Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

By Scott From Barcinno • Issue #497

Barcinno Media
December 03, 2023

Hello and happy December,

This week’s main headlines:

Threads comes to Europe 🧵
Pre-seed funding for new BCN startups 🌱
Google opens ES security hub 🔐

Poll response: Big tech news wins 🌍

Thank you, as always, to those who responded to our poll. Result: Most of you like reading about general tech/bigger company news, which lead with 38.46% of the votes. 💡 Insights/introduction closely followed. We’ll make sure to take it on board! And don’t forget, you can also submit any stories or news via this Google form.

Talking of big tech news…

Research report post-OpenAI/Sam Altman saga 📄 🤖

Last week, we supported Startup Snapshot in gaining insights for another of their important global tech ecosystem research reports. This time, it was on whether – despite the swift return of Sam Altman to OpenAI and the seemingly happy ending – there will be any long-term effects on AI development and innovation.

Here are the key findings:

📉 The majority of respondents believe the recent events will hurt OpenAI’s position in the tech ecosystem, ranking it 6.9 on a scale of 1-10, with 1 (won’t hurt OpenAI’s position) to 10 (will definitely hurt OpenAI’s position)

⚠️ Following Altman’s return as CEO of OpenAI, 54% of ecosystem players report increased perception of risk associated with using OpenAI products. This indicates that rather than promising a stable future, more than half believe the drama will continue.

🤖 As to whether the situation will affect founders’ choice of AI tech, the responses are split. 53% report that the current situation did not create uncertainty around using OpenAI tech in their startup, while 35% reported using OpenAI tech in the future has a degree of uncertainty.

😯 The firing of Altman and the ensuing drama took the ecosystem by surprise, with respondents ranking their shock as 8.7 on a scale of one to ten. Due to OpenAI’s nonprofit structure, many were unaware that Altman could be fired by the board, ranking that possibility 5 on a scale of 1 (unaware) to 10 (aware).

Get full access to the data here: www.startup-snapshot.com/openai

Let’s see how this unfolds next year…

Have a great week!