Gm. My European journey comes to an end today. It’s been an incredible summer, but damn if I’m not ready to sleep in my own bed. Anyway, here are my final country rankings: 1) France 2) England 3) Spain. My DMs are open for all who disagree.

— Stephen Flanders

🏠 TECH

Bye Bye China

S*** is getting real.

On Wednesday, President Biden did something that has never been done in American history: limit the ability of US firms to invest overseas.

The target of this groundbreaking move?

China.

A Deep Tech Focus

The Biden rules specifically forbid US firms from investing in high-end Chinese technology sectors. This means no US investor can throw money into Chinese quantum computing, semiconductor, or AI companies.

And It’s not super hard to see why Biden singled out these sectors.

Nobody cares if a US company invests in a Chinese magazine. A magazine isn’t going to be used in a war. But quantum computing, semiconductors, and AI?

That’s stuff that is a bit more consequential for China’s military.

What This Means For The Tech Industry

Obviously, this affects everyone player involved in the US-Chinese tech trade:

• More firms will be forced to go the Sequoia route and break away from China.

• New sources of capital will have to be found on both sides of the aisle, as the US and China both invested 10s of billions in each other’s tech sectors.

• With the way things are heading, China’s going to have serious issues keeping up with AI due to a chip shortage, which is why they just panic-ordered $5B worth of Nvidia chips.

It’s a major move any way you slice it, and considering the state of US-Chinese relations, it likely won’t be the last.

The Bottom Line: You can say a lot of things about Biden, but one thing you can’t say is that he’s soft on China.

🏠 AI

ChatGPT Gets Customizable

ChatGPT has been catching a lot of flak lately for potentially getting dumber and for a pretty sizeable drop in usage.

But that isn’t stopping OpenAI from nurturing its flagship product. On the contrary, OpenAI just hooked ChatGPT up with a significant upgrade.

We’re talking about none other than customizable instructions.

Customizable instructions work exactly as you’d expect. You tell ChatGPT how you want it to answer, and then ChatGPT answers all your questions that way.

At first glance, that doesn’t sound very new. People have always given ChatGPT instructions. The newness is that instructions are now natively built into ChatGPT.

In other words, you don’t have to retype the instructions every time you start a fresh conversation.

This is good for both wackballs like me who want to converse with a drunk Shakespeare, and for actual productive members of society like teachers who want the answers geared toward their students’ grade level.

Everybody wins.

The Big Picture: With a new chatbot getting released what seems like every month, ChatGPT’s competition keeps growing stiffer. Quality of life upgrades like this will be key to keeping it ahead of the pack.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

• Apple’s App Store rules are safe for now.

• Slack got a huge redesign.

• If you’re looking for some new drip, don’t go to Amazon.

• The app formerly known as Twitter is about “break even”.

Stat: 26%: The total amount of venture dollars raised was 26% higher in Q2 compared to Q1. There’s light at the end of the tunnel everyone.

Rabbit hole: The Future Of Tech Looks A Lot Like Pixar (Digital Native)

🤑 FUNDING FRIDAY

If you want a boring list of startup raises, look away now. If you want the 3 coolest raises of the week, then you’ve come to the right place.

🎁 FINAL JEOPARDY!

This Final Jeopardy! question stumped every contestant. Can you get it right?

Category: The U.S. Government

Clue: On August 15, 1994, 59 years and 1 day after FDR signed the original act, Bill Clinton made this an independent agency.

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we recently came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

⏮️ Recast turns your want-to-read articles into rich audio summaries.

⭐️ Looking for investors? Raizer has a database of 52,000 of them.

🤖 If you’re into AI, psychology, or philosophy, then you need to check out Generative Agents.

💉 DOPAMINE HIT

Spot on.

@sam_conrad

REACH 40K+ FOUNDERS, INVESTORS & OPERATORS

If you’re interested in advertising with us, send an email over to [email protected] with the subject “Homescreen Ads”.

FINAL JEOPARDY! ANSWER

The Social Security Administration