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Indian Express
8 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
OpenAI hires team behind startup Crossing Minds as AI talent war heats up
OpenAI has recruited several employees from Crossing Minds, the startup that develops AI recommendation systems, said in an announcement on Thursday, June 30. 'Joining OpenAI allows us to bring our work — and our values — into a mission we deeply respect: to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We're thrilled to bring our experience and energy to a team that's setting the direction for the future of AI. We're excited to learn, to contribute, and to help shape what's next,' the co-founders of Crossing Minds wrote in a blog post on its official website. This development comes days after rival Meta poached four of OpenAI's researchers, signalling a potential talent war among AI companies. It is still unclear as to whether OpenAI has hired everyone that was part of the Crossing Minds team. Crossing Minds is a startup that primarily works with e-commerce companies to help improve their personalisation and recommendation systems. It has developed intelligent, adaptive information retrieval systems, allowing for optimum use of data procured by their client companies. These systems ensure real-time, personalised results alongside advanced applications for large language models (LLMs) to enhance in-context learning and Minds is backed by Shopify and Index Ventures, and raised over 13.5 million dollars in its last funding round, as per Crunchbase. The high-stakes, rapidly evolving AI race has led tech companies to aggressively poach talent from rivals. Recently, Meta hired four ex-OpenAI researchers as part of its newly formed artificial superintelligence lab that will be led by Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang. One major reason for employees swapping sides could be the lure of 100-million-dollar signing bonuses being offered by Meta to OpenAI's top workers, as revealed by CEO Sam Altman in a recent podcast. However, this claim of 'hefty signing bonuses' was termed as 'fake news' by one of the OpenAI researchers set to join Meta. In response to Meta's poaching of AI researchers left and right for its superintelligence lab, OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen said in an internal memo, 'I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,' as per a report by Wired. Amazon Web Services' AI division has also reportedly been affected by the AI talent war, with Vasi Philomin, a vice president of generative AI, saying that he was going to another company, according to a report by Reuters. Philomin had been with Amazon for eight years and played a pivotal role in AI projects such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Titan. He did not provide any specifics on where he was going next. (This article has been curated by Purv Ashar, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
Time of India
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Larsa Pippen's claims on RHOM 'He wants her money, her access' Lisa Hochstein's boyfriend Jody is 'using' her
Despite having a rough start to season 7, the two lifelong friends and cast members of The Real Housewives of Miami have been working to mend their relationship, and Larsa, 50, feels Lisa's boyfriend Jody isn't the right fit for her. The ladies started to patch things up during a trip to Milan Fashion Week after they were spotted fighting over Lisa and Jody's acquaintance with Larsa's ex-boyfriend, Marcus Jordan. But according to Larsa, Jody allegedly instructed Lisa not to pursue a friendship with her any longer during the June 25 episode of RHOM. Following their breakup, Larsa clarified that she urged Lisa and Jody to stop being friends with Marcus. "I don't want blogs to say that my friend is hanging out with my ex, who is publicly bashing me," she said, before adding, "My loyalty is to Lisa." I began to get along with Lisa. We achieved progress," she remarked. However, she also mentioned that on their final night in Milan, Jody reportedly became "so crazy," telling Lisa he doesn't want her to talk to Larsa anymore. Larsa went on to tell the women that she had pulled Lisa aside and declared her love for her. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch vàng CFDs với sàn môi giới tin cậy IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm Undo Before saying, "He's using you," I want to make amends with you. He isn't healthy for you. Lisa just said, "I love him," Larsa explained. I adore him. Larsa went on to say, "He's controlling," in reference to her lover. "To be honest, I'm worried about her," Larsa said. "Because I believe he wants her access and money." Before Alexia and Kiki interrupted, Larsa stated, "She will never be able to make a business call without him on the phone." He is acting as manager. Alexia remarked, "That's frightening," while Kiki accused him of being a gold digger. When Guerdy enquired as to whether the two women had settled their dispute, Larsa said that they hadn't. Lisa was invited to the surprise celebration, but Alexia informed her that she was unable to go because she was in Canada for her father's burial. "Larsa keeps trying one angle more strange than the next," Jody said in a statement to PEOPLE in reaction to Larsa's charges. According to a quick search on Crunchbase, my previous business, which I founded, had hundreds of workers and nearly half a billion dollars. It is still in existence. A well-known business on the Canadian stock exchange existed before then. Lisa also addressed the accusations made against Jody by her co-star, saying to PEOPLE, "Maybe she should get her own relationship in order rather than projecting on others." Lisa was married to Lenny Hochstein before they went through a public divorce, which was shown on RHOM season 5, before she and Jody started dating. The TV celebrity and Lenny filed for divorce in May 2022, claiming "irreconcilable differences." The couple announced their separation that same month. In February 2023, less than a year after Lenny filed for divorce, Lisa and Jody formally announced their relationship.
Forbes
17-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Who's Observing The Observers—Cleaning Up The AI Mess In Aisle Seven
Today's news, that Coralogix closed a $115M funding round at a $1B valuation to disrupt observability with agentic AI, made we wonder — shouldn't C-Suite Leaders know who is observing the observers? For some, it's been exciting to watch AI progress at lightning speed over the past few years. For others, the pace is exhausting, including those covering it, enterprises aiming to put it to productive work, and vendors striving to develop the tech or integrate it into their stacks. Investors have been pouring in money at an impressive rate. A Crunchbase report documented the rise in startup funding last year which was dominated by investments in AI. According to their data: 'Close to a third of all global venture funding went to companies in AI-related fields, making artificial intelligence the leading sector for funding. Funding to AI-related companies reached over $100B — up more than 80% year over year from $55.6B in 2023.' About a third of this went to foundation model companies. The rest flowed to related sectors like IT infrastructure needed to run AI, and those segments that rely on AI: autonomous vehicles, healthcare, robotics, etc. Want details? Stanford University reported that GenAI funding soared in 2024. Look for these numbers to jump again, with a continued march of funding rounds and M&A deals ahead. These trends are probably not surprising. After all, even though the category has seen strong investments over the last ten years, close to $.5T, AI innovation presents a major inflection that is having a ripple effect across most all sectors. And GenAI and LLMs are the poster kids for the leaps we are seeing. But news from IT observability vendor Coralogix, about a $115M E Round at +$1B valuation, showed that some smart money is finding its way to the technology needed to manage the mess we are creating. Yes, there can be some delight at the nexus of the less sexy areas of IT performance and AI safety - both of which are linchpins to further maturation and adoption of AI in the enterprise. Why Observing The Observers Really Matters The news relates to an area of IT that some may not be familiar with; so, I'll explain. Observability is the ability to understand the state of a system by examining the data it generates. The tech emerged from the software engineering and network monitoring worlds, as a response to the challenges of managing increasingly complex environments driven by the growth of cloud and distributed computing. Basically, what it does is hoover in all the data 'exhaust fumes' generated by logs, metrics and traces, to make better sense of what is happening and help site reliability engineers (SREs) reduce outages and improve system health and reliability. The technology has evolved to take on more tasks, including application performance monitoring and security - encroaching on these spaces and sometimes integrating with the technologies. Today, IT observability is a dynamic, highly competitive, and rapidly growing segment of enterprise IT. According to Gartner, the market is expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 15%, with projections placing its total size at around $11.2 billion by 2026 I said that its evolution is a result of growing IT complexity and that AI adds an inflection, and some would argue, more complexity to the enterprise. At the same time, we all know that AI can help in managing things and drive better understanding of complex issues. What happens when AI meets observability? Taking On The Big Dogs Of Observability This brings us to today's news, which is a shot across the bow by Coralogix against the big dogs, not just metaphorically but also literally: e.g., Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, AppDynamics, Splunk and Acceldata. These vendors help manage AI and use some form of it (e.g., machine learning or LLMs) in their stacks. They are also bullish about combining AI and observability. For example, on recent earning calls, Datadog CEO Josh Pomel said, "We continue to see rising customer [demand] It seems Coralogix is taking a more aggressive approach. The company acquired AI observability provider Aporia last year, which resulted in the launch of their AI Center; the first solution to treat AI as a separate observability stack. Their AI Center helps manage not only AI performance, as some others do, but also its content, enabling businesses to detect hallucinations, toxicity, prompt injection (yeah that's a thing), and more. Now, Coralogix has secured a major investment that should fuel its drive to disrupt the space with the first AI agent that extends observability value across the enterprise. Why is this significant to C-Suite Leaders? First, from a sheer numbers PoV, it is a big round. While not the largest in AI by any stretch, it is an impressive amount for an up-and-comer that is not aiming to move mountains in the capital-intensive LLM and chips arenas. I spoke with Coralogix CEO Ariel Assaraf about the news and their current status. He did not provide hard revenue numbers but said that the company has achieved impressive 72% YoY growth for the last three years. Customers include well-known logos like Adobe Systems, Ferrari and DoorDash. This round was led by CA-based venture growth firm NewView Capital. Ariel shared that all existing investors including Advent International, Brighton Park Capital, Revaia, and Greenfield Partners, returned to support Coralogix's continued growth and launch into agentic AI observability. 'Decoder Ring' Knocks Down Tower Of Babel Separating Business And IT Interestingly, they issued a second and related announcement at the same time: 'Coralogix Unveils Industry's First AI Agent That Extends Observability Value Across the Enterprise.' When I asked Ariel Assaraf to connect the dots; he said: "We have this unique architecture that allows teams to ingest more data, analyze the data in-stream, and make informed decisions for optimization. Traditional observability is super-expensive and doesn't scale; we fixed that. Now we're adding agentic AI, and people can make informed decisions across business units without being experts." He further explained: "AI introduces new challenges around data security, accuracy, and scale, demanding a new approach. Agentic AI can enable smarter observability that minimizes manual effort and makes it easier for teams to surface and act on insights from their data.' According to the press release, their agent, called 'Olly,' is an agentic AI that transcends the more typical event alerts observability platforms generate to answer questions and provide guidance. This sounds like they are tackling the disconnect that can occur between the business and IT sides. It's the old business and IT alignment challenge that has yet to be solved. One of the biggest barriers is the translation gap — non-technical stakeholders can't easily understand 'geek speak' or explore how backend systems impact business outcomes. With Olly, both technical and non-technical users can ask questions in plain English, from 'What is wrong with the payment flow?' or 'Why do some users struggle with logging in?' to more holistic questions like 'Which service is frustrating our users the most?' In short, democratizing insights available from observability, to better connect IT performance and drive smarter outcomes, is what enterprises need now. As AI-enabled observability becomes more mainstream in the enterprise, look for impacts across the organization — from frontline performers to boardroom risk mitigators. Like other tech trends I've unpacked, which are critical for the next generation of C-Suiters to lead their organizations, keep an eye on the observers to help you better align the tech and business goals — and hopefully boost results across your enterprise.
News24
12-06-2025
- General
- News24
Man accused of threatening Ramaphosa, Hill-Lewis to undergo psychiatric evaluation
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African Manager
22-05-2025
- Business
- African Manager
Tunisia 82nd in Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025
The global organization StartupBlink has released its updated 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Index, providing an in-depth analysis of startup ecosystems worldwide. The report evaluates over 1,400 cities and 100 countries, offering detailed national and city rankings alongside regional and sector-specific insights. Leveraging data from partners like Crunchbase, SEMRush, and BrightData, it serves as a critical resource for startups, policymakers, and investors making location-based decisions. The Tunisian ecosystem is ranked 82nd. With a score of 0.787, Tunisia is in the top 10 in Africa (7th), having gained eight places compared with the previous edition and representing annual growth of 15.3%. Within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Tunisia is ranked 14th; however, the report emphasizes that this progress is insufficient given the growing competition from other North African countries. In fact, Tunisia's growth remains the lowest in the region at under 15%, which restricts its ambitions in such a competitive regional context. Tunis, the capital, moved up 18 places to 327th in the world. This brings it closer to the top 300, with a local ecosystem growing steadily at over 22% per year. Sousse is ranked 1,233rd in the world. Overall, Tunisian startups raised around $15.2 million in 2024. Meanwhile, Egypt has confirmed its dominance in North Africa, with an ecosystem almost three times as powerful as Tunisia's. It ranks 65th worldwide and 7th in the MENA region, with Cairo leading the way and achieving a score far higher than Alexandria's. In 2024, Egypt is set to achieve its best regional ranking since 2021, with its start-ups having raised 281.6 million dollars. Second in North Africa behind Tunisia, Morocco ranked 88th in the world with a score of 0.687. In 2024, it attracted $176.9 million in funding. It should be noted that none of the other countries in the North African region feature in the ranking. North Africa recorded the lowest annual growth rate of the continent's major regions, at 15.7%. South Africa retains its leading position on the continent (52nd in the world), ahead of Kenya (58th), Egypt and Nigeria (65th), with Cape Verde (75th) closing the top five. The most powerful start-up ecosystems worldwide are found in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Canada and Sweden. In terms of cities, San Francisco remains the world leader, closely followed by New York, London, Los Angeles and Beijing. These cities stand out for their entrepreneurial dynamism and appropriate infrastructure. In the Arab world, the United Arab Emirates dominates the rankings, occupying 21st place worldwide thanks to its favorable environment for startups, economic openness, and incentive policies.
