ICYMI: Aaron Levie demos Box AI, Reid Hoffman on AI future, Dee Murthy on brand building & more!
Hi everybody!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing moms out there!
Here are the highlights from last week:
Monday (E1737) - Sunny and Vinny are back to demo ChatGPT’s web browsing with GPT-4 model
Tuesday (E1738) - Aaron Levie joins to demo Box AI and break down how generative AI tools are impacting Box’s roadmap
Wednesday (E1739) - Reid Hoffman reflects on AI’s “crescendo moment,” massive potential, and regulation
Thursday (E1740) - Dee Murthy on brand building, fostering community, what makes for successful influencer marketing campaigns, and more
Friday (E1741) - Scenario CEO Emmanuel de Maistre shows off his AI-generated video game assets platform
Producer’s Picks:
Brian:
Dee Murthy, founder of Ghost and host of the Group Chat podcast, joined Jason for an awesome interview.
First, they dove into the origin of Dee's podcast and how he wanted to become "famous."
But I think the most interesting part of the episode was when they discussed the recent Bud Light influencer marketing fiasco.
Dee broke down why companies like Nike and Patagonia, both of which have activism embedded in their brands, can make bold stands on social issues and actually increase sales — because their core consumers are already bought in.
However, Dee explained, for a brand like Bud Light (with no history of activism), joining a conversation on social issues risks alienating and confusing its consumers.
Dee also described what makes a successful influencer marketing campaign and why social media stars like Alix Earle can “move the needle” for brands more than A-list celebrities like Beyonce.
If you are interested in marketing and brand building, E1740 is a must-listen.
Jon:
My top episode this week was also E1740 with Dee Murthy!
As Brian said, Dee gave a masterclass on brand building.
But, he and Jason also had a great discussion about raising capital and building a startup in a down market.
Jason said, "This is a great time to be an investor or a founder... fortunes are made in the downmarket and collected in the upmarket." (26:22)
Definitely check out E1740!
Nick:
A core theme over the last few months on This Week in Startups has been startup founders demoing real AI products and tools.
This week, we had TWO great demos from their principal builders: Box CEO Aaron Levie showed off Box AI on E1738, and Scenario CEO Emmanuel de Maistre demoed his generative AI platform for video game assets on E1741.
Box AI is an AI chat interface built on top of your docs in Box.
Basically, it reads and interprets all of your documents, and based on your content, it can:
create summaries
draft emails
and more!
Scenario is an AI platform that allows users to generate video game assets from natural language prompts.
At scale, this can speed up video game development by orders of magnitude.
Both of these episodes were classic TWiST: Founder/CEOs (one super early-stage, one public) showing real products impacting real users.
If that’s what you love about TWiST, don’t miss E1738 or E1741!
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