Gm. Hey, it’s Jason here. Today’s story on Khan Academy’s new chatbot has me really excited for the future of humanity. I don’t think I’m overhyping this, but it’s gonna help millions (or billions) of kids learn — not just copy and paste answers. I hope it gets you pumped for the future too. 😃 

POLLS

I was having a convo with my sneakerhead friend who has 40+ pairs and my shoe addict fiancée who has 100+ pairs. They’re weird, right?? Can’t be just me who has like 6ish pairs of shoes.

🏠 VENTURE CAPITAL

State of Private Markets: Q1 2023

Carta recently came out with their State of Private Markets report for Q1 2023, and, as expected considering the tough economic conditions, the decline in venture funding over the last year has been stark.

The report is worth a read in its entirety, but the key points are:

Total capital raised fell by 80% compared to Q1 2022, while deal count declined by 45% over the same time span.

20% of all rounds in Q1 were down rounds, the highest proportion since 2018.

At least 40% of all investments in Series A and Series B companies were bridge rounds.

13 US states saw no venture deals, as venture activity is increasingly consolidating in the northeast, west, and south.

Round velocity declined across all early stages, but the seed stage took an especially sharp dive, with last quarter’s total seed capital raised of $1.1B down 68% from the recent quarterly high.

The time between primary rounds is continuing to climb for early-stage startups.

70% of all rounds were for $10M or less, the highest rate since Q2 2020.

Only 28% of employees exercised their vested options prior to expiration, the fifth straight quarter that rate has declined.

Why should I care? If you’re a founder, it’s probably time to dust off the old bootstrapping hat.

🏠 EDUCATION

Khan Academy Demos AI Bot

Hola amigos!

In a TED talk released on Wednesday, Sal Khan spoke about Khan Academy’s new AI bot Khan Amigo. Khan has been saving students’ butts for 10+ years now. This new addition will be next-level.

Unlike ChatGPT or Chegg’s chatbot, Khan Amigo doesn’t give students the answers because that’s obviously not how you learn. Instead, the bot looks at the student’s work and asks them their thought process like a real tutor would.

Khan Amigo works for everything from coding and math to history and writing. He gave the example of one beta tester student asking Khan Amigo to pretend it was Jay Gatsby and explain the symbolism behind the infamous green light in the novel. Khan also mentioned that they may be working on a feature where you can ask historical figures questions.

On top of all of this, Khan Amigo can act as a guidance counselor and academic coach — perfect for overcrowded students. There’s also a mode for teachers to get help planning their lessons so they have more time working one-on-one with students. Incredible work, really exciting stuff.

Why should I care? If you’re trying to learn any subject, Khan Academy is probably the best resource on the web. And now it’s getting better. Tell your friends, younger siblings, kids, dogs, and grandmas!! Now’s the best time in history to use the internet to learn new subjects.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

• Microsoft is working on a very expensive “private” ChatGPT.

• The co-founders of DeepMind and LinkedIn released the Pi chatbot.

• A new Alzheimer’s drug has slowed the disease by a third.

• Google just announced the new Pixel Fold. Ha, I thought they gave up on everything except catching up with OpenAI. Who knew?

Stat: 6 Billion Euros: The cost of Europe’s Starlink competitor, which nearly every major European satellite company is bidding to build. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Rabbit hole: Web3’s Fake Version Of Web History (The Future, Now and Then)

🤑 FUNDING FRIDAY

If you want a full list of startup raises including all the boring ones, you can go check Crunchbase. If you want the 2 coolest raises of the week, then check here every Friday.

🥷 NinjaTech AI

NinjaTech AI raised a $5 million seed round to build a better version of Siri. How can they not be successful with Ninja in their name???

But these aren’t some college kids screwing around. These are AI experts formerly from Google, Meta and AWS working to build AI agents as task-doers for working professionals. I have a feeling this isn’t the first time we’ll be hearing about NinjaTech 🥷

🤓 Campus.edu

Campus.edu is taking on community college with help from some powerful backers: OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Figma’s Dylan Field, Founders Fund, and more.

The program is an authorized college with classes taught by a network of professors who teach at top schools like Princeton, NYU, and Vanderbilt. Teaching at Campus.edu serves as supplementary income for the professors, and has raised their income an average of 20%.

Yeah if I was 18, I’d be giving this a try… although I’d miss the frat parties.

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

✏️ Jasper, one of the leading AI writing apps, launched a new tool where you can upload your brand assets to train Jasper on.

🔥 A new coding language for AI devs called Mojo was released. Mojo combines the usability of Python with the performance of C.

🤯 TeamGPT is like ChatGPT on steroids. Imagine an entire team of AI bots each trained with specific job roles. Marketing, Operations, etc. Boom.

💉 DOPAMINE HIT

Lol.

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