Every November, founders and VCs gather in Helsinki to ring out the old year at Slush which bills itself as "the most founder-focused event on Ea

Two years on from ChatGPT, AI valuations are still a murky business; Fortune reveals this year's AI innovators; the NBA steps up its social game with AI; Microsoft brings voice cloning to Teams

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2024-11-22 14:30:05

Every November, founders and VCs gather in Helsinki to ring out the old year at Slush which bills itself as "the most founder-focused event on Earth." The theme for this year is metamorphosis which comes from Greek and literally means "change of form."

There's been a lot of change in the world recently but nothing has come close to the AI gold rush started by ChatGPT two years ago.

For the first time in a long time, we've seen a new generation of companies and founders really challenging the Big Tech status quo, and with them promises of a revolutionary future. But along the way, we've also forgotten that most people struggle with change and that, when change happens too fast, we often can't discern what was once familiar to what's new.

Take valuations for example: traditionally, we used to measure companies by their multiple, calculated as the company's valuation divided by its revenue. Multiples used to be a safe metric for investors to compare a company to other businesses. For example, the price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is still a common way to value the stock of listed companies.