Morning Brew - ☕ Climate-tech clarity

Plus, Google’s new language model.
Morning Brew April 08, 2022

Emerging Tech Brew

Hello, it’s Friday, and apparently Meta’s digital-currency dreams did not die with the dissolution of Diem. The company is reportedly thinking of adding Robux-like financial products to its family of apps.

Internally, the virtual-currency project is called…“Zuck Bucks,” the Financial Times reports. We will just let all of you sit with that.

In today’s edition:
The most important climate-tech chart in IPCC’s new report
Google’s massive new language model
Venture funding goes...down?

Grace Donnelly, Hayden Field, Dan McCarthy

CLIMATE TECH

We have the tech to make progress on climate goals

image of renewable energy sources and other climate tech Francis Scialabba

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on Monday, outlining what needs to be done during this rapidly closing window of opportunity to mitigate global warming.

The nearly 3,000-page document, which is part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment of climate-change scenarios, points out that while the world has made some progress in slowing emissions growth, there is an urgent need to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions over the next few years. Here’s a good summary of the overall report.

Big picture: While the assessment called unproven tech, like carbon removal, essential to achieving net zero, it also showed that many of the tools needed to make significant progress are already available.

  • Several existing solutions currently have the potential to provide cost savings while reducing emissions.
  • That list includes: wind and solar, energy efficiency and demand management tools, lower-emissions transit options, such as public transportation, bikes and e-bikes, and more fuel-efficient cars, trucks, ships, and planes.

Zoom in: One graphic from the report stood out as most important to Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and a member of the working group for the IPCC report that was released over the summer.

  • “A lot of the time, we talk about climate change like there’s a silver bullet,” Hausfather said.
  • “This diagram really illustrates that it’s not a silver bullet. It’s a silver buckshot. There’s no single solution that’s even one-tenth of the entire thing. It’s really a huge variety of technological—and behavioral—changes across a variety of different sectors that’s needed to put us on the path toward net-zero emissions.”

We’d include the chart here...but it’s so big it would break the newsletter. Click here to see the chart and read more about its importance.GD

        

AI

PaLM pilot

Google company sign outside of New York office Ymgerman/Getty Images

“Roger has five tennis balls. He buys two more cans of tennis balls. Each can has three tennis balls. How many tennis balls does he have now?”

For you, this may have triggered stress flashbacks to grade-school math quizzes. But for Google’s brand-new large language model, it’s a key part of training.

This week, Google introduced the Pathways Language Model (PaLM), its new AI tool designed to answer questions, reason through arithmetic questions, and even explain jokes.

  • According to Google’s performance report, it may be the most advanced model of its kind on a number of benchmarks, including tasks in reasoning and logical inference.

Quick recap: Large language models (LLMs) are an increasingly popular—and controversial—AI tool used for all things natural language processing (think: summarizing text, participating in dialogue, writing articles, and more).

  • Generally speaking, the more parameters a model is trained on, the higher its performance—and the more capable it is of reflecting biases learned from training data.
  • These types of models have also become less expensive and faster to train in recent years.

Bottom line: With 540 billion parameters, Pathways isn’t Google’s largest language model—the company’s 1.6-trillion-parameter model, announced last year, owns that spot.

But PaLM is a headliner in other ways, performing better than comparable LLMs (think: GPT-3 and LaMDA) in reasoning tasks, multi-step arithmetic, and multilingual tasks like translation.

Read more about PaLM here.HF

        

FROM THE CREW

Everyone's favorite tech billionaire made headlines again, so we made a tee. Shop the Board Member Tee now.

VENTURE CAPITAL

It had to happen eventually

investing Ian McKinnon

As was presaged by a narrative-violating drop in February venture funding, Q1 2022 was the first quarter in which global VC funding contracted in well over a year, per Crunchbase data.

  • Last quarter, VCs invested $160 billion, down 13% from Q4 2021, in which a record-breaking $184 billion was spent.

Important caveat: Funding cooled off on a quarter-to-quarter basis, but it’s still up 7% year over year from Q1 2021. Also, the last quarter’s total of $160 billion is equal to almost half of the $335 billion VCs invested in the *full year* of 2020. So, take the slowdown with a grain of megaround-sized salt.

Here are three of the biggest emerging tech funding rounds that stood out to us last month:

Yuga Labs: The company that brought really expensive monkey cartoons (read: Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs) into the world raised a $450 million *seed round* in March.

  • Yuga Labs was founded in, uh, 2021, and is already valued at $4 billion. Zoom out a bit: Bored Apes are among the most popular in the $17.6 billion NFT world.

Source Global: Usually a startup would not want to be described as “pulling things out of thin air,” but it’s different for Source, which builds “hydropanels” that extract potable water from vapor.

  • The company raised $150 million last month to continue building out and selling its tech, which has been installed in 52 countries so far. Its panels cost ~$2,000 each and work by collecting water vapor and using sunlight to help liquify that vapor.

Volocopter: With a $170 million Series E, the German electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (eVTOL) company officially became a unicorn in March. The company is hoping to be first to market with a commercial air-taxi service, aiming to begin service in 2024.

Click here to view on site.DM

        

TOGETHER WITH MONGODB

MongoDB

Psst, here’s the dirt on data: Data requirements for applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and an organization’s data architecture—especially relational databases—can’t keep up. The result? They end up paying DIRT: the data and innovation recurring tax. Wanna sweep away that pesky DIRT by reducing database complexity and helping your developers increase productivity instead? MongoDB’s white paper shares the 10 signs your data architecture is holding you back.

BITS AND BYTES

Francis Scialabba

Stat: Nearly half (49%) of Americans are at least somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of living in a “smart city,” according to an Axios-Momentive poll.

Quote: “Everybody is at a point where they’re hedging their bets.”—Eric Fuller, CEO of US carrier and trucking brokerage Xpress Enterprises, told Reuters about the autonomous trucking race

Read: A review of a new augmented-reality contact lens.

Peeps wanna know: How is your company reporting on its environmental impacts, social relationships, and overall governance? Workiva can streamline this complex process for you. Read all about ESG reporting and how Workiva can help here.*

*This is sponsored advertising content.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

  • Project Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite-broadband venture, secured launch plans to shuttle its ~3,000-satellite constellation into LEO. Relatedly…space is getting crowded.
  • Epic Games released its Unreal Engine 5, and some of the images are pretty…unreal.
  • GM and Honda are teaming up to develop more affordable ($30k price ceiling) EVs. Hold your horses, though: The cars won’t be ready until at least 2027.
  • Apple AirTags are being used across the country to stalk and harass women, according to police reports obtained by Motherboard.
  • Climeworks, the startup that operates the world’s biggest direct air-capture plant, just raised the world’s biggest carbon-removal funding round: $650 million.
  • OpenAI released DALL-E 2, an improved version of its image-generation system—here’s a short video on how it works.

GOING PHISHING

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

  • Swarovski signed a deal with carbon-removal company Climeworks to make crystals with CO2 pulled from the air.
  • Stanford engineers have created a solar panel that generates energy at night.
  • Jack Dorsey is reportedly exploring a path to obtain seat on the Tesla board.
  • Epic Games struck a metaverse partnership with Lego.

SNAP POLL RESULTS

On Wednesday, we included a quick poll on a simple question: Given Hertz’s push into fleet electrification, would you pay more to rent an EV than a gas-powered vehicle?

Your answer: A pretty resounding no. By the numbers: More than half (55%) of respondents said flat-out no, while just ~21% said yes, and the remaining 24% of respondents said maybe. N=3,286 of Emerging Tech Brew readers.

FWIW, in December 2021, Barrons reported that Hertz was getting an estimated $100+ per day for Teslas, a $40 premium over its typical daily average of $60 per car.

  • TBD if that trend holds up when the company has many more Teslas in its fleet, or if it will apply to its soon-to-be-added Polestar EVs as well.

SHARE THE BREW

You only need 1 more referral to receive Morning Brew stickers.

Click here to get free swag.

Hit the button below to learn more and access your rewards hub.

Click to Share

Or copy & paste your referral link to others:
morningbrew.com/emerging-tech/r/?kid=303a04a9

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

No such reports of Jack Dorsey seeking retribution for Elon Musk’s recent Twitter involvement.

 

Written by Grace Donnelly, Hayden Field, and Dan McCarthy

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

  Guide → What is AI?

  Guide → What is 5G?

WANT MORE BREW?

Industry news, with a sense of humor →

  • HR Brew: analysis of the employee-employer relationship
  • IT Brew: moving business forward; innovation analysis for the CTO, CIO & every IT pro in-between

Tips for smarter living →

Podcasts → Business Casual, Founder's Journal, Imposters, and The Money with Katie Show

YouTube

Accelerate Your Career →

  • MB/A: virtual 8-week program designed to broaden your skill set
ADVERTISE // CAREERS // SHOP // FAQ

Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here.
View our privacy policy here.

Copyright © 2022 Morning Brew. All rights reserved.
22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011

Key phrases

Older messages

☕️ Goldfishing

Friday, April 8, 2022

Walmart searches for truckers... April 08, 2022 View Online | Sign Up | Shop Morning Brew TOGETHER WITH eToro Good morning. The moguls are fighting again. Peter Thiel chided Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon

☕️ Feedback

Thursday, April 7, 2022

How Wellfare is working to “flip the food-pantry model.” April 07, 2022 Retail Brew TOGETHER WITH inriver Hello, hello. We're three cups of coffee into the day, so we think you'll probably want

☕️ Fishing for compliments

Thursday, April 7, 2022

How Fishwife is marketing canned seafood. April 07, 2022 Marketing Brew TOGETHER WITH Contentsquare Good Thursday. There's a new mascot in town: “Cracker Jill,” who adds a female face to Frito-

🤹‍♀️ A balancing act

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Jo Franco designs her life. April 07, 2022 | View Online | Sign Up Sidekick Logo TOGETHER WITH Outer Happy Thursday. Today we salute those who, after 757 days of the pandemic, are pausing to reclaim

☕️ Unfriendly skies

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Miami thinks it's the future of finance... April 07, 2022 View Online | Sign Up | Shop Morning Brew TOGETHER WITH IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) Good morning. For many of us, today is

You Might Also Like

☕ Double or nothing

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Why GroupM is doubling its clients' investment in women's sports. March 28, 2024 Marketing Brew PRESENTED BY Iterable Happy Thursday. In honor of National Gelato Day, Talenti created the

Kahneman Quotes, The Future of Creativity, and the Magic of How I Built This

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ten stories that have given us creative inspiration this week ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

Rejection Dust

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Are you, like Toni Morrison, looking for something more interesting to read? Rejection Dust By Caroline Crampton • 28 Mar 2024 View in browser View in browser The Dust Of God Sam Kriss | Numb At The

🎙️ Meet the Secret Weapon Behind Sci-Fi’s Biggest Franchise

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Plus: A novel anti-aging treatment revitalized mice immune systems — will it work in humans? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Squeezed by African Coups, Biden Cozies Up to the World’s Worst Dictator

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Famous for its repression and torture, Teodoro Obiang's Equatorial Guinea got an aid delivery from US Special Operations forces. Most Read Elon Musk Fought Government Surveillance — While Profiting

Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate

Thursday, March 28, 2024

I watched 15 hours of COVID origins arguments so you don't have to - but you should! ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

SIROTA’S SIGNALS: This Graph Explains The Discontent

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Plus, a nonprofit health care system secretly becomes a debt collector, regulators may help you find cheaper credit cards, and Big Tech's plan to keep preying on kids. SIROTA'S SIGNALS: This

Is Biden on track for defeat? The debate, explained.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Plus: How happy are you? What will SBF's sentence be? And more. March 28, 2024 View in browser Good morning! If you've consumed any kind of news about the 2024 presidential election cycle

Boat Probe, Opening Day, and a Cadbury Raccoon

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Facts, without motives. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

These 50 companies have donated over $23 million to election deniers since January 6, 2021

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Then, according to the report of the bipartisan January 6 Commission, Trump engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020