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How to build a company that can save the world and generate a profit

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Sun seen from orbit rising over Earth.

For startups that hope to save the world, or at least make it a better place, balancing impact with profit can be tricky.

“Investor and shareholder expectations are often not aligned with how hard and intractable the problems are that we face as a society,” Allison Wolff, co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Planet, said on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “I think in some ways, we’re a little bit stuck.”

But it’s not impossible.

Wolff’s company develops cloud-based software for utilities, insurers, and land managers like the U.S. Forest Service to model and respond to wildfire risk. To ensure the company keeps its eye on the mission, it has registered as a public benefit corporation, which requires companies to report on impact in addition to the usual financial information. 

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“That’s an elegant structure to consider if you haven’t already, and it’s easy to convert,” she said. “And it’s a good forcing function to do the reporting side of that, to really think through every year, what impact are we having, and how do we account for it.”

Another approach is to find a technology and business model that tightly couples purpose and profit. That’s what Areeb Malik and his co-founders did when launching Glacier, their robotic recycling company.

“When I was starting my company, I was looking for the right opportunity, and it was really about aligning profitability with impacts,” he said onstage.

“If you can find a place where you can align, for instance, climate impact, the thing that I’m super passionate about, with making money, then I welcome a PE fund to come and take over my business, because they will juice us for money. That money directly correlates with climate impact.”

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Holding fast to the mission isn’t necessarily enough, though, Hyuk-Jeen Suh, general partner at SkyRiver Ventures, said at Disrupt. Mission means nothing if a company’s reach remains limited. 

“A lot of founders get focused so much on making their widget that that one widget is all they care about. They haven’t figured out how to build the foundation for scale,” he said. “When you’re making a widget, you have to think, how am I going to mass produce this? How am I going to mass market this?” 

If that all sounds like too much for startups to juggle, that maybe the mission part should fall to the wayside while they master the basics, Suh said that sort of ambition is actually a sign that the companies are on the right track. “They almost have to bite more than they can chew, because without that boldness and vision, I think it will be difficult to really make an impact.”

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DevRev raises $100.8 million in Series A funding and becomes an AI unicorn at a $1.15 billion valuation

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DevRev raises $100.8 million in Series A funding and becomes an AI unicorn at a $1.15 billion valuation

Palo Alto, CA — October 2024 — Following its successful Series A funding round in August 2024, where DevRev secured $100.8 million and reached a $1.15 billion valuation, the company continues to drive forward its mission to revolutionize customer support and product development. Led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Mayfield Fund, Param Hansa Values, U First Capital, and several accelerators, family offices, and angel investors, this investment highlights the growing potential of AI-native enterprise software.

Fueling this mission is DevRev’s AgentOS platform, which is rapidly advancing GenAI adoption in enterprises. By offering seamless 1-click data migration from legacy systems and deploying lightweight AI agents, DevRev is setting a new standard for how businesses integrate and benefit from AI. 

A visionary approach to developer-customer interaction

DevRev, founded in October 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey, former co-founder and CEO of Nutanix, and Manoj Agarwal, former SVP of Engineering at Nutanix, aims to remodel how businesses connect developers directly with customers and revenue. The company was born out of a simple yet powerful realization:

“Today, every company is a software company, yet we isolate developers from customers and revenue…Our mission is to break down these barriers and empower developers to create customer-conscious products and businesses.” — Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of DevRev

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DevRev’s knowledge graph powers its AgentOS, delivering AI-native solutions that streamline customer service, product management, and software engineering. The platform is already trusted by customers across all major geographies, various industries, and numerous company sizes, including many of the global leading players across AI, SaaS, and financial services.

By analyzing structured and unstructured data — from customer conversations to session analytics – the platform’s unique approach allows developers to connect their code directly to production issues and customer interactions. From there, DevRev’s AI-driven agents are able to automate enterprise workflows to reduce manual effort, enhance operational efficiency, and accelerate response times.

“We have invested heavily in the generative AI sector. We’ve noticed that to fully harness the potential of AI, the underlying data and knowledge infrastructure must be reimagined and rebuilt. DevRev is at the forefront of enabling AI adoption in enterprises, thanks to its innovative product architecture. Furthermore, DevRev is pioneering a new vision for organizational structure by breaking down internal silos, fostering greater collaboration and efficiency across the company.” — Dr. Ekta Dang, CEO of U First Capital

AI agents on knowledge graphs

Organizations today suffer from technology complexity that siloes around departments and their respective apps, data, and workflows, which results in poor customer experiences, delays in product development, and often building the wrong software.

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DevRev believes that this complexity can be meaningfully resolved by AI-on-Knowledge Graphs, which combines the emerging power of GenAI and an organization’s own systems mapped into Knowledge Graphs. While AI is proving to be powerful, organizations are realizing that without Knowledge Graphs, they either end up with AI copilots on single apps or AI copilots on vast data lakes with little-to-no context or definition.

The solution begins by creating an organization’s Knowledge Graph by ingesting data from 2-way real time integrations with an organization’s CRM, support, and engineering applications, along with the underlying code repositories. By doing so, the Knowledge Graph understands the product (software), the customers (users), the people (employees), and the workflows involved, along with unique elements to the organization, such as security and customizations. Once mapped, customers and employees can run queries through AI Agents to not only return more accurate search results, but also power systems of action quickly across the organization. This is the productivity promise GenAI holds, which is only enabled by the contextual mapping that Knowledge Graphs provides.

With DevRev’s Knowledge Graph platform and data from major system of record applications that are ingested real-time into DevRev, DevRev creates an interdependent network of customer, user, product, employee, work and usage records.

Put simply, DevRev comprises both the front-end applications and the back-end Knowledge Graphs to analyze, contextualize, and act on enterprise data, enabling organizations to:

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  • Gain Deep Organizational Insights: spot emerging trends and linkages across customers, products, and employees to better inform strategic planning
  • Increase Focus: connect the dots between product / engineering roadmaps and customer impact to better prioritize and allocate resources
  • Boost Operational Efficiency: streamline operations by identifying bottlenecks, eliminating redundancies, and automating workflows across the organization
  • Enhance Customer Experience: gain a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions and feedback, leading to more personalized and effective service

About DevRev

DevRev’s mission is to help build the world’s most customer-centric companies, embracing the principle that “less is better.” Founded in October 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey and Manoj Agarwal, DevRev is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in seven global locations. For more information, visit DevRev’s website.

About U First Capital

Led by two technical PhDs based in Silicon Valley for over two decades, U First Capital’s focus is to invest in stellar founders. The firm has invested in over twenty five category-leading companies like Anthropic, Cohere AI, Rubrik, Worldcoin, Pensando, Palantir, Uniphore, and Nile. For more information, visit U First Capital’s website

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Hyundai’s cutesy Inster EV doesn’t need to be quick

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Hyundai’s cutesy Inster EV doesn’t need to be quick

The reviews for Hyundai’s little electric SUV that could are trickling in, and it’s clear that the Inster is a delightful way to move about town — regardless of its lack of quickness compared to other similarly-sized EVs. The Inster’s top speed for the long-range version is about 93 miles per hour (or 150 km/h), and it has a zero to 62 mph (100km/h) acceleration in 10.6 seconds, according to the specs Hyundai published today.

Hyundai also revealed more details about the Inster’s price, with European reviewers saying it’s expensive compared to similar competition at £23,495 (about $25,477). In the US, however, that’s a price we can only dream about since our most affordable options include the $35,000 Chevy Equinox EV or the hope Tesla will deliver a cheaper car for around $25,000.

Hyundai uses the Casper name in Korea only.
Image: Hyundai

One newer compact EV that has made it to the US is the Fiat 500e. At 143 inches in length, it’s only about 7 inches shorter than the Inster at 150.59 inches. However, the Inster has more internal storage since it’s SUV-shaped, plus it has a range of about 230 miles WTLP on the long range 49 kWh battery compared to the 500e’s, which is under 200 miles.

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NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Saturday, November 2 (game #510)

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NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

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NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Saturday, November 2

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NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Saturday, September 21

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.

How to play Strands

You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.

If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.

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Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.

Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.

The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s theme is “Good on paper”

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Here’s a hint that might help you: typical tools found at work.

Today’s Strand answers

NYT Strands logo.
NYT

Today’s spanagram

We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:

Today’s Strands answers

  • RULER
  • PENCILS
  • SCISSORS
  • PRINTER
  • STAPLER






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Google TV Freeplay free channel app disabled due to crashes

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Google TV Streamer unboxed before international availability

In the US, Google TV products have access to over 150 free (ad-supported) channels, which is great. Recently, Google improved the experience of enjoying these channels with a new Google TV Freeplay, which includes a useful live guide. However, the Google TV Freeplay app has been disabled due to unexpected technical issues.

Google TV Freeplay app’s new features were causing crashes, so Google disabled it

Google began the rollout of the revamped Freeplay app in early September. The update made it much easier to use than before, where the experience of searching for channels and shows was quite cumbersome. The mere presence of a programming guide totally changed the reality of the app. Sadly, it seems that the guide was causing crashes on some devices.

As spotted by 9to5Google, the Google TV Freeplay app disappeared from all Google TV devices this week. The only product where it is still active and working without problems is the latest Google TV Streamer. The reason for the app’s disappearance was unknown, as not everyone was aware of the crash issues. However, an official statement from Google shed more light on what’s going on.

“While rolling out the new Google TV Freeplay guide, we discovered an issue that can increase crashes for some users. We have disabled access to the new guide on affected devices until the fix is ​​in place. The fix will begin rolling out soon, and the updated guide will be available for all Google TV devices in the coming months,” a company spokesperson said.

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Freeplay could be back soon without the live guide

So, given the facts, by “affected devices” Google is referring to all Google TV products except the latest Streamer. While the company claims that the fix will be available “soon,” they also mention that the guide will be available “in the coming months.” So, possibly the Google TV Freeplay app will return in a few days, but without the latest improvements to the user experience. Let’s hope that a fixed version of the app with all the new features won’t take long to arrive.

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Instagram reorganizes message requests for creators

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Instagram reorganizes message requests for creators

A new update for Instagram posted earlier today could fix one of the most frustrating problems for creators. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, announced a new filtering update on Instagram for creators’ inboxes.

Instagram users with a creator-designated account can now filter message requests in their inbox based on its sender in a similar way to Gmail’s labels. Creators can still sort their messages by the most “recent” received and by the “number of followers” but they can now filter out certain messages. The new filters include requests and messages from “verified accounts,” “businesses,” “creators” and “subscribers.”

The update also includes a way to sort all of your story replies on Instagram. If you go to the top of your inbox, you can also sort and filter your story replies “in case you just wanna get to these requests really quickly and easily,” Mosseri says.

“Now there’s a lot more to do to improve the inbox for creators and requests but hopefully this is one step in the right direction,” Mosseri adds in his video. He also said this feature was one a lot of creators were asking for, so hopefully Instagram will be adding more inbox tools in the near future to make that part of the app a bit cleaner.

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Instagram has been toying with new ways to update its platform for higher profile users and creators for a long time now. The company started testing its creator account concept in 2018 that allowed celebrities and more famous social media stars to filter their direct messages and track stats of their followers.

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