☕️ Innovation Espresso #34
Chip wars, browser bots, AGI, Venture Studios, and why pretending to work is a thing now.
Welcome to Innovation Espresso, a quick yet powerful dose of curated news, articles, videos, reels, newsletters, and podcasts that I’ve found particularly interesting throughout the week. While I focus on Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing, you’ll find this quick yet potent dose covers more ground. Enjoy with your morning coffee!
💊 Innovation Pills
🎬 The Wall Street Journal explores how AI tools like Google’s Veo and Runway are being used to create films, blurring the lines between human and machine creativity.
💰 Xiaomi is investing nearly $7 billion into its own chip development, aiming to reduce reliance on external suppliers.
🧠 Elon Musk’s Neuralink has raised additional funds to further develop its brain-computer interface technology.
🕵️ A New York Times report reveals that Palantir provided data analysis services for the Trump administration, raising privacy concerns.
📱 Elon Musk announces the rollout of XChat, a new messaging feature for X, but questions about its security remain.
🌐 Opera introduces Neon, an AI-powered browser designed to perform tasks autonomously on behalf of users.
🎨 Soot launches an immersive media experience that challenges traditional social media feeds by displaying hundreds of images simultaneously.
🤖 Sergey Brin suggests that threatening AI models can lead to better performance, a controversial stance in the AI community.
⚡ Meta signs a 20-year agreement with Constellation to source nuclear energy for its data centers, aiming for sustainability.
🚗 China’s electric vehicle market sees intensified competition as manufacturers engage in a price war, leading to significant discounts for consumers.
☕️ Your weekly sip of Corporate Venturing News
💡 Startups Don’t Need Your Money – Patrick FitzGerald (Mach49) argues that what startups really want from corporates isn’t money—it’s customers, market access, and legitimacy. His post is a call to arms for CVCs to bring more than a checkbook. Source: Mach49
🇬🇧 London’s VC Scene Unveiled – A local guide from Global Venturing breaks down London’s Corporate Venture Capital ecosystem—from fintech to AI, with major players like bp Ventures, Barclays, and Legal & General. A handy map for anyone scouting the UK scene. Source: Global Venturing
🧠 IBM Launches watsonx AI Labs in NYC – IBM is setting up shop in New York with its watsonx AI Labs—offering startups collaboration, compute power, and (yes) capital through IBM Ventures. AI may be hot, but IBM’s play here is cool and calculated. Source: Global Venturing
🧬 Biotech x CVC in 2025 – In Labiotech’s podcast, Angelini Ventures’ Paolo Di Giorgio and Regina Hodits dive into biotech’s funding winter, the strategic power of CVCs, and how to build true partnerships beyond the cap table. Source: Labiotech Podcast
🤝 Co-Building Ventures: A Collaborative Approach – Forget flying solo—Innov8rs shares how multiple corporates can successfully co-build ventures together. Hint: it’s about shared ambition, complementary assets, and strong governance. Source: Innov8rs
🔄 ABB’s Decentralized CVC Model – ABB explains why they ditched the centralized model. Their new decentralized CVC setup gives each business unit autonomy to invest—leading to tighter alignment with operational goals. Source: Global Venturing
🚀 If I Were Building an Innovation Unit Today… – Frederic Pampus lays out a mini-manifesto on how to build an innovation unit with impact, not theater.
Source: Frederic Pampus
📹 Something to watch
Can AGI arrive by 2030? In this must-watch conversation, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Google co-founder Sergey Brin sit down with Alex Kantrowitz at Google I/O to talk scaling limits, reasoning vs. brute force, data center bottlenecks, and what AGI actually is. Essential viewing for anyone tracking the AI frontier.
🎧 Something to listen
How do you build fast-moving ventures inside a slow-moving giant? In this episode, I sat with Jasdeep Sawhney and Dan Northover from InMotion Ventures (Jaguar Land Rover’s venture studio) to unpack their five-phase playbook for spinning up startups that stay strategically aligned while remaining agile. Expect insights on corporate venture building, spinning ventures in or out, and lessons learned across legal, brand, and engineering.
🛠️ Something to try
Feeling overwhelmed by AI’s rapid evolution? This sleek little site keeps it simple: a curated, frequently updated list of what AI tools can actually do—today. No hype, just hands-on use cases across work, creativity, and productivity.
🤔 Did you know?
In China, some unemployed young adults are now paying to rent office desks—just to “pretend to work.” These shared spaces offer a sense of structure, dignity, and social normalcy amidst a tough job market. The phenomenon sheds light on deeper cultural and economic pressures shaping the post-pandemic workforce.
Read more on Business Standard
🥐 Espresso is not enough?
In Agency Is Eating the World, Gian Segato dives into the rise of “agentic computing”—AI that doesn’t just predict or respond, but acts. From writing code to planning travel and executing entire workflows, these systems represent a leap in machine autonomy. The implications? Profound—and not just for techies.
Read more.
📣 Want to be featured on Open Road Ventures?
If you’re building a tool, service, or promoting an event in the innovation landscape, check out this page to learn how to sponsor a spot in front of 1,150+ engaged innovators. Let’s brew something great together!
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See you next week,
Davide