🚀 Silicon Valley Struggles

PLUS: Global Economy Slowdown, World Chip Sales Return to Growth

Dear founder, here’s your 3-minute recap (without the fluff):

  • Tough times for silicon valley

  • Global economic growth slows

  • World chip sales return to growth

  • New tools, funding updates & job postings

In Partnership With

🛠️ Tools

Flick - All-in-one platform to grow and manage your socials. Get help with copywriting, scheduling, hashtags, analytics, and more (link)

Apollo AI - Helps you close your ideal buyers with over 265M contacts and streamlined engagement workflows powered by AI (link)

📚 Resources

Parenting hack: Modern solutions for Good old problems (link)

An easy 5-step process for hiring Virtual Assistants (link)

A low-risk formula to build a $52 billion motel empire (link)

History of unimaginable survivors in the startup ecosystem (link)

PS. If you’re interested in this AI stuff, you should sign up for our other newsletter - Prompts Daily. It has 100,000+ readers (Executives, VCs, and engineers). Sign up with one click.

🗞️ News 

2023: Tough Times for Silicon Valley Startups

In 2023, U.S. venture capital suffered its worst year since 2019, with a 30% drop in deal values despite increased AI startup investments. Global VC also fell by 35%, hitting the lowest point since 2017. Silicon Valley saw a double-digit decline, signaling a shift to other tech hubs. The funding crunch hit startups, especially in AI. Looking ahead, this downturn may lead to a more sustainable investment approach.

Global Economic Growth Slows Again

The World Bank predicts a third consecutive year of global economic slowdown in 2024, forecasting a growth rate of 2.4%, down from 2.6% in 2023. High-interest rates, persistent inflation, and challenges in China contribute to this decline. Global tensions add risks, while concerns arise about heavily indebted poor countries unable to invest in critical areas. Despite the risk of a global recession receding, weak near-term growth is anticipated, especially affecting developing nations. The U.S. led global growth in 2023 but is expected to slow to 1.6% in 2024. China's growth is projected at 4.5%, impacting commodity-exporting developing countries. The Eurozone expects 0.7% growth, and Japan forecasts a 0.9% expansion.

World Chip Sales Return to Growth

Global chip sales grew for the first time in over a year, hitting $48 billion in November 2023 (5.3% increase). The rebound is attributed to emerging tech like AI. Despite this positive trend, challenges persist due to soft demand for smartphones. Samsung Electronics, a key chipmaker, reported declining profit and revenue, signaling potential uneven recovery. China led the growth in chip sales, up 7.6%. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) represents a substantial portion of the US chip industry.

💰 Funding

Perplexity just raised $74M at a $520M valuation to develop it’s AI-powered search engine (link)

Nabla raises $24M in series B to fuel expansion of its ambient AI assistant to transform care delivery (link)

💼 Job Board

Senior Technical Program Manager at Reddit (Remote)

SR Compute Technical Marketing at Qualcomm (US)

That’s it for now!

Hope you enjoyed this week’s edition! See you next week.

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