Adam Neumannin uusi vuokrayhtiö sai 350 miljoonan dollarin sijoituksen A16Z:lta

Lisäksi: Tekkitwitterin reaktioita Adam Neumannin rahoituskierrokseen

Aug 16, 2022

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Adam Neumannin uusi vuokrayhtiö sai 350 miljoonan dollarin sijoituksen A16Z:lta

WeWorkista tunnetuksi tulleen Adam Neumannin uusi kiinteistöstartup Flow on the New York Timesin mukaan saanut Andreessen Horowitzilta 350 miljoonan dollarin sijoituksen. Summa on suurin yksittäinen sijoitus minkä Andreessen Horowitz on yhtiön historian aikana tehnyt. Flown on tarkoitus tarjota vuokra-asuntoja amerikkalaisille.

Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, whose spectacular rise and fall has been chronicled in books, documentaries and a scripted television series, has a new venture — and a surprising backer.
Neumann’s new company Flow wants to transform the residential rental real estate market. Notably, it has the financial support of Andreessen Horowitz, the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm that was an early investor in everything from Facebook to Airbnb. The backing of Andreessen Horowitz, considered royalty among early-stage investors, is a powerful sign of support, and perhaps a rebuke to Neumann’s critics, who have described his leadership of WeWork as a cautionary tale of corporate hubris.
Andreessen Horowitz is investing about $350 million in Flow, according to three people briefed on the deal. The investment, the largest individual check Andreessen Horowitz has ever written in a round of funding to a company, values Flow at more than $1 billion before it even officially opens its doors.

Marc Andreessen liittyy sijoituksen myötä Flown hallitukseen. Mies kirjoitti Flow:sta näin yhtiönsä blogissa:

Our nation has a housing crisis.
The demographic trends driving America’s housing market are impossible to ignore: our country is creating households faster than we’re building houses. Structural shortages in available homes for sale push housing prices higher, while young people are staying single for longer and increasingly concentrating in highly desirable urban centers. These factors put enormous pressure on rents in the nation’s most dynamic cities, starkly revealing the troubling realities of both sides of the housing market’s two historical models.
…
The second model: you rent an apartment, but: it’s a soulless experience; do you even meet your neighbors, much less have any friends in your complex? Does it feel like home, or just a place to sleep? Are you proud to bring friends and family to visit, or hesitant? And you can pay rent for decades and still own zero equity — nothing. There’s a reason the federal government started subsidizing home mortgages: someone who is bought in to where he lives cares more about where he lives. Without this, apartments don’t generate any bond between person and place and without community, no bond between person to person.

Dan Loeb osti osuuden Disneystä, toivoo yhtiön myyvän ESPN:n

Aktivistisijoittaja Dan Loebin hedgerahasto Third Point on ostanut n. 1 % osuuden Disneystä, ja kannustaa yhtiötä mm. ostamaan suoratoistopalvelu Hulun kokonaan ja harkitsemaan urheilukanava ESPN:n myyntiä. Loeb toivoo myös Disneyn säästävän nykyistä enemmän kuluissaan. Wall Street Journalilta (WSJ):

Activist investor Dan Loeb’s Third Point LLC has bought a new stake in Walt Disney Co. and is calling on the media company to buy the rest of Hulu, explore spinning off ESPN and refresh its board.
Mr. Loeb on Monday said his firm, which liquidated a large Disney stake earlier this year, has repurchased a “significant stake” in the company and sent a letter to Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek urging the company to engage with Third Point on a number of issues.
Third Point’s new stake consists of less than 1% of Disney’s shares outstanding, valued today at around $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Mr. Loeb praised growth in Disney’s streaming subscriber base, but also wanted Disney to more aggressively cut costs and consider a number of steps to shake up its portfolio.

TikTokissa on nyt tekstistä-kuvaksi -tekoälymalli

Mainitaan vielä, että TikTok:ssa on nyt DALL-E:tä muistuttava tekstistä-kuvaksi -tekoälymalli, jota voi käyttää videoiden taustakuvien luomiseen. Mallilla luodut kuvat ovat toistaiseksi hieman rajoitetumpia kuin mitä vaikka DALL-E:llä tai Googlen Imagenillä voi luoda, mutta sen onkin tarkoitus lähinnä toimia taustakuvien luojana. The Vergeltä:

Text-to-image AI systems are booming in both ability and popularity right now, and what better proof than their appearance in the world’s hottest app: TikTok.
The video platform recently added a new effect it calls “AI greenscreen” that allows users to type in a text prompt that the software will then generate as an image. This image can then be used as the background to a video — potentially a very useful tool for creators.
The output of TikTok’s system is pretty basic compared to that of state-of-the-art text-to-image models like Google’s Imagen, OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, or Midjourney’s eponymous software. It creates only rather abstract and swirling images; a strength reflected in the dreamy nature of TikTok’s suggested prompts like “astronaut in the ocean” and “flower galaxy.” Other models, by comparison, can produce both photorealistic imagery and complex and coherent illustrations that look like they were drawn or painted by humans.

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Tekkitwitterin reaktioita Adam Neumannin rahoituskierrokseen

Eilinen tieto Adam Neumannin uudesta yhtiöstä ja rahoituskierroksesta aiheutti tekkitwitterissä joukon provokatiivisia kommentteja, joita olen kerännyt tähän osioon.