Vijay Pande left a16z to launch VZVC, shifting from running about $4 billion in assets to making fewer, highly concentrated investments in AI-driven biotech and healthcare. He says VZVC is not doing 30 bets per year and is targeting about five investments. The firm operates with just Pande and co-founder Zach Werner on the investment side, forgoes associates, and depends heavily on AI for day-to-day operations.
Scientists are using AI to detect and monitor Arctic permafrost thaw by tracking changes in thermokarst ponds and lakes in near real time via an interactive map. The system maps over 4 million lakes across the Arctic, including 70 million thermokarst ponds in Alaska. Communities can now get up-to-date locations of ice-rich versus less-ice ground to guide building decisions as thaw accelerates.
A sociologist commissioning a YouGov survey of U.S. workers found that AI tools like ChatGPT have not yet caused widespread job losses or gains among respondents. About 3% of workers reported losing a job due to AI since 2023, compared with roughly 6% reporting landing a job that didn’t exist before AI. The results shift the focus toward smaller-scale effects so far, especially promotions/advancement, rather than large labor-market disruption.
Orato launched as a speaking-practice tool where you pick a drill, speak for 30 to 90 seconds, and get scored on pacing, fluency, vocabulary, and coherence. The scoring also marks filler words and long pauses against the transcript for replay. It runs on an iPhone using Apple Intelligence with no account required.
Every AI story that matters,
in your inbox by 8am.
TLDRocket reads all relevant sources, removes duplicate coverage, and summarises the
day in two minutes. Follow companies and topics for alerts, or get the
briefing in Slack. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Reading TLDRocket needs no cookies, and the readership counts we rely on come from
our own cookieless analytics. Google Analytics is the exception: it sets cookies and
reports to Google, so it stays switched off until you allow it. You can change your
mind any time from “Cookie settings” in the footer.
Strictly necessary
Session security and form protection (tldrocket-session,
XSRF-TOKEN, 2 hours). The site cannot work without them,
so they need no consent.
Always on
Google Analytics 4 (_ga,
_ga_<id>, up to 2 years). Measures which
stories and sections readers use. Google acts as a third-party processor and may
store the data outside the EU. No advertising, no profiling, no data sold.
