GM! It’s Brett again. Hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving! It’s the one time of year when Americans explicitly give gratitude, but I think it should be every day, particularly if you’re a founder.

Startups are hard af, but gratitude helps. Since I started reflecting on what I’m grateful for every Friday, my stress has dropped. Plus, recognizing your team’s efforts makes them want to work even harder.

A little recognition goes a long way, and it’s something everyone deserves.

Shoutout to everyone who’s helped bring my wild ideas to life, and to Dolly, our family pup, for always keeping it real. 🐾

Looks like OpenAI's got another mess on their hands.

Their highly anticipated Sora video model got leaked last week by a group from their early access program.

Here's the deal: They dropped what code suggests is a 'turbo' variant of Sora on Hugging Face, letting anyone generate 1080p 10-second clips. This appears to be faster than February's version, which reportedly took over 10 minutes to process one-minute videos.

Wild stuff, but it only lasted three hours before OpenAI revoked access and temporarily shut down the entire early access program.

The leakers, calling themselves "Sora PR Puppets," weren't just showing off the tech. They're calling out OpenAI for having hundreds of artists do unpaid testing while maintaining strict control over what gets shared. Every output needed OpenAI approval before sharing, and according to the Puppets, while hundreds contribute for free, only select few would be chosen to have their Sora-created films screened.

OpenAI maintains Sora is in 'research preview,' emphasizing they're balancing creativity with safety measures. But the protestors argue this controlled rollout is more about PR than genuine artist collaboration.

The big picture - This isn't just about a leaked model. It's showing how the relationship between AI companies and creative communities is getting complicated. Meanwhile, the AI video space is heating up - Runway partnered with Lionsgate for a custom video model, and Stability AI brought James Cameron onto their board. OpenAI has been meeting with filmmakers and studios too, though no major partnerships have been announced yet. The real question is whether these companies can figure out how to work with creators without, you know, exploiting them

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Raise: Eyewa, a Middle East-based eyewear retailer, raised $100M in a Series C funding round to expand its retail footprint by opening 100 new stores across the region.

Stat: 54%. That’s the share of longer LinkedIn posts likely AI-generated.

Rabbit Hole: How Founders Are Building Wealth in 2024

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

🫡 Lovable is the world's first AI Full Stack Engineer.

🕹️ Agentplace helps you build interactive AI websites and apps.

📞 Sparkbase lets you book high-intent sales calls on autopilot.

Last week’s answer: If you guessed AI-generated… you were wrong.

🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nope (~55%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yeah (~45%)

Here’s the original.

Micro is a CRM that doesn't feel like homework and an email client that knows what matters. Simply put, it's an all-in-one productivity tool that organizes itself so you don't have to.

I built Micro with some friends because I was tired of getting guilt tripped for not hitting inbox 0 and having to bounce around between so many tools to do my job.

We're launching in 2025, but if you want early access, sign up for the waitlist at micro.so and respond to the confirmation email saying you came from Homescreen.

If you’re interested in advertising with us, send an email over to [email protected] with the subject “Homescreen Ads”