Dani Rayan

Congrats to the Datadog engineering team for releasing the private beta of their on-call product today. We know first hand how difficult it is to build! I guess I need to update this blog post now? https://lnkd.in/edct4mgA

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【Tech Events in SF Bay Area from 9/28 to 10/12】 I have summarized the 175 Tech Events in SF from 9/28 to 10/12 in a Air Table, and I will share it with you. If you have any other exciting tech events to recommend, please feel free to share them on the comment:) Event list👇️(There are tabs for AI events,VC and Investor events and Hackathon) https://lnkd.in/ePDFAiM7 - 126 Ai Event - 18 VCs & investors Event - 6 Hackathon Event I would greatly appreciate it if you could share or like this with others in the SF community. 【Kyosuke's Newsletter】 https://lnkd.in/e5X896ZG It's a weekly newsletter where I provide updates on tech events happening in the SF Bay Area. Additionally, you can expect to receive complimentary tickets to conferences, recommendations for must-attend events, and exclusive invitations to SF's premier gatherings. 【Upcoming Event】 『MELT』Founders x Investors Dynamic Network Event https://lu.ma/7zypq83u 💎 VIP Sponsored by - Kyle Hudson, Founder of Stacks, Inc ​​Social bookmarking platform to save cross-platform and share with anyone - Akash Saraf , Founder of ScaleGenAI Universal Computing Infrastructure for Generative AI #Sanfrancisco #SF #Bayarea #Techevent #YCombinator #Stanford #founders #VC #Investors #Networking

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We've mapped the 250 most relevant early-stage startups within the European data ecosystem! 🚀 Our coverage spans categories like Data Collection, Storage, Integration, Security & Privacy, and Platform. Discover how these startups are leveraging AI 🧠, the most active sectors 👩‍💻👨‍💻, and key funding trends 🏦. Don't miss the simple table listing all the companies! 😀 #AI #Europeanstartups #MMCresearch #vcfunding Advika Jalan

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Insightful look into bioplatform strategy, and what it takes to raise a Series A from my partner, Omri Amirav-Drory: https://lnkd.in/dFv7GbF6

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Why Did Wiz Turn Down Google’s $23B Offer? Assaf Rappaport called it one of the hardest decisions he’s ever made. 😬 𝗪𝗶𝘇’𝘀 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲: • $100M in ARR in just 18 months - fastest-growing SaaS company 🤑 • $500M in ARR to date • $1.9B in total funding, reaching a $10B valuation • Secured over 25% of Fortune 100 clients (Costco, Salesforce, Chipotle, and BMW) • Expanded from 40 employees in 2021 to a global presence, with offices in New York, Europe, and Asia-Pacific 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵? • Enterprise Focus - Targeted Fortune 500 companies, winning enterprise contracts • Competitive Edge - Quick product delivery and robust API provided a strong advantage over competitors like Palo Alto Networks • Market Timing - Post-pandemic, companies have increased investments in security ⏳ It’s clear why this acquisition appealed to Google but, why did Wiz reject $23B? 𝟯 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 1. IPO Ambitions - Wiz has been eyeing an IPO, aiming for a $100B valuation while retaining control of its future. 2. Regulatory Concerns - The deal could have faced regulatory scrutiny with BigTech acquisition (take HubSpot for example) 3. Market Validation - The CrowdStrike outage and Google’s interest validated Wiz’s belief in its market position and growth potential. Rappaport believes in himself and his team. 🔥 They had a few lucky moments with the pandemic and CloudStrike outage, but their results are not lucky by any means. Now, Wiz has the opportunity to take it all the way, and create public value. With the decrease in IPOs the past few years, we need more founders like Rappaport. Much credit to Rappaport and the Wiz team for pursuing IPO. 👏 #wiz #venturecapital #startups

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Vishal Sachdev highlights the strategic integration of open source and proprietary tech in architecting tech stacks, developer ecosystems and resulting business models. The world class companies effectively balance value commoditization in open source and value capture in proprietary tech. This is the strategic challenge for companies operating in #blockchain and #AI. I believe those who operate at the intersection of blockchain *and* AI stand to win this strategic battle...

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【Tech Events in SF Bay Area from 9/21 to 10/5】 I have summarized the 101 Tech Events in SF from 9/21 to 10/5 in a Air Table, and I will share it with you. If you have any other exciting tech events to recommend, please feel free to share them on the comment:) Event list👇️(There are tabs for AI events,VC and Investor events and Hackathon) https://lnkd.in/eEXMxCMU - 53 Ai Event - 8 VCs & investors Event - 8 Hackathon Event I would greatly appreciate it if you could share or like this with others in the SF community. 【Kyosuke's Newsletter】 https://lnkd.in/e5X896ZG It's a weekly newsletter where I provide updates on tech events happening in the SF Bay Area. Additionally, you can expect to receive complimentary tickets to conferences, recommendations for must-attend events, and exclusive invitations to SF's premier gatherings. 🗓️Our Upcoming Events: SF & LA SF. 10/7 5:00pm 『MELT』Founders x Investors Dynamic Network Event 💎VIP Sponsored by Stacks, Inc As of now, we’ve received 290 registrations, including: ​60 VC and Angel Investors ​200+ Founders/CEOs ​・2 Series C,D companies ・3 Series B Companies ​・8 Series A companies ・13 Pre-Series A companies ​・77 Seed companies ​・96 Pre-Seed companies ​・28 Bootstrap companies ​・6 Executives Details https://lu.ma/7zypq83u #Sanfrancisco #SF #Bayarea #Techevent #YCombinator #Stanford #founders #VC #Investors #Networking

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Task-specific models and routing architectures are the future. Robert Nishihara, co-founder and CEO of Anyscale, is seeing hybrid strategies emerge, where businesses are evaluating different types of models for different use cases. With the rapid advancement of AI tech, it won't be long before open-source models are "good enough" for the majority of business tasks. The natural progression from here is to develop smaller, task-focused models using proprietary company data. As Robert puts it: "You're going to need small, fast models. And task-specific models have a huge advantage when it comes to cost and speed because you can achieve the same quality with a smaller model if it's specialized." Another interesting development: the growing use of routing architectures. Imagine a classifier as a kind of traffic controller for your AI queries. It assesses the complexity of each query and directs it to the most suitable model: simpler requests are handled by smaller models, while complex ones are passed on to larger, more sophisticated models. “If you do it right,” Robert says, “you can achieve something like the cost of the smaller model with the quality of the more advanced model.” Dive deeper into AI architecture trends in my full discussion with Robert on the B2BaCEO podcast here: https://lnkd.in/ghigvERn

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✨🚨 Another Make Cents post is live! 🚨✨ In this post, "AI & its Impact on Vertical SaaS: The Gates of Distribution have Flung Open", I explore how AI is impacting vertical SaaS workflows and its implication for distribution and defensibility. We defy.vc are more excited than ever to invest in vertical SaaS because we believe there's tremendous value leveraging AI to enhance human productivity across tasks like 1) structuring data, 2) analysis, 3) recommendations, and 4) taking action. I also walk through why customer acquisition costs are at an all-time low, attributed to more than just AI-driven product functionality. Read more ⬇ and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments! https://lnkd.in/gRVcJASH

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WIESNER ON HUMANS VS AI: MIT Media Lab co-founder and science advisor to JFK, Jerome B. Wiesner was a unique figure in the history of MIT at the crossroads of science, engineering, and the arts with a lifelong pursuit of world peace. There's a terrific talk he gave at the founding of the MIT "E15" building designed by I.M. Pei — often nicknamed "the bathroom building" — that's worth a watch, especially during these extraordinary times https://lnkd.in/g2zEJRrk and a piece of the talk he gave is below. Information on the talk I'm giving with Jerome B. Wiesner Professor Hiroshi Ishii is here https://lnkd.in/gJpKkeY8 on November 8th (Fri) from 11 am EST, and you can register online for free here https://lnkd.in/gADUyCs7 --- Jerome B. Wiesner at the founding moment of the MIT Media Lab's E15 building https://lnkd.in/g2zEJRrk > ... Now some people will be offended by what I'm going to say, but I think man-made systems use better components. Electrical signals travel a million times faster than signals on nerve fibers. And semiconductor devices also act billions of times faster than neurons, which are the biological information processing elements. Also, manmade elements appear to be more reliable. But nature has a very large edge, maybe a decisive edge. In design complexity involving a number of individual elements, it can use it in a system effectively. And these are advantages man may never match. Nature may always retain this edge, who knows? > But for the moment, it really doesn't matter. The manmade systems that we are involved with enhance human creative capacities, that's what they can do, but so far they cannot displace them. Cognitive and computer scientists are having an exciting time trying to understand and imitate human reasoning with computing systems. And though they can do a few things that would be regarded as thinking if done by a human, they differ violently among themselves on whether or not machines with human thinking and creative abilities are possible. Even the so-called artificial intelligence field, which prompted Walter Rosenblith to say he preferred natural stupidity, his greatest achievement in this field is capturing knowledge and skills of humans -- of human experts. > For now, it’s clear that thinking machines and true creativity don’t exist. We should focus on how tech can expand human creative capacity.

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AI is reshaping how enterprise software delivers—and prices—value. Companies like Zendesk, Intercom, and Forethought are shifting to outcome-based pricing, charging only when AI autonomously resolves issues. I've been investing in AI for over a decade. The shift to outcome-based pricing in enterprise software is a seismic change. As I told Jon Victor at The Information, software companies now face a critical decision: Does a company decide to change business models at the expense of losing revenue? It's a necessary risk. With cheap access to LLMs, businesses can build their own enterprise apps. Adapt or die. Why this pricing shift matters: → Vendor success ties directly to customer outcomes → Short-term revenue risks enable long-term market expansion → Industry faces widespread pressure to demonstrate measurable value Pitching AI-powered automation software as a clear cost-reduction tool could ultimately lead to greater revenue for vendors. This is because customers may view AI solutions as fundamentally different from traditional enterprise apps, whose business value is often harder to quantify directly. It's a huge market expansion opportunity. Vendors that nail outcome-based pricing could see massive growth as AI transforms enterprise operations. Those that don't? 😬🫣 How do you see this impacting sectors beyond customer support? Leave a comment. And if you're building in this space, send me a message.

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At Proplens AI we are building vertical AI (LLM) agents for real estate! 🏢 At times we do see skepticism around application of Gen AI to reimagine customer journeys in traditional industries like real estate, specifically in Asia. "Customer interactions in real estate will always be a high-touch human only workflow, how will AI add value here?". Proponents of these old school arguments tend to ignore the fact that AI is not all about automation, but also about enabling and empowering human professionals to deliver significantly better, faster, cheaper outcomes🎯in ways never imagined earlier. These arguments also ignore the evolving consumer behaviour in favour of transparency, information authenticity, responsiveness & personalization - areas where AI can directly amplify customer experience (CX) for real estate firms.✨ Sales and customer support professionals in RE firms spend significant amount of time in routine tasks like follow-ups, personalizing customer communication, information lookup & coordination tasks. Our AI agents make their lives simpler, enabling them achieve more! Win for businesses, employees & end consumers💪. #proptech #GenerativeAI #AIforRE

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YC put together a great video on how OpenAI’s o1 chain of thought works. Now that o1 is out of preview and in full prod, it’s a good time to understand more about what’s going on under-the-hood. Reasoning models change everything when it comes to using LLMs. Everything you learned about prompting to-date has changed. That being said, I’m no expert, and I don’t have any special course or guidebook for you. But safe to say there are a zillion people out there now selling courses, guides, etc. so take your pick! Link to YC’s video in the comment section below 🎥 🍿 ⬇️

Interesting conversation between Jason Calacanis and Tekedra N. Mawakana Mawakana, CEO of Waymo (Google's self-driving project).... (Paraphrased) Jason Calacanis: Why are you not testing your Waymo self-driving on highways? You seem focused primarily on city environments like San Francisco, yet in my experience being a tesla-owner from the very beginning (and using both auto-pilot and then full self driving) it is better on the highways. You seem to be taking the opposite approach. Is it because speed kills? Tekedra: Our mission is safety and to get to Level 4 driving (the highest level of autonomous driving, no driver behind the wheel, no drivers' license) and so we’ve made a deliberate decision to focus on crowded urban environments because that is the hardest problem. Anything that doesn’t contribute to our getting to Level 4 is not interesting to us (not intended, but could be back-handed compliment to Musk 🙂) You don’t learn anything new self-driving on the same boring monotonous highways. --- Great point! #waymo #allin #selfdriving #google

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We have a packed house and waiting list for this Tuesday’s in person GTM roundtable in San Francisco. We are also thinking about having a seed, series A & B startup GTM session later this month on Zoom for those who live in other areas of the country or world. Please let me know your thoughts. #sales #gtm #ai #genai #startups #founders Rey Advising

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Apple to developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 4) In pursuing DMA compliance, Apple’s changes to link-out, in aggregate, don’t make its more use feasible: it’s another example of a “Heads I win, Tails you lose” proposition from the company. The new fee structure, to my mind, erodes the commercial benefits of the new, less-restrictive link-out rules. Developers only save 5% relative to App Store payments on transactions for the first year after a user’s installation, and fees apply to transactions that take place on any platform. The user-level attribution burden and reporting requirements alone render the 5% savings unattractive, not to mention the conversion friction inherent with (admittedly, less intimidating) disclosure sheet and off-platform transaction process.

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Attention SoCal engineering leaders! ELC is hosting two free events in November: 📍 Santa Monica / LA – Nov 14: Don’t miss an exclusive live interview with renowned speaker and author Michael Feathers. Get a preview of insights from his upcoming book, AI Assisted Programming, and get a clear picture of how AI can (and can’t) enhance your team’s software practices. This conversation will cover concrete strategies and will steer clear of the usual AI hyperbole. 📍 San Diego – Nov 21: Join us for a roundtable on Practical Measurement & Tracking of Engineering Metrics. Share ideas with peers and separate what truly drives results—and what incentivizes the wrong things. 🔗 Registration links are in the comments below. Attend to network, learn, and grow!

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