Will

Today, we are thrilled to announce that @withprotegeai has raised a new $30M funding round led by @a16z. When @BobbySamuels and former @DatavantHQ co-founder and CEO Travis May first started Protege in 2024, we saw three bottlenecks to AI’s progress — compute, models, and data. Compute has scaled dramatically, models continue to improve, but access to the right data remains the hardest part. That’s why Protege exists: to be the infrastructure for real-world data in AI development. In the few months since our last round of funding, we’ve felt the urgent demand pull across industries, domains, and modalities. We are rapidly expanding to meet those needs. When AI builders come to Protege, they’re looking for real-world data: the most authentic signal of how people and systems actually behave. This is not synthetic data created by AI nor manufactured data created to simulate human behavior. Across every stage of the AI development lifecycle — from pre-training to post-training to fine-tuning to evaluation — AI builders need this data. They’re looking across modalities and industries: healthcare, video, audio, motion capture, gaming, manufacturing, life sciences, real estate, finance, education, and many more. Foundational, multi-modal model-builders (including the majority of the Magnificent Seven) now work with us across multiple domains along with dozens of other model builders. Thanks to @daisydwolf and the rest of the a16z team for joining us on this journey as well as our existing investors also participating in this round — @nbt at @footworkvc, @saarsaar at @CRV, @BloombergBeta, @flexcapital, Shaper Capital, and others. Lastly, a huge thank you to the @withprotegeai team for making this all possible. More details in 🧵! #AIDevelopment #DataInfrastructure #a16z #StartupFunding #Protege

@lachygroom I bring an air quality monitor with me (Aranet 4) when I'm moving around just out of curiosity and the highest CO2 readings I've gotten are in Teslas. I think they're sealed and ventilated in a way that's particular to the type of vehicle, but makes you sick

i find tesla's to be the most nausea inducing uber's possible—is this is better in Cybercab/Robotaxi?

1/ 🚨 We just found a massive abuse of the npm ecosystem: • Targeting 135+ orgs worldwide 🤯 • 175 malicious npm packages (26k+ downloads) • 630+ HTML lures • Weaponized unpkg as free CDN hosting for credential-phishing attacks 👀 More details ⬇️⬇️⬇️

This is an iphone disrespecter account (I use an iphone)

Is it just me or has iphone auto correct quality dropped through the floor lately

Instagram should allow you to send comments. You're welcome @finkd I'm sorry @jesus

Building with LLMs? Authorization gets complicated fast. LLMs can ignore instructions, misinterpret intent, or get tricked by prompts. There’s no input to sanitize—just unpredictable behavior. We break down why least privilege matters and how to enforce it, see post!

@ChaseLittle I just hope there's a Tomcat still out there, flying happily ever after

So Top Gun Maverick was a physop after all and not just propaganda - great film

No Touch ID and laggy iOS software is intolerable

Who's making the iPhone killer?

It's been quite the ride

@charlieblank_ If they don't want my thumbprints then no one can have them

@willy_mitch any button is a thumb button if you're creative enough

I just want an iPhone with a thumb button...

Congratulations @browserbase! Wheels up 🛫!

Two events you shouldn't miss at New York @Techweek_ next week: 1) Our comedy night with @yayalexisgay and @TurnerNovak 2) Our chat with our VP Finance Dan Kang, @arampell (@a16z), and Shensi Ding (@merge_api) on CEO x Finance team relationships RSVP at the links below - and see you there! 👇

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@Bensign @mercury dream job

The dream of becoming a park ranger has not died for the record 🙂 Thanks @mercury for sharing my/Vantage's story a bit more in detail!

@JonHearty if you dont user you loser?

I just got back from the annual Mercury (IRL!) all-hands and am still processing it all, but one thing becomes more clear every time we meet: Mercury is very, very special in so many ways—our users, our people, our product, our culture—and IMO a once-in-a-generation company.

@mercury pollo

Wrong answers only: Mercury is not a ____

@JoshuaSteinman A LotR style series on the Spanish New World conquests: singular characters, enormous trials, worlds colliding

the culture is stagnating. reboots of reboots on tv, theaters here are some new storytelling ideas that would be fun: - e/acc fictional comic book universe - early American letters of marque “pirate” ship / the Culper Ring - OSS jedburgh teams - plutarch’s lives What else?