Charlie Munger still thinks VCs are the worst. "To hell with them!"

Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared today at his company's anti-trust trial to defend Google's payments to Apple to secure its position as Apple's default search provider. “There was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen if the deal didn’t exist,” he said. 

According to Fortune, X is giving employees RSUs that imply a company valuation of $19 billion, less than half of what Elon Musk paid for the company a little more than a year ago. (TechCrunch explains why employees might not mind.)

Meta is launching an ad-free, subscription-based version of Facebook and Instagram for European customers willing to pay $10-13 per month for the privilege. 

The Biden Administration's executive order on AI is out. "We’re not going recall publicly available models that are out there,” a senior official said.

In annoyingly circuitous fashion, FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried testified at his fraud trial today that his former top lieutenants were responsible for his company's woes. He also admitted that he knew Alameda Research had not properly hedged its risk.

Chart courtesy of Bloomberg

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Honasa Consumer, an Indian startup that has a skin and personal care brand called Mamaearth, raised approximately $92 million in an anchor round ahead of its IPO. Investors included Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Fidelity, Norges Bank, Invesco, Goldman Sachs, CDPQ, White Oak, Franklin Templeton, Kotak, DSP, Carmigniac Gestion, Loomis Sayles, Matthews, Pictet, and Hornbill. The company hopes to raises $204.3 million in its IPO. TechCrunch has more here.

Seurat, an eight-year-old startup based in Wilmington, Ma., that is developing 3D metal printing technology, raised a $99 million Series C round at a $350 million valuation according to Reuters. The deal was co-led by Nvidia and Capricorn, with additional participation from Honda Motor, and Cubit Capital as well as previous investors True Ventures, SIP Global Partners, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Denso Global, General Motors Ventures, Maniv Mobility, and Xerox Ventures. Reuters has more here.

Betteromics, a three-year-old startup based in Redwood City, Ca., that says it can help lab professionals manage large amounts of data using advanced computation and AI techniques, raised a $20 million Series A round co-led by Sofinnova Partners and Triatomic Capital, with Shakti also participating. More here.

Goodbytz, a two-year-old Hamburg startup that develops robotic kitchens, raised a $12.7 million Series A round led by Oyster Bay, with Block Group also taking part. EU-Startups has more here.

Skyroot Aerospace, a five-year-old Hyderabad startup that is developing commercial space launch vehicles, raised a $27.5 million pre-Series C round. Temasek was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $95.1 million. Reuters has more here.

Boundless Rider, a one-year-old startup based in Medford, Ma., that provides insurance coverage to riders of motorcycles, e-bikes, ATVs, UTVs, and snowmobiles, raised a $4.25 million round led by American Family Ventures, with Assurity Life Insurance and Belmont Capital also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $11 million. Coverager has more here.

ZeroRisc, a Boston startup that provides an extra layer of cloud security for silicon chips based on OpenTitan open-source technology, raised a $5 million seed round led by Cambridge Angels. VentureBeat has more here.

Financial health isn’t just about the numbers. Meet Cleo, the AI assistant that’s defining a new category, one that goes beyond saving and budgets to actually changing how we feel about our finances. In fact, 84% of users feel better about their money after using Cleo for just 30 days. Recently named a Forbes 2023 Next Billion-Dollar startup with 100% YoY growth and $72m ARR, discover how Cleo is changing the world’s relationship to money.

Andreessen Horowitz expects to target around $3.4 billion for its next core early-stage and seed-stage funds, representing a slight increase to its prior efforts, Axios reported today. It further says the firm "will ask, although not require, limited partners to invest via a new master vehicle that would feed into sub-funds (including some of its sector-specific vehicles)."

Chinese regulators are now holding up the Broadcom's planned purchase of VMWare with a November deal expiration deadline fast approaching. 

Bill Gates's ex-assistant has rocketed up the list of the world's richest people, and could soon overtake Microsoft's world-famous cofounder and his former boss in net worth.

Web Summit, the conference company, has named Katherine Maher as its new CEO, roughly one week after cofounder Paddy Cosgrave stepped down because of his comments about Israel. Maher formerly led Wikimedia as its CEO.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, has never liked venture capitalists, and he still doesn't, evidently. “You don’t want to make money by screwing your investors, and that’s what a lot of venture capitalists do,” Munger said on a new episode of the podcast "Acquired." As notes Fortune, the average annual return for venture capital investments over the past 20 years is 11.8%, versus 12% for the Nasdaq Composite, according to Cambridge Associates.

Tech moguls used "strong-armed" tactics to buy land for secret city, farmers say, including pitting family members against each other.

Five things we've learned from the Google antitrust trial so far.

New U.S. export controls may compel AI giant Nvidia to cancel billions of dollars in orders for its advanced chips to China, reports the WSJ. It says the company had already finished delivering orders of its advanced AI chips to China for this year and was pushing to deliver some 2024 orders in advance before new rules are scheduled to come into effect in mid-November, but that the U.S. government won't allow it.

Speaking of Nvidia, it's exploring whether it can use AI chatbots to speed up its semiconductor design.

Apple shot and edited its entire Scary Fast presentation on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. (Everything you need to know about the event is here.)

Hollywood's best Halloween costumes. 

Great art exhibitions worth the trip. 

For once, New York City has some good news about rats. (If you're not a rat, that is.) 

A dreamy, surfside Santa Barbara estate.

A portable speaker for the 1%.

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