“It’s a mad swarm of VCs. Everyone wants in on those companies.”

AI is going to be a central theme at Google’s annual developer conference on Wednesday, as the company is planning to announce a number of generative AI updates, including launching a general-use large language model (LLM), CNBC reports. More here.

Graphic images of a gunman's attack in Texas on Saturday went viral on Twitter, which has made cuts to its moderation team. Other tech companies like Meta and Alphabet have invested in large teams that reduce the spread of violent images on their platforms. The New York Times has more here.

Has venture capital finally hit rock bottom? After the woes of 2022 put an end to the decade-long bull market and the unexpected banking crisis shook the industry back in March, the venture community has been wondering—has the free-fall finally stopped? Juniper Square’s latest market update looks back on Q1 and explains why—even though VC hit a new low with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—the worst-case scenarios seem to have been avoided. Read Q2 2023: The State of Venture Capital.

Critics are flaming The New York Times for yesterday posting what they say is an overly empathetic 5,500-word profile of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. But writer Amy Chozick is in on the con. In fact, her story may provide the clearest understanding yet of how Holmes so captivated investors, business partners and the U.S. media, before The Wall Street Journal finally blew the lid on her company beginning in late 2015.

Nice to be a pretty white lady working your charm on a nyt reporter.

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) May 7, 2023

It's not an easy thing to pull off. First, as any reporter can tell you, writing a profile piece that does not feature at least some puffery is not easy, and profiling someone like Holmes has to be more complicated than most. She hasn't talked to the media since 2016, and she is a highly persuasive character who managed to make many powerful people bend to her will.

As former Theranos employee and whistleblower Tyler Shultz told CBS News early last year of Holmes, "Elizabeth is a very, very charismatic person. When she speaks to you, she makes you feel like you are the most important person in her world in that moment. She almost has this reality distortion field around her that people can just get sucked into.”

While Chozick might have written a heavier-handed story -- one that people who reflexively read the story might have preferred -- the brilliance of this piece is that she takes the opposite approach. She lets Holmes perform her magic but offers a peek behind the curtain as Holmes does it.

Holmes pulls a lot out of her hat. More here.

Ace Turtle, a nine-year-old Bangalore startup that has built a supply chain platform for retail brands, raised a $34 million Series B round. Investors included Vertex Growth, SBI Investment, Farglory, Lesing Nine, Stride Ventures, Tuscan Ventures, and Trifecta Capital as well as previous investors Vertex Southeast Asia & India and InnoVen Capital. The company has raised a total of $42.9 million. Retail Insight Network has more here.

Instruqt, a five-year-old Dutch startup whose product allows companies to more easily test how new software would run inside their organization, raised a $16.5 million Series A round. Blossom Capital was the sole investor. The company has raised a total of $16.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Antimetal, a nine-month-old, New York-based cloud cost optimization platform, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding led by Framework Ventures. Chapter One and IDEO CoLab Ventures also joined the round, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Artifact Labs, a one-year-old Hong Kong startup that mints NFTs and sells them through a marketplace it operates, raised a $3.25 million round round led by Blue Pool Capital (Jack Ma's and Joe Tsai's fund), with additional investment from Animoca Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

HiNOTE, a year-old, San Francisco-based messaging app that invites senders to post messages over personalized backdrops has raised $1.9 million to date in previously undisclosed capital from numerous notable angel investors, including Marissa Mayer, Dick Costolo, Marc Benioff, Yuri Milner, Peter Thiel and Sarah Kunst. TechCrunch has more here.

MultiOmic Health, a two-year-old London startup that has built an AI-enabled drug discovery platform focused on metabolic syndrome-related diseases, raised a $6.3 million seed extension round led by Hoxton Ventures, with Ada Ventures, MMC Ventures, and Verve Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $8.8 million. More here.

PermitFlow, a two-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that aims to streamline the construction permit application and management process for developers and general contractors, raised a $5.5 million seed round. Initialized Capital was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Webb Protocol, a crypto startup whose cross-chain bridge protocol seeks to provide a new privacy standard for cross-chain applications, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Polychain Capital and Lemniscap. CoinDesk has more here.

Now more than ever, VCs need an effective process to screen deals before committing to specific terms. GoingVC has created a comprehensive due diligence guide with real scorecards, questions, and actionable steps to help emerging VCs better understand the process. Grab your copy of their due diligence guide here!

Mayfield, the 54-year-old, venture capital world staple, has closed on two new funds totaling $955 million in capital commitments. It's a giant step up for Mayfield, which used to raise much smaller funds. TechCrunch has more here.

3one4 Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm in India that focuses exclusively on India-based startups, has closed its sixth fund with $200 million in capital commitments, reports TechCrunch. More here.

Qualcomm’s longer term bet on the automotive sector as a lucrative customer base for its chips and related communications technology is getting a significant push today as it announces it is acquiring Autotalks, a fabless chipmaker out of Israel that builds semiconductor and system-on-a-chip technology to aid in automotive safety. Sources tell TechCrunch Qualcomm is paying between $350 million and $400 million for the startup, which had raised $110 million, per Pitchbook data. More here.

After raising $100 million at a valuation of over $2 billion last year, the Australian edtech startup Go1 is snapping up Blinkist, a Berlin-based startup whose platform helps readers discover and read abbreviated versions of longer non-fiction books (“Blinks” that typically take no more than 15 minutes to digest). Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but TechCrunch has some other details here.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos showed up as VIPs at the F1 Grand Prix in Miami over the weekend. Business Insider has more here.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is part of the group that’s set to take over the Washington Commanders, adding to the roster of billionaires who have pooled their wealth to run the NFL franchise. Bloomberg has more here.

Investor Peter Thiel says he's freezing his body when he dies — if only as a moment of anti-death activism. Thiel explained his "just in case" cryonics aspirations to editor and writer Bari Weiss in a lengthy podcast episode published last week. "I think of it more as an ideological statement," Thiel told Weiss, as quoted by Fortune. "I don't necessarily expect it to work," he continued, "but I think it's the sort of thing we're supposed to try to do." More here.

In our last bit of billionaire news, Mark Zuckerberg's first jiu-jitsu tournament this past weekend earned him gold and silver medals, he shared on social media afterward, though a couple of outlets were more focused on one call that he successfully disputed.

Meanwhile, former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has filed motions to dismiss all but three charges in the criminal case against him. Which we think is a fairly standard thing to happen? The Hill has more here.

Invesco, which last year led the most recent round of funding for the Indian on-demand delivery giant Swiggy, has marked down the nine-year-old company's valuation to about $5.5 billion, according to a filing. That's 48.6% less than the $10.7 billion valuation Swiggy was assigned during that funding round last year. TechCrunch has more here.

Ripple will have spent $200 million defending itself against a lawsuit from the SEC by the time it is over, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC today.

U.S. exchanges list more than a dozen cryptocurrencies that the SEC says are illegal to sell. In the WSJ.

ChatGPT fever has investors pouring billions into AI startups, no business plan required. “It’s a mad swarm of VCs. Everyone wants in on those companies.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong doubled down on his criticisms of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chief Gary Gensler today, but added the exchange would not leave the U.S. despite the regulatory uncertainty the company is facing in the country. CNBC has more here.

Bill Hader on "Smartless."

How "Succession" set up that epic fight scene.

The 20 best places to visit in the South of France.

"Look at me. This plane is going to Jamaica."

Flydubai is launching a new business suite with sliding doors and a 17-inch, 4k touchscreen. We'd recommend this to you if only [cough] Flydubai invited us to try it first.

Where did all the unicorns go? And what are top VCs doing to stay ahead in today's changing market? Affinity's 2023 Investment Benchmark Report: Global Unicorn Edition has the answers. Download your copy today.