Venture Capital

⚠️ Microsoft prepares for OpenAI’s “AGI declaration” moment Microsoft, which owns 27% of OpenAI, is helping set up an independent expert panel to decide when artificial general intelligence (AGI) has been achieved, a milestone that triggers major clauses in their $135B partnership. 🖱 Many of OpenAI’s contracts, including revenue sharing and exclusivity terms, are tied to this AGI declaration. 🖱 Until the panel confirms AGI, Microsoft’s revenue share continues but with extended payment timelines. 🖱 If Microsoft develops AGI using OpenAI’s IP before the official declaration, it must stay under strict compute limits, though these are far beyond today’s model sizes.

The challenge? No one yet knows how this panel will define or verify AGI, making it one of the most consequential and ambiguous tests in tech history.

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🔥 Henry Ford, the man who turned failure into innovation “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” — Henry Ford The founder of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford grew up on a Michigan farm but was obsessed with machines from an early age. He revolutionized industry with the moving assembly line and made cars affordable for ordinary Americans through the Model T. ❗️ Interesting facts 🖱 Inventor at heart: Ford held over 160 patents, including for engine cooling systems, transmissions, and waste-to-fuel technology. 🖱 The birth of “Fordism”: His model of mass production + high wages let workers buy what they built, shaping 20th-century capitalism across the US and Europe. 🖱 $5 revolution: In 1914, Ford doubled wages to $5 a day, cutting turnover, boosting productivity, and reshaping labor economics. 🖱 Eco pioneer: In the 1940s, he developed a soy-based bioplastic car, 450 kg lighter than metal ones, decades ahead of the sustainable trend. 🖱 Profit with purpose: “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” Ford believed in industry’s social mission, a philosophy that foreshadowed modern ethical capitalism. 🖱 Corporate utopia gone wrong: He even built Fordlândia in Brazil to grow rubber for tires. The project failed, but it remains a classic tale of visionary overreach.

Mindset is the engine. Whether in startups or industry, belief and iteration drive breakthroughs. Ford didn’t just build cars he built the idea that persistence fuels progress.

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🔔 OpenAI completes major restructuring, Foundation gains control, Microsoft locks in rights OpenAI has finalized its long-awaited reorganization, splitting into two entities: the OpenAI Foundation (nonprofit) and OpenAI Group PBC (for-profit public benefit corporation). 🖱 The OpenAI Foundation now holds the power to appoint the board of directors, preserving the company’s safety and public-benefit mission. 🖱 Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI Group is now 27%, valued at around $135 billion, cementing its deep integration with OpenAI technology. 🖱 Microsoft’s rights to OpenAI’s models and products are extended through 2032, including post-AGI models, but exclude OpenAI’s consumer devices, meaning no access to Altman and Ives’ secret hardware project. 🖱 Azure is no longer the exclusive compute provider, though OpenAI maintains a $250 billion contract for cloud capacity.

The move gives OpenAI tighter governance under the Foundation while keeping Microsoft locked in a balance between independence, oversight, and scale.

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🧠 Sam Altman backs non-invasive Neuralink rival — Merge Labs OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is co-founding Merge Labs, a brain–computer interface startup aiming to rival Elon Musk’s Neuralink, but without brain surgery or implants. 🖱 Merge Labs is reportedly raising around $250 million at an $850 million valuation, with support expected from OpenAI’s venture arm. 🖱 The startup’s core tech uses ultrasound-based interfaces and gene therapy to let neurons respond to sound waves avoiding invasive brain implants. 🖱 Caltech bioengineer Mikhail Shapiro is joining as a key technical leader, known for pioneering research in acoustic neuro-modulation. 🖱 Altman has stated he “would definitely not sew something to [his] brain,” preferring a “read-only” interface that lets users think and receive AI responses. 🖱 The company aims to build a consumer-friendly BCI, potentially integrating directly with AI systems like ChatGPT.

Altman isn’t trying to cut into the brain, he’s trying to make AI part of how we think, turning mind-machine links into a mainstream, non-surgical reality.

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Top 100 Most Promising Fintech Startups of 2025 According to CB Insights. ✔️Powered by Trade Watcher

🎵 OpenAI prepares to launch AI music generator, taking aim at Suno OpenAI is developing a new system for generating music through AI, positioning itself to compete directly with Suno and other startups building tools for AI-composed songs. 🖱 The project marks OpenAI’s next big expansion beyond text and image generation, entering a new creative frontier: music and sound. 🖱 By leveraging its scale and existing infrastructure, OpenAI could integrate music generation directly into ChatGPT or its upcoming creator tools. 🖱 Suno, currently leading the AI-music space, may soon face an uphill battle as OpenAI’s entry could redefine user expectations and distribution power. 🖱 The music domain presents heavier IP and copyright risks than text or images, suggesting OpenAI will need new data partnerships or licensing models.

OpenAI isn’t just adding another feature, it’s moving to own the entire creative workflow: text, image, video, and now sound.

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📉 Crunchbase: 2025 feels a lot like 2021’s market peak Crunchbase data shows that the current funding climate mirrors the late-2021 boom, rich valuations, fast rounds, and growing signs of overheating. 🖱 Global venture investment reached $303B in the first three quarters of 2025, not far off 2021’s record pace, with AI and defense tech driving most of the capital. 🖱 Startups are again raising follow-on rounds within months and at higher valuations, echoing the frenzy of the pandemic-era bull run. 🖱 Public market exits remain shaky, several high-profile IPOs underperformed, hinting that private valuations may be detached from fundamentals. 🖱 Despite similar exuberance, investors today are more selective, demanding clear revenue traction and defensibility, especially in crowded AI sectors.

The funding party isn’t over, it’s just happening with tighter guest lists and higher expectations.

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