NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

China’s 20-Year Plan to Nurture “Little Giants”

China is putting serious money on its next generation of tech startups.

Instead of leaving funding mostly to private investors, the government is now stepping in directly to shape how new tech companies are supported.

At the center of this push is a new national fund backed by $14B from China’s Ministry of Finance. Three additional funds will focus on major economic hubs (the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Greater Bay Area) so startups don’t all cluster in one place.

The idea: support small, young companies that are too risky for traditional investors. It will mainly invest in startups valued under $70M - 70% of investments will target young startups.

The goal: China wants to create more home-grown tech champions, especially in areas where it faces pressure from the US. Think semiconductors, AI-related hardware, biomedicine, quantum tech, aerospace, and brain-computer interfaces.

Little Giants: Unlike typical venture funds that expect fast exits, this one is built to last 20 years: 10 years to invest, and another 10 years to exit. The patient capital is designed to create what Chinese policymakers call “little giants” - small, deeply strategic firms that can scale into national champions.

By funding critical tech from the ground up, China is trying to make sure the next wave of breakthroughs happens at home… even if it takes years to pay off.

(Source: Bloomberg News)

The Robot Taxi Problem No One Planned For

San Francisco learned something new last weekend. Self-driving taxis really don’t love power outages.

During a citywide blackout, several Waymo robot cars stopped dead in the middle of streets and flipped on their hazard lights, while human drivers tried to navigate around them.

With around 25% of SF ride-hail trips run by Waymo, a lot of robots hit pause together. 😳

Waymo says the cars were being extra cautious when traffic lights went dark, triggering a surge of safety checks that slowed everything down.

The frozen robot taxis caused traffic jams and the scene was like something out of a sci-fi movie.

📺 You have to see this YouTube short.

This Is How OpenAI Actually Interviews

What’s it really like to interview at OpenAI?

I asked Jerene Yang, a Singapore-born engineer at OpenAI who leads research on the data that trains ChatGPT and helps ensure it works reliably at scale.

Her answer caught me off guard.

She told me there were no trick questions and no puzzles. Instead, it was a real conversation about real work. “You can pick any topic you want to talk about and really just have a conversation about the system you’ve built.”

Then they went deeper. “What were the controversial decisions, and did it pan out? And when things go wrong, how did you fix it?”

As she was describing it, it reminded me of a PhD viva. You are not trying to impress. You are explaining and defending how you think. 😎

Now that’s a process I can get behind.

I loved having Jerene on my podcast AI Across Borders. She’s super smart and really fun. Don’t miss the chat here.

Thanks to Google for sponsoring this episode.

AI Around the World

In New Zealand, some supermarkets are testing facial recognition to spot people who have threatened or attacked staff. Cameras scan shoppers’ faces and only keep data if there’s a match on a watchlist. The trial is controversial because many serious incidents involve teens, who are not spotted in the system.

In France, the country’s postal and banking services were disrupted after a cyberattack flooded La Poste’s systems and knocked its website, mobile app, and banking offline. Customers could still use services in person, but the incident comes after a string of cyber breaches affecting government and transport systems.