Latest news with #X-like
NDTV
10 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
China Accuses CIA Making "Absurd" Attempt To Recruit Spies
Beijing accused the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Wednesday of making an "absurd" attempt to recruit Chinese citizens via videos posted to social media. China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) said the placement of what amounted to job advertisements on social media platform X was an "amateurish gambit" to convince people to spy for the Americans. "These two painstakingly crafted 'job ads', riddled with clumsy rhetoric and slanderous claims, lay bare the absurd logic and paranoid delusions of American intelligence agencies," the ministry said in a statement posted to its official WeChat account. "Once again, the self-proclaimed 'world's top intelligence power' has turned itself into an international laughingstock through its baffling incompetence," it added. CIA director John Ratcliffe said that the videos posted last month -- which implored the sharing of state secrets -- were aimed at "recruiting Chinese officials to help the US". Beijing condemned the posts at the time as "naked political provocation". The MSS vowed on Wednesday to "resolutely protect the nation's strategic interests and core secrets". It warned the CIA that "any attempt to incite betrayal among the Chinese people is doomed to fail, and any plot to infiltrate China for intelligence will prove futile". The intelligence agency's diatribe was among the top trending items on China's X-like Weibo platform on Wednesday, with users mocking the alleged job ads. "Can we organise a group of scammers to carry out a telecom fraud against the CIA? We can trick the US and make a little money at the same time," one wrote. The United States and China have long traded accusations of espionage. In April, security officials said they had implicated three US "secret agents" in cyberattacks during February's Asian Winter Games in the northeastern city of Harbin. The MSS said in March it had sentenced to death a former engineer for leaking state secrets to a foreign power.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
OpenAI Hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as Head of Applications
Instacart's CEO and chair Fidji Simo is jumping ship to join Sam Altman's inner circle at OpenAI, where she'll be the AI firm's head of applications, the company announced in its blog post. Simo, who's expected to depart Instacart in the coming months, will report directly to Altman, who will continue to serve as OpenAI's CEO. "Applications brings together a group of existing business and operational teams responsible for how our research reaches and benefits the world, and Fidji is uniquely qualified to lead this group," Altman writes in the blog post. The move comes just a few days after OpenAI scrapped plans for a major governance overhaul, dialing back its plan to transition to a for-profit structure, which will likely put a ceiling on Altman's power. Meanwhile, OpenAI is reportedly building its own X-like social network, according to The Verge. OpenAI Finds Its First CMO In Ex-Coinbase Marketing Chief Kate Rouch Simo is not new to OpenAI. She joined the AI firm's board last year as part of the trio of directors appointed after Altman's dramatic reinstatement as CEO, (he was ousted in late 2023). Simo took the top job at Instacart in 2021 after a decade at Meta, where she played a key role in growing Facebook's app. "In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our 'traditional' company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth," the blog reads. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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Business Standard
19-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Xiaomi to spend $7 billion on developing its own chip over a decade
Xiaomi has spent more than 13.5 billion yuan over the past four plus years and plans to invest 6 billion yuan in research and development this year Bloomberg Xiaomi Corp. is planning to invest at least 50 billion yuan ($6.9 billion) in developing its own mobile processor over a decade to grow its semiconductor clout, as major tech companies increasingly treat chip knowhow as strategically important. 'Chips are a peak we need to climb and a hard battle we cannot escape if we want to become a great hard tech company,' Xiaomi's billionaire co-founder Lei Jun said in a post on China's X-like Weibo on Monday. The Chinese company is set to unveil its first self-designed processor Xring O1, on May 22, Lei added in a separate post. The Beijing-based smartphone and EV maker in 2021 decided on the decade-long initiative to create the Xring mobile chip, according to Lei. Xiaomi has spent more than 13.5 billion yuan over the past four plus years and plans to invest 6 billion yuan in research and development this year, Lei added. Xiaomi now has more than 2,500 people in its semiconductor team, Lei wrote. Xring O1 is made with second-generation 3-nanometer technology, Lei said, without naming the contract chipmaker Xiaomi is relying on for production. The use of 3nm excludes China's leading foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., which is stuck at the more mature 7nm due to US export controls. Xiaomi has to date depended on Qualcomm Inc. and MediaTek Inc. for mobile processors, but now the Chinese company appears to be emulating the approach of Apple Inc., one of its biggest competitors in China. Apple designs its own chips in sync with its software in order to create a complementary system. The US company recently expanded that arrangement to its Macs, to optimize the efficiency of its gadgets. The new 3nm processor may give Xiaomi an edge at home over Huawei Technologies Co. which is unable to secure mobile chips more advanced than 7nm due to production partner SMIC's struggle. Lei's hefty investment on chips aligns with Chinese President Xi Jinping's priorities for China to match and even surpass the US in cutting-edge tech including semiconductors. Meanwhile, Xiaomi has been seeking new growth drivers beyond its traditional smartphone business. It has also bet significantly on electric vehicles but its automotive ambitions have taken a hit after a fatal highway accident involving its SU7 sedan earlier this year.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meet Fidji Simo, OpenAI's latest top hire, who rose from a small French fishing village to the heart of Silicon Valley
Fidji Simo, 39, is set to join OpenAI later this year as its CEO of applications. Simo spent over a decade at Meta and is the chair and CEO of Instacart. She grew up in a fishing village in France before starting her career in Silicon Valley. Fidji Simo's career in tech has already taken her from Facebook to Instacart. Now, she's set to join OpenAI as its new CEO of applications. On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that it had hired Instacart's chair and CEO to join its C-suite. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, wrote in a blog post that Simo is "uniquely qualified" for the role and will report to him directly. Altman said Simo "has already contributed a great deal to our company" since she joined OpenAI's board in March 2024. She is expected to join OpenAI's leadership team later this year after she begins her "transition from her role at Instacart over the next few months." The hiring of Simo, 39, who spent much of her career at Meta, has been interpreted by some people in the tech industry that OpenAI is serious about building a social network. The Verge reported last month that OpenAI was in the early stages of building an X-like product. "It looks like they want to go after Facebook, after every consumer mobile app that is successful because they can and because she has the background to do it," Julien Codorniou, a partner at 20VC who worked alongside Simo at Facebook, told Business Insider. "It's a very big signal to the competition, to the market, and to the users." Simo did not respond to a request for comment from BI. OpenAI referred BI to Altman's blog post on Simo's hiring. Simo's story began in Sète, the French fishing port town where she grew up. "My family, all the men in my family, whether it's my dad, my grandpa, great grandpa, and all my uncles were fishermen and one of them, my uncle became a fish monger, after you know, stopping fishing," Simo told Bloomberg in an interview that aired in November. Simo started her corporate career at eBay as a strategy manager in 2007, after graduating from HEC Paris, one of France's top business schools. The French-American joined Meta, then known as Facebook, in 2011. Simo's rise at Facebook was meteoric. Even her job application was remarkable. She applied for a marketing communications role — an area in which she had no previous experience, but she was determined to give it a shot regardless. In a 2021 interview on "The Twenty Minute VC" podcast, she recalled how she spent an entire Thanksgiving weekend inventing a new product called "Facebook Stores," and recorded a webinar and produced marketing materials to promote it. The presentation helped her get the Facebook role, but Simo said the hiring manager later laughed that she would never have been considered just on her previous experience alone. (Facebook later launched a very similar initiative, called Shops.) Simo later switched from marketing to product — another role where she had no prior experience — and worked on some of the most influential product launches at Facebook. She was put in charge of monetizing mobile shortly after its 2012 IPO, at a time when there were concerns about whether the company could ever make a successful mobile business. She led the launches of video products like Facebook Live and Facebook Watch and eventually rose to lead the Facebook app. "I think a lot of my career took off around moments where I made bets other people didn't think were obvious bets," Simo said on the "Twenty Minute VC" podcast interview. Simo became popular among coworkers and business partners alike. Dominique Delport, who sat on Facebook's client council for eight years when he was managing director at the French advertising giant Havas Group, told BI that "openness" is a big part of Simo's leadership philosophy. "Big Tech sometimes has an image of arrogance — and Facebook has been through some phases — and I think she was among the ones who helped change the perception among the advertising community," Delport said. Simo joined Instacart's board in January 2021 and became its CEO in August 2021. Simo said in her interview with Bloomberg that her childhood growing up in a fishing village influenced her career choices. "I think it was incredibly special because there is a craft and a respect that fishermen have. It's interesting, in Silicon Valley, the people who are most respected are like tech people, whereas here, the people who are most respected are the people who feed the town," Simo said. "So in a way, becoming CEO of Instacart is kind of bridging these two things for me, where I love tech but I always had a passion for feeding people, and so it's a really special thing to be able to bridge the two," Simo added. In a profile published by Sequoia in February 2024, Simo said her leadership style was shaped by her father and grandfather, who were both boat captains. "The crew comes before you, always," Simo said of their leadership ethos. Simo is also a passionate artist. A sculptor and painter, she previously served on the boards of Cirque du Soleil and the L.A. Dance Project. "You always need to put creativity at the center of everything you do," she said on the "Twenty Minute VC podcast." Simo's exit comes in the same week Instacart reported its best quarterly order growth in more than two years. It also forecast positive growth for the second quarter, bucking the trend of a bleak retail sector. Rachel Wolff, an analyst at EMARKETER, a BI sister company, said the upbeat earnings showed "how successfully the company has positioned its service as a necessity for many households." In a letter to Instacart employees on Wednesday evening, Simo said it was an "incredibly hard decision" for her to leave the company. Simo said her decision was partly driven by her passion for AI and its "potential to cure diseases," which made OpenAI a difficult opportunity to pass up. Simo is currently the president of the Metrodora Institute, a for-profit healthcare clinic that focuses on treating complex neuroimmune diseases. While she will remain CEO of Instacart while the company searches for a successor, Simo is preparing her next chapter. Simo has previously said her favorite book is "The Night Circus," a fantasy novel about two magicians preparing to take each other on in a deadly duel. Now working for Sam Altman, Simo is set to go into battle with her former mentor, Mark Zuckerberg, as OpenAI bids to dominate the world of apps. "For that job, she's absolutely perfect," said Codorniou. "She has something very special — she's one in a billion." Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
08-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Meet Fidji Simo, OpenAI's latest top hire — who rose from a small French fishing village to the heart of Silicon Valley
For 39-year-old Fidji Simo, joining OpenAI as its new CEO of applications is but another chapter in her storied career in tech. On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that it had hired Instacart's chair and CEO to join its C-suite. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, wrote in a blog post that Simo is "uniquely qualified" for the role and will report to him directly. Altman said Simo "has already contributed a great deal to our company" since she joined OpenAI's board in March 2024. She is expected to join OpenAI's leadership team later this year after she begins her "transition from her role at Instacart over the next few months." The hiring of Simo, who spent much of her career at Meta, has signaled to some in the industry that OpenAI is serious about building a social network. The Verge reported last month that OpenAI was in the early stages of building an X-like product. "It looks like they want to go after Facebook, after every consumer mobile app that is successful because they can and because she has the background to do it," Julien Codorniou, a partner at 20VC who worked alongside Simo at Facebook, told Business Insider. "It's a very big signal to the competition, to the market, and to the users." Simo did not respond to a request for comment from BI. OpenAI referred BI to Altman's blog post on Simo's hiring. 'The crew comes before you, always' Simo's story began in Sète, the French fishing port town where she grew up. "My family, all the men in my family, whether it's my dad, my grandpa, great grandpa, and all my uncles were fishermen and one of them, my uncle became a fish monger, after you know, stopping fishing," Simo told Bloomberg in an interview that aired in November. "And so we have been very deep into the fishing industry for many generations," Simo added. Simo started her corporate career at eBay as a strategy manager in 2007, after graduating from HEC Paris, one of France's top business schools. The French-American joined Meta, then known as Facebook, in 2011. Simo's rise at Facebook was meteoric. Even her job application was remarkable. She applied for a marketing communications role — an area in which she had no previous experience. In a 2021 interview on "The Twenty Minute VC" podcast, she recalled how she spent an entire Thanksgiving weekend inventing a new product called "Facebook Stores," and recorded a webinar and produced marketing materials to promote it. The presentation helped her get the role, but Simo said the hiring manager later laughed that she would never have been considered just on her previous experience alone. (Facebook later launched a very similar initiative, called Shops.) Simo later switched from marketing to product — another role where she had no prior experience — and worked on some of the most influential product launches at Facebook. She was put in charge of monetizing mobile shortly after its 2012 IPO, at a time when there were concerns about whether the company could ever make a successful mobile business. She led the launches of video products like Facebook Live and Facebook Watch and eventually rose to lead the Facebook app. "I think a lot of my career took off around moments where I made bets other people didn't think were obvious bets," Simo said on the "Twenty Minute VC" podcast interview. Simo became popular among coworkers and business partners alike. Dominique Delport, who sat on Facebook's client council for eight years when he was managing director at the French advertising giant Havas Group, told BI that "openness" is a big part of Simo's leadership philosophy. "Big Tech sometimes has an image of arrogance — and Facebook has been through some phases — and I think she was among the ones who helped change the perception among the advertising community," Delport said. Simo joined Instacart's board in January 2021 and became its CEO in August 2021. Simo said in her interview with Bloomberg that her childhood growing up in a fishing village influenced her career choices. "I think it was incredibly special because there is a craft and a respect that fishermen have. It's interesting, in Silicon Valley, the people who are most respected are like tech people, whereas here, the people who are most respected are the people who feed the town," Simo said. "So in a way, becoming CEO of Instacart is kind of bridging these two things for me, where I love tech but I always had a passion for feeding people, and so it's a really special thing to be able to bridge the two," Simo added. In a profile published by Sequoia in February 2024, Simo said her leadership style was shaped by her father and grandfather, who were both boat captains. "The crew comes before you, always," Simo said of their leadership ethos. Leaving Instacart Simo's exit comes in the same week Instacart reported its best quarterly order growth in more than two years. It also forecast positive growth for the second quarter, bucking the trend of a bleak retail sector. Rachel Wolff, an analyst at EMARKETER, a BI sister company, said the upbeat earnings showed "how successfully the company has positioned its service as a necessity for many households." In a letter to Instacart employees on Wednesday evening, Simo said it was an "incredibly hard decision" for her to leave the company. Simo said her decision was partly driven by her passion for AI and its "potential to cure diseases," which made OpenAI a difficult opportunity to pass up. Simo is currently the president of the Metrodora Institute, a for-profit healthcare clinic that focuses on treating complex neuroimmune diseases. While she will remain CEO of Instacart while the company searches for a successor, Simo is preparing her next chapter. Simo has previously said her favorite book is "The Night Circus," a fantasy novel about two magicians preparing to take each other on in a deadly duel. Now working for Sam Altman, Simo is set to go into battle with her former mentor, Mark Zuckerberg, as OpenAI bids to dominate the world of apps. "For that job, she's absolutely perfect," said Codorniou. "She has something very special — she's one in a billion."
