el producto #429 🚀
Mastering time management, Revisiting MVPs, Google's AI-powered travel features, The evolution of Product Management, AI+human teams, New Gemini model tops AI scores & more
Hi folks 👋
Welcome to a new edition of el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$40B: OpenAI is nearing a $40B funding round led by SoftBank, with an initial $7.5B and a $22.5B tranche, potentially valuing the company at $300B
$23B: Cloud computing startup CoreWeave is cutting the size of its IPO and will look for a valuation closer to $23B than the roughly $30B it had initially targeted
$500M: Butterfly Effect (the Chinese startup behind Manus AI) is in talks to raise $500M. The company — which builds AI agents that can complete complex, multi-process tasks with minimal human guidance — raised cash last year at a $100M valuation, but the hype and excitement about its technology has picked up considerably since then
$400M: TON Foundation, the blockchain used to power the growing number of mini apps within Telegram's messaging app ecosystem, raised over $400M through a token sale. The platform is rumored to be launching a stablecoin this year
$300M: Business banking platform Mercury announced a $300M Series C at a $3.5B valuation, on the back of growth to 200,000+ business customers, $500M in revenue in 2024, $156B in annual transaction volume, up 64% YoY, and 10 consecutive quarters of profitability
$250M: Island, the enterprise browser startup, raised $250M in Series E, boosting valuation to $4.85B. The startup now has 450 customers, including Mattress Firm and Fiverr
$207M: Napster acquired for $207M. It’s over 25 years since the pioneering p2p file-sharing service changed the way we listen to (and sometimes even pay for) music online, and 24 years since it shut down and filed for bankruptcy after being sued into oblivion. But a not-quite-defunct Napster has now been acquired by the 3D technology company Infinite Reality. CEO John Acunto says he plans to use the iconic brand, not so much the technology, for marketing purposes in the metaverse
$150M: The Bot Company, aiming to create a household chore robot, raised $150M shortly after launch
$100M: Perplexity has crossed $100M in revenue in just 20 months
$100M: Anthropic and Databricks have signed a new $100M deal to build AI agent products together
+28%: Stripe is not planning to IPO anytime soon. The payment company’s revenues grew about 28% last year to $5.1B, yielding a stonking $2.2B in free cash flow. Why go public when your company kicks off $180M worth of cash every month?
📰 What’s going on
OpenAI enhanced its AI voice assistant with improved conversation quality, reducing interruptions and increasing engagement
OpenAI added built-in image generation to their main ChatGPT offering. The newly introduced “Images in ChatGPT” feature relies on the GPT-4o model, allowing users to order up original pictures right from the main ChatGPT prompt. The feature is available across all subscription tiers, including Free, with the same built-in limits as OpenAI’s DALL-E image generator: 3 fresh looks per day
Samsung to launch AI Smart Glasses "HAEAN" before EOY; feature a 12MP cam, Snapdragon AR1, and Gemini assistant
Amazon’s new "Interests" tool allows users to enter personalized shopping prompts, enhancing the search experience with AI for select U.S. users
Google unveiled its latest major AI model release with Gemini 2.5, topping the LMArena leaderboard. Perhaps most notably for Product teams, it scored a 63.8% score on the software engineering test SW-bench, beating GPT 4.5 but failing to surpass the current leader, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which boasts an impressive 70.3% score
Users can ask Google’s AI Overviews to create an itinerary for a specific destination, and it’ll display day-to-day ideas, photos, maps, places to visit, where to eat, tips, etc.. which it will export into a Google Doc or email
Google is also making its Gems feature—which allows users to create custom AI experts—accessible for everyone, which means users can create an AI expert to help them pick a destination and know what to pack, etc.
It’s also adding hotel price tracking, so users will get notified if their chosen hotel prices go down, and introducing a feature that turns saved screenshots about places to visit into saved locations in Google Maps
Perplexity has added a new feature called “answer tabs,” which allows users to search for images, video, travel, shopping, and more in one place. It works a little bit like Google’s Search tabs where you can filter your results in one go
Perplexity joined the race to acquire TikTok, and to develop an open-source algorithm in the U.S., enhancing transparency. It faces larger competitors like Oracle
Microsoft is getting its own version of Deep Research in the form of an AI Agent called “Researcher”. It will work similarly to competitors, but it will be plugged into proprietary data sources that Microsoft 365 has access to. Microsoft says it saved users an average of 6-8 hours a week during its testing with early adopters
Robinhood launched an AI-based financial advisor, Robinhood Strategies, for $250/year
Waymo is hitting the streets of Washington, D.C. The expansion comes as Tesla and other automakers push for nationwide regulations on self-driving cars
📚 Good reads
The death of Product Development as we know it. I tend to feel skeptical when I see such article titles - but when it’s written by Julie Zhuo, I know it will be valuable. Zhuo explains how traditional tech teams, once comprised of engineers, PMs, and designers, are becoming obsolete. AI's emergence disrupts the conventional group dynamics, and the standard linear process of idea generation to launch is being replaced by a more agile execution and a faster experimentation cycle. Accepting chaos and adaptability in strategies will be crucial for success in AI-driven environments
Mastering time management: strategies for Product leaders to balance Maker and Manager roles. Ravi Mehta shows why Product leaders must actively reclaim their time to ensure they can succeed in both maker and manager capacities. Establishing clear boundaries and prioritizing tasks will ultimately lead to better outcomes. As a Product leader, it’s also important how you treat and respect other’s time - especially your team’s
Andrew Chen revisits the Minimum Viable Product strategy and its strengths / weaknesses. Did you know that DoorDash started as a simple product called 'Palo Alto Deliveries,' built in 45 minutes using a static HTML page and restaurant menus in PDF? MVPs can be effective but often fall short in mature markets where design and functionality expectations are high. Categories needing substantial upfront investment show that limited MVPs may not be appropriate for all industries.
Independent analysis of AI models and API providers. A nice resource to understand the AI landscape so you can choose the best model and provider for your use case
AI + humans > teams? New Harvard study shows GenAI can be your “cybernetic teammate.” Researchers studied 700+ Procter & Gamble staff to see how AI (in this case, ChatGPT 4 and 4o) affects teamwork, and the results are honestly kind of mind-blowing. The experiment compared four scenarios: individuals working alone, teams without AI, individuals with AI, and teams with AI. Here's what they discovered:
Teams with AI were 9.2 percentage points more likely to produce top 10% solutions—about 3x better than people working without it
AI users finished tasks 16.4% faster while writing more (quantity and quality, the dream combo!)
People using AI reported more positive emotions than those working without.
Weirdly, AI users felt less confident despite doing objectively better work—AI imposter syndrome, am I right?
Perhaps most fascinating: AI broke down workplace silos like nothing else. Without AI, everyone stuck to what they knew—technical folks stayed technical, commercial people stayed commercial. With AI? Suddenly everyone started speaking each other's languages
Sam Altman’s vision of the future of OpenAI. OpenAI’s CEO recently spoke about his plans for product strategy, vision, and monetization options for OpenAI. Here are some takeaways worth knowing:
That’s a wrap for this week! 🌟
I’d love to hear your thoughts—what stood out to you, and how are you thinking about integrating these insights into your product strategy? Reply to this email or drop a comment on Substack to share your take. And if you found this valuable, forward it to a fellow PM, Product enthusiast, startup founder or entrepreneur who’d enjoy the read
See you next week! 👋
Angel