“We&#8217;re  in the wild, wild west phase of AI right now’ Jack Conte, the co-founder and CEO of Patreon, claimed as he revealed online creators are now using short-form content as a tool to gain new viewers. 
 
Speaking at Web Summit, Conte said: “It&#8217;s much harder nowadays on the platforms, which I think is why we see creators using short-form basically as a discovery layer.” 
 
Conte’s comments come after the rapid growth of short-form platforms such as TikTok and social media&#8217;s new short-form formats, such as YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.  
 
The chief of Patreon comments were made as part of a discussion of fuelling the future of online creativity at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Speaking at Web Summit 2024 in Lisbon, Conte was asked about how AI will impact the creator economy and replied: “We&#8217;re really like in the wild, wild west phase of AI right now, and it&#8217;s similar to, I mean, I remember this phase of technology. Whenever a new medium, whenever a new technology emerges, there&#8217;s always a period of time where humanity is trying to figure out, ‘Oh, my God, what do we do about this?’” 
 
“We&#8217;re seeing the lawsuits, you know, against the music generation companies. We&#8217;re seeing the New York Times lawsuit against open AI, like we&#8217;re going to see more of that over the next couple years, and I think we&#8217;re going to come to a resolution where creators are paid for their work and they have to be the ones giving permission to have their work be used.” 
 
On the future of Patreon,  a membership platform that allows creators to receive ongoing funding from their fans, or patrons, in exchange for exclusive content and benefits, Conte said: &#8220;The future of Patreon is around those three categories, media tools, community tools and then the business tools for creators to get paid around their work.&#8221;
He described his dream creator economy as: &#8220;Being a creator is going to be celebrated as a reliable, respected profession, just like any other value-creating profession in the world.&#8221;
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, on <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

Jack Conte, Co-founder and CEO, Patreon; left, and Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Co-Editor-in-Chief, The Hollywood Reporter; on New Media Summit Stage during day one of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

“We are in the Wild, Wild West phase of AI right now” –  Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon claimed as he explained that it is much harder nowadays on the platforms for online creators

Max Tegmark, President of the Future of Life Institute, has described the rapid development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a “suicide race” in which “whoever gets AGI first is going to lose control to this future machine species.” 
 
However speaking at Web Summit’s flagship event at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Tegmark &#8211; whose institute works to steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks &#8211; said he believed the US and China would ensure safety standards so that their governments would not lose power or control. 
 
Tegmark predicted a mutual programme of safety standards for AGI to be implemented by the governments US and China &#8211; and then enforced on the world &#8211; to make sure they retained their authority.
“I think what will happen is, once they&#8217;ve done that independently of each other &#8211; just put in national safety standards, just like they did for medicines and airplanes &#8211; then they&#8217;ll talk to each other and [say] ‘like hey, wait a minute. How can we make sure North Korea doesn&#8217;t build AGI, or some other country?’. Then they&#8217;ll push the rest of the world to sign an AGI moratorium treaty where no one does it until the control problem has been solved.”
Tegmark was joined by Hugging Face CSO Thomas Wolf and CEO of The Atlantic Nicholas Thompson who discussed the ethical implications of AI’s breakneck development in a world where technology is gaining a greater foothold in the world of automated industry. 

Tegmark’s remarks came after he was asked by moderator Thompson about what America’s most appropriate response should be to the rapid development of AI vis à vis China. Tegmark said: “It&#8217;s not an arms race between the US and China. It&#8217;s a suicide race where whoever gets AGI first is going to lose control to this future machine species and ruin it for everyone.”
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, China is accelerating its research into AI to the extent where US dominance in this sector is being directly challenged in the areas of academia, methodology and foreign investment.
However, Tegmark conceded that he believes that China will not propel itself into employing AGI en masse because of the potential loss of control by its government if safety standards are not implemented first.
“This is not a game that the Chinese government has any incentive to play. They like their power. Why would they let some Chinese AI company build AGI and so they would lose control?”
He continued: “Similarly, the US wants to keep its power. I think the US and China both will realise that they just need to make sure that none of their own companies lose control over AGI.” 
Thompson then asked Wolf about Hugging Face’s efforts to restrict the use of its AI tools by autocratic countries around the world.
Wolf said: “We are actually rather hard to access from China, because we didn&#8217;t spend really the time investing. I think generally we are like a European/US-based company. But it&#8217;s also true, China is growing the best open source model. So it&#8217;s also hard to ignore that.”
He continued: “The question is how long can we hold this position? If there are political races, for now, we&#8217;ve been able to hold this position.”
The trio also touched on the existential discussion pervading AI and its effect on the world, with Wolf decrying the negative outlook on its usage when compared with exaggerated dystopian predictions which, he believes, can only limit us.
“I think in many ways, when we describe the AI world, we have this fake vision of how it&#8217;s going to be. We either go in the apocalyptic direction, which is robots are gonna kill us, or we go in this utopian direction where we all love each other and our machines are helping us.
“We need to imagine, actually, how AI is going to integrate in society. And my deep belief is it&#8217;s gonna be a lot like the internet. It&#8217;s gonna be everywhere.”
Wolf also offered his optimistic prediction surrounding robotics development in 2025: “My prediction for next year is it&#8217;s going to be the year of robotics and open-source robotics. This is starting to work in the past few months. As every development in AI, we see it&#8217;s, again, exponential.
He added: “There&#8217;s a little bit of price [of robots], but this is also decreasing, and because we can use neural network to compensate for some limitations of hardware, I think it&#8217;s gonna go to a really low price.”
Tegmark provided another more upbeat projection at the end of the discussion, declaring: “If we can use ever more powerful AI tools that do what we want, to amplify human intelligence, there&#8217;s basically no limit to how amazing a future we can build together. So let&#8217;s stay away from geopolitical pissing contests nobody wins, and build a great future together.”
&nbsp;
Notable speakers throughout this week’s event include:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brad Smith, President of Microsoft</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Lidiane Jones, CEO of Bumble</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Timothy Young, CEO of Jasper</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Patrick Kluivert, former Barcelona and Netherlands striker</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Yulia Navalnya, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Anti-CorruptionFoundation, Russia</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mitchell Baker, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Mozilla</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Jack Conte, Co-Founder and CEO of Patreon</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mo Farah, 4x Olympic Gold Medallist</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Oliver Steil, CEO of TeamViewer</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Steven Knight, Screenwriter, Director, PRoducer and Creator of Peaky Blinders</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of FREENOW</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pharrell Williams, singer, producer and entrepreneur</li>
</ul>
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit content, please contact the Web Summit Newsroom at <a href="mailto:newsroom@websummit.com">newsroom@websummit.com</a>.
About Web Summit: 
Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events &#8211; Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East and RISE in Asia &#8211; since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. 
 
In February, Web Summit held its hugely successful inaugural event in the Middle East. Web Summit Qatar welcomed more than 15,000 attendees and was supported by over 100 partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways. Web Summit Qatar showcased the work of more than 1,000 startups from around the world, and helped introduce them to a network of more than 300 investors in Doha.

Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support Diversity, Equality and Inclusion across the tech worlds: this includes IMPACT; Women in Tech; AMPLIFY; the Web Summit/Qatar Foundation Scholarship Programme; and our Community Partnerships.
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

Max Tegmark, President, Future of Life Institute, on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

US and China will intervene to halt ‘suicide race’ of AGI – Max Tegmark, President of Future of Life Institute

Carlos Moedas, the Mayor of the City of Lisbon, has said that investing in social welfare is a key aspect to fostering innovation. 
Speaking at the opening night of Web Summit, Moedas said: “You cannot have a city that does not invest in social welfare and is good at innovation, because if you have social friction, then you destroy innovation.” 
 
Moedas’s comments come after Lisbon’s successful transformation into a hub for tech startups and innovation. Lisbon is now home to 14 unicorn companies, with a total of 14,000 jobs created in the past three years across the capital. 
 
The Mayor’s comments were made as part of the welcome speech at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Speaking on Web Summit’s Centre Stage MEO Arena, Moedas said about innovation:
“How do you keep innovation at the top? I think there&#8217;s just one solution to be at the top: that you invest in social welfare. You cannot have a city that does not invest in social welfare and is good at innovation, because if you have social friction, then you destroy innovation. And so that&#8217;s why we focus on that, because innovation has to be sustainable.”
“That&#8217;s why today, 12% of [Lisbon’s] population lives in municipal housing at affordable prices, and we are investing more [than] €560 million for more units and more housing for people. That&#8217;s why the elderly people in Lisbon have a pension health plan that gives them access to doctors 24 hours a day. And that&#8217;s the real secret sauce of innovation, my friends: that if you keep the balance in between people like you, and protecting people that are vulnerable every day, then you have innovation that is sustainable. That&#8217;s the story of Lisbon.” 
 
Mr Moedas also talked about the beginning of his work to help make Lisbon a global tech capital. “At the time, [Portugal] started at around seven unicorn companies, and we wanted to dream bigger, and we were not afraid of dreaming bigger. We said to ourselves, ‘we can have more unicorns. We can have unicorns from all over the world. I don&#8217;t care if they&#8217;re Portuguese or not.’..and that&#8217;s what we did, with that audacity of not being afraid.”
“And so three years later, we have 14 unicorn companies that are based in offices in our city. They started… some with 10 people: now, they have 300 people! We have more than 70 companies that joined those companies and announced more than 14,000 jobs in Lisbon. That&#8217;s what happened in three years: [and] not just small or scale-ups&#8230; We had McKinsey and Co opening a center of talent with 700 people. We have Deloitte building a Tech campus with another 2500 people. We have that in Lisbon because we believed in tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m opening, I&#8217;m opening the unicorn factory for AI of Microsoft in Lisbon. Do you believe that? Yes, we are doing it, and we&#8217;re very happy &#8211; and it&#8217;s thanks to you!”
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, on <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
&nbsp;
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

11 November 2024; Carlos Moedas, Mayor, City of Lisbon on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile

“How do you keep innovation at the top? Invest in social welfare” – Carlos Moedas, Mayor of the City of Lisbon

The highest ever number of female-founded startups at Web Summit will attend this week’s flagship event in Lisbon.
Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit, welcomed attendees to the MEO Arena in the Portuguese capital on Monday night. Some 3,000 startups &#8211; many from the U.S. and Latin America &#8211; are set to exhibit over the duration of the flagship event concluding Thursday, and a record number are female-founded. 
Speaking at the opening of Web Summit Lisbon, where 70,000 people will pass through its doors, Cosgrave took to the main stage where he announced: “44% of the nearly 3,000 startups exhibiting over the next three days are female-founded, which is absolutely stunning.”
Web Summit recently announced the findings of its fifth global women in tech report, which show that women in tech remain underpaid, underrepresented and underfunded.  Nearly a third of 1,000 surveyed women cited funding as a major hurdle with regards to starting a business, reflecting global trends of women-led startups struggling to secure venture capital.
More than half of the respondents noted a lack of women in leadership roles, with nearly 51% feeling unfairly compensated compared to men. Close to 76% of those surveyed feel empowered to lead. Known as the event where the tech world meets, Web Summit aims to spark debates that help us understand and address these ongoing issues. 
Cosgrave, founder of the event, emphasised the importance of early-stage startups, whom he described as “the energy, the epicentre of Web Summit”. He noted that last year&#8217;s attending startups had raised over $750 million over the last 12 months. 
 
Cosgrave also highlighted the story of Revolut, the fast-growing digital bank, which had exhibited as a startup at Web Summit shortly after being founded. 

“I remember when Revolut exhibited,” he said. “Revolut had, like so many other startups, a tiny, one-metre booth: they also entered the startup competition. And they&#8217;ve gone on to become Europe&#8217;s most valuable private tech company. There&#8217;s so many stories like Revolut: young, unknown founders showing up at Web Summit and going on to great success.” 
 
Additionally, Cosgrave announced significant changes to be introduced to this year’s event, focusing on an innovative method of networking, focussing on helping arrange meetups for people with similar interests in tech &#8211; all using the Web Summit app.
Cosgrave said that organisers of this year’s event have made the most significant changes in over a decade to how networking will be facilitated in Lisbon: “At Web Summit, we want to help you connect with the communities and groups that matter to you. It starts with the mobile app, with our mobile app &#8211; meetups by day and by night.”
He explained how the mobile app will organise meetups tailored to curious attendees: “There are hundreds of highly curated meetups. Many will be recommended to you, depending on your interests. The group looks amazing, and we have a huge variety of meetups just for you. Many are entirely open, and you can find them on our mobile app.”
Cosgrave added: “Making small meetups the core of Web Summit is, in my view, one of the biggest changes we&#8217;ve made in a decade.” 
He finished his opening remarks by saying: “This past year has been a remarkable journey of highs and lows… Change, both uplifting and challenging, is picking up speed like never before. Technology continues to impact everything we once held certain about, work, society, economics, politics and life itself on this planet. These are just some of the themes that will animate discussions across more than 20 stages over the next three days.”
&nbsp;
Notable speakers throughout this week’s event include:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brad Smith, President of Microsoft</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Lidiane Jones, CEO of Bumble</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Timothy Young, CEO of Jasper</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Patrick Kluivert, former Barcelona and Netherlands striker</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Yulia Navalnya, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Russia</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mitchell Baker, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Mozilla</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Jack Conte, Co-Founder and CEO of Patreon</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mo Farah, 4x Olympic Gold Medallist</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Oliver Steil, CEO of TeamViewer</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Steven Knight, Screenwriter, Director, PRoducer and Creator of Peaky Blinders</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of FREENOW</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pharrell Williams, singer, producer and entrepreneur</li>
</ul>
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit content, please contact the Web Summit Newsroom at <a href="mailto:newsroom@websummit.com">newsroom@websummit.com</a>.
&nbsp;
About Web Summit: 
Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events &#8211; Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East and RISE in Asia &#8211; since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. 
 
In February, Web Summit held its hugely successful inaugural event in the Middle East. Web Summit Qatar welcomed more than 15,000 attendees and was supported by over 100 partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways. Web Summit Qatar showcased the work of more than 1,000 startups from around the world, and helped introduce them to a network of more than 300 investors in Doha.
&nbsp;
Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support Diversity, Equality and Inclusion across the tech worlds: this includes IMPACT; Women in Tech; AMPLIFY; the Web Summit/Qatar Foundation Scholarship Programme; and our Community Partnerships.
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

11 November 2024; Paddy Cosgrave, CEO & Founder, Web Summit, on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile

‘Absolutely stunning’ – Paddy Cosgrave, Web Summit CEO, hails record-breaking number of female-founded startups on eve of event

Pharrell Williams has said that he will continue fighting for the rights of the needy and voiceless regardless of the outcome of the US Presidential election. 
 
Addressing Web Summit in Lisbon,the artist and entrepreneur gave a wide-ranging talk about subjects including his journey to success; his astonishingly lucky break as a young musician; his entrepreneurship vision for minorities; and his belief that the American Dream should not be about making money, but about doing a job you love. 
 
But speaking just days after President Donald Trump’s election victory, Pharrell also addressed the divisions caused by the result. 
 
“There is so much divisiveness out there right now. I know how you guys feel &#8211; some people feel one way about the election, some people feel another way,” he said. “Personally, I see myself as a merit civil servant. I&#8217;m going to serve human beings &#8211; the needy, the innocent, the voiceless. I am going to serve them no matter who is in office. That is my universal job.”
Pharrell made his comments while speaking about Black Ambition, the non-profit organisation he founded to help support Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs by investing in their high-growth startups. 

Pharrell said that Black people worldwide, but especially in America, deserved far better than they were currently getting. “We&#8217;re always asking; we&#8217;re always pleading, at times; we&#8217;re begging, at times; we&#8217;re shouting… for our equal share. We helped build the nation. We came over as free labour. We were not only the workforce, but we were the currency! A black person cost as much as the cost of a Cadillac today! We were currency. We were traded on Wall Street. We don&#8217;t have much to show for it, except disproportionate education, disproportionate healthcare, disproportionate medicine, representation…  these things hurt us, and they set us back generations.” 
 
However he said that his aim was to remove the need for Black and Brown people to have to ask others for their fair share. “My whole thing is, you don&#8217;t have to ask when you have your own. So we created Black Ambition to foster Black and Brown ideas, and have mentorship, you know &#8211; scaffolding around the businesses, to teach them how to build their businesses, build their startups.” 
 
Pharrell explained: “Oftentimes, like you know, you&#8217;re always trying to get… you&#8217;re vying for a seat at the table. Our whole philosophy is, ‘if you build your own table, you can invite whoever you want there, right?’ So it&#8217;s just time for entrepreneurship, and it&#8217;s time for, you know, startups and great ideas that are Black and Brown to just have their fair share. 
 
“We’re not asking for equality. We are going to plan and build for equity. Our own. Build your own table, and decide who you want to be there.” 
 
Pharrell had joined Frank Cooper, Chief Marketing Officer of Visa, to discuss the intersection between culture and commerce at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Speaking on Web Summit’s Centre Stage MEO Arena, Pharrell also spoke of his journey to success, saying that the key was imagination. 
 
“I really wish that I had some amazing, poetic, symbolic origin story &#8211; but really what I was was a child who was filled with imagination,’ he said. “I came from a federally subsidized household, and then we moved to the modest part of the suburbs, and we couldn&#8217;t afford things like a lot of my classmates could. So I daydreamed. I used to sketch all the time when I should have been doing my schoolwork. And I also thought about the things I really wanted that I wish I could have.”
Pharrell added that his imagination was getting him in trouble at school, “and so I never dreamt that we would ever end up, you know, having a professional career in music or anything like that. I just knew that I loved music so much.”
He recalled spending time after school with his friend Chad Hugo making music on cheap keyboards, saying: “We just never looked back, and we just did it so much.” But he also recalled the lucky break that helped make his career &#8211; when a major record producer moved into the neighbourhood of Virginia Beach.
“There was no music industry there” he said. “And all of a sudden, this big producer who had done Michael Jackson and a few other really big artists &#8211; Teddy Riley &#8211; he pops up and parks his studio, ironically, next door to my high school: not five years after I was there, or five years before I was there… right when I got there! So it was this weird thing. So we have this talent show, and that&#8217;s how we got discovered.”
However, Pharrell also cautioned that for all his success, making money was never his ambition &#8211; and he feels it shouldn’t be for others either. “in my country, we are raised to think about how to make the most money, because our parents thought that way, and they had this like, false sense of, like, what the American Dream is or should be. The American dream is not about making the most money. In fact, the human dream and the consumer&#8217;s dream shouldn&#8217;t be about making the most money: it should be about spending the most time doing something that you love.”
He added that having a dream job doing what you love should be the aspiration for future generations: “To me, that is what we should be telling our children: that is the way that we should be leading our society &#8211; for people to do what they love! Because then you&#8217;re not on a Monday afternoon, you&#8217;re not going, ‘Oh man, it&#8217;s just 1pm &#8211; I got like, five more hours to go’, you know? Yeah, instead, you&#8217;re the first one that shows up to work. And on Friday, around 10pm everyone&#8217;s like, ‘are you ready to go? Let&#8217;s go’. And you&#8217;re like, ‘No, no, no, I just need five more minutes’. Yeah, that&#8217;s a dream job. That&#8217;s what we should be talking about as a society.”
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, at <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
 
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>

Pharrell Williams, Artist and Entrepreneur, on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile

“I’m going to serve others no matter who is in office” – Pharrell Williams addresses post-election “divisiveness” and his hopes for the future

Etosha Cave, the Co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Twelve, has suggested that the firm’s technology could not just help save the planet… but also help humans colonise Mars. 
 
Speaking on Web Summit’s Centre Stage MEO Arena, Cave was asked about how Twelve’s approach &#8211; which uses metal catalysts and electricity to convert CO2 and water into hydrocarbons &#8211; might be used in the future. 
 
She replied that the same technology could make both rocket fuel and industrial materials using substances already available on the Red Planet. 
 
“On Mars, over 95% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and they&#8217;ve shown that there&#8217;s water too in subsurface areas,” she said. “So we see a world in which you could have a small colony on Mars and use our technology to mine the atmosphere for CO2, use water that&#8217;s from the subsurface, and, again, make all of those materials and even rocket fuel to have people come back. 
 
“You can make all of that while you&#8217;re on Mars &#8211; you don&#8217;t have to transport the molecules from Earth to Mars, or even the moon.”
Cave emphasised that the firm’s immediate focus was on helping solve the climate crisis on our own planet, however. “Beyond that, on Earth, we want to see a world in which all of us can take flights and continue the lifestyle that we love. A place where we can grow the economy, can create jobs, and lower our carbon footprint at the same time. 
“We hope to create a world where you can go and purchase the products that you already use, and instead of purchasing something that is made from oil, as nearly 96% of the materials we use, you could get it made from air and CO2. We can&#8217;t wait until our grandkids and our great-grandkids can live in a world where they can say, ‘Wow, I remember those first few moments when we were looking to create an industry-creating sustainable aviation fuel and building a world that&#8217;s clean’.” 

Cave said that Twelve’s technology could use up to 500 times less land and up to 100 times less water to make a fuel that can decarbonize flight up to 90% per gallon. 
 
Cave’s comments come at a time when carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are consistently on the rise, reaching record levels year-on-year. 
 
Her comments were made as part of a discussion of climate change at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Cave also discussed the milestone of raising almost $650 million for sustainable aviation fuel. She said: “That funding is a bit unique. It&#8217;s not just all coming to the company as corporate equity. It is a climate stack, so a large portion of it will go to project financing. When we deploy and deliver our large air plans, that funding will be drawn down as we meet several milestones. So as we make design, we complete design, as we secure the land, as we start to build &#8211; we’ll use that funding to have project equity”.
The Chief Science Officer says she sees an “optimistic future where we have cleaned up our atmosphere”.
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
 
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, at <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
 
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>
 
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>  
&nbsp;

Etosha Cave, Co-founder & Chief Science Officer, Twelve; left, and Amy Nordrum, Executive Editor, MIT Technology Review; on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile

Climate-saving fuel tech could also help humans colonise Mars – Etosha Cave, Co-founder & Chief Science Officer of Twelve

A leading healthtech entrepreneur has questioned why people would want to live to 120 unless the science is there to ensure their minds and bodies are still working properly. Katerina Stroponiati (<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/collisionconf/53803802232">pictured above</a>), founder of Brilliant Minds, told Collision conference that there were many people trying to emulate anti-ageing influencer Brian Johnson, who says his goal is to never die.



Katerina said they were “running like chickens right now, trying to live forever after Brian Johnson and they’re doing, you know, everything out there, which is costly: They take hundreds of supplements, NAD, whatever they hear… which is dangerous, not least besides the cost.” But Katerina also pointed out that &#8211; besides the health risks and costs &#8211; longevity had little value if people weren’t also healthy. “It’s more about life/health span and less about lifespan,’ said the founder. “You know, if you live up to 120 and you’re not healthy, what’s the point? If your brain doesn’t work, why live that long?”



Katerina also suggested that if people are going to live longer, society will have to find new ways to engage them – as ageism is actually causing mental ageing. “One of the biggest problems that causes brain decline, to cognitively decline, is ageism,” said the founder. “We are going to live longer. Everybody’s working on that. But at the same time, when we get older, like 50, even earlier than that… society asks us to withdraw from it and we feel useless, and then we have mental health issues, depression and Alzheimer’s.” Katerina was highly critical of those who follow anti-ageing influencers such as Brian Johnson – not least because each human is different and will require a personalised approach.



“Before you start your interventions, you should learn your body: What’s your baseline? Brian Johnson is different. Well, what do I have to do with him? I’m different. I’m a female, different age, different everything. So you can’t follow the same protocol with another individual. That’s wrong.” The founder also revealed that she was investing in treatments that used devices – including smartphones and screens – to help tackle brain disease. “I invested in a startup, but they’re building the programmable language of the brain. Simply put, what they’re doing is that they create images, and when they project them to you, they rewire your brain.



This technology, which works a bit like watching a movie, can cure mental health issues and diseases like Alzheimer’s, claimed Katerina. “This could be part of your therapy, your brain therapy. This is something that we don’t need to create a new habit [for]. We’re on our screens all day, right? How can we use our devices as medical devices?”



Katerina’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on human longevity at Collision, where the founder was joined by entrepreneurs Alina Su co-founder and CEO of generation lab, and GlycanAge CEO Nikolina Lauc.



More than&nbsp;1,600 startups&nbsp;are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event.&nbsp;45 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.



In total, more than&nbsp;37,800 attendees&nbsp;have gathered at the event, as well as&nbsp;570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience. 739 investors&nbsp;are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.



Top speakers at Collision include: ● Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI ● Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend ● Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024) ● Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company) ● Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password (a cloud-based password management tool) ● Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform) ● Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform) ● Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup) ● Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans ● Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist All of our summaries will be published on the&nbsp;<a href="https://about.websummit.com/summary-service">Web Summit Summary Service</a>&nbsp;page. For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Summaries content, please contact us at media@websummit.com.



About Web Summit:&nbsp; Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events – Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America,&nbsp;Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East, and RISE in Asia – since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. This year alone, Web Summit has hosted sold-out events in Qatar, which welcomed more than 15,000 attendees, and in Rio, where more than 34,000 people took part. Our events have been supported by partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways.&nbsp;



Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support diversity, equality and inclusion across the tech worlds, including Impact, women in tech, Amplify, our scholarship program, and our community partnerships.



Useful links Collision website:&nbsp;<a href="https://collisionconf.com/">https://collisionconf.com/</a>&nbsp; Collision media kit:&nbsp;<a href="https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit">https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; Collision images:&nbsp;<a href="https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf">https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf</a>&nbsp; About Web Summit:&nbsp;<a href="http://about.websummit.com/">about.websummit.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;

20 June 2024; Katerina Stroponiati, Founder & General Partner, Brilliant Minds; on HealthConf Stage on day three of Collision 2024 at the Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Collision via Sportsfile

‘If you live up to 120 and you’re not healthy, what’s the point? If your brain doesn’t work, why live that long?’ – Katerina Stroponiati of Brilliant Minds