Nvidia tops Alphabet, while OpenAI’s Andrej Karpathy exits
Meta’s call to EU: Meta is urging the EU to ramp up enforcement of its policies against spyware in its annual threat intelligence report. The report details eight firms that reportedly employed phishing and social engineering, despite Europe’s strong data privacy laws. The tech giant said it is focusing on Europe in particular because it already has very strong data privacy laws—it just has to enforce them. Full story.
Super Bowl parade shooting: One person is dead and more than a dozen injured as shots were fired at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade Wednesday. Officials urged fans to leave the area as soon as possible and set up child reunification stations. Before the gun violence, the parade was intended to celebrate the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl title in five seasons. Full story.
AI researcher Andrej Karpathy leaves OpenAI: One of OpenAI’s founding members, Andrej Karpathy, announced plans to leave the company. Karpathy, an AI researcher, said there is no bad blood between him and the company, and said he plans to pursue “personal projects.” His departure makes him the first executive to leave since CEO Sam Altman was fired, then reinstated back in November, and comes a week after news broke that Altman wants to raise $7 trillion to make AI chips. Full story.
Nvidia’s outsize growth: Nvidia is for the moment the third-largest U.S. company, valued at $1.825 trillion, which means that it leapfrogged Alphabet’s market cap of $1.82 trillion. The chipmaker is set to report fourth-quarter results next week, with analysts’ expectations predicting that its Q4 profit will be $11.38 billion. If that proves to be true, it would represent a 400% year-over-year increase as AI continues to make waves across a variety of industries. Full story.
Small businesses feel optimistic: New data shows that small businesses feel optimistic, despite a still seemingly uncertain economy. Around 85% report satisfaction with the state of their business in 2023, reflecting the 30% increase in consumer sentiment since November. The survey results come after 80% said long-term financial confidence was “being negatively impacted by the economy” last summer. Full story.
