el producto #403 🚀

Software with a soul, New Meta Products, Google Wallet digital IDs, Duolingo gets more gamified, Figma's AI-powered 'First Draft,' Dealing with workplace anxiety & more

Sep 28, 2024

Hi folks 👋

Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto.

🎰 The week in figures

$40B: Anthropic, the Amazon-backed foundational model maker is reportedly in talks to raise funds at a valuation of up to $40B, ~double its most recent valuation

$2.7B: How much would you pay to bring one of the authors of the seminal “Attention Is All You Need” paper that kicked off the LLM boom? In Google’s case, about $2.7B license tech from a startup to get its founder Noam Shazeer back under its roof

1B: Ex Apple designer Jony Ive confirms he is working with Sam Altman on an AI hardware project funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective. The venture reportedly aims to raise $1B by year-end

$370M: Plaid is on pace to do ~$370M in revenue this year, with 80% gross margins

$100M: M2p, a pan-Asian open banking API and banking-as-a-service platform, raised a $100M Series D to expand across Africa

10M: Revolut hit 10M customers in the UK (and 45M globally), shortly after getting approved for its British banking license in July. Revolut is also spinning out its recent €8.5B investment into a brand-new standalone app to compete agains eToro and Robinhood, Revolut Invest. The new app is currently being tested in Greece, Denmark, and the Czech Republic

43% of the web is now powered by WordPress, followed far by Shopify, with 4.5%

📰 What’s going on

OpenAI is considering moving to a for-profit model and offering equity to its CEO, Sam Altman. Given the company’s massive funding round that is currently closing, it’s not a shock that OpenAI is working to become a bit more like a traditional venture-backed startup. Investors putting that much capital to work want to ensure they have the best chance at a sizeable return

OpenAI has started rolling out its Advanced Voice mode to more users. The rollout includes five new voices in different styles. Meta is taking voice capabilities one step further though, and is reported to be adding AI versions of Judi Dench, Kirsten Bell and John Cena to its chatbot

Meta shared a bunch of new Products and updates at its annual Connect event:

TikTok Music, the music streaming service available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico, will be shutting down in November. While TikTok has played a major role in music discovery (and resurgence), tensions with the music industry and the threat of a ban have made expanding the service difficult. In some cases, it’s wiser to partner with established players rather than compete against them

Google Wallet is testing a feature that turns users' American passports into a digital ID for border checkpoints

Gmail has confirmed plans to roll out blue checkmarks to verify the identity of email sending and prevent phishing. The Brand Indicators for Message Identification started with logos in 2021, but the blue checkmark will give companies another way to prove their legitimacy

Duolingo has taken its gamification efforts up a notch with the release of an immersive gaming experience. It’s called Adventures and is essentially a role playing game inside the Duolingo mobile app where users can apply their language learning skills to real world situations like ordering in a cafe. Other new features unveiled by Duolingo included: AI-powered video call experiences, which allows users to engage in realistic conversations with Lily, one of Duolingo’s characters; new friend streaks and league features to boost engagement; ML models which choose your exercises based on your language levels

Figma is reintroducing its controversial AI-powered Make Designs feature with some improvements under a new name: First Draft. It uses off-the-shelf AI models like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Amazon Titan, without any additional training or fine-tuning, and allows Product designers to craft design components. The feature includes proprietary mobile and desktop design systems with numerous components and assembly examples. Users input their design goals as the prompt, the AI then selects, arranges, and customizes design system components based on these inputs, creating a starting point for designs

Pinterest is adding two new features to boost engagement and growth: the Remix feature allows users to create collages from existing templates, and Collage Sharing makes it easier for users to share their creations on social media platforms

Reddit is rolling out its new ML-powered translations to more than 35 new countries as AI continues to power Product growth strategies

Paypal enables crypto. Cryptocurrency is no longer just for consumers. PayPal has announced that business owners will now be able to buy, hold, and sell crypto from their business accounts. This comes a year after the SEC approved the listing and trading of select bitcoin exchange-traded products. Around this time last year, Paypal also made waves by launching its own dollar-backed stablecoin. This latest development signals yet another step in PayPal’s efforts to spearhead the adoption of digital currencies

Klarna partners with fellow FinTech Adyen to bring BNPL into physical stores. The collaboration will make Klarna available at over 450k Adyen payment machines in brick-and-mortar stores. The partnership will initially launch in Europe, North America and Australia, with a wider rollout planned later down the line

Adyen also launched SFO1, it's new enterprise payment acceptance device

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the company will now share user info with legal authorities in response to “valid legal requests”

📚 Good reads

0 to 1 lessons. Alex Kracov spells out the channel strategies, messaging drills and big bets he invested in as the first marketing hire at Lattice, and which tactics he’s putting to use once again now as CEO and co-founder of Dock

Bringing human touch through AI. Anna Piñol from NfX, envisions a future where AI infuses the human touch into everything we do, allowing our best traits—creativity, empathy, and care—to scale in ways that current systems don't. While humans are inherently limited in their reach, AI has the potential to extend these qualities, making every interaction more personal and meaningful. This piece dives into the intersection of technology and humanity, offering a vision of how AI can enhance, rather than replace, the human experience

Behind the product: Superhuman. Founded by Rahul Vohra in 2014, Superhuman has helped users tackle their inboxes with unprecedented speed, cutting down hours of email management each week. But as AI emerged, Superhuman had to evolve and fast. It wasn’t just about keeping up with the competition—it was about maintaining their core promise: delivering the fastest email experience possible. That’s when Raul and his team made a bold decision to pivot their focus toward AI, partnering with OpenAI and fundamentally transforming their approach to email

Make meetings suck less. Noah Ganot shares good advice on meeting preparation. Besides obvious ones like crafting a clear agenda, other prep items such as anticipating questions + having mitigation plans ready, can make a big difference

Workplace anxiety: How to deal with anxiety at work. Ness Labs again on point with this brief workplace anxiety survival guide

Workplace Anxiety - CALM Toolbox for Managing Anxiety at Work - Anne-Laure Le Cunff at Ness Labs

That’s all for this week. As usual, feel free to reach out and share your thoughts by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack

Thanks for your support!

Angel

week in product

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