The launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022 marked a turning point in the AI landscape, igniting the broader AI boom. This generative AI tool demonstrated practical applications for everyday users, from content creation to coding assistance, sparking massive public interest and investment. Tech giants poured billions into AI development, while startups flooded the ...
But, despite the indisputable significance of a founder's strong presence to provide direction and shape the culture, is it wise for a company to be unable to survive without them, even for a short time? If a short-term absence of a few weeks halts operations and makes it impossible for everyone to perform their daily tasks, then the organization is not truly thriving.
Hosted by Startup Battlefield Editor Isabelle Johannessen, Build Mode is a survival guide for early-stage founders navigating the messy, high-stakes chaos of building a company from scratch. No sugarcoating. No hype. Just candid conversations and tactical advice from the people who've done it before and have the scars (and term sheets) to prove it. Starting November 13, Isabelle will sit down with founders, VCs, and operators to unpack the real stories behind the build.
Foreign citizens already in the U.S., including students, will be exempted from the Trump administration's controversial new $100,000 fee for the H-1B visa, federal authorities said this week. The fee was imposed via a proclamation from President Donald Trump and took effect Sept. 21, with certain details initially unclear. This week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an advisory saying the fee paid by employers would apply only to new H-1B visas issued to workers who are outside the country. The levy will not be imposed for workers switching to an H-1B visa from other visas, including the F-1 student visa, the agency said.
Building a business has never been easier, but the landscape is also more competitive. The difference between success and failure often comes down to how quickly you can execute. You need to understand your market and know how to scale your operations. AI tools can help you get off the ground. If I had to rebuild my business from scratch today, I'd lean heavily into AI tools to make the process faster, smarter, and more efficient than ever before.
San Francisco is getting a symbolic jolt very soon as newly elected Mayor Daniel Lurie steps onto the Disrupt stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, October 27-29 at Moscone West, in a homecoming of sorts for both tech and the city that helped define it. Disrupt has long been a launchpad for founders and investors chasing the next wave. Lurie's visit signals a renewed effort to weave innovation back into San Francisco's future. Register now to save up to $444 on your pass, and get 60% off a +1 ticket.
"We cannot f---ing wait to innovate until Americans are dying on the battlefield," Driscoll said in his remarks at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army in Washington. "We must act now to enable our soldiers. Our window to change is right now, and we have a plan to do it. We will set the pace with innovation, and we will win with silicon and software, and not with our soldiers' blood and bodies," he added.
Anne Sterling Dorman, a Consulting Chief Financial Officer for venture capital backed start-up companies in Silicon Valley and beyond, died on July 19, 2025, just three months after the passing of her wife, Annette Tracy. Dorman for many years had suffered from primary progressive aphasia. Before her illness, she was a regular guest at "Betty's List" events. Both she and her wife, who shared a home in the Castro, were supporters of the San Francisco Bay Times.
It's the definitive startup event where what's next in tech takes the stage, and where early access, first-mover insight, and game-changing introductions all happen in one place. Investors discover the next breakout startups. Founders meet the backers, builders, and customers who can take them from idea to scale. And tech leaders from companies like OpenAI, Google Cloud, Meta, Amazon,Salesforce, and Replika share hard-won lessons, unfiltered insight, and a clear look at what's coming.
The startup Motive, which makes software for managing vehicle fleets and recently closed a $150 million funding round, has taken a 40,000-square-foot sublease in the building, X's broker Mike Sample told SFGATE on Thursday. He confirmed that more than 700,000 square feet of space in X's old offices are still up for grabs. X and Motive's deal was first reported by the San Francisco Business Times, whose sources said that the startup would move in in phases, beginning with 25,000 square feet.
Two former Google DeepMind researchers who worked on the company's Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold protein structure prediction AI as well as its AlphaEvolve code generation system have launched a new company, with the mission of democratizing access to advanced algorithms. The company, which is called Hiverge, emerged from stealth today with $5 million in seed funding, led by Flying Fish Ventures with participation from Ahren Innovation Capital and Alpha Intelligence Capital.
The higher volume also drove Bausch + Lomb's CEO, Brent Saunders, to embrace new AI software, which helps manufacturing workers monitor, test, and fix mechanical issues. The technology, called Atlas and produced by Arena AI, is designed to predict machinery issues before they arise and send alerts to maintenance workers so they can diagnose errors and fix them. Saunders said that Atlas was tested in Rochester in 2023 and, by last year,
Here's the reality entrepreneurs don't want to hear: sales need fixing first. Mike Michalowicz covers this in his book "Fix This Next." The majority of businesses have decent products and people, but they're not selling effectively. This truth became even more stark during the pandemic. McKinsey found that 70-80% of small businesses experienced 30-50% revenue drops between 2020 and 2021.
"There are some companies that are obviously richly-valued," Kurtz told Fortune. "I think some of these companies don't realize that they are starting to move into zombieland: You look at their last round valuation, and it might be great for them, but it's expensive and it's necessarily actionable for a lot of companies, even ours." To be sure, there have been a couple of notable big-ticket acquisitions in cyber lately: Palo Alto Networks' $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk and Google's proposed $32 billion acquisition of Wiz.
