el producto #358 🚀
Uber Tasks, Gmail instant messaging, Amazon to sell cars, GPT directory, The new Airbnb playbook, Acquisition loop templates, OpenAI CEO fired & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$5B: Google is in talks to invest "hundreds of millions" in Character.AI at a $5B+ valuation after the startup was valued at $1B in March
$400M: Deel, an HR startup last valued at $12B that helps companies hire contract and remote workers, hit $400M in ARR last month
$174: Redpin, the owner of payment service providers Currencies Direct and TorFX, raised £140M ($174M)
$100M: Blockchain.com, a UK-based crypto financial services platform, raised a $110M Series E
$76M: Live streaming shopping in China is next level. This woman sells $76M of product per month
$10M: OpenAI recruiters have offered senior Google AI researchers compensation packages in the $5M-$10M range, mainly in the form of stock compensation
36%: Google gives Apple a 36% share of its ad revenue for searches conducted through Apple's Safari browser on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The previously confidential figure was disclosed during the U.S. Justice Department's ongoing antitrust trial against Google
📰 What’s going on
Uber is launching "Uber Tasks," a pilot program to let users hire drivers for household chores and projects. The program will let users hire drivers for tasks like furniture assembly, laundry, packing, decorating, and yard maintenance
Microsoft Teams is enhancing its user experience with AI-driven features and moving toward the metaverse, including AI voice filtering and background optimization. These updates aim to improve platform functionality, communication, and customization
Microsoft has rebranded its Bing chat interface to "Microsoft Copilot," transitioning away from the branding across Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Windows 11. Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise are now simply named "Copilot"
Microsoft unveiled Windows AI Studio, a central hub for developers to access and customize AI models. The platform integrates development tools and models from Azure AI Studio and services like Hugging Face
Google is introducing new AI tools for YouTube that allow users to create music tracks using text prompts or hummed melodies. One of the experimental tools, Dream Track, can generate 30-second music clips in the style of nine different artists, including Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, and John Legend
Gmail is testing a new reply functionality that transforms email into instant messaging. If successful, this could mark the end of the formalities of email
Meta announced new AI tools that can edit photos as well as generate video clips from text prompts. According to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta is working to integrate the "creative editing capabilities" into Instagram and Facebook, though he hasn't shared a timeline or release date
Amazon will start selling cars online in 2024. Hyundai will be the first of several vehicle brands to become available on Amazon's U.S. e-commerce site
Amazon beefed up its “Buy With Prime” service with new features ahead of the holiday shopping season, adding order tracking, customer service and returns for merchants that sell on other websites.
Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs and discontinuing certain projects in its Alexa division. The company is realigning its efforts toward other business priorities, including generative AI
Spotify is using Google Cloud's AI to help improve tailored recommendations for its podcasts and audiobooks. Spotify will use Google Cloud's large language models to gain deeper insights into the patterns of its "spoken content," which should improve its ability to deliver personalized recommendations
Revolut is now offering its in-house built HR software,that manages its 7500 employees, to external companies. “The Revolut People,” a system that they developed in-house and used for the last five years, is now available for selected external companies (invite only)
Sam Altman has been ousted from his position as the CEO of OpenAI as the board of directors claims he "was not consistently candid in his communication with the board." Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world. Greg Brockman, OpenAI Co-Founder & President revealed on X that he is also quitting based on the the boards action to remove Sam Altman
Docusign has unveiled a new way to sign documents via WhatsApp. Docusign’s VP of product said that the integration was part of the company’s commitment to building a “frictionless, end-to-end agreement experience”
📚 Good reads
GPT Directory. Browse hundreds of custom built GPTs for things like user feedback, product insights and more
The 100 best bits of advice from 10 years of First Round Review. One of our favourite publications has curated the best advice from all their articles. Short snippets of wisdom that can also serve as entry points to their amazing archive
Understanding cultural variations in Product Design: implications for localization and UX, by Bas Wallet. Why are Western apps more minimalistic than Asian apps? Turns out that social cultural dimensions, like individualism and collectivism, could guide what makes a good UX
UX Case study: GoDaddy - How to improve checkout flows ethically, by Growth.Design
Acquisition loops templates, by Adam Fishman. A walkthrough of the template loop used by Canva, Figma, Adobe, Miro, Airtable and Notion, with a quantitative growth model to measure this loop at your company
[Podcast] Brian Chesky’s new playbook for Airbnb. What was supposed to be a Lenny’s podcast episode turned into a Brian Chesky’s monologue. Lots of interesting insights, but don’t try to replicate everything 1-1. Melissa Perry and John Cutler made a great analysis of the episode, pointing out few outstanding questions
That’s all for this week! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel