Sara Bee

Sam Altman says funding affordable housing would be too expensive for OpenAI - San Francisco Business Times OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Warriors coach Steve Kerr weighed in on housing, wealth inequality and San Francisco during a live event hosted by Manny's Café.

How will the newly formed OpenAI Foundation eventually spend billions of dollars? Apparently, not on affordable housing in its hometown of San Francisco.

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Figure AI founder dodges Marc Benioff's question about selling humanoid robots to S.F. police - San Francisco Business Times The CEO of humanoid robotics startup Figure AI says he won't sell its robots to the military. But what about police departments? Here's what Brett Adcock said at Dreamforce in San Francisco.

Dreamforce Day 2: Figure AI founder and CEO implied that the humanoid robotics startup might sell to police departments one day.

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Benioff avoids politics in Dreamforce keynote, but then brings out Trump adviser David Sacks - San Francisco Business Times Salesforce's annual Dreamforce conference kicked off Tuesday. Here's what Marc Benioff said, and what he didn't say, after making controversial comments about San Francisco last week.

ICYMI: here's what happened on Day 1 of Dreamforce in San Francisco this week. Benioff avoided politics for most of the day, then brought "special guest" David Sacks on stage to talk about Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, AI and crypto. www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

Eat Just will launch a mung bean flour for baking soon and is also developing a new vegan chicken product.

The company started with a vegan mayo over a decade ago and now sells an egg alternative, protein powder and lab-grown chicken.

Josh Tetrick standing outside of Eat Just's headquarters, hands clasped in front of him.

Will Eat Just IPO? How many ways can it use a mung bean? And why is CEO Josh Tetrick prepared for this to be his "last year"?

I recently sat down with Josh at the company's Alameda headquarters to talk about this and more. Here's our full conversation.

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Tim Draper has raised $200 million for a new VC fund at his firm Draper Associates which has made a bunch of new investments this month.

ICEBlock on CNN! #resist

"Everybody's got a price." Meta tried to buy Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence. Who might be the next big acquisition target? Here's what one expert told me last week after Mark Zuckerberg poached Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla forcibly removed after trying to question DHS Secretary Noem Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla tried to as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question. He was instead forcibly removed from her press conference.

Forcibly removing someone for asking questions at a press conference and then telling bystanders they can't record cops putting them in handcuffs is authoritarian and contrary to everything the First Amendment stands for.

portrait of Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii.

Could a VC fund create a new revenue stream for local governments? Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii wants to find out. More details from my conversation with the mayor here.

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Elon Musk confirmed in a new legal filing that he dropped just shy of $45 million into OpenAI before he left the organization in 2018. www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

A wide shot of the iron Sather Gate at the entrance of UC Berkeley.

My latest cover story looks at University of California, Berkeley and its new approach to venture capital. Can the school catch the next trillion dollar company that emerges from the UC system? www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

"You are not going to get replaced by AI” … but "you are going to be replaced by people who know AI."

I talked to Glean CEO Arvind Jain ahead of Glean Go in San Francisco. Here’s what he had to say about agents, jobs, raising funding and IPOs.

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"We're doing this to bring back this idea of starter homes."

I talked to the co-founder of Berkeley startup Type Five about how it's using modular design and software to make homebuilding more efficient and affordable.

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It's 2015. President Barack Obama has accepted a "sky palace" jumbo jet from the Qatari government, which he'll own after he leaves office. "Everybody relax," he says in an interview with the New York Times. Everyone does. The networks then televise the military parade in his honor on his birthday.

Just curious, what’s the tariff on a $400 million jet from Qatar?

Osteoboost sends "low-amplitude, high-frequency" vibrations to the hips and spine, and it received de novo approval from the FDA last year. It's available by prescription for postmenopausal women with low bone density, aka osteopenia.

"We are mimicking that mechanism of action" from activities like weight lifting, Osteoboost CEO Laura Yecies told me.

Shake it off: Bay Area startup's new vibrating belt can preserve bone density - San Francisco Business Times A Redwood City startup has developed a vibrating belt that boosts bone density in postmenopausal women with osteopenia. Here's how it works, and how to get it.

This new vibrating belt could be a game changer for women with osteopenia. Made by a Bay Area company, it slows down bone density loss and might even help reverse it before osteoporosis develops. I talked to CEO Laura Yecies who uses the belt herself.

“I don't love easy. I love being a driver, not a passenger," Instacart CEO Fidji Simo told me last year. Her next chapter will be driving operations at OpenAI.

Here's my story and interview with Fidji from December. www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

SignalFire co-founders Ilya Kirnos and Chris Farmer pose in front of a window that oversees San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood.

"This went from a radical concept that was very risky to something that now looks very institutional, systematic, repeatable."

I talked to SignalFire co-founder Chris Farmer about the firm's new $1 billion fund and adapting to shifting headwinds.

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ICE arrests WA farmworker activist in Sedro-Woolley Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez, 25, has organized on behalf of farmworkers' rights in Washington state since he was 14 years old.

Despicable. ICE targets a prominent union activist who has been working on US farms since he was 14.

UPDATE: OpenAI Startup Fund has now raised $129 million across five SPVs, according to filings that I reviewed. Here's how it all breaks down: www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

"We actually have a lot of tunability to being able to make a bunch of different types of fats ... But we think butter is a really important market entry point," co-founder and CEO Kathleen Alexander told me.

Earlier this month, I attended a dinner featuring food made with a new type of vegan butter developed by San Jose startup Savor. It's not "plant-based," though. Here's what I ate and what the company is up to. www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco...

Berkeley is one step closer to launching a new venture capital fund after a UC Regents committee advanced the proposal to the full board. We also now know how big the fund might be.
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"Twenty years from now, it really should be that everybody in the country has a primary care dietitian right alongside his primary care doctor."

I talked to Foodsmart founder Jason Langheier and new CEO Kurt Knight about what the nutrition telehealth is up to.
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Healthcare AI company, fresh off a $250M round, looks to hire 150 people, most of them in San Francisco
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Felt that one for several seconds in the Mission. Magnitude 4.2 near Dublin. 🫨 earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...