as advanced technologies eliminate more careers as we know them, from white collar and creative jobs — lawyers, journalists, artists, software engineers — to labor roles. The idea…
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A Missouri government tip site for submitting complaints and concerns about gender-affirming care is down after people flooded it with fanfiction, rambling anecdotes and the “Bee Movie” script. The Missouri Attorney General’s office launched an online form for “Transgender Center Concerns” in late March, inviting those who’ve witnessed “troubling practices” at clinics that provide gender-affirming…
DVDs replacing VHS was just the beginning “Usually the best way to figure out if your crazy idea is any good is simply to try it. So that’s what we did,” Marc Randolph, Netflix’s co-founder and original CEO, That crazy idea was to send a CD through the mail to learn whether the concept of…
Silicon Valley’s quest to automate everything is unceasing, which explains its latest obsession: Auto-GPT. In essence, Auto-GPT uses the versatility of OpenAI’s latest AI models to interact with software and services online, allowing it to “autonomously” perform tasks like X and Y. But as we are learning with large language models, this capability seems to…
After weeks of truly stupid antics, Twitter has removed “government-funded media” labels on all accounts, from NPR to the Chinese state-affiliated Xinhua News. Twitter even appears to have deleted its web page explaining the “government-funded media” labels. This whole saga started when Twitter labeled NPR as “state-affiliated,” a designation that Twitter reserves for publications where…
If someone said “startup” while we were playing a word association game, I’d respond with “fundraising.” (I bet you would, too.) Asking people for money is a key aspect of every founder’s journey, but Techstars Managing Director Collin Wallace says it can also “accelerate your demise.” For example, raising a round to rev up engineering,…
Asset manager Cathie Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF has slid 29% over the past 12 months but has rebounded 21% so far this year…





