Death and taxes... and now AI?

THEY say that nothing is certain in life except for death and taxes. That’s mostly true in the startup world too. Sure, there are tax exemptions for startups, but there’s no running away from the reality that 90 per cent of startups fail. Benjamin Cher looks into the factors behind startup failures and how founders decide to pull the plug.

As much as startup failures are inevitable, so are the game-changing innovations they bring about. The rise of AI, in particular, feels unavoidable these days with the rush of capital and talent into the field – something I witnessed at the recent Data + AI Summit in San Francisco.

Just a day after I landed in San Francisco, I was greeted with a surprise announcement: Databricks, the company organising the summit, was buying a young OpenAI challenger for a whopping US$1.3 billion. 

News of the deal set the tone for the rest of the summit: everyone I met was racing to invest in AI, including banks, automotive companies and even a competitive baseball team (no kidding, the Texas Rangers’ data scientists even model how the wind in a ballpark affects players’ swings). 

Big tech firms aren’t sitting still, either. Many are racing to build their own AI systems, with a plethora of use cases bundled for customers’ use. 

However, as much as AI is exciting, we need to acknowledge the grim risks and the regulation conundrum that policymakers face. Several speakers at the summit called for caution in AI development – such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who sounded the alarm on threats including bioterrorism and misinformation.

Look below for other stories, including Wu Xinyi’s analysis of why Singapore has been held back from climbing up global startup ecosystem rankings. Have a great week ahead!

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