Nat Versus the Volcano: Can an AI Investor Solve an Ancient Mystery from the Ashes of Vesuvius?Read more

Paradigm Managing Partner Fred Ehrsam. Photo by Getty Images.

What the FTX Crash Means for VCs and Startups

Photo: Paradigm Managing Partner Fred Ehrsam. Photo by Getty Images.

The FTX saga continues to move at a blistering pace, with FTX, FTX US and Alameda Research all filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Friday and Sam Bankman-Fried, its co-founder, resigning as CEO. We're starting to see the contagion of the FTX collapse spread to crypto lending companies including BlockFi and Genesis, both of which have halted withdrawals for lending services. (More on that below.)

FTX’s venture backers now have to deal with the reality that their investments are effectively worthless. Paradigm and Sequoia both announced that they had written their investments—$278 million and $214 million, respectively—to zero, as Kate detailed in her story last week.

Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
OpenAI's Greg Brockman (left) and Google's Demis Hassabis (right). Photos by Getty.
AI Agenda google ai
OpenAI Hustles to Beat Google to Launch ‘Multimodal’ LLM
As fall approaches, Google and OpenAI are locked in a good ol’ fashioned software race, aiming to launch the next generation of large-language models: multimodal.
From left, a Google TPU, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian. Photos via Getty, Google and YouTube.
Exclusive google semiconductors
To Reduce AI Costs, Google Wants to Ditch Broadcom as Its TPU Server Chip Supplier
Google executives have extensively discussed dropping Broadcom as a supplier of artificial intelligence chips as early as 2027, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort.
Art by Clark Miller.
space Twitter
The Trouble With Walter: In His Elon Musk Tome, the Writer Shows Us the Perils of Access Journalism
Walter Isaacson is the exotic bird of American letters, a charming and convivial bon vivant and raconteur, the life of many a dinner party, a studious biographer and a generous mentor.
Flexport founder Ryan Petersen. Photos via Getty and Flexport.
e-commerce
Can Ryan Petersen Fix Flexport?
Ryan Petersen was getting antsy. This March, Petersen had handed over the CEO job at Flexport—the logistics company he’d founded a decade earlier, which had ballooned to an $8 billion valuation in 2022—to veteran Amazon executive Dave Clark.
Photo via Midjourney.
AI Agenda startups ai
The Rise of Startups That Help Other Startups Evaluate LLMs
All but a handful of artificial intelligence startups typically fall into one of two camps. The first group uses a single large-language model, typically OpenAI’s GPT-4, to power their applications.
Photos via Eiso Kant (left) and YouTube/VMWare Tanzu (right)
AI Agenda startups ai
How GitHub Copilot’s Co-Creator Raised $126 Million to Compete with His Former Employer
Recent interest in artificial intelligence has focused on large-language models that aim to do everything from writing Shakespearean poetry to solving math riddles.