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A deep dive into major venture capital trends, including an analysis of declining fund returns and novel strategies for applying AI to the investment process, as well as predictions on where things might be going. An interesting read for founders as they think about their own fundraising in the context of the "other side of the table."
This article introduces the "Anatomy Framework", a tool for assessing the disruptive potential of any innovation, including AI. It explores innovation from five layers: underlying infrastructure, core platform, applications, tools, and ecosystem enablers. It also discusses the role of startup and incumbent innovators and the medium of innovation (hardware vs. software).
Everyone talks about acquiring PMF, but not many talk about the signs that you’ve lost it. This article explores this concept and offers guidance on how to identify the warning signs and address the issue.
The math is pretty simple — look for liquidity when things are bonkers but don’t try to read the markets.
Every big tech success has spin-out founders who go on to do cool things. Here are the operators from Google who have built successful companies after they left.
A reflection on AI with a peek of what’s to come.
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If you think compliance is going to be any easier in 2024, think again. New regulation and tighter enforcement [5] are likely to increase the resources you’ll need to spend on manual compliance tasks — unless you invest in automation. Drata [5] is trusted by thousands of security and compliance teams (e.g. at Postman, Lemonade, and Vercel). Drata gives you a single picture of compliance [5] so you can manage risk and improve your security posture.
LoanDepot shut down certain systems to implement measures to secure its business operations, bring systems back online, and respond to a recent ransomware attack. The unauthorized third-party activity included access to certain company systems and the encryption of data. Its impact still has to be estimated.
A new CI/CD attack that utilizes self-hosted GitHub runners to achieve arbitrary code execution has been reported. The default setup instructions for self-hosted GitHub runners features persistent runners and only requires approval for the attacker’s first request. Attackers can exploit the bug to poison images for major companies and even GitHub itself.
Researchers have discovered 23 vulnerabilities in the Bosch Rexroth Handheld Nutrunner NXA015S-36V-B, a network-connected wrench used in factories to assemble sensitive instruments and devices. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow hackers to install malware that disables entire fleets of the devices or causes them to tighten fastenings too loosely or tightly.
This post is an analysis of the McAfee-reported iOS apps spreading via Korean phishing sites to steal user data. Unable to find the malicious iOS .ipa on malware sites, the author conducted his own investigation starting from the phishing links to download and analyze the apps.
Phishing attacks against Microsoft 365 are rising due to its wide use and MFA bypass techniques like AiTM phishing. This post explains how to detect AiTM phishing on Microsoft Login pages.
This post presents a cost-minimization approach that utilizes Cognito Identity Pools to control authentication and authorization directly from a front-end app. The crux of the solution involves an IAM policy that utilizes DynamoDB Leading Keys to handle user separation. The post includes sample IAM roles and policies, a worked demo, and a list of advantages and disadvantages of this approach.
Galah is a web honeypot tool powered by LLM (currently only the OpenAI API). Leveraging LLMs, it processes incoming HTTP requests and dynamically crafts realistic responses on the fly to engage attackers.
Eraser helps Kubernetes admins remove a list of non-running images from all Kubernetes nodes in a cluster.
Asset inventory of over 800 public bug bounty programs.
NIST has published a guidance describing the various types of attacks that can be used to target artificial intelligence systems, warning AI developers and users that there is currently no foolproof method for protecting such systems. The agency has encouraged the community to attempt to find better defenses. The report covers both predictive and generative AI.
A post on the curl project’s struggle with researchers’ use of LLMs in their bug bounty program. The curl team receives a myriad of submissions that are generated at least in part by LLMs. These are often high-quality reports with fictional vulnerabilities. The post includes a few examples that show why these reports take more time to triage even if there is no real finding.
The Chinese Bureau of Justice has announced that it worked with a forensics firm to crack Apple’s anonymous AirDrops to track the use and spread of “inappropriate speech.” The firm reported that it was able to analyze iPhone logs for hashed values of senders' mobile numbers and emails, which it then cracked with a rainbow table.
The number of funding rounds increased from 303 in 2022 to 346 in 2023. Companies raised a total of $8.7 billion in 2023, compared to $14.5 billion in 2022, which represents a 40% drop.
X users who have shown interest in cryptocurrencies are reporting that their feeds are full of malicious crypto ads that lead to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and other scams. MalwareHunterTeam and ScamSniffer have started tracking the volume of scams, and users have started leaving community notes on ads warning users about scams.
Portswigger has begun accepting nominations for its “Top 10 Web Hacking Techniques of 2023” roundup. The announcement includes a list of preliminary nominations that feature interesting web hacking techniques.
Instacart formed a partnership with Google to enhance Google Shopping ads with its retail media data. The collaboration leverages Instacart’s product catalog and closed-loop measurement capabilities to drive transactions by promoting same-day delivery convenience on Google Shopping pages. Large brands like Danone and Kraft Heinz have signed up.
Companies will start focusing their efforts on video content for social media strategies and their overall content production. Brands will lean more into podcasts, newsletters, and founder-led content. TikTok Shop will continue its growth, plus other social platforms will build out their in-app shopping experiences. We will see interactive ads that allow us to get more information or purchase straight from the ads themselves.
Ads with contrast create interest. This post shares a New Balance ad with a headline that says “Worn by supermodels in London and dads in Ohio”. Humor and unexpected pairings are fun and playful. The comment thread contains additional contrast copywriting tips and other cheeky ads.
Facebook has over 2.8 billion monthly active users — it remains a juggernaut in terms of user base and engagement potential. This guide offers 12 Facebook post ideas to start conversations, build communities, and foster relationships. Ideas range from spotlighting local events to hosting Q&A sessions to interactive “this or that” posts.
This post contains over 60 outstanding and visually appealing website designs for inspiration. Examples include beehiiv, Figma, and Pitch.
This post breaks down how to create 50 image assets of leadership quotes for content on LinkedIn, X, or IG. The method can be replicated to create carousels, flyers, social media assets, and more. It requires using ChatGPT to create a table of contents, saving it as a CSV file, installing bulk creator on Canva, and syncing the CSV to text in your design. Users should only use the generated content as a base, and not just post as is.
This article reviews 3 AI video generator tools. Invideo AI creates and edits videos from text prompts, including narration. HeyGen creates personalized videos for email campaigns. Users upload a video of themselves talking, then can submit a script for the new AI-generated video. The tool mimics the user’s facial expressions and speaking style. Dubecos translates users’ videos into any language using their voice - with subtitles.
Both men and women tend to believe that women prefer design over functionality. However, women do not prioritize looks when they choose products for themselves. Brands should focus on making products better (e.g. more comfortable sneakers) rather than “prettier” (e.g. more stylish sneakers) when marketing to women.
Most founders and VCs assume that $1M in revenue means a company is ready to start hiring more salespeople and investing more in marketing programs. However, a company is only ready to scale if that revenue is coming from the same customer segment or use case. If not, the brand does not have product market fit. Instead, it has initial traction towards several different versions of product market fit.
SOSEO, short for Social Search Engine Optimization, is critical for brands to adapt to for reputation management, traditional SEO hijacking, and fast-response content creation.
Prompts include writing blog posts with stats and data, finding out what your competitors talk about, researching social content, and more.
Content repurposing is reinforcing key messages through multiple mediums, adapting content to suit different audience preferences, and enhancing the lifespan and value of existing content. It is not simply “reposting old content”.
Companies often blindly focus on a metric to the point where they lose connection with the underlying truth the metric is supposed to represent.
Load balancing algorithms are necessary as applications grow in size. The Round Robin algorithm assigns requests to servers sequentially. Weighted Round Robin assigns requests based on server weights. The Least Connections algorithm directs requests to the server with the fewest current connections. Finally, the Least Response Time algorithm sends requests to the server with the shortest response time.
The model of product and engineering managers sounds like a promising concept - PMs decide what to make, and EMs decide how to make it - but it doesn’t always work in practice. For one, most people cannot be good PMs of a new product/industry immediately, leading to bad decision-making. Secondly, engineers build things without ever talking to the customers and can’t make important decisions as a result. There are two ways to fix this: get PMs closer to the business domain and have engineers be more involved in the product side.
The post introduces the Time Sector System, a productivity method that helped the author finish 8 tasks a day, totaling 944 tasks in 4 months, while significantly reducing stress. The system involves planning tasks monthly, weekly, and daily, categorizing them into time sectors, and adjusting as needed. Even if this specific system isn't used, the principles and lessons learned from the experience can still be valuable.
Dependency Cruiser is a JavaScript and TypeScript-compatible package that validates your project’s dependencies. It reports violated rules that you have set.
Quickwit is an open-source cloud-native search engine designed for observability. It has logs and distributed tracing, is optimized for speed, and operates on cloud storage.
Documentation for any public GitHub repository.
Jeff Bezos once discussed the dangers of using metrics as proxies in an interview. He observed how over time, companies would find themselves blindly managing to a metric without understanding the true underlying purpose the metric was supposed to serve as a proxy for. If all metrics on your dashboard are green, there’s probably something you’re not measuring correctly (or at all).
Performance reviews help companies reward employees correctly, give them feedback regularly, and assess the effectiveness of managers. While performance reviews have taken a hit in terms of frequency among many companies over the last year, there are ways to streamline the process to reduce the time taken for them. This includes focusing only on essential information, simplifying the review process, and adjusting the timeline.
Internet browsing habits have changed over time in favor of algorithm-driven content on social media platforms. As a result, the joy of discovering interesting websites on the web has been lost. People have stopped curating and sharing websites, leading to the feeling that the web has lost its charm.