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Goons And Glory In The Gundo
Also OpenAI launches text to video and Bitcoin is back in the Cuatro Commas Club
Adam Hardej
February 21, 2024
Not Miami. Not NYC. You, El Segundo. A not so nice area southwest of LA is the hottest new place in tech and it’s not what you’d expect. Meanwhile, OpenAI launched Sora, which marks the first time I really asked “oh wow, that’s not a real video?” to myself and Bitcoin is back in the Cuatro Commas Club ($1T market cap).
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How Silicon Valley learned to love America, drones and glory
“Hundreds of bright young technologists have landed in California this weekend for a two-day hackathon — a quintessential start-up contest in which teams of coders race to build software. But rather than a posh, snack-laden San Francisco office, they’ll work in a cavernous 6,000 square-foot warehouse in El Segundo, a refinery town southwest of Los Angeles.”
OpenAI Launches Sora: Creating Video From Text
“We’re teaching AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction. Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model. Sora can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adherence to the user’s prompt.”
Bitcoin reclaims $1 trillion crown
“The sector has been bolstered by the U.S. regulatory approval of several spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), from BlackRock and Fidelity among others, which allow access to the crypto coin vis regular stock exchanges.”
Hot Links
Sandhill Live Schedule
Anduril and Defense Tech
Join us live on TOMORROW, February 22nd to learn more about Anduril and the Defense Tech sector. We're excited to be joined by:
Scott Sanders - Chief Growth Officer @ RRAI
Ross Fubini - Managing Partner at XYZ Venture Capital
[IRL in NYC] PrimeTime VC
It's official, we're hosting PrimeTime VC in person on March 7th 6-8 PM EST at Betaworks in NYC. Click here to learn more and request an invite!
For those unfamiliar, PrimeTime VC is "The Show of Accredited Banter" that will bring a panel of 4 VCs together to battle it out on stage. The most insights gets the most points. You win either way.
Featured Panelists:
Jesse Middelton is a GP at Flybridge Capital based in Boston and NYC, Flybridge Captial is a seed-stage venture capital firm investing in ambitious founders building our AI-powered future.
Olivia O'Sullivan is a Partner at Forum Ventures. Forum Ventures is writing 75+ checks this year to trailblazing early-stage B2B SaaS founders.
Zehra Naqvi is an Investor at Headline Ventures. Headline is actively on the ground in 7 cities around the world, making it possible to invest locally in the US, Europe, Asia, and Brazil.
Not going to be in NYC? We will be streaming the event live as well. Click here to RSVP and add it to your calendar.
Previously on Sandhill
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Letters From The Editor
Misc. (short for miscellaneous)
On Selling Out (aka making money aka selling ads)
“Cash rules everything around me.” - George Washington*
I mentioned this a while back, but the day has finally come to show ads in the Sandhill Newsletter. This is mostly driven by the fact that Andreessen no longer picks up the tab around here and I would like to keep doing this type of venture media work while remaining fed/housed. For some reason though, I still feel the need to justify myself here. As I’ve learned over the years, this is the trap of offering just about anything for free.
Anyways, we’re doing ads now and we will do our best to keep them relevant and on brand. The money from ads will be used to support newsletter ops as well as other media asset like our live events. It will also be used to pour some gas on growth.
Open rates / click through and all that are really healthy (thank you for reading/clicking!), but like any newsletter there’s a small percentage of you that unsubscribes with every send. I need to backfill those loses to keep Sandhill thriving.
What does Sandhill “thriving” entail? The bigger goal is to use Sandhill media assets to drive deeper into the offering:
The Syndicate (what it sounds like)
Sandhill Private (the paid VIP experience)
Distribution (a new thing I’ll explain next week)
It has been a slog of a transition, but we’re close to having all the pieces in place for 2024. Thank you for your patience through the process and for sticking with me! Exciting times ahead.
*Technically this is a Wu-Tang Clan line, but I don’t think George would disagree with the sentiment.
Talk soon,
Adam
PS - Do you want to sponsor this newsletter or an upcoming live event? Reply to this email and/or shoot a note to [email protected] to learn more.