Top stories today:

1. Perplexity in talks to raise $500M at $9B valuation
2. Elon Musk announces $1M/day giveaway to voters in swing states
3. Apple’s GenAI 2+ years behind industry leaders, some insiders believe
4. Polymarket sees $2B in bets to predict next U.S. president

0. Data and calendar

Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter:

1. Perplexity in talks to raise $500M at $9B valuation

• 3 rounds raised last year, with the Jun. round valuing the startup at $3B.

• $50M in annualized revenue is what Perplexity is reportedly generating.

• 180 P/S (price-to-sales).

• 15M queries a day is said to be Perplexity’s current traction.

2. Elon Musk announces $1M/day giveaway to voters in swing states, raising concerns

The first $1M check was given away on Sat. at a town hall event:

• $1M to be given to swing state voters signing his pro-Trump PAC’s petition.

• Constitution’s First and Second amendments are supported by the petition.

• $100, up from $47, to be given to registered Penn. voters in referral offer.

• 1-2M battleground voters targeted to sign conservative petition: Musk.

• Election law experts are split on the legality of the initiative, as it is illegal to pay people to vote, but Musk is technically paying people to sign a petition.

• Penn. Gov Shapiro: law enforcement should “take a look at” at Musk payments.

4. Apple’s GenAI 2+ years behind industry leaders, some Apple insiders believe

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• Siri is 25% less accurate than ChatGPT, internal research found.

  • ChatGPT can answer 30% more questions than Siri.

• Not available yet for users.

• 2026: when AI will be on nearly every Apple device with a screen.

5. Polymarket sees $2B in bets to predict next U.S. president

$424M was bet on the election on Polymarket just last week alone:

• Polymarket gets 10M’s of visits per month.

• 210K users have lost modest amounts of money on Polymarket, according to Layerhub.

  • Only 12% of users are profitable.

6. Anthropic tests Claude models on “sabotage” threat vectors

• Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet were evaluated.

• Human decision sabotage, code sabotage, sandbagging, and undermining oversight were the different threat vectors.

• “Minimal mitigations are sufficient,” Anthropic has found.

• “More realistic evaluations and stronger mitigations will likely be necessary,” Anthropic said.

7. 74% expect "good" S&P 500 earnings, index expected at 5,977 at year-end

• 5,865 was S&P 500 closure on Fri.

• 411 portfolio managers, economists, and retail investors responded to the Oct. 14-18 survey.

• 76% of companies announcing earnings have surpassed estimates.

• Tech giants are expected to take the lead again.

Earnings appear to be more important for stock trades than election results

8. Chinese banks cut benchmark lending rates to boost economy

• 3.10% 1-year loan prime rate, down from 3.35%.

• 3.60% 5-year loan prime rate, down from 3.85%.

• The cuts hit the upper bound of the 20–25 basis points forecast by China’s central bank.

9. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

10. Other headlines

AI

• GenAI startup investments topped $3.9B in Q3: PitchBook.

• Eric Schmidt’s SandboxAQ said to seek $5B valuation for AI/quantum startup.

• Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said to be raising ~$100M for new AI startup.

• IBM launches open weights Granite 3.0 SLMs for enterprise AI.

• Midjourney plans upgraded web tool to let users edit any uploaded images.

• Meta AI could start remembering things about your WhatsApp chats.

Tech

• Meta Quest 3S teardown reveals Quest 2 LCDs with cheap Fresnel optics.

Tech & law

• DJI sues defense department for labeling it “Chinese military company.”

Biotech

• FDA puts partial hold on BioNTech-OncoC4 phase 3 trial.

• GSK, Boston scientists team up to tackle lung diseases.

• Sanofi reaches deal on terms of sale of consumer health arm: sources.

Business

• Boeing’s Wed. earnings to also feature striking workers’ vote.

• Boeing sells small defense surveillance unit to Thales.

• Eutelsat launches 20 satellites after merger using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

• IMF, World Bank meetings clouded by wars, economic slowdown, U.S. election.

Crypto

• NYSE, Cboe win SEC approval for BTC ETF options.

• Minneapolis Fed says governments must tax or ban BTC to maintain deficits.

U.S. politics

• Harris campaign reports spending $270M in Sep., vs $78M for Trump’s.

  • $187M in cash on hand in Oct. for Harris, vs. $120M for Trump.

  • $346M in cash for Harris + affiliated groups, $283M for Trump +.

• Trump hands out fries in Penn., Harris visits Georgia churches.

• McConnell privately backed Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump in 2023.

World

• Israel strikes Hezbollah’s parallel banking financial institution.

• Israeli truce demands include Lebanese airspace access to disarm Hezbollah.

• U.S. envoy Hochstein to hold ceasefire talks with Lebanese officials: sources.

• South Korea summons Russian envoy over North Korean troop deployment.

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