ICYMI: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, Mining Asteroids, New ChatGPT Features | TWiST Weekly Recap
Hi everybody!
Another awesome week on This Week in Startups.
Here are the quick highlights:
Monday (E1732) - Sunny and Vinny join to demo a new ChatGPT model: Code Interpreter, which is basically an AI-powered on-demand data scientist.
Tuesday (E1733) - Semafor Co-Founder and EIC Ben Smith joins to break down the state of digital media, why media is not venture-scale, and more.
Wednesday (E1734) - First, Jason breaks down Uber’s Q1 earnings before Unlearn.AI CEO Charles Fisher joins to discuss his startup, focused on speeding up clinical trials with AI.
Thursday (E1735) - Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky gives a masterclass on product, customer focus, streamlining operations, AI’s impact on hospitality, and more.
Friday (E1736) - AstroForge CEO Matt Gialich breaks down his asteroid-mining space startup.
Producer’s Picks:
Jon:
My top pick of the week is E1732 featuring Vinny and Sunny.
Specifically, my highlight was the trio demoing the impressive capabilities of ChatGPT’s newest model, called Code Interpreter.
This demo was a perfect example of how AI can simplify and speed up complex and tedious tasks.
Sunny showcased how Code Interpreter could interpret data from a CSV file, then explain takeaways in plain English AND instantly visualize the data in charts and graphs (10:58).
While the product is not yet perfect (it’s still in Alpha testing and only available to those with plugin access), Code Interpreter and tools like it will revolutionize knowledge work in the near future.
Overall, E1732 gives a fascinating glimpse into some exclusive OpenAI features, and I highly recommend checking it out.
Brian:
This week we had an impressive lineup, but E1735 featuring Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky really stood out.
Brian, a startup legend, showed incredible thoughtfulness and a genuine passion for Airbnb customers.
One quote that stuck with me was, "I like to tell (employees) that we have to have permission by the customer to do something new, and we only have permission to do something new if they love what we currently do."
I found this to be really profound, and even more so because it was one of the driving factors behind Airbnb’s latest barrage of updates addressing major customer complaints like “checkout chores” and upfront pricing.
E1735 is so good it’s worth listening to twice!
Nick:
What a loaded week — both Jon and Brian had great choices.
Another interesting episode was E1733, featuring Semafor Co-Founder and EIC Ben Smith.
Ben and Jason, both veterans of the early 2000’s digital media industry, discussed Ben’s new book Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral.
Specifically, they break down the differences between Nick Denton’s Gawker and Jonah Peretti’s BuzzFeed, why media businesses are NOT venture scale, journalists clashing with business leaders, and much more!
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