☕ Sequoia Capital announced $950 million fund, Amazon to cut 30,000 corporate jobs & Nvidia is reportedly building a $3B robotaxi fleet.
OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly & X is erasing the last traces of Twitter.
Google Images was created after Jennifer Lopez wore *that* infamous dress at the 2000 Grammys.
So many people were searching for her outfit, the search engine added an image function.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: 90s web design legends, OpenAI 2026 outlook, new AI browsers, financial model, VCs pre-traction.
Sequoia Capital has announced $950 million in new early-stage funds.
OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly.
Amazon reportedly plans to cut around 30,000 corporate jobs.
Nvidia is reportedly building a $3B robotaxi fleet.
Qualcomm announces AI chips to compete with AMD and Nvidia.
Australia sues Microsoft over misleading Copilot pricing.
Musk could leave Tesla if $1 trillion pay plan is rejected, chair warns.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages.
X is erasing the last traces of Twitter.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
The 3 Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen.
What’s Ahead for OpenAI in 2026.
New AI Browsers Are Coming.
Excel template: Early stage startup financial model for fundraising.
How to find the right investors for your startup.
Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet.
Microsoft’s AI Vision: An Open Internet Made for Agents.
Startup Legal Document Pack – Essential Legal Docs for Founders.
Amplitude’s product benchmark report: a must-read.
Elad Gil’s list of biotech companies he wishes existed is well worth a read.
What is the Price of Demand?
SaaS startup financial model: All-in-One Excel template.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Mercor, a San Francisco, CA-based startup that connects AI labs with experts for training their AI models, raised $350M in Series C funding. The round, which valued the company at $10 billion, was led by Felicis with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures.
Onfire, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based vertical AI platform for IT revenue teams, raised $20m in initial funding. The round was co-led by Grove Ventures and TLV Partners, with support of IN Venture and participation of Leumi Tech 77 By Bank Leumi.
WorkHero, a Boston, MA-based AI-powered back office for small HVAC contractors, raised $5m in seed funding. The round was led by Navitas Capital, with participation from Workshop Ventures, York IE, and several strategic angels including a former ServiceTitan executive.
Honey Health, a Mountain View, CA-based all-in-one back office AI platform for healthcare organizations, raised $7.8m in seed funding. The round was led by Pelion Ventures, with participation from Streamlined, Burst Capital, and 8-Bit Capital.
SavvyMoney, a Dublin, CA-based provider of financial wellness and growth solutions, received a $225m minority investment. The round was co-led by PSG and Canapi Ventures, with continued investment from Spectrum Equity.
PodPlay Technologies, Inc., a NYC-based vertical SaaS platform for participatory sports venues, announced its spin-off from PingPod, Inc. and closed an $8m Series A funding round. The round was led by Frontier Growth. Frontier partner Dave Pandullo will join PodPlay’s board.
Seneca, a San Francisco, CA-based resilience technology and infrastructure company, raised $60m in funding. The round was led by Caffeinated Capital and Convective Capital, with participation from First Round Capital, Transition VC, Advance Venture Partners, Nextview Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Stepstone Group, DCVC, Offline Ventures, Roar Capital, and Slow Ventures.
Pave Bank, a Singapore-based fully licensed commercial bank combining traditional and onchain management solutions, raised over $39m in funding. The round, which brought total funding to more than $44m, was led by Accel, with participation from Tether Investments, Quona Capital, Wintermute Ventures, Helios Digital Ventures, Yolo Investments, Kazea Fund, and GC&H Investments.
Bridge, a NYC-based AI-native operating system purpose-built for private markets allocators, raised $5.1m in seed funding. The round was led by Thicket Ventures with participation from Bill Lewis (ex-Lazard, ex-Morgan Stanley), Bob White (Bain Capital), Nate Sleeper (CD&R), Dani Fava (Carson Group), Ed Swenson (Dynasty), Molly Bennard (ex-Focus Financial), Peter Lee (Summit Trail Advisors), Chris Piazza (KKR, ex-iCapital), and David Hauser (Vanilla), among others.
Adaptam Therapeutics, a San Sebastián – Spain-based biotech company pioneering cancer immunotherapies specifically targeting immunosuppressive myeloid cells, closed a €3m (approximately. ~$3.5m) pre-seed financing round. The round was led by Criteria Bio Ventures. As part of the round, Salvatore Cappadona, PhD, and Pablo Cironi, PhD, both from Criteria Bio Ventures, joined the board of directors.
Serval, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native IT service management (ITSM) platform, raised $47M in Series A funding. The round, which brought total funding to $52M since its founding in 2024, was led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from First Round, General Catalyst, Box Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Chemistry, and others.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Sequoia Capital, the legendary Silicon Valley VC firm, has announced $950 million in new early-stage funds, comprising a $750M Series A fund and a $200M seed fund. Despite recent setbacks like the FTX collapse and restructuring of its India and China arms, the firm is doubling down on its mission to back outlier founders early. Sequoia’s recent bets — including Xbow, Traversal, and Reflection AI — have already seen sharp upticks in valuation, reinforcing the firm’s belief in pre-seed and seed investing amid the AI boom.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly
OpenAI revealed that about 0.15% of ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users—over a million people—discuss suicidal thoughts or planning with the chatbot each week.
The company says hundreds of thousands also show signs of emotional dependence, psychosis, or mania, prompting new safeguards and consultations with 170+ mental health experts.
OpenAI claims the latest GPT-5 model now gives 65% more appropriate responses to mental health issues and is 91% compliant with desired behaviors, though serious concerns remain about long-term safety and youth protection.
Amazon reportedly plans to cut around 30,000 corporate jobs
Amazon is preparing to eliminate up to 30,000 corporate roles starting Tuesday, marking its largest workforce reduction since the 27,000 layoffs in 2022–2023.
The cuts will reportedly affect multiple divisions, including HR, devices and services, and operations, as the company continues streamlining through AI automation.
A memo from CEO Andy Jassy cited growing use of AI agents as a reason fewer corporate positions will be required going forward.
Nvidia is reportedly building a $3B robotaxi fleet
Nvidia is reportedly investing $3 billion to create its own internal robotaxi fleet for US operations, a project separate from its existing partnerships with other major car manufacturers.
The initiative will use a single-stage “end-to-end” approach, likely building on Nvidia’s Cosmos world foundation model to generate synthetic video for training its autonomous driving system.
This effort is seen as a training ground to improve its engineering and close a performance gap with Tesla’s FSD, where internal tests showed Nvidia’s system required more interventions.
Qualcomm announces AI chips to compete with AMD and Nvidia
Qualcomm is entering the data center market to directly compete with Nvidia, releasing AI accelerator chips called the AI200 and AI250 that are based on its smartphone Hexagon NPUs.
The new chips focus on inference instead of training AI models and will be sold in full liquid-cooled server racks or as separate components for clients to mix and match.
Qualcomm claims a key advantage with its AI cards supporting 768 gigabytes of memory, which is higher than Nvidia’s offerings, while also promising lower overall operating costs for customers.
Australia sues Microsoft over misleading Copilot pricing
Australia’s consumer watchdog is suing Microsoft, alleging the company misled 2.7 million subscribers by concealing a less expensive option when adding its Copilot AI to Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
The lawsuit claims Microsoft engineered a false choice, forcing customers to either accept a price hike up to 45% for the AI or cancel, without mentioning the available “Classic” plan.
This Australian legal challenge could set a global precedent, as reports from other markets describe a similar experience where a non-AI alternative was only revealed during the cancellation process.
Musk could leave Tesla if $1 trillion pay plan is rejected, chair warns
Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm warned shareholders that Elon Musk may leave Tesla if his proposed $1 trillion performance-based pay package is not approved at the upcoming November 6 meeting.
The plan would grant Musk 12 tranches of stock options tied to aggressive milestones, including a market cap of $8.5 trillion and breakthroughs in AI and robotics.
Denholm defended the package as vital to retaining Musk’s “time, talent, and vision,” even as governance critics question the board’s independence and a Delaware court previously voided Musk’s 2018 pay deal.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages
xAI’s Grokipedia, launched as Elon Musk’s answer to Wikipedia, has been found copying entire Wikipedia articles nearly word-for-word, with some pages noting that content is “adapted from Wikipedia.”
Despite Musk’s claim that Grokipedia would be a “massive improvement,” The Verge found pages like those for MacBook Air and PlayStation 5 identical to Wikipedia entries, while a Wikimedia spokesperson remarked that “even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”
Beyond plagiarism concerns, Grokipedia’s articles show ideological shifts, with its climate change entry downplaying scientific consensus — raising questions about bias and factual accuracy in Musk’s new encyclopedia.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
X is erasing the last traces of Twitter
X is requiring people who use physical security keys or passkeys for 2FA to re-enroll them so the company can completely retire the old twitter.com domain name.
This update is necessary because the hardware-based login methods are tied to a specific website address and won’t work with x.com until they are manually re-associated.
Users who do not complete this process for their security keys by the November 10th deadline will have their accounts locked until the required update is finally finished.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
All-In-One VC Interview Preparation Guide: With a leading investors group, we have created an all-in-one VC interview preparation guide for aspiring VCs. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)
Executive Assistant - AN Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
Senior Associate - M12 | USA - Apply Here
Analyst - Urban Partners | London - Apply Here
Investor Relations - Samved VC | India - Apply Here
Interim Senior Analyst, Investments - Pivotal Ventures | USA - Apply Here
Trade Operations Lead - Manhattan Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
AI Builder In Residence - True Venture | USA - Apply Here
VP of Fundraising - Scale Asia Venture | Japan - Apply Here
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